The Willamette valley is defined by its decay. In winter the leaves of fall decay, in spring the roots of the growing plants decay, in summer the bodies of rodents and deer and crows and sparrows decay, and in fall the summer grasses decay. On Tim's farm, there was a special quarter acre reserved for decaying utilities. There, people from as far as Sweet Home paid Tim $10 to leave an obsolete vacuum cleaner or a leaky refrigerator on his land where they would rest, and grow moss, and be homes for lizards and snails and other brutish creatures.

Corella assumed this place was haunted. Spirits often attached themselves to objects they interacted with in life, making any type of antique store or dump prime habitat for ghosts. A week ago, when the valley fog refused to leave because the sky was warmer than the ground, she strolled by in the early morning and confirmed her suspicions, seeing shadows of beings where shadows shouldn't be. She smirked to herself and opened the door of a rusted oven, the left hinge breaking from the slight weight of her hands, oxidized particles falling to the ground. She reached into her left pocket and placed an object in the oven then scattered wormwood over the spiral burners, muttering incantations in a language her mother told her the Romans had banned seventeen hundred years prior.

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When Tim saw Kendall in the morning, he was limping and was failing in his attempts to conceal the obvious pain he was in. He shuffled like a wounded soldier with his left leg dragging and the smile he gave Tim looked like he had just swallowed a tube of wasabi. Tim asked if he was all right and Kendall nodded yes, but as they went to work weeding the raspberry patches it was obvious that Kendall was lying.

" Hey, uh, Kendall, you sure you're all, right?" Kendall pulled a wapato root and grunted in a manner similar to a man undergoing stitches without anesthetic.

" Well, now that you mention it, my knee did feel a little stiff this morning". It was forty degrees outside and Kendall was visibly sweating.

" Why don't you take the rest of the day off?"

" Sure thang sir". As Kendall walked, he looked like he would be more comfortable crawling. Tim weeded for a while longer but soon became bored, and decided to take a stroll around the farm. Sharp drops of rain pelted and tore his face like grapeshot, but Tim didn't mind. He preferred cold and painful weather to heat and sunshine. He felt it was more honest.

Rabbits scattered like refugees finding cover after the unmistakable sound of mortar when Tim passed by the patch of decaying utilities. One hopped into a rusty oven with a broken door. Tim watched the oven for a while, wanting to see it hop out again, but after two minutes it was still in there. Tim shrugged then continued walking. When he heard the scream he dove into the mud.

He arose, brown, covered in clay soil in pale imitation of the Greek's concept of man. The shriek he had heard sounded of another existence human consciousness cannot encompass. In truth it was the rabbit Tim had been watching. When it tried to scurry away its hind leg had been impaled by the fragment of a broken hinge that was still attached to the door, and it was now hanging upside down, thrashing and wriggling like a shot nutria, its front paws only centimeters from the ground. Tim walked to it cautiously and it froze.

" Hiya there, fella, just stay calm". He held his hands out and it was still frozen, its mind adhered to lands of claws and intelligent eyes, impossibly white teeth and death. When he touched the rabbit's leg it stretched its back as much as possible, trying to feel the solid mud instead of the predatory air, for the rabbit knew the ground. Tim grabbed the leg and started pulling, and the rabbit twisted around and saw the menacing, tan paw that grabbed him, that made him bleed, made him wriggle and scream for arcane and sinister purposes. He gnawed on the paw and heard a shriek beyond his herbivorous comprehension.

" Fucking little shit!" Tim saw the blood on the rabbit's maw before he saw it on his hand.

"God-damnit". The rabbit had froze again.

" Not gonna be so gentle this time buddy". Tim grabbed its neck and the back of its head then roughly pulled its hind leg from the broken oven hinge. It squirmed and Tim was afraid he would get bit again so he threw it and it landed eight feet away then ran away, limping worse than Kendall. Tim looked down at his hand.

" Fucking Christ". He took two steps forward then heard a tear. His jacket had become snagged on the same oven hinge that had impaled the rabbit. As he was detaching his jacket from the hinge he glanced in the oven, and on the first oven tray he saw a discarded irrigation hose filled with water that was slowly dripping onto a colander filled with ash on the second oven tray. On the bottom of the oven there was a foot long, mahogany colored doll. A steady dribble of water tainted with ash was falling on its knee.

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Corella awoke to her shoulders being gently shook and the sensation of a wet doll being placed in her hands. When she opened her eyes she saw Tim looking down at her, his timidness once again overcoming how disturbed he felt over the events he had just experienced.

" Why do you have a voodoo doll of Kendall?" Corella tried to rub the sleep from her eyes.

" Be careful, you could have killed him". Tim snorted nervously.

