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clacking, the floorboards betrayed Vickie's advances and Colin turned around.

  “Oh, hello, dear,” Colin said.

  “Colin,” Vickie said, setting the wine she was clutching to her chest on the desk. “I'm so glad to see you writing. I take it the hospice visit went well?”

  “It did,” Colin said, placing a cigarette in his mouth and lighting it. “I feel a lot better. They gave me some meds, got me right on top again, baby.”

  “That's good. I was worried you would run the poor woman off, knowing you.”

  “Ha ha ha,” Colin mocked. “Seriously, though. Thanks for getting Karen out here. I appreciate it.”

  Vickie smiled and nodded. “Is there anything I can do to help, Colin?” She asked with an audible wave in her voice.

  “No, I think I've got it.”

  “Okay,” Vickie said as she picked her bottle back up. “I'll leave you to your work.”

  Vickie forwent the corkscrew in favor of her phone again. A satellite phone was the only thing that worked through all of these trees and mountains. Calls were expensive, even in this wondrous time of technology. Calls were only made on this if they were important. Vickie was teary eyed by the time she got outside. She navigated through menus and dialed a number.

  “Mt. Wallace Hospice, how can I help you?” A voice said on the other line. The voice was different from the time before.

  “Yes, this is Vickie. Vickie Erics,” She said, not exposing her tears. “We spoke yesterday regarding my husband, Colin.”

  “Oh, um,” the voice said. “Give me one moment please.” There was a long pause. Vickie could feel every tree on this mountain staring at her. “We... we don't have any record of treatment being arranged for a Colin Erics.”

  “Oh,” Vickie said. She was now staring back at the trees, looking by them and through them as best as she could. The sun was beginning to hide behind the shoulders of the mountain. “Okay. I appreciate your time.”

  Vickie went back in the house to find the lights still on, but Colin parked on the bed. At least the door was unlocked. Vickie felt like she still wanted to sleep on the couch.

  The next day, Vickie arose before the sun did. She crept through the creaky cabin and found Colin in the same place where she had left him last night. For a moment, she stood still, squinting into the blackness ahead of her until she could make out Colin's silhouette moving up and down in rhythm. Vickie moved in silence, although she was quite sure that the screaming floorboards under her would not awake Colin if this was anything like his past slumbers. Vickie cracked the front cabin door ajar only as far as she needed to slip out of the cabin. She tried to shut the door quietly behind her, but the cold mountain air forced her arm to her core in reflex causing the door the slam. Quickly, she put her ear to the thin wooden door and heard no rustling or creaking inside. Vickie slipped inside her sedan and could hear her pants squeak against the leather interior. The key fit inside the ignition like a lover into a warm bed and turned gently. The radio erupted back to it's prior deafening volume and the music of Fleet Foxes echoed through the cold air and bounced off of the mountain side. If ever this cabin was to fall down the steep cliffs that surround it, it would surely be now, Vickie thought. After turning down the radio with the speed of an old west quick draw, Vickie rolled backwards without her lights on. Once she was away from the cabin and she could feel her sedan's nose angle downwards, she finally turned on her lights.

  Colin felt excited for Karen's visit today. He had prepped the kitchen with fresh hot tea. The aroma of lemon and jasmine filled the normally dank cabin. The combination produced an odor that smelt like a sweet death creeping through the air. Finally, he saw that cloud roll up the hill and he went to the door to get ready. Once he heard Karen's soft knock he paused for moment and opened. The steam flowed from the filled tea cup, across the cabin rooms and escaped into the mountain side like a dove from a cage.

  “Hello, Mr. Erics,” Karen said as she walked in the room. The dust did not kick up below her foot steps. “And how can I help you today?”

  Vickie's obnoxious blue sedan did not blend in with the greenery of the mountain roads. However, it did a great job of hiding behind the thick thrushes that were scattered across the mountain. When she saw a white SUV start climbing the mountain road her hands tightened on the steering wheel. The friction between her clammy hands and the leather covered steering wheel produced a hideous squeak. It seems that even the crows outside heard as they squawked in reply. Vickie took a few moments to calm her emotions, but her hands kept her tight grip. Once the crows stopped squawking, she started her car and eased up the mountain road.

