The Mare

Ginger

On the phone, I asked if those girls were still bothering her. She said they were not. I told her a story from when I was her age, how a bunch of girls attacked me, how I knocked one of them down and they didn’t bother me anymore.

She said, “I wouldn’t do that.” She sounded amused.

I asked her, “Why not?”

Instead of answering, she asked if I believed in hell. At first I said no. Then I said, “Honestly, I think it’s possible. Though I don’t think you get sent there. I don’t think God would have to send people there. I think they would go there by themselves.”

She asked, “Why do you think that?”

I said, “Look at how people act. They walk right into horrible things all the time. They actually go out of their way.”

I told her about the time I dreamed of going to hell on purpose. I was only seven, and in my dream, I went to hell to take the devil’s treasure. I got lost, but finally I succeeded and I came back up and put the treasure under my bed. The dream was so realistic that when I woke up, I looked under my bed to see if the treasure was still there.

“Was it?” she asked.

“I don’t remember. But really, those girls, they aren’t bothering you?”

“No,” she said. “Not anymore.” And then, “I dreamed I went to hell too. Because my grandfather told me to. There was a door in your backyard.”

The hair on my arms stood up when she said it.