u/Visceral_Mass

“Wow,” my best friend, Macy, said, “Your stepmother is one cold-hearted bitch.”

The two of us were standing next to my father’s casket as they were about to lower it into the ground. Anna, my stepmother for all of two months, was standing on the opposite side of the casket from us with a look of boredom on her face.

“Why is she even here? She clearly didn’t give a shit about your dad,” Macy continued, “She hasn’t shed a single tear.”

A fresh round of sobs racked my body.

“Sorry,” Macy quickly apologized, “I shouldn’t have said that out loud.”

I wiped my eyes and sniffled, “It’s okay. You’re not wrong.”

Once the ceremony was over and we were walking back toward the parking lot, Macy put her arm around my shoulders and said, “Why don’t you come over to my house?”

“I can’t,” I replied, “Anna wants to talk to me about something.” I glanced across the lot to where my stepmother was leaning against what used to be my dad’s car, waiting for me, “I’ll call you later,” I promised.

“You better,” Macy said before leaving to catch up to her parents.

Anna and I didn’t say a word to each other until we got home.

“Would you do me a favor?” Anna asked as we walked through the door.

I turned to face her and didn’t say a word. I wanted to hear what the favor was before committing to doing it.

“Upstairs on the shelf in my closet is a jewelry box,” she said, “Can you bring it down here?”

Why can’t you go up there and get it yourself? That's what I wanted to say to her, but I couldn’t bring myself to be that rude and instead said, “Sure.”

The box she was talking about was made out of wood and was about eight inches long and four inches wide. Various flowers were intricately carved on the outside of it.

It was actually quite pretty.

I tried to open it to see what was inside, but I couldn’t figure out where the lid was.

When I got back downstairs, I found Anna sitting at the kitchen table.

“Here it is.” I placed the box in front of her.

She placed her hand on top of it and pulled it closer.

“I know you think I’m a heartless bitch,” she said, “And you’re partially right.”

She grabbed the edge of the box, lifted the lid that I couldn’t find, and then pushed it back toward me so I could see what was inside.

I gagged and had to look away when I saw the still beating heart inside.

“I am heartless,” she explained, “But I’m not a bitch, I’m a witch.”

I heard her close the box and slide it back across the table.

“Why did you show me that?” I asked.

“Because I think you deserve to know the truth,” she said, “Your father was not the man you thought he was.”

She paused for a moment to let her words sink in.

“Do you know how your mother died?” Anna asked.

“She was in a car accident.” That was what my father always told me.

“That’s not entirely true,” she said, “There was an accident, but your father staged it after he poisoned her.”

“You’re lying,” I snapped.

“It’s true,” she said, “He did it for the insurance money.”

I turned and started to storm out of the room.

“Your mom was my sister,” Anna called out.

I stopped and turned back to face her.

“She’s the reason I’m here,” she revealed.

I returned to the table.

“Your mother turned her back on our ways. Otherwise, she would have been able to protect herself from your father.” Anna placed her hand on the box that held her heart. “Your father tried to do the same to me, but this protected me.” She patted the box, “As long as my heart beats in here, no harm can befall me.”

“Did you kill him?” I asked.

“I did,” she admitted, “A lot sooner than I’d intended. I was planning on making him suffer for what he did to your mother and my sister, but then I found this.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a document, which she handed to me.

“Your father took out a life insurance policy on you,” she continued, “Trying to kill me was proving to be too difficult for him so he decided to go after you instead. So, I killed him before he could kill you.”

I opened the document and looked at it. Apparently, my life was only worth $100,000.

“You now have two choices,” Anna announced, “I can leave you here with the insurance money I’ll be getting from your father's death to live your life as you please, or you can come with me and learn how to do things like this.” She tapped the wooden box.

When I opened my eyes, I found myself lying on a cold steel table in the middle of an embalming room.

How did I get here? Then I remembered, My wife poisoned me.

Her standing over me with a huge smile on her face was the last thing I saw before I blacked out.

That bitch!

I tried to sit up, but my muscles wouldn’t respond. The best I could do was twitch my arms and legs.

I have to get out of here.

“I’m…not…dead,” I had to force each word out of my mouth, and when I did, it didn’t sound anything like what I was trying to say. That didn’t matter, though. If there was someone in the room with me. They’d hear me mumbling and realize I was still alive.