" Ok". He picked at his fingernails.

" Can we talk about this?" Corella nodded.

" Let me shower first". Tim watched her saunter to the restroom and had a growing sense of unease over her blithe attitude towards the doll. He went downstairs and made both of them coffee, leaving the doll on the bedside table in case Kendall limped into the kitchen and saw it. Corella came down wearing a red dress that accented her grey hair and the gold flakes in her eyes. She took the coffee without saying a word and held up a finger to Tim, signaling that she didn't want him to talk until she did. She took a long sip then set the cup down. Tim noticed the absurd pentagram that the ceramicist had engraved in Corella's mug.

" So. The doll. It is simple to know why for those who have the eye, but you don't, so I'm not sure if I can explain it to you". Tim smirked exasperatedly.

" I'm all ears". Corella sighed, and Tim's fear of Corella's irritation and anger was overcome by his dull, midwestern rage and his need for elucidation over why Corella was trying to harm his only employee.

" For those who have the eye, it is clear to see that Kendall is branded with spiriti cattivi e maligni". Tim nodded.

" You said that". Tim was trying Corella's patience with that interruption.

" Now, these spiriti have ways of attracting other spiriti, some that would be harder to control than Kendall", Corella paused " or Alex". She took another sip of coffee and Tim's uneasiness grew.

" So I tried to see if I could weaken Kendall and his spiriti. I don't know if it worked or not, because these rituals are hard to complete, even for a strega as dedicated as myself". Tim thought of Kendall this morning, sweating, almost in too much pain to work. He decided not to tell Corella about this.

" Why didn't you make one of Alex?" Corella laughed and her eyes betrayed her maliciousness. She shook her head, then said

" Alex can't be controlled in the same way Kendall can. His spiriti familiari wouldn't allow something like that to happen to one of their descendants. Kendall, on the other hand", and she glanced mischievously at Tim, " his spiriti familiari would, because if they didn't he wouldn't even be on this continent". Tim swallowed spit that had become embedded in the back of his throat, and thought of what he should say. He couldn't bear Corella angry. She would throw dishes at him then leave for weeks and he suspected that she slept with other men, though he never asked her because he was too afraid of the answer. On the other hand, he had spent almost all of his adult life with anarchist groups fighting (albeit mostly unsuccessfully) the intertwined hydras of patriarchy, elitism, racism, unfettered biopower, unnecessary consumerism, environmental degradation, all supported by the unwieldy body of capitalism. He had suspected Corella had out of style racial opinions for a while, but forgave her that, for despite all his struggles and private virtue signals and despite how wrong he knew his opinions were he was also unable to comprehend black people as fully human, with as many flaws, virtues, contradictions and complexities and idiosyncrasies as their white counterparts. He knew he should, but he also knew he and Corella were alone, and if he chastised her for opinions that, deep down, he shared, she would see through his hypocrisy and become angry, and leave him, and he would spend the next few weeks mired in depression and worry. He swallowed again and his smile was grotesque and uncomfortable.

" Well, have you tried?" Corella was breathing heavily through her nose and Tim prayed he had said the right words.

" You insist on doubting those who have the eye. Spiriti familiari are not forces to be ignored". But you ignore Kendall's, Tim thought to himself.

" Ok. You're right. I don't have the eye, I don't know how this stuff would work". Tim would regret his next words.

" But, I need Kendall for the farm. So, I know he may have spirity cavity, but can you please stop trying to harm him? Isn't there any other spell, or incantation, or potion that you could give him that could get rid of the spirits without harming him?" Tim heard the mug breaking on his forehead before he felt the hot coffee dribbling into his eyes or the sharp sting of his stress lines being cut by the glazed ceramic.

" Piccola Stronza!" For the next few minutes, all that the mice and the rats and the fruit flies that resided in the house could hear were dishes breaking and Italian and English and heathen curse words.

" And don't call me!" The door slammed and Corella strode angrily in her red dress, her right hand holding the keys to Tim's newly repaired truck, her left holding Kendall's doll. Tim looked forlornly from the window, watching the tires spew mud as Corella shifted clumsily from parked to neutral to first to second. A clod of soil hit Kendall, who was in the parking lot, and his face turned from surprised to angry as he looked down at his muddy shirt back to surprised when he looked and saw Tim, cut and bruised, standing alone in the kitchen.

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" My knees feelin' a lot better". Tim sighed and pressed the bandage to his forehead.

" I'm glad to hear that".

" You and the shawty fightin?'". Tim nodded.

" Well, shit happens sometimes. Like my gramma always said, if she loves you she'll come back". Tim shook his head.

