| THE LORELEI SIGNAL |
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| Written by Rebecca Nazar / Artwork by Holly Eddy |
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| When Opposites Attack |
“Tomas, I don’t care how many hearts you’re wearing on your
sleeves, I’m not in love with you. You’ve been a failure as my
apprentice,” Witch Nettle said.
Crestfallen that the variety of woodland critter hearts pinned to
his shirt had not impressed her, he sighed. “But I can’t help
loving you, Nettie.”
Her face softened. The young man’s amber eyes ignited a tiny
spark of passion within her wizened chest, setting her heart of
coal to smoldering.
“Would you like to lash me with these?” Tomas fumbled in his
pants pockets and pulled out two pig tongues.
“For weeks, when you failed to accomplish a grisly task, tongue
lashings never improved your performance.” She had enjoyed
lashing him. A shimmy of pleasure raced through her, rattling her
knobby knees. “I’m old. I need a lackey now, and you’re just
not qualified. You’re incorruptible.” She tried to slam the hovel
door in his face.
Tomas placed his foot across the threshold, preventing her,
squishing the hearts between their breasts. “But there are two
dozen critter hearts here. I trapped, straggled, gutted, skinned,
and pinned them all to my jacket within an hour.” He shimmed
his shoulders and turned for her to closely inspect his
workmanship. “Isn’t this an improvement in my ghoulishness?
Why I feel more craven with each passing moment. Listen,
grrrrrrrrrrr." He screwed up this face, curled his slim fingers into
claws, but still looked like a cherub freshly scrubbed and
coiffed by God himself.
“You got the local woodsman to do it, didn’t you?” Nettle asked. She twisted off a chipmunk heart and popped it
in her mouth.
A vegetarian, Tomas blanched. Inept at lying, he bluffed, “No . . . maybe a little . . . well . . . yes . . . quite a lot.”
“You’re too nice!” Nettle screamed, gagging after saying the word nice. “As an evil witch, I need someone reliable
to fetch my ingredients for conjuring, a twisted soul who can capture newts without squealing, drain virgins of blood
without fainting, and snatch innocent children from their beds without crying. Leave me. Just go, go, go!”
She pushed him out of the way, barred the door, and listened closely for his retreating footsteps, but heard none.
Slumping against the wall, she spied him through a knothole. His blue-eyed gaze met her blood shot one.
Weeks ago, Tomas had been one of Nettle’s intended victims. She had crept up behind him, intending to stab him
between the shoulders, but thought it a shame to mar his muscular back. Flummoxed, she tried to garrote him
instead. While nuzzling his neck, overpowered by his musky scent, she nearly swooned. Lastly, she straddled his
chest and prepared to pour poison down his throat, but her murderous rage melted into the desire to snuggle with
him instead, an impulse she had not felt since she’d slept with the Devil, who, to no one’s surprise, is not much of a
snuggler, nor sixty-minute man.
Tomas disarmed her with a warm smile. That was all the foreplay Nettle needed; she hazarded a snuggle.
What a curious sight. All of nature’s teaming wildlife froze, mouths agape, witnessing these opposites inexplicably
yet implacably drawn to each other, and coupling under a full moon no less! In the morning she offered him an
apprenticeship, an arrangement that flustered them both.
“Please, one more chance,” Tomas whispered through the knothole of the hovel.
Disarmed by his charm yet again, she relented, and threw open the door. “Very well, but if you don’t raze an entire
village this very evening, we’re through.”
“Yes, let’s pillage,” he roared, all bluster but no bite.
They walked through the densely wooded forest until, they arrived on a hilltop that overlooked a small village. A
swollen moon cast a gray-blue light, giving the landscape an ethereal hue. The cottages looked tranquil and tucked
in for the night under a blanket of thick, freshly fallen snow.
“Well, have at it,” Nettle said with a dismissive sniff. “Relax, go soak awhile in a blood bath of your own making.”
“I will, but while I’m gone, I want you to realize something, Nettie.” Tomas’s tone was stern, his face stony.
