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Chapter three
Lacey
Sighing, I grabbed the champagne bottle and found my cozy spot again. It would be a long night, and I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about Greg even though I didn’t want to.
Though, my anger lost the venom I came in with. Part of me wanted to skin him alive for breaking up with me so poorly, but my mind started noticing how often he played this kind of game during our courtship. Instead of missing him, I felt more depressed about how much I lost myself to be with him.
Everything about me had to change in order to fit his family’s mold, and I could never talk as brazenly as I did with my friends or reading about how females speak in books. How nice it must be to have such open freedom, and I used to. My mom and grandma were very set on being one with nature, so their feminine freedom often joined the moonlight.
Looking back, I began to understand I allowed myself to be kept in a smaller place holder than I was meant to be in. Greg wanted a cookie-cutter Betty Crocker to impress his mother, but I wanted to work. Every party, he’d suggest I’d wear something he bought me when I already had one of my favorite outfits on.
Disgusted with myself, I didn’t like who I became to fit into his life. Setting the wine down, I needed something to help reset me, and I knew Google would have something to work with. Most things were a bunch of mumble-jumble, but I just wanted something physical to embrace the separation from the man. Like a ceremony of reclaiming my womanhood.
Grinning, I typed that into my search engine and found many things popping up, but one thing caught my attention as I scrolled. Embracing your inner child…
Huh. Is that what I could call this? It did make partial sense because I wanted to remember the wild and free side of me. Calling on my inner child would do that, and it would set me free in ways I hadn’t been in a long time. Well, I hoped it would. The source looked decent enough with a Pagan background. I’d need candles and herbs that represented me to burn to set my soul free from the shackles of adulthood. Hopefully, Greg’s family had herbs brought in. Once I had that, I needed to write a letter to my younger self and let the incense of herbs burn it.
Running drunkenly into the kitchen, I opened several cabinets until I found one with bottles of spices. My hands began digging through the fancier, name brand things as I thought back to my cheaper collection at home. Finding cinnamon, I knew that would be the first smell I’d want. When I pulled it out, I noticed the cloves right behind it. My other hand reached for the potent smell, recalling Greg often smelled of it.
Quivering, the tremble in my lip couldn’t be undone as I contemplated all my life choices that led me to this moment. Being alone at Christmas, sniffing a spice that my ex smelled of. If I ever needed to find my inner self, this only proved the point of that. Shaking my head, I set down the extra spice and moved back to the living room with the one that resembled me the most.
Having a small notebook in my purse, I went to retrieve it with a pen for the letter part. I needed to write to my inner child and explain why I needed her to manifest. Hopefully, she’d hear my woes and settle what felt so turbulent inside of my soul.
Dear Younger me,
I’m sorry I failed you. I know this isn’t who you wanted us to become when you danced around your room like a popstar. You had bigger eyes than our reality could afford, but if I’m being honest, I was too scared to accept the challenge for those dreams. I’ve lived in fear and cushioned my life with what felt comfortable to not have to be rejected. Funny how I thought I wouldn’t be rejected in my life as a layer of protection, but I just got dumped by a nobody. Well, Greg is a somebody because of his wealth, but he didn’t love me… and I never loved him. He was safe, and I kept talking myself into that being enough. God, how I wish I could undo it all and live like I promised us all those years ago. I’m thirty, and my life is… boring? I took no risks, so I’m calling on you to help me. Help me say yes again. Help me find happiness in myself again. Let there be excitement to still be had, and I promise I’ll start saying yes.
Love,
Older me.
Reading over my words, I felt so much emotion in the single letter. Letting the emotions sit with me, I needed to feel them. The purpose of this letter had been made, so now I had to burn it over a candle with my spice sitting on top to create the incense environment. Reciting a few words from the website, I closed my eyes as the page began to burn. Once the corner took on the flames, I held it for a few more moments before opening my eyes and tossing it into the fireplace.
Once it finished burning, I thought I’d have some miraculous reconnection, but I found myself just seeing the burnt parchment join the embers. Sighing, I grabbed my bottle of champagne and took another long gulp from it. Thinking it didn’t work only lasted a minute because the scent of cloves found my nostrils.
Cloves…
Fucking hell, I put back my spice and used his. As if mine would’ve worked, though. Letting the cathartic sensation of writing the letter and burning it fulfill me, I knew my work here would be done. No part of me wanted to rewrite that letter and admit to how foolish I had been. A deeply rooted belief told me that my inner child still heard my words and felt my tears. Instead of continuing the night, I blew out the candle and made my way upstairs. I had enough alcohol to pass out easily and make it through my suffering.
Chapter four
Duncan
While the first few catches of the night were always fun, the joy in capturing evil spirits became quite tiresome and more like a chore by the end of it. The little rascal I dealt with now was having a delight, jumping through walls to escape me hunting him. They all knew what we were, and they knew we came to claim them on the one night they got the most mischievous.
Trying to stay quiet in the home I had intruded in, I couldn't leave anything broken or left a mess in my haste to capture the little shit. He'd be my last one for the night, but he decided to make it quite a chore.
Sending my brothers to their own locations, I wanted us to split up in order to achieve our goal faster. Then we could celebrate the holidays without having to deal with the monsters we had to become tonight. Some had local legends about us, and others made horror movies about our bodies, but they didn't actually understand the full purpose of who we were as Krampuses. Together, my brothers and I set out to capture what was truly naughty, but it never had been living children.
Some believed we threw actual children into a Santa sack and carried them off to never be seen again, but we only dealt with the malicious spirits of evil children. They were usually imprints from children who were god-awful for their parents and everyone else. Each year, a lot of us had to go collect the new stains that marked the earth before they could turn into something bigger than their shadow mark right now.
Moving my body to go around the corner, I heard the rustling of the ghost up ahead as he snickered in his amusement over getting away. Just as my hooves started marching, I had a tingling sensation take over my tail that traveled up into my core. That's how we were alerted of a new problem, so I muttered a slur of curses because that meant my night wouldn't be over after catching this last one, meaning I still had one more to go.
Sometimes, having the genes we did was a curse. Yes, we exuded power in our mortal forms throughout the year but having to play clean-up for the underworld was just never something that delighted me.
Trapping the ghost at the end of the hall, he had nowhere to run, and he knew it too. Smiling to myself, I loved knowing he wouldn't be going anywhere. Slowly easing my whip from my shoulder, I allowed my other hand to handle the bag that would trap his spirit. There were obvious ways I could see how humans grew confused about this because spirits moved in the bag just like a child would, but it was always a rare occurrence we were ever seen, and we did try to wipe memories when it happened.
The nasty thing before me wanted to attempt bolting passed me to escape again, but my hand was quick on the handle of my whip. Cracking it just right, I managed to twist it completely around the little boy of black. Void of true features, they were only shadow imprints left from their former owners. The time-looped personage remained as their true person grew older.
