The headlights of passing cars didn’t bother Sophia anymore. Instead she’d just imagine them like airplanes falling out of the sky. Airplanes and not stars because Sophia doesn’t believe in wishing on stars anymore. She did when she was little. She’d wear a tiara of glistening plastic and pink glued on jewels and look at the north star out her window and whisper “please, please, I want to be a princess”. She’d circle pictures of British royalty in magazines. Posters of Prince Harry plastered her walls and even now when Sophia knew better to have posters on her walls she’d sometimes pick up the magazines on the kitchen counters and whisper under her breath “that damn Megan Markle”.

            Sophia now knew that there’s no easy way to be a princess but she could be a queen. Friday night, spotlights dousing her in luminescent neon and a crown of slightly more expensive plastic would be placed on her head. Josh would be standing next to her, she hoped. If Josh actually cared as much as she did. He stood by her locker last Monday. 

            “Hey, listen I don’t want you getting too stressed about this whole thing”

            “I’m not”, Sophia muttered without making eye contact. “There’s just a lot to think about”.

            “Like what, you have your dress, I have my tux, I have the hotel reservations for the night, we’re set”. 

Sophia rolled her eyes and closed her locker door walking away from Josh who couldn’t possibly understand how she was feeling. Of course the hotel room was what mattered to him but she couldn’t even imagine leaving the dance until she had that crown on her head. Unfortunately she knew of one other girl who had the same fantasy. A girl who probably never had posters plastered on her walls and got drunk with her mother instead of getting wrapped up in magazines. Amy Cortland stood across the hall from Sophia with two boys surrounding her. Her blonde curls ran down her cardigan that almost reached her designer boots. She whispered something as Sophia passed but she took the high road down to english class. 

Sophia couldn’t even begin to focus on her assignments. She tapped her pencil ferociously, Mr. Shamson’s words trickling in and out of her ears. 

          “Urban legends, we can probably all think of one. It’s a little known fact that this very school was built on the grounds of an old football field where it was said that every team that would play on it was not safe from injury”.

Mr. Shamson was so weird, Sophia thought. He always spoke like a guy who wanted to be Edgar Allan Poe but not be mistaken for someone out of touch with the modern age. 

“Do your research, tonight on an urban legend that has affected the world around us, most notably yours”. Mr. Shamson jolted his head Sophia’s way and she felt that he was staring into her soul. 

“Yes you actually have to write about something that interests you, sue me”.

Class ended and Sophia made her way to the library. Ignoring the texts from Josh that delivered continuous buzzing to her pocket. She rolled her eyes and tiptoed past the hungover librarian's desk. The sooner she could get this done the sooner she could fall back into her daydream of an impenetrable night that would grace her memory forever. She felt her fingers across the book shelf compatring the to the streamers, the glowing faces of her peers, the nasty grimace splitting across Amy Cortland’s face. Josh’s stupid handsome face smiling, the teacher placing the crown on her perfectly curled hair and out of nowhere Sophia was kidnapped from her fantasy andn a book fell out in front of her. She did what any skeptic would and looked around only seeing two students getting a little too comfortable on the cushioned seats and a kid cramming for an afternoon test. She picked up the book dusting off the cover that faintly red “the wishing curse”. In it’s crispy old pages Sophia read of ancient and powerful demon one that was made of inky blackness and possessed scarlet eyes who could grant any wish if given an offering. The bell rang and Sophia jumped finding that she was lured into the book in an uncanny manner. She bit her lip and shoved it into her backpack. For the rest of the day she thought about it but showed it to no one. Not even Josh when he asked her what was wrong. Especially not Josh. 

 

***

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Beneath the light from her ceiling fan Sophia sat in the center of her aerial rug three pine scented candles surrounding her as she crossed her arms and began a chant. She started to flub the words but then found her arms lifting above her involuntarily and her voice distanced itself from her. She rang out across her bedroom screaming into vacant air until her head dropped and her whole body became limp. When Sophia woke there was a creature in front of her floating, looming towards her. Normally Sophia would run from the obvious evil spirit that now inhabited her room but she felt compelled to lurk closer. The spirit looked at Sophia and tilted its head. Floating over to her shoulder and breathing in its summoners essence. The spirit then placed a hand black as abyss on Sophia’s shoulder which turned her cold. The spirit floated around the room a little while longer and found its way into a locked door which contained Sophia’s childhood jeweled crown. 

            “No don’t touch that”! Sophia zipped through the air to the spirit. 

            “You work for me mortal”! The demon demanded, flinging Sophia onto her back. 

            “I know what it is you want but this task is not so easily accomplished, I require b l o o d”.

