The Book of Genesis
Chapter 7: And They Were Witches.

¹Two by two... of the clean animals and the unclean, of the birds, and of everything that crawls, male and female, they all came to Noah, into the ark, just as God had commanded. ²Then the rains poured down. And the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and floodgates of the skies were flung open.

³Noah, a steadfast and faithful servant of God, manned the ark and oversaw the boarding of all creatures great and small. ⁴Noah and his sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth, were the only men aboard the ark... but we know they were not the only people.

Ever since her sisters kicked her out of the family band, Cyrene had been searching for someone she could harmonize with. The problem was her auditions had a nasty habit of turning into massacres. Figurative, sure. But also, inevitably, .

There was the Americana group out in Asheville—they'd been promising until they'd fizzed out like Cheerwine shaken hard and fast before Cyrene even got to the chorus. And just like that bright red soda pop, their contents stained the carpets. And the walls. And Cyrene, when she tried to revive them.

"This can't be what you want," the oldest and most powerful suitor says. His mouth is stained red. He wipes it with the back of his hand, jerks his head towards the chaos that breaks across the room, the shouts and wild gestures, the spilled wine and half-eaten food.

"They will beggar you with this waste. Is this a proper legacy for your husband's riches?" His words are soft, but his grin curves like a scorpion's tail.

I refuse to look. I keep my spine stiff and tilt my chin down to stare into the leaping flames in the hearth.

Affan lay sprawled on the giant seawall like he was already dead. The waves crashed against his side and sprayed over him, every drop a stab of pain to the hundred cuts he'd got when the storm swallowed him. His fishing boat was nowhere to be seen.

Disoriented though he was, he didn't need to look around to know his location. This was Jakarta Bay, inky black and smelling of rot. Affan's hand came out slimy when he dipped it in the water, as if he'd reached into the gullet of a decomposing snake and slathered his skin with its bile and venom. This giant seawall had protected Jakarta from tidal waves, but it also trapped sewage in the bay, dooming the capital to sink in its own piss and trash. Who knew how much of the toxins had seeped into his body as he lay there with open wounds? It was probably too late to do anything about it.

Ernesto doesn't bother learning hurricane names anymore. Sometimes the tourists mention them—Luisa's supposed to make landfall in a couple hours. We'll be safe here, right?—but they never stick in his head. Hurricanes, like tourists, are all the same: destructive forces converging on his home.

Today, they converge again: the tenth storm and tenth tour group of the season. The bay might be a mess of beach houses battered into splinters and luxury hotels flooded into ruin, but for Ernesto, business has never been better.

"I am told you cure heartbreak," my neighbor says to me over the fence between our properties. It's the first time she's addressed me since moving into the vacant cottage next door. I don't glance up from mangling the forsythia bush with my pruning shears.

"There is no remedy for heartbreak. It diffuses into you, becomes part of your marrow. I can't excise it. Only dilute it."

"Will you do that for me?" Her voice is a breath away from cracking. 

The ocean hated Jacqueline Morell.

The ocean didn't usually hate people. In most cases, the ocean regarded her human guests with indifference. She could kill them without a drop of remorse, but it wasn't that she wanted them to suffer. She simply didn't care. But from the very first moment Jackie put a single toe in the water, the ocean despised her. Maybe the ocean was in a bad mood. Maybe Jackie was one small child too many that day on that beach, but when Jackie stamped her tiny foot down, the ocean recoiled. This would not do. Water slid away from the sand, the tide going out when it should have come in. It refused to return until Jackie's parents packed the family up and went off in search of friendlier shores.

Wouldn't you know it. You're on a charter fishing boat with your two uncles and their kids. The boat cuts through waves, bouncing you in your seat. You grip the bench, terrified of falling overboard. You didn't want to come here, but Grandpa made you. It was Uncle Brian's idea to bring you fishing as an early thirteenth birthday present; he and grandpa said it would be good for you to hang out with your cousins. You hate the ocean, hate boats, and your cousins are seventeen, eighteen, and twenty. Think they want to hang out with a twelve-year-old?

The old lady knows nothing but her hunger at this instant. She emerges from her home, locks the door, and begins to hobble on her rickety knees down towards the river. The forest floor squelches under her feet, oozing up gelatinous black liquid that clings to her skin and travels up her legs. When she breathes, her nose burns from the sharp fumes in the air, and she coughs in harsh, guttural gasps as she hacks up a glob of phlegm.

"Not all women were monsters, of course," the man who works at the tourist trap says. His chair is tilted against the wall, legs resting leisurely on the counter.

He strokes the pelt on his lap. His stubby fingers tousle the golden-red fur, grease it with sweat from his clammy hands.

The girl winces. Her ginger hair, feather-light, falls in ringlets on her shoulders.