The Devil's Daughter

Friday, 24 November 2023

             Celestine Victoria stands in the shadow next to the streetlamp, staring into the elegantly gaudy window display, staring at her heart’s desire. The diamond-encrusted snow angels and snowflakes glitter and sparkle, but none so much as the jewelry on display. All on sale for one day only.

             It is two hours past midnight the day after Thanksgiving, and soon the crowds will form – dark, huddled masses yearning for a bargain. Celestine is here so early because she has always been stubborn. She is determined to get the green diamond ring, this is the ring which belongs to her, and she will make sure her dreams come true.

             She presses her fingers against the cold glass, closes her eyes, and daydreams. Toby, his red hair shooting unkempt from his hair, his green eyes sparkling like the rare diamond, will get down on one knee and propose. “My beloved Meg,” he will say.

             She senses a slight movement in the shadows behind her, but she does not look. She knows that it is not safe to be out here in the middle of the night. But she has always had amazing luck, as if she has a guardian angel protecting her.

             I don’t like the name Meg. Such a plain, common name. And I don’t like Toby, such a plain, common boy.

***

Friday, 22 November 1996

             He first noticed the smell. It was intense and fowl, unlike anything he’d ever smelled before or ever would again. The smell of burning metal.

             His other senses lit up – he heard the crashing, the banging, the smashing; he heard the high-pitched screams which ceased suddenly as if on command; he felt the heat, the pressure, the airbag, the shards of glass; he tasted the foul smell which hung in the air; he saw – for an instant – the front cab of the semi-truck as it hurtled towards him, the passenger door and windows smash inwards, his pregnant wife’s shocked expression as her body was shattered.

             Then all that was left was the smell and the smoke. Beyond him, in the distance, he heard muted noises, cars, sirens, screaming. Inside the crumbled car, he sensed nothing but the opaque smoke and that all-consuming stench of burnt metal.

             Time paused.

***

2023

             Celestine checks her phone, no message from Toby. She figured he wouldn’t get up early and meet her here. He loves her, but he’d had a bit too much to eat and drink last night. At least they were in the city, and he wouldn’t have to drive.

             Her father had taught her a fear of driving when others were drunk.

             She scrolls through the various Black Friday ads, but none call out to her like the ad for the Green Diamond. A one-of-a-kind luxury, and only available here, now, on sale, and to the lucky 100^th customer in the door.

             She looks around her; a few shadows lurk here and there, but definitely not one hundred. How can she ensure that she is the hundredth? She doesn’t have a plan, just a gut instinct that she will get what she wants.

             She always gets what she wants.

***

1996

             Through the thick layer of smoke, Michael could make out figures – dark, slumped, lifeless figures. Across from him, in the passenger seat, must be Ellen. He reached out and touched her face; he could feel metal or glass stuck in it, the blood oozing out. His hand traced down, to her belly, to the baby whose feet had just kicked yesterday. There was no movement.

             The sirens and outdoor voices grew louder; a knock on his window. “Unlock your door, sir,” a muffled voice shouted. Without thinking, he obeyed, his muscles moving on their own. The door was yanked open, and a man in a fireman’s suit leaned in.

             “Are you okay, sir?” he asked.

             “I don’t care about myself,” Michael said, and he was surprised by how his voice had changed – brusque, hoarse, choking on tears. “Ellen – my wife – is pregnant.”

             The man pulled out of the car and mumbled to those next to him. “I don’t think we can get at the other doors,” he said, putting his head back in. “We’ll help you out and then we’ll help your wife.” He looked towards the smoke-filled back seat. “One other?”

             Michael had forgotten. Margaret, Ellen’s grandmother, had insisted on joining them. Waking up this early was not a good idea for an elderly lady with a bad heart, but she claimed she had very few holidays left. Shopping was her joy, and she wanted to go with them.

             They’d seen a rare green diamond ring being advertised, and both Ellen and Margaret had had their heart set on it. “You never could afford a real wedding ring,” Margaret had said, half-scolding, half-loving, “and now that I’m near my deathbed, let me buy it for you. Your happily-ever-after.”

             “My wife’s grandmother,” Michael said, “Margaret.”

             He looked behind him, saw Margaret’s wrinkled figure slouched over, parts of the door jammed into her side.

             Next to her sat a shadowy figure, straight and tall and composed.

             The firefighter scanned the backseat and did not notice anyone other than Margaret. “We’ll help them both,” he said.

             “The baby,” Michael said.

             “We’ll help them all,” the firefighter said. He reached in to help Michael get out, but Michael resisted.

             “Not me,” he said, “Ellen!”

             “Sir, we can’t get to your wife with you in the way. We must get you out.” While logically he understood, he still resisted. He didn’t want to leave her. He leaned over her mutilated face, kissed her gently. Despite the heat emanating from the crash, she was so cold.

             The firefighter pulled him out, away from his wife, until he stood, unsteadily, in the dark, next to me.