 

***

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Beneath promising stars Sophia walked in the rain shivering from the airy chill but lulling on down the newly paved road. A red honda passed, red as the decapatated squirrel’s innards spilling out where road meets grass and Sophia picked it up because she had to. She tossed it into the felt sack over her shoulder that contained a racoon with his stomach punctured, a bird with a broken beak, and the leg of a deer. She knew the spirit would be angry if she hadn’t recovered the rest of it’s body so she tried ventured to the winding road in the deep woods where she and Josh used to go camping and look for the daredevil animals that weren’t fast enough. She came upon a fox who’s fur was soaked with it’s own blood. His little legs twitched and she gagged, staring into it’s black eyes begging for mercy. She wondered if she threw it in the bag, if it would naturally suffocate but she knew that was against the rules. The spirit told Sophia to conduct her search carefully and to look only for the animals who dared to dream. A squirrel who saw an acorn across the street and the oncoming truck blazing lights into the moon. Sohpia liked to think that the squirrel weighed it’s options and made a conscious decision but it couldn’t-it was a squirrel. And when squirrels see food they leap into the air, little arms outstretched and when the truck explodes their little squirrel brains head on all they’re thinking about is the nutty aroma of the acorn and how it would’ve tasted so sweet. Sophia leaves the fox be and hopes so cruelly that it bleeds out so she can add it to her sinister collection. She had been out here for hours. The spirit told her she could only scour in the darkest hours of night. She had school the next morning and her eyes were going to be dark as the raccoon’s. But she didn’t care as long as Amy Cortland didn’t notice. The next day at school Sophia dodged Amy Cortland as she watched her from her locker, handing out flyers with her name in glittery letters. Sophia felt a new kind of rage conjuring inside her body that was interrupted by Josh coming into her view. 

            “Hey, babe, I don’t wanna sound like a dick but.. Have you showered recently”?

            “What”? Sophia snapped. 

            “You smell like the campground” he tucked a strand of hair behind Sophia’s ear “you remember the campground right”? Sophia slammed her locker door shut. 

            “You fucking spaz”! 

She stumbled away from him, rubbing the infinite sleep out of her eyes. Her fingernails were still caked with blood and she felt the woods surrounding her again and it was only two days till prom. Two days until she’d smell like hydrangeas doused in sparkles and most importantly her oh so precious crown. Sophia snuck out of gym class later that day because the spirit’s voice was louder than Josh’s texts begging her to accept an unacceptable apology. She trailed off into the forest and waited for the familiar smell of the death to fill her nostrils And there it laid a deer, who’d escaped a hunter but not the bullet. Her eyes were circles of blood, blood to make the spirit happy, blood to secure her crown. Sophia covered the deer in shrubbery and branches and vowed to put her to rest soon, it would be a couple hours until the deer bled out.

        That night Sophia returned to the forest with the felt sack soaking with agony, the spirit breathing it in behind her joyously feeding off of all of it. Sophia circled the animals around her. She lit the last pine candle and fell to her knees before the spirit. 

            “I’ve done everything, can I’-

            “Everything”? The spirit boomed. “That’s where you’re mistaken”.    

            “Please”. Sophia begged “rid me of this hell”. 

            “You’ve brought me sufficient blood” the spirit turned from Sophia “But none is more pure, more powerful than that of your enemy’s”. It was in that moment that Sophia realized what she had to do. 

​

​

***

            Friday night she graced down the stairs watching her mother tear up and Josh smirk. They interlocked hands and pictures were taken as Josh whispered “you look like a queen” and nibbled on her ear gently.  The white stretch limo arrived at the door and Sophia clutched her left pocket closely, but not enough to make her hand bleed. She counted her breaths she took between the limo and the door to the venue that held the dance and her precious prize. She twirled on the floor her hands never leaving Josh’s and her eyes never leaving Amy Cortland. The night lasted millenniums song after song, dance after dance and Sophia felt the spirit lingering over here pinching her shoulders everytime she detected a thought with an inch of doubt. But Sophia had no doubt as she was called to the stage. Amy Cortland sneered her way as they both strided up the stairs their principal separating them. 

            “And now, the moment we’ve all anticipated”. 

Sophia lifted the knife as the envelope containing the winner was reached for. And right before a milisecond before she passed the principal and drove it into Amy Cortland’s chest she thought of a time. A time of tea parties and star wishing all coming to fruition. She tasted the jewels the dusty plastic, the artificial glue pouring down her throat; it tasted like blood. 

            Screams echoed throughout the building as Amy Courtland fell to the ground her eyes glued to her opponent as Sophia dug the knife in deeper. The principal fainted and students dispersed. Josh looked as if he was going to be sick. Security came and grabbed her arms covered in the blood of the final offering. Sophia watched in horror as they carried her away from the stage.

            “No, no! Spirit where are you? Give it to me Give me my fucking crown! THAT’S MY CROWN”!

            The envelope laid on the blood soaken floor containing the name of the winner decided a week prior.

 

Sophia Marinez