Cosmina Helps Out

A short horror story about trees and retribution

Lost half my day doom scrolling. I’ve lived through plenty of authoritarian regimes, all over the world. It’s my first one with internet, though. Makes it decidedly worse. We used to meet in cafes, in the street, at parks, to discuss and plan. Bounce ideas off each other, get varied perspectives. There’s a comfort in camaraderie. Revolution needs company, proximity. Without human connection, one might end up scrolling and reading about the tanks rolling down their street, instead of standing in front of them. That cold little box in their hand offering the false sanctuary of a digital world where nothing seems real. Only it’s not a barrier, it’s a trap.

I got trapped. Dear sweet demons what a waste of time. I needed to be out in the chicken coop getting it ready for spring. Once the chickens unthaw they’ll be ravenous. Hanging the meat now, means it and the chickens will unthaw at roughly the same time. I do love watching them shake off their winter ice, stretch their bony little legs and leap at the hanging haunches dripping bloody ice into the dirt. They’ll cling like finches at a nyjer seed tube and dig in. It’s very heartwarming to see them wake up with hearty appetites.

But now I’m behind in my work. Have to do double tomorrow…

Perhaps I should chuck my phone into a snow drift.

I was standing on the front porch contemplating this when I spotted a client huffing their way up the hill. I set worries about doomscrolling right through the revolution aside and breathed in the essence wafting up the hill. More revolution anxiety. It’s not hard to come by these days.

I went inside to start the tea. While one witch can assassinate a political leader with ease, replacing a regime is a little tougher. There are a lot of contingencies that must be accounted for, many moving parts, as they say. Of course, there is always the kill them all and sort it out later approach. My personal favorite. Very energy intensive, and takes up to a year or more to plan and prep for, but not impossible. Still, I hoped this client wasn’t about to ask for a Night of a Thousand Poisons, I’d done it once and it took years to fully recover.

I watched their approach in my obsidian ball and had a better idea of what they wanted by the time they knocked. I answered the door to an unkempt older woman wearing what can only be described as fortune teller chic. How I loath patchouli. Just go roll in a graveyard, you’ll get the same stink without the boutique prices. I did hold myself back from asking if she’d seen Lon Chaney recently.

“I’m Cosmina,” she said as she shrugged out of her floor-length wool cloak and hung it on one of the hooks by the door.

“You are definitely not.”

She looked up at me sharply. “That’s the name I chose to go by. It’s my spiritual name.” She made a show of fluffing her skirts and jangling her many bangles as she sat down at the table.

“I see.”

“I’m not sure I’m in the right place. I’m looking for a witch. You’re wearing… joggers and a hoodie.”

“It’s winter.”

She looked down at herself. Her peasant skirt and blouse, the layers upon layers of scarves, all the silver jewelry.

“Well, I guess we’ll see what you can do.” Her eyes roamed the cabin. The large cupboard, the many rocks and crystals, plants everywhere. My altar to Lucifer. The cats, the wolves… If only she were here to see the chickens’ first meal of the year.

“What can I help you with?”

“Help, that’s exactly why I’m here. I want to be able to help my neighbors with magic, and I got all the books, I have an athame, a cauldron, I have all the stones, the herbs, the candles, a goblet, I’ve memorized all the special full moons, I just don’t understand why I can’t do magic.”

“Did you sell your soul to a demon?”

She furrowed her brow. Took a sip of tea. “No. That’s not real witchcraft, all the books said you have to worship the horned god.”

I slid my upturned arm across the table and showed her the goat brand on my forearm.

“He is a horned god. But that deer you all worship, it has antlers, not horns. Sanitized witchcraft will never get you anywhere. You need the power of a demon, you need to be comfortable with blood and flesh and getting dirty. You need to renounce god and heaven and become a vessel for the wrath of Hell. That is the only way to become a witch.”

“But Astarte and Beltane…”

“Wicca is a multibillion dollar industry. All you need is a demon.”

“I can’t have a demon inside me. My soul is too pure.”

“It’s not like the movies. No one’s soul is pure.”

“But I can’t,” she whispered, her face pale. “That’s black magic.”

“All magic belongs to The Devil.”

“No.”

“Then I can’t help you.” I sat back and sipped my own tea. She sat there, trying not to cry. “Drink your tea, it’ll make you feel better.”

“How do I help my neighbors, then? I just want to be useful and revered and maybe a little feared.”

“You don’t need magic to help your neighbors. You can bake for them, care for them when they’re sick, watch their kids, help with projects, listen, give charity when it’s needed, be kind, keep an eye out for bad guys… there are a lot of ways to be helpful that don’t involve magic.”

“But I want to do spells for them.”

“Do they ask for spells?”

“No.”

I felt for her. Helping my neighbors with spells was exactly how I got started. Of course, that was the mid 1300s… Still, magic is a rush. But no demon, no magic. My phone pinged. Another news alert, some new atrocity. If only there were a way we could both help…

“I have an idea.” I went to my cabinet and got some thuja tincture. The tree of life, a tree said by Native Americans to have first grown from the body of a very helpful man. I suppose I lied to “Cosmina,” their gods have magic, very powerful magic. But it’s theirs, and not for us to use. Witches respect this.

Thuja, though, grows on my mountain, so the tree and I have an agreement. What I had in mind for it was diabolical, but would be helpful to society as a whole. I gave her the vial. “Find a nice sunny place. Open, like a field, meadow, or park… absolutely not near a playground, and drink this.”

“What will it do?”

“You’ll find out.”

She looked at me in bewilderment but rose slowly and grabbed her things.

“You won’t tell me?”

“Nope. It’ll be fine.” I ushered her out the door.

I kept track of her in my obsidian ball for the next two days. When she finally ended up in an abandoned lot between a large brick law firm and a Starbucks I was pleased with this choice. She stood in the center of the lot and downed the vial. The transformation started almost immediately. Her feet burst out of her shoes, her toes growing into thick roots that buried themselves into the dirt. She screamed and writhed, tugging at her legs to try and free herself, but these roots run deep. She was never moving again, her legs fused together, her skin hardening into deeply grooved bark. She was crying, but that wouldn’t last long. Branches sprouted from her head, splitting open her skull, letting the sun touch brain matter. Her torso hardened into bark like her legs and stretched skyward, the wood cracking and popping as it shot upward. Her arms became tree limbs. Her left arm, about fifteen feet up, grew straight out from her body. A long, thick, and sturdy limb.

With this tree, I’ll change the future.

Cosmina had a voice now, her leaves, her bark, her spirit called to the people. It was a warm summer morning when a man propped a ladder against her long, straight branch and wound the noose around it. Ants marched along the bark, up and over the stiff new rope, as the man descended and walked out of the lot, whistling to music in his earbuds.

In the obsidian ball I saw the first figure arrive at the tree, pushed along by a group of women. The first traitor to hang. The first of many. The oligarchs, the pedophiles, the fascists, the racists, I saw them all hang.

It’s only a matter of time.

My tree of life will save us all.