***

2023

             The street gets brighter as more and more windows flicker with light. The sky is still dark, but turning a pale gray, not from the upcoming daylight – sunrise is still several hours away – but from the clouds, absorbing and reflecting the city lights.

             The crowd enlarges, and Celestine counts the heads, wondering how many are in line for the green diamond.

             Her father has told her that green diamonds were unlucky. There was a family lore – the Curse of the Green Diamond – but she had ignored that story because she knew that she wasn’t being told the whole truth. Celestine is naturally astute, a keen observer of human truths.

             “Meg!” a deep voice calls out, and Celestine is, for once, surprised. She feels a surge of electricity inside her. She is not dumb enough to mistake this feeling for true love; it’s lust, pure and simple. Nevertheless, she believes that she can make Toby her one.

             Toby stumbles and pushes through the crowd; he gets pushed and cursed at a few times. But it is still early, the line is not fully formed, the crowd not too dense, and he makes it to Celestine. He wraps her in a bear hug and she presses her face against him, her heart beating rapidly.

             Looking over his shoulder, into the deep shadows on the other side of the street, in front of the café which is purposefully closed on this day, she sees me.

***

1996

             Michael ignored me at first. He was inconsolable, watching the firefighters carry out the lifeless figures of his pregnant wife and her grandmother, put them on stretchers, and bring them to the ambulances.

             A first responder checked his vitals, examined him carefully, asked him questions. He answered robotically, unthinking, his eyes full of tears. “My wife…” he interjected.

             The first firefighter returned to Michael and put his hand on Michael’s shoulder. He didn’t have the words to say what needed to be said, but his eyes were wide and wet – showing sorrow and sympathy. Michael collapsed. The firefighter walked off, and the first responder sat next to him. I sat on the other side.

             “I’m going to get you some water,” the first responder said. Michael ignored her as she walked off, disappearing into the smoke. The burnt metal smell still permeated the air.

             “And what you are doing here?” he said abruptly, startling me, since usually I am the first to initiate conversation.

             “I can help,” I said softly.

             “They’re dead, aren’t they?” he asked quietly, saying the words he never wanted to say.

             “They don’t have to be,” I said. He eyed me warily. I’m sure he could tell that I was different. I looked like a shadow not because we were surrounded by smoke but because I had no human form. He knew who I was. He knew he should be afraid. He knew he should have nothing to do with me.

             But he loved his wife.

***

2023

             The crowds grow thicker; Toby and Celestine press against his other partly to keep warm, partly because they are in love, but mostly because there isn’t much room.

             “How are we going to do this?” he asks her. She grins.

             “I don’t know,” she says, “but now that you’re here, I know it’s possible.”

             “That’s what I love about you,” he says. “Whatever you put your mind to, you accomplish. Nothing is impossible for you.” She grins more broadly. “If I am going to marry you,” he says, venturing to ask questions he’d previously known not to ask, “then I am going to have to know more about you.”

             “Oh?’ she says, although she suspects she knows what he’s after.

             “Your name, for starters.”

             She looks towards me, straight at me, as if asking permission. I stare back.

             “Nine months before I was born, my great-grandmother died in a horrific car crash,” Celestine says. “It was on Black Friday… My mom, my dad, my older brother, and my grandmother. They were going to get a green diamond. That’s why we must get this diamond. It belongs to our family.”

             Toby nods, as if he believes that the green diamond is important because it’s a symbol of their family’s eternal love. He desperately wants to be a part of that family, the same way Michael was desperate for a family with Ellen.

             “My grandmother and brother didn’t make it,” Celestine says, “and it was only a miracle that my mother made it. She was so badly injured.” She looks down; she feels the strangeness in retelling the story. She never got to know her mother – she ought to feel sad. But she feels nothing. Just curiosity. This story is incomplete.

             Toby takes both her hands in his, raises them to his mouth, and kisses each hand, one by one, gently, lovingly. “You don’t have to tell the whole story if you don’t want to.”

             “It’s okay,” Celestine says, “I wasn’t even born yet.” She pauses and takes a deep breath. “My grandmother’s name was Margaret, and my mom adored her. So that is why she insisted that I be named Margaret, and that is what my father always calls me.”

             It doesn’t answer the question as to why her driver’s license says Celestine Victoria, but now Toby has another question. “I didn’t know about your brother, I’m so sorry.”

             “My mom was pregnant,” Celestine says, “about five months. They didn’t even know it was a boy until the doctors took it out. He died on impact.”

             The crowd gets even denser; Celestine stops her story to stand on her tiptoes and count. “There are over a hundred now,” she says to Toby. “Time to make a plan.”

***

1996

             “Sign here,” I said, two words I have said countless times over the millennia, the two most important words in the universe. I held up the shadowy image of a contract, the Latin words written in a blood-like ink.

             Michael paused and considered reading the contract. But his heart was racing and his wife’s heart had stopped. He wasn’t in the mood to consider the fine points; he just wanted his wife.

