text: I never should have gone to her. If I had known then what I know now I wouldn’t have. This is my story and let it be a warning. Remember to be careful what you wish for. I learned the hard way. I fled from that place three years ago and finally stopped running when I hit a backwoods town in southern Louisiana. I had been there for a week when the story of a forty-three-year-old woman who had gone missing from the same town that I had just left came across the news. As soon as I saw the picture of my sweet momma, my heart clenched and the world fell out from beneath my feet. According to the news report her husband, my stepfather, had come home to a wife distraught over her baby girl running away. He had tried to console her, but she attacked him and fled. The news report was wrong though. I knew what had really happened. That sick bastard had made good on his promise. Now I am going to make good on mine. The night I left I swore on everything I held dear that I would make that monster pay for everything he took from us. My innocence, my momma’s light and now her life as well. That’s how I ended up outside of her shack. Nobody knew her name nor how long she had been there. Some said she created this town and others said this sad little town created her. Whispers floated around that she could grant your deepest wishes. She could make the one you love to return the feelings. She could make a barren womb bring life. She could take your demons away. I wish I could claim innocence. Say that nobody told me there would be a price, that I was ignorant, but that would be a lie. As I stood at her door trying to gather the courage to knock I heard a voice behind me. “I see your pain, my child. Your grief is louder than any knock on my door.” Her honeyed creole voice washed over me tinged with razor wire. I turned, expecting an old stooped woman, but came face to face with a girl no older than myself. Dark dreadlocks encircled her head like a crown with pieces falling over her chocolate shoulders. She was petite with a heart-shaped face and would have been considered beautiful, if not for those eyes. I felt myself falling into those eyes that echoed the abyss. Black and bottomless, they threatened to drown me under their power. I could feel myself slipping into a place no human could survive. “You are right to be afraid child.” Her voice jerked me back to reality. As I blinked the abyss disappeared replaced by honey brown eyes. Normal human eyes. I opened my mouth to explain why I had come but she held up her hand, stopping me. “I know why you have come. I can see the scars that monster has left upon you.” The sheer amount of sadness in her eyes told me, in that moment, that she was not talking about the physical ones. I wondered what she had gone through to hold so much sadness. “I will help you but it comes at a price.” I reached into my pocket scrambling for the last of the money I had left. “Will this be enough? I know it’s-” Her laugh cut me off making me feel as if claws were whispering down my back. “I have no use for such earthly items. No, child, my price is much steeper.” Walking past me she opened the door to her shack glancing back at me. “Are you willing to pay the price?” I hesitated at that moment, something telling me to turn back. I could walk away and never look back. My heart leaped in my throat as she started to close the door and I knew if I didn't decide now I would never find her again. Desperately I rushed towards the door. “Wait! I’ll do it! I will pay anything.” I held my breath, secretly praying it was too late. She raised one of her eyebrows. “Anything you say?” I nodded stepping toward her to grasp the door. Her gaze roamed over me as she seemed to consider my words. “Very well then. Follow me.” I followed her through the open door stepping into the one room shack. I looked around taking in the small area. The far corner held a single cot and rocking chair with what looked like animal hides draped over them. To my left was a fireplace with a deep black pot boiling over the flames. I walked further in having to duck to avoid dried herbs, feathers, and what I prayed were animal bones. She gestured for me to sit at the small table to my right. I sat as she took a seat across from me placing small vials on the table in front of her along with a mortar and pestle. I watched as she began to mix herbs and liquids I couldn’t even begin to guess. As she mixed she started to chant in a strange language. Immediately the atmosphere in the room began to change becoming suffocating and heavy thickening as she continued. I started choking from lack of oxygen, black dots filling my vision. Just as I thought I would pass out the chanting stopped. I gulped in air as if it were my first meal in years. As my vision cleared I found her staring at me. “The only thing left now is a drop of your blood to seal the spell and contract. You still have a chance to walk away, my child.” I swallowed and shook my head holding out my hand. I had already come this far. “Not even going to ask the price?” Again I shook my head. “Whatever it is I will pay it. He deserves to rot for what he has done.” Tears fell from my eyes as I thought of my sweet mommas face. She didn’t deserve her fate, but he sure as hell deserves to suffer. I grimaced as I felt the needle prick my finger and watched as the droplet fell in the mixture. “By blood, it is sealed and by blood, it shall be paid.” Her voice had changed to that of a thousand and I watched as her eyes once again became the abyss. “The price shall be five souls of those who have committed the same, if not greater, sin as that of your stepfather. You shall take one life each year for the next five, but no more than one in the year. They shall be reaped every Samhain. If you do not fulfill this your soul and that of your mothers shall be forfeited and will replace these souls.” My heart thundered as my vision went black. I awoke in my own bed the next morning, the only evidence of what I had done lying on my nightstand. A silver dagger with a bone handle and a gold chain with a vial of black liquid sat there. Two days later my stepfather appeared on the news. He had been beaten to death when he was caught attempting to rape a fourteen-year-old girl. It was then I knew without a shadow of a doubt that what had happened was real...... That was five years ago and tonight I finally made my last payment. It has been a long five years. I can still hear their screams in my nightmares just as I heard this one scream as he begs for his life, apologizing for what he did to Michael and Caleb and Noah. I feel tears running down my face as I see those sweet boys twisted and bloody in his basement. His pathetic pleas fall on deaf ears just as those boys tortured screams must have fallen on his. I have paid in full and I will be giving her a bonus. One more tortured soul for that of an angel. Please, Lord, forgive me.....and if you can’t, tell my sweet momma I love her and I will accept my judgment as I stand before you. Goodbye....