Stagmother

Marilyn’s bed was a bloody mess in the morning. She’d shed more in her long sleep, staining her pajamas, sheets, pillows, and blanket in the process. Velvet hung from her antlers in strips.

As she gingerly peeled the remaining velvet away, Marilyn budgeted the cost of treating every single stain she’d left. Work took the vast majority of her energy each day. She had time to eat, bathe, and tackle one or two simple chores in the evening before sleep overtook her. Getting this much blood out of this many linens would take more time than she had to spare. Given it was her only set, once she started, she’d have to finish if she meant to sleep on them that night.

Or she could simply wash them and let the stains set. They were hers, after all. Marilyn never brought anyone to the dank little basement room she rented, not even Penn; no one else was ever going to see her bed. Perhaps it could serve as a personal reminder of all that she had worked for once her antlers were gone.

Marilyn threw everything in the wash, buoyed by her thoughts of the future.

She studied her reflection as she buttoned up a fresh shirt. Her antlers were now not only larger than everyone else’s, they were also harder and sharper. A distant kind of panic seemed to call out to her, but couldn’t make itself heard over the sound of Healer Fenton’s praise. Marilyn smiled shyly at herself.

Still, people were going to stare at her more than ever today. She added an oversized scarf and sunglasses to her outfit for hiding behind. Work was only a short walk away- one of the greatest factors in how she’d been able to sustain her job in spite of her health- so she wouldn’t have to endure passersby for too long. Of course, her coworkers were another matter. Marilyn set these thoughts aside as unhelpful in the moment, and she set out for work.

She kept her chin tucked into the scarf and stared hard at the ground in front of her for the duration of the walk. A few whispers, what might have been a gasp, and the imagined heat of many eyes on her broke through Marilyn’s concentration, but only momentarily. Healer Fenton had encouraged her to keep pushing. This next phase would likely be the most difficult in what was already a near unbearable struggle, but when she came out the other side, Marilyn would finally be free of all of it. So let them stare, she told herself. Let them point and talk and laugh louder than ever before. This was their last chance.

The sense of defiance behind these thoughts came and went as quickly as a heartbeat, taking Marilyn by surprise. She felt no ill will toward other people. They all wanted what was best for her, just as she wanted what was best for them, as it had always been. Her fatigue was getting the better of her. She turned her mind instead to the day’s work.

The secondhand jewelry shop where she worked generally took on two types of charms: the kind that didn’t hold their enchantments well, and were therefore cheap and easy to process, and those that held enchantments exceptionally well, which gave them a high enough resale value to make dispelling them more than worthwhile. Marilyn specialized in the latter. She’d set a particularly tricky one aside for today with the suspicion she would be grateful for the distraction. And so it was- though her walk had worn her out terribly, the promise of a good challenge gave Marilyn the strength to meet her visibly shocked coworkers with sufficient cheer before she retreated to her station in the back room.

The work enveloped her immediately. Dispelling charms largely consisted of forming a connection with the magician who had enchanted the piece via the magic they had left behind, then repeating the steps they had taken to cast the spell, but in reverse. Outside of a specialized lab, it was a practice of precision in an environment of chaos. It required a perfect coordination of her intentions with those of the magician; though their efforts might be separated by years, decades, or even centuries, every disenchantment was a collaboration between spell caster and spell breaker.

Remnant magic in the charms contained a wealth of information. Marilyn could ascertain the temperature, humidity, lighting, and any other of a myriad factors from the day the charm had been created. In a more controlled setting, she would then match her environment as closely as possible, strengthening her temporary bond with the magician whose work she sought to undo. In the former storage closet where she plied her trade, she couldn’t even get rid of the smell of tobacco left behind by the previous tenant.

She thrived here.

Something about making it work when it shouldn’t, Marilyn guessed— she’d never quite figured it out. It was more than the simple joy of being good at something. Not that she underestimated that. She’d had the knack for dispelling from the very first time she tried it for extra credit in art school. It didn’t hurt that when the other students realized the money they’d save bringing their secondhand charms to her for dispelling so they could enchant their projects and tools, they’d started treating her with less suspicion.

The sound of Leland clearing his throat brought Marilyn gently out of focus. Her mental grip on the spell she’d been dismantling slipped, but with a quick whisper, she conjured a pair of hands to hold the charm in her place, preventing the magic from rebuilding itself while she turned her head to greet her manager.

“Good morning, Leland.”

“Afternoon,” he corrected her, openly staring.

“How are you?”

“Mm,” he answered affirmatively. He hadn’t heard her question. Tracy at the cash register had warned him, but seeing it was another thing entirely. No longer soft and rounded at the tips, Marilyn’s antlers looked like those of a stag in winter. She hardly looked human.

“Anything I can help with?”

Leland collected himself. “How are you doing, Marilyn?”

His grim tone made her nervous, but she kept Healer Fenton’s words close to her thoughts. “Now that you mention it, I’m doing really well. I was a little overwhelmed yesterday and I forgot to tell you. I got good news.”

“Oh?”

“The healer told me…” She hadn’t said it out loud yet. Marilyn was terrified of making it unreal by speaking it. She told herself to keep pushing. “I’m doing it, Leland. I’m losing my antlers. They aren’t going to shrink, they’re going to shed. The healer said she’d never seen anyone my size make such progress.” Marilyn blinked away tears, hoping he didn’t notice.

“Oh, Mari,” he whispered, breaking into a touched smile. “Oh, I’m so happy for you. The Goddess sees you. I’m sure of it. You’re such a hard worker,” he added, nodding to himself.

Eyes widening, Marilyn turned the rest of her body in her swivel chair to face Leland. “What?”

Leland took her shock for humility. He was busy telling himself that she really had been listening to him all these years. He’d never wanted to overstep, but he did try to gently guide her as a figure of authority in her life, and his efforts had evidently paid off.

He pointed to the charm and asked, “How’s it coming along?”

“N… nearly done, sir,” Marilyn recovered.

“Very good. Why don’t you take the rest of the day off when you finish there?”

This time Marilyn couldn’t speak; she mouthed the word what with a bewildered expression.

“Take some time for your health. That’s the most important thing. I’m so happy for you, Mari. Go home and just focus on all that’s good in this life, ok?”

“Yes, sir,” she answered automatically, defaulting to obedience when her confusion failed to produce a response. “Thank you.”

Leland chuckled. “You’re one of the best, kid.” He tapped the door frame. “Good work today.”

Marilyn dove straight back into her dispelling. She’d hit a good stride before Leland came in, and was able to ride the momentum to a painless finish; it only took another hour before the charm was completely empty of magic. She then placed it in a velvet-lined wooden box on a table next to the door, indicating it was ready to be cleaned, priced, and set in the display case.

Her coworkers smiled brightly as she exited her closet, telling her:

“Have a good day!”

“Congrats, Mari!”

“See you tomorrow!”

With a polite smile and wave, Marilyn hurried out the door. She heard a gasp to her left and realized she’d forgotten her scarf and glasses. Not wanting to go back for them, Marilyn forged ahead, letting her emotions run loud enough to drown out the world around her.

When she finally made it into the humid dark of her apartment, she burst into tears.