I waited to see if anyone would respond, but nobody did.

I’m on my own.

With great difficulty, I was able to turn my head to the side and see a desk a few feet away.

If I can just get to that phone, I can call for help.

With every ounce of effort that I could muster, I inched my arm close enough to the edge of the table that gravity eventually took over and pulled it the rest of the way off.

Now comes the hard part.

I focused all my energy on my opposite shoulder and started lifting it off the table. It took me a long time, but I was eventually able to roll myself onto my side.

Uh oh!

My body continued moving as the weight of my dangling arm gave just enough pull to drag me off the table onto the floor. In the process, my other arm flailed out, knocking over a nearby tray of embalming tools.

Someone had to have heard that! I thought as I fell.

Thankfully, whatever was paralyzing my body also numbed the pain of me smacking into the floor.

Oh, thank God!

I heard the squeak of a door opening, followed by hard-soled shoes on the concrete floor.

“What the hell?” The person knelt next to me, placing a finger against my neck, checking for a pulse, “Someone seriously screwed up, you’re still alive,” he said.

“Wife…poison…me,” again, the words came out garbled, but the man was able to understand what I was saying.

“I know your wife poisoned you,” he said, “She paid me a shit ton of money to get rid of your body.”

“What?” I mumbled.

“Sorry, dude,” he replied, “But this doesn’t change anything. A deal’s a deal.”

That’s when he grabbed my arms and started dragging me toward the cremation chamber.

“When was the last time you saw your wife?” Officer Perez asked.

“This morning,” I replied, “Right before I left for work.”

He looked down as he wrote something on his little notepad, “Did you speak with her at all after that?” He looked back up at me.

I shook my head.

“Is that normal?”

“What do you mean?” I asked him to clarify.

“Is it normal for your wife to contact you while you’re at work?” Officer Perez rephrased the question.

“Not really,” I said, “She knows how busy I am and only contacts me if she has something important to say.”

He wrote in his notepad again.

“Can you think of any reason why she might want to leave without telling you?” he asked.

“If you’re asking if there was a reason for her to leave me, the answer is no,” I was offended by the implication.

If anything, I’m the one who had a reason to leave, I thought. That woman was insane. If she didn’t have such a wealthy family who would ruin me if I tried to divorce her, I would have left years ago.

“Well,” Officer Perez said, “I think I have all I need.” He slid the notepad into his pocket before getting to his feet. “Do you mind if I take a look around before I leave?” He gestured toward the interior of the house, “See if I see anything out of the ordinary?”

“Help yourself,” I said.

Before he started his search of the house, he pulled a necklace out of his shirt and clasped the medallion that hung from the end of it.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“This is Saint Rita of Cascia,” he explained as he showed me the medallion, “She is the patron saint of lost causes, especially those involving women. At least that’s what my mother always told me. This used to be hers before she passed.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I kept my mouth shut.

“Do you mind if I look around on my own?” he asked when he saw that I was prepared to follow him. “This may sound silly, but I like to talk to Saint Rita, asking for her help and guidance, and I’m a little self-conscious about it.”

“Yeah, go ahead,” I gestured, But you won’t find anything here.

***

“I’m done,” Officer Perez said fifteen minutes later.

“Did Saint Rita offer any advice?” I asked in jest.

“It doesn’t work like that,” he replied, “But if she can help, she will,” he said, “She always does.”

After he left, I celebrated by cracking open a bottle of champagne and drinking while singing, Ding Dong the Witch is Dead.

I must have had a little too much to drink because when I woke up, I was sprawled out on the couch. The first thing I noticed when I sat up was that I had an extremely full bladder.

I pulled myself to my feet and staggered toward the bathroom. I’d managed about a dozen steps before I suddenly tripped over something. When I looked to see what it was, I was shocked to see my wife’s severed forearm lying on the floor.

What the fuck! I threw you in a dumpster on the other side of town!

Things got crazier from there.

I hadn’t noticed it at first, but there was a black Sharpie marker in my wife’s dismembered hand. As I stood there staring in shock, the hand began writing a message on the tiled floor.

The rest of me will be along shortly, the message said.