  She pulled in behind the white SUV, but reversed to position her sedan behind it horizontally. Who ever was intruding on her husband's treatment would not get away quite so easily. Vickie opened her door softly and did not bother closing it while her feet carried her to the door. The wet dew that slept on the blades of grass clung to her sneakers. The closer she got, the more she could hear some rambling voice echoing through the cabin. When she placed her hand on the door knob, she could feel it vibrate in the voice's cadence.

  Vickie cracked and slid through the door, resting her hand on the hinge as she opened to not produce a loud creak. Once inside, the rambling did not become more clear. The bedroom door was ajar, but she could only see the side of the wall through the gap. Vickie paused as she got closer and looked around. On the counter top, she saw her unopened bottle of red wine. She picked it up and choked the neck of the bottle tightly. Vickie silently opened the bedroom door and saw Colin tumbling around the sheets of his bed. Without even looking closely, she could see the beads of sweat pouring down Colin's forehead and the sweat staining the sheets below him. By him, there was this crooked gray witch. Her straw like hair hung down to the floor and Vickie could see the splintered and split ends of her hair gathering dust on the floor. Finally, she could make out the babbling she had heard. It was hard to make out through the rasping voice spilling out of the hag's mouth.

  “Hello?” Vickie said. Her voice was overwhelmed by the hag's rambling.

  “Then, Karen found the three children. She took them under her wing. Together, they would chant at the moon, bringing life to the dead of the night,” “Hello? Who are you?” Vickie was edging closer. “They traveled from plane to plane, drinking the souls of the mothers and fathers of the realms. And Karen reigned in these planes as queen-” The witch's ears twitched, like a rodent. She turned towards Vickie, who saw brown jagged teeth dangling from tainted roots. The hag began to edge towards her, with a gray hand reached out. The ends of her bony fingers were punctuated with chipped nails that formed a ragged claw. Her continued rambling turned into a wicked shrill cry. Vickie saw those loose teeth shaking in the force of her rancid breath. Vickie threw the bottle of red wine at the head of the gray mass. The hag fell to the ground and dust flew about the room. Red liquid poured across the floorboards, sinking through to the fertile ground below. Vickie was unsure if it was wine or blood. She walked closer to the body, this liquid staining her sneakers and saw that the back of the hag's head was caved in from the blow. Vickie turned the body over. Her name tag read “Karen.”

  Vickie turned her attention towards Colin, and saw a vial and syringes on the end table by him. She tried to read it, but it was gibberish to her.

  “Will this help, Colin? I guess it's what this Karen was doing. Your medicine. You said it helped,” Vickie said clutching the vial. “I don't know what this witch was doing, but you said it was helping you. I just want to help, Colin. That's why I got this cabin for us,” Vickie dipped the syringe in the vial. All it took was a dip and a pull. “If this is what you need to help you, all you needed, you could have just told me. If all you needed was medicine, you should have told me.” She pushed the syringe into Colin's arm and ejected the liquid into him. “I'll help you, not Karen. I can take care of you.”

  “You can finish your book now, baby.”

  Colin was caught in a dream.
. In it, he could see some glorious angel drown a demon underneath a pool of blood. He was paralyzed as he saw the angel turn to him and reach her pearly hand down to him. Colin reached up, but plummeted.

  Colin was trapped in his fever dreams. Sights of horrors were burned into his mind's eye. He was tethered, always aware that he was in a dream, but unable to escape them. All the while, behind the terror that faced him, he could see that angel's face.

  Star Slight

  He looked so calm there. Laid out on the smooth wooden deck, like a tranquil piece of lawn furniture. Eyes cast upwards and mouth agape, the only movement Ives saw was the gentle rising and falling of his son's small torso, as steady, slow, and calm as the ocean's tides. Ives stood on the other side of the sliding glass window, watching his son through it. Out of the corner of his eye, Ives could make out a fractured reflection of himself. He looked like a Van Gogh painting he thought, but only for a fraction of a moment. His full attention was on his son. Ives opened the sliding glass door gently and watched his fractured reflection fade away into the dark night and stepped out on the deck. The wood underneath his bare feet felt smooth. All of the grains in each two by four melded together in a splinter