" We've fought before but this time–man, I don't even know what I did". Kendall looked down, and contemplated how it took Tim being beaten and assaulted for him to talk to a black man without being awkward. He made the conscious decision to talk blacker to Tim than he would have usually otherwise because, from experience, he had learned that being talked to as if you're a brother often cheered white people up.

" Hey man, bitches be caught up on some suss shit sometimes. If you wasn't seeing a side chick, if you wasn't being sneaky, I don't see no reason why she wouldn't come back. Come on now". Kendall patted Tim on the back.

" I got some green in my car if you want to share". They walked to Kendall's car but brought the weed inside and smoked it in the living room. Corella always hated when I smoked inside, Tim thought to himself vindictively. Alex (who always had a knack for appearing in places where weed was being split) passed by the living room window with an expression similar to a dog begging for food and Kendall stared at him menacingly and Tim shook his head no. Alex pretended he hadn't even looked at them and walked back to his tent. He watched videos on primitive shelters and drank hard liquor and drifted off in an alcoholic daze. He awoke around Nine P.M. to the all too human sound of someone grabbing a chicken....

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Tim enjoyed porn but never got the opportunity to watch it when Corella was at home. After Kendall left, he took advantage of the absence that her anger had caused and watched the kinkiest stuff that a stoned middle aged farmer could think of. After he was done he thought of him and Corella.

The first time he saw her, she was at a protest in Seattle, with an endangered Blue Macaw perched on her arm. She was pointing her finger and chanting "shame, shame, shame" to the W.E.F. death squads, standing defiant as those around her fell choking, grasping the unforgiving seattle cement, her eyes bleary from the tear gas but still focusing on those who treat the world as something to be conquered and divided. The pigs broke the line and Tim knew all too well how brutal the blows from batons can be so he dove in front of the proud woman and fought, for he felt that once she was broken they were all broken.

Later, in the holding cell, he got to know her. Her name was Corella and she was from Albany, New York. Her parrot's name was Freddy and she was into a lot of the same wow wow and astrology that held a grip on fringe leftists, and Tim pretended he was into that as well. They were released on bail and since Corella didn't have a car Tim drove her to the shelter she was staying at in his newish F-350. He gave her a couple quarters and she promised to call him.

After a month Tim had almost forgotten about her and was surprised to hear her voice on his answering machine. She was in Eugene for awhile and was wondering if he wanted to meet and go for a walk by the river. They met, and talked, and she wasn't fiery and belligerent. Rather, she looked tired.

She told him about her homelessness, how the police had taken Freddy away and wouldn't give him back without proof of residency, how her mother had recently passed and none of her other family would take her in because of " her mother's controversies", how cold it was living in a tent in the late autumn, how she had to trade her earrings for a knife for protection. Tim was moved and offered her a place to stay. She glanced up at him forlornly, as if already seeing all their battles, the pain their love would cause both of them, and accepted.

Life with Corella could not be easy. She was demanding and had standards so high that Tim could not physically do anything but fall short. At the same time, she could be very caring and tender. She would always make Tim's bed and iron his clothes even when he told her they didn't need to be ironed. When she earned money selling various crystals and bird seed she would buy bottles of wine for him and take Tim out to restaurants and brunch spots both of them couldn't afford.

Really hasn't changed at all, Tim thought to himself. Their first fight took place when they had already been living together for a year. It was over Tim refusing to pay the utility company on principle which led to their power being cut off and the landlord evicting them. She swore at him, called him unrepeatable names, then left. He didn't hear from her again for a couple weeks. She stayed with friends on a commune and he stayed with friends on a separate commune and they ran into each other during an equinox party. She refused to speak with him at first but he pleaded and said he was sorry and the makeup sex was the most passion Tim ever felt.

She'll come back. Tim wasn't sure if she would. Or if he should take her back. She had never hurt him like this before. And over nothing! Over him not wanting her to hurt Kendall. He opened tabs he had copy and pasted into an innocuous word document then started jacking off furiously.

His favorite moment with her was a few years ago. They had gone to a city hall in Eugene to complain about unnecessary regulations on fence height ( Why can't they be over six feet? A deer can jump clear of a six foot fence so it renders them useless) and when they entered it had been raining, and when they exited the rain had ceased. When they were walking to his car, she pointed out how the orange street lights and the faux skyscrapers that populate downtown were reflected without any error in the puddles in the alley.

" Yeah?" Tim smiled like a mischievous child then, on impulse, ran full speed through the deepest and longest puddle, and the reflection of the buildings and the lights were disturbed, and Corella was bent over laughing, and when she looked up, free and unguarded and familiar, Tim felt fifteen, and life was thrilling and mysterious, and they're future was unending and bright and as perfect and precarious as a reflection in a puddle.