The Bewitching

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The phone in the library began to ring and she fumbled with the receiver, but the line was dead. She slammed the receiver down and it began to ring again, louder and louder, like discordant cymbals. It almost seemed to be shrieking at her. Minerva tugged at the cord, disconnecting the phone. She reached into her backpack and pulled out the bird talisman. The light was growing steady now, its emerald glow spilling eerily under the curtains and across the floor. She stepped back, avoiding the light, which slithered like long fingers that stretched into the room and threatened to grasp her ankles. She bumped into a couch and almost lost her footing. Something knocked against the back door and knocked a second time, louder, until it wasn’t knocking, it was like the pounding of fists. Then it moved to the right, scratching under a window, scratching against another. Its nails slid upon glass, raked against shutters. The noise changed again; it seemed to be moving all around the house. Above her, the wood squeaked and groaned, like the pipes sometimes groaned in the winter, rattling with the cold. The floor vibrated under her feet and then more strongly, as if this were an earthquake that was gaining in force, but she’d never felt a quake like this before, and she’d grown up in Mexico City and weathered the big one in ’85.