             “Are you sure you can’t bring back our baby?” he asked me.

             “Read the terms and conditions,” I said, knowing that he wouldn’t bother. “The price for one life is all you can offer. Besides,” I waved aimlessly over the words, “you’ll get another.”

             He squinted at the contract. The accident had taken the lives of his wife, his unborn child, and his grandmother-in-law; the Devil would return to him his wife and give him a new child.

             He knew that within those words and phrases, something must be wrong. A consequence that he wouldn’t like. But he did not care. He loved his wife.

             He signed.

***

2023

             The windows radiate light; the displays dazzle and sparkle. Beyond the windows, the crowds can see the workers, getting ready. Soon the signs which say “Closed” will be switched to “Open”.

             The crowd buzzes; everyone is talking at once. So many people are on their phones, adding to the brightness. A store turns on its music, and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” gushes into the air.

             I stand next to Celestine, shoulder to shoulder. Toby is on his phone, talking excitedly to one of his friends from college. He knows he’s going to propose, and he wants to tell the news before it even happens.

             “I know what I want,” Celestine says, so much like her earthly father, initiating the conversation, “but for the first time in my life, I don’t know how to get it.”

             “That’s what I’m here for,” I say.

             “I know,” she says. “You’ve been with me my whole life, watching over me.”

             “You have been mine since before you were born,” I say. “Of course I take care of you. But I have no physical form. There is only so much I can do – I can put ideas in human heads, but only if they listen.”

             “That time I almost slipped from the roof,” she says, “in the middle of winter, with all the ice and snow, how did you stop me?”

             “I put an idea in your head,” I say, “to put your foot a quarter-inch to the left of where you were going to put it. Some pine needles had fallen there. It wasn’t as slippery. At the same time, I put an idea in Michael’s head to look for you outside. He’d had no idea you’d gone outside and climbed the roof, looking for reindeer’s footprints. If he hadn’t come outside at that exact time…”

             “Thank you,” she says. “Dad never talks about you, but he knows.”

             “I can get you that diamond,” I say.

             “Of course,” she says.

             “But you must prove to me that you are worthy,” I say. “I’ve invested a lot in you.”

             “Of course,” she says.

             Toby puts down his phone and looks at her. “Are you talking to me?” he says.

             “No,” she murmurs, “just talking to myself.”

***

Friday, 22 August 1997

             Michael knew that something was wrong, but he didn’t want to believe it. This was the first labor he’d attended. He tried to convince himself that it was normal. Ellen’s pale face drenched in sweat. Her entire body writhing in pain. The nurses’ and doctors’ raised eyebrows and furtive whispers.

             A doctor pulled Michael out of the room, and he recalled the moment, nine months ago, when the firefighter had pulled him out of the car. Away from his dying wife.

             This couldn’t be happening again.

             As the doctor spoke, describing the science behind the screams, explaining his wife’s second death, he stared at the figure standing behind the doctor. He stared at me.

             “Why?” he asked.

             The doctor answered, a medical explanation, and I answered as well. “I gave you what you wanted,” I said.

             “I want my wife’s life,” Michael said.

             Again, the doctor and I spoke at the same time and Michael only listened to me. “You wanted me to bring her back to life after the car accident,” I said, “and I did. I didn’t promise she would live forever.”

             “I know, but…” Michael said. “Can you do it again?”

             “I told you,” I said. “I can only save one life, one time. That’s all you got.”

             “The baby?”

             “Is fine,” I said. “She’s mine. Your gift to me.”

             “But she’ll live?”

             “Yes,” I said. “Her name is Celestine Victoria. She’s mine.”

***

2023

             “Do you really want it?” I ask. Celestine nods. “I have no physical form – you must act as my body.” Another nod. I don’t have to speak again. She understands.

             A sudden low boom disturbs the air, and for a brief moment, everything pauses. All lights go out, all cell phones die, all people stop talking and freeze.

             Then, as so often happens on Black Friday under even lesser circumstances, chaos ensues. The crowd erupts, people move, push, shove, shout. But the electricity is still out; cell and wi-fi signals are still out; all power and all lights are off. The grey sky darkens, as the clouds no longer have light to absorb and reflect.

             Celestine’s eyes widen as she realizes she can see in the dark. She takes out the switchblade which Toby has insisted she carry for safety. He even sharpened it for her.

             He can’t see anything and he doesn’t suspect. She buries the knife in his carotid artery. He doesn’t even scream.

             She deftly makes her way through the crowd, a dancer of sorts, maneuvering easily amongst the chaos. She uses the knife sparingly, understanding that too much panic would work against her.

             She enters the store and takes the green diamond ring. As simple as that.

             Then we exit together and head down the street, away from the screaming, pulsating mob.

             Several blocks we walk in silence. Then she speaks.

             “I didn’t even sign a contract,” she says.

             “Oh, my dear,” I say. “You didn’t have to. You are mine.”