She narrowed her eyes. “What’s that?”
“Never have I asked you to compromise who you are." He pulled out a large knife concealed in his boot, and then
with all the stealth of a clumsy puppy, he crept off.
Alone, emotionally gutted, her superiority cut to the quick, Nettle felt the nip of the night air and the threat of barbed
shadows. While pondering Tomas’s words, she rubbed the length of her arms with trembling hands, trying to
exfoliate the rash of gooseflesh that pimpled her skin.
Could she force herself to be good? If he required her to pet a bunny without wringing its neck with glee, play with
a child without luring it into a cauldron, or thwart an epidemic with her powers instead of conjuring one, would she
have faired any better contradicting her true nature?
Cursing herself, she hobbled along the path he had made in the snow. If Tomas mustered the strength to go
berserker upon this place, she’d lose the gentle soul mate she treasured so. She had so wanted him to succeed.
Most of the village’s inhabitants were old or half-starved from eating meager rations over the harsh winter, easy
pickings for a novice, halfhearted killer.
Wails of pain and screams of panic stripped the night of silence. Nettle increased her pace and arrived at a wide
lane that bisected the village. Fire raged through most of the cottages. Most had disemboweled corpses just feet
from their thresholds. She collapsed on her knees beside three. Their entrails had been unraveled then arranged to
spell Tomas will love Nettie forever followed by a garland of XOXOs. Running her fingers along the letters, the
sentiment struck her as bittersweet. Torn between triumph and despair, she cackled and cried and salivated a bit,
ashamed of her wicked appetite.
“Tut, tut, tut, there, there, Witch Nettle will make you all better, now.” She cooed an incantation, coiling the
intestines back into their respective pelvises, resurrecting the victims, who looked upon her as they revived as if she
were a blessed goddess despite her hideous face.
“What are you doing?” Tomas asked.
Nettle turned to find her offal-cloaked lover standing over her. “Nurturing?” she said, sheepishly.
“You don’t like this note, the chaos?”
“Oh Tomas, yes, of course. But if you where willing to change for me, I must do likewise,” she said and propped up
one of the groggy victims. “See? Mostly all better.”
The victim coughed up a clump of misplaced bowel, smirked, and gave a weak wave.
Tomas knelt and embraced her. “I can’t lie to you. I didn’t kill these people.”
“What!” Nettle dropped the victim, who burped up bile when he hit the ground.
“The woodsman did. He shadowed us, overheard our talk, and was all too eager to help me out,” Tomas said. He
screwed up his face. With shaking fingers, he fondled something mangy dangling from his belt. “I did smother this
very old, sick cat, which was merciful, so maybe it doesn’t count.”
Nettle’s eyes filled with tears. She touched his face. “You’ve been devious, but thankfully, not too much so, and
never again. Given my age, it’s time I mellowed. I don’t have to maim or kill everyone I meet.”
“That’s right, only those truly worthy of your wrath,” Tomas said, stroking her cheek.
A large man, his bare chest and face slick with blood, came around the corner. He dragged two corpses he’d
deboned in one hand while waving a head on a pike in the other.
“Ah Blaine, there you are. You can stop now,” Tomas said.
“Put all the dead here beside me,” Nettle added.
“Even the mushy bits? I busted a hump here. This is quality carnage, cruelly and efficiently executed,” Blaine whined.
“Yes very impressive, but I’m going to undo the damage. It’s the nice thing to do,” she said, gagging after saying the
word nice.
Blaine shrugged, tossed the corpses, and began collecting whatever he had hacked up just an hour ago.
The remainder of that evening Nettle nurtured until all was righted. Tomas looked on, pinning for his love’s
bitterness to return.
So what became of this unlikely pairing, you ask? Well, isn’t there twilight, dawn, dusk, whatever you choose to
call it when light melds harmoniously for a time with darkness? Yin and Yang spoon. The day and night trail after
each other in a never-ending cycle, do they not? Why, Witch Nettle and Tomas lived happily ever after, of course...
oh go ahead and groan, you cold-hearted cretins.
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