Vanishing

by Shannon Kostyal

The flame flickered and danced, balancing precariously on the tip of a cotton wick. The wax body of the candle glowed with warm russet hues, made all the more vivid against the backdrop of the summer night. A woman sat on the ground, leaning against an old oak tree as she gazed at the tiny flickering candle light encased in a glass lantern. If she studied the flame long enough, she could see the joyful dance of a phoenix-like fae that had been drawn to it, adding its own special magic to the ritual.

The air was warm and heavy, and carried with it the sounds of insect chirping and the rustle of leaves in the gentle breeze. Had she squinted and looked up, she would have seen tendrils of spanish moss caught up in the subtle dance of wind. Northerners often complained about feeling suffocated by the humidity and annoyed by the insect life, but to Mel it was as close to heaven as a person was like to find on earth.

Every night for the past three months she had come outside to sit under the tree and focus on her spell. Every night she’d gone unseen by the neighbors, but tonight something in the air was different. A hint of night blooming jasmine carried on the wind, and for a moment, the old lady two houses down had seemed to look in her direction with curiosity while taking her dog for its nightly walk. A flicker of hope ignited, mirroring the flicker of the candle in the dark.

Mel remembered years ago when she had worked her spells to try to become beautiful. But her thoughts were of shrinking. Of becoming small. Fragile. Delicate. All the things she’d grown up thinking female beauty was. And those spells had gradually worked. Over time, she had lost weight and rejoiced. She started sizing down on clothes and felt she could almost be beautiful. People around her lavished compliments. As her body grew smaller, so did her clothes. The more she shrank, the more people praised her. Until one day, she had become invisible.

The day was etched in her memory. She’d woken up and gotten dressed for work; Skinny jeans, a camisole, and a whisper of pale, translucent silk blouse. Looking in the mirror, she’d smiled faintly, turning to the side to see her outline almost vanish against the backdrop of beiges in her room. The smile faded. She had maybe about five or ten more pounds to go, she thought. Just a little more.

When she’d hopped on the bus heading to the downtown district, she’d grimaced in annoyance. The people around her jostled about, invading her space as if she hadn’t even been there. It felt different than the usual bus creepers. Even other women seemed to not realize she was trying to maintain her seat.

When her stop came up, she pushed through the other passengers and got off the bus, trailing behind another woman that worked on her floor. Kate didn’t even seem to see her, leaving Mel to follow in her wake as they badged in to the building.

When she got to her desk, she felt a slow heavy weight settle in her stomach. No one said hi to her. Up until that day, she’d always felt she and her coworkers had all maintained friendly interactions. She’d go out to lunch with them sometimes, or hang on the weekends.

Her sense of unease persisted through the day. It wasn’t that her coworkers were shunning her, or being mean. They simply didn’t seem to see her.

Months past, and her mood grew more melancholy as the eerie sense of isolation took root. Even the natural world around Mel seemed to have no space for her. The plants crushed around her, and insects flew or walked past, not even landing on her. She still posted pictures online, and garnered a ton of “likes” from them. Men hit on her; sometimes creepy, sometimes not. And from the women she usually saw comments telling her what a boss she was, and that they dreamed of losing as much weight as she had. But no one in real life could see or hear her anymore. She was quite literally invisible.

A few months ago, with a sinking sense of horror, Mel realized her spell had worked all too well. She’d shrunk and shrunk until she seemed to take up no space at all. She’d become the perfect ideal of womanhood that had been sold to her growing up. Tiny. Fragile. A passive, glossy photo. She could be looked at and admired like an object in a magazine, but no one saw her. With a swirl of heavy sickness, she realized she’d lost herself, chasing someone else’s imperfect idea of perfection.

She’d returned home that day, and studied herself in the bathroom mirror. Just ten more pounds, she started to think. And then tears welled up and she felt them spill out. Every year it had been a mantra of “just five or ten more pounds”. But 60 pounds later, and it was never enough. She’d shrunk, and shrunk until she’d vanished, and still it wasn’t enough. But men and women loved her photos online, and women wanted to be her. If only someone could actually see her.

Anxiety knotted cold in Mel’s chest. She glanced to the scale by the sink, and walked away. For the first time in years, she made herself not weigh in at the end of the day.

The was the day she’d gone rummaging through her books of spells and rituals, trying to remember what she’d done all those years ago, looking for the way to reverse it. She didn’t want to be someone else’s glossy magazine photo anymore. She wanted to remember who she was, who she had been. And see that person again.

She’d built her original spell upon a series of rituals. The bathroom scale had been the first to go. Social media had soon followed. As time and money allowed, she slowly swapped her skin tight clothes out for more loose and flowing garments. Things that could grow with her, instead of restrict and bind her. And every night she took her tiny candle lantern into the darkness, and spoke with the world around her. Other people seemed oblivious to her, but slowly the natural world began to breathe, expand, retract, and surround her. Her oak tree was the first to share awareness with her. Then the insects.

And tonight? Night blooming jasmine scented the breeze as she stared after the retreating form of her neighbor. She could swear the old woman had seen her, if only just for a moment. Perhaps she’d be the cause for someone else’s ghost sighting story. Hope flickered bright though, matching the sputtering, dancing between the candle flame and the phoenix fae. She leaned further into the tree and smiled, glancing from the candle down to the mole cricket that had hopped onto her knee. Her new rituals were slow going, but she hadn’t achieved invisibility overnight. Coming back to the world around her would take time. But she had the rituals now, and she’d reconnected with the magical world around her. It was only a matter of time before the human world would see her again, too.