by Mark Taylor
Dina’s hands rose above her shoulders, her fingers spread, pointing them at the darkening skies. “Hand me the child,” she screamed.
Above their heads the clouds crashed together, and as each met another a thunderous roar spread across the land. Lightning pounded from the sky and the warm morning faded against a cold wind. A great feeling of power overcame Mary, power unlike that she had felt before, as if the very hand of God himself had reached out and touched her.
She was too distracted to notice the fifth member of the party arrive. It was only when Peter Johnson started to cry did she look down at the earth covering his coffin. He lay naked on the soil, holding his face, and wailing. “It worked,” she said, bending forward toward the child.
“Wait!” Excalibur exclaimed. “Is he complete?”
Dina put her hand on Mary’s shoulder and pulled her away, before bending down and taking her place. She examined the boy, looking for defects. “He seems whole. It looks like Mary fills the place. Lady,” she looked up, “go to the car and get the blanket.”
Lady marched away.
Mary couched down next to Dina, still dizzied by what traces remained of what she could only describe as all encompassing strength. “So is this,” she motioned at the headstone, “him?”
Dina nodded. “It is. He has been returned to us with a new soul.”
“So he’s not the same child as he was when he died,” Mary glanced at the date on the headstone, “last year?”
Dina nodded. “He is. Not even his mother would be able to tell that he had been there and back again.”
“What are we to do with him?” Mary asked. As she did, she looked up into the sky to see it clear once again, the sun rising over the horizon and the small wisps of white cloud hanging in the blue, as if, somehow, none of it had been real.
Lady returned with a blanket and passed it to Dina, who wrapped the young life within it. “We shall leave him here. He will be unable to carry his own weight for several hours—until his body regains strength—and in that time I have no doubt he will be found.”
“And then…?”
“It is none of our concern.”
“But will he be returned to his family?”
Dina looked Mary in the eyes. “If your son was taken from you, and a year later returned as if nothing had happened, would you not question it?”
Mary understood. You cannot give the child back. It is better that he’s taken to Family Services, and perhaps adopted.
Dina lifted the child, and the four of them started back to the two cars. On the way, Dina showed her support of Mary, stating that without her they could not have done it, and she should be able to expect the outcome of the endeavor they had yet to discuss—the dead Mary wanted to raise—to be a success. When they reached the cars, Dina lowered the child onto a wooden bench in view of the whole parking lot. She looked at Mary who was clearly still concerned. “He will be fine,” she said.
“Mary will take me to her apartment,” Dina called over to Excalibur and Lady, “you two follow behind.” She walked over to Mary’s car and positioned herself in the passenger seat.
Mary slid into the driver’s seat. “So I guess you’re with me then?” she asked.
Dina nodded silently, giving her a careful look.
“Don’t you want to know what it is that you’re getting into?” Mary asked.
“It will be acceptable…I am sure.” She smiled.
Mary kicked the car into reverse and pulled back across the lot, giving one last look to the child on the bench through the rear view mirror. She rolled the car to the entrance of the cemetery and then to a stop, waiting for Excalibur to turn their car and pull up behind. As soon as she did, Mary pulled back out onto the 254, heading back to Wichita, with the others following.
***
As Mary drove past the fields heading back into Wichita, she glanced at Dina who hadn’t felt the need to speak since they had left the Cemetery, leaving Mary to feel more than a little uncomfortable. Trying to open a conversation, she said, “I don’t think that Excalibur likes me much.”
“I would not worry. I have known her for…” Dina paused for thought, “around one hundred and twenty years, and no, she does not tolerate others well. If, however, she has decided to take to you—which she has or she would have turned the other way by now—she will help you and protect you.”
“So she likes me?”
“I said taken to you, it is quite different.”
The traffic had become heavier now—quite different to how it was when Mary had come the other way some two hours ago. SUVs had started to roll along the roads, trucks and workers starting the commute. She even needed to concentrate on the road, all the while maintaining a view on the car following—making sure that Lady and Excalibur hadn’t lost sight of them.
Mary glanced to Dina. “So will you help me?”
Dina nodded. “I expect that we will. Once we reach your apartment we will discuss the arrangements and decide how to move forward.”
Mary felt warm. It was the first time that anyone had offered help to her in over a hundred years. Sheer companionship was something she had simply done without. It felt…nice. With a small and compassionate smile on her face she looked at Dina. She looked concerned…worried even. “What is it?” Mary asked.
Dina replied with only one word. “Damned.” Her eyes were fixed firmly through the windshield on the cars in front. She squinted through the early morning light. “It is an Essence Monger.”
Mary shook her head, looking out of the car in the same direction as Dina. “What? What is?”
“There.” She pointed toward the cars in front. “Do you see that…the SUV, the one with the tarps on the roof?”
Mary nodded, “Yes, of course.” She waited for Dina to explain, and when she didn’t Mary continued, “Well…what?”
“They are not tarps.”
Mary took another look at the SUV with the black materials flapping in the wind above it. It looked smooth—like silk—and its blackness was unlike any material she had seen before. “I don’t understand,” she said, “what’s going on?”
Dina stiffened in her seat. “It is not of this world.”
Whatever it was that was attached to the SUV suddenly released. It flew through the air—seemingly carried on the wind—towards Mary’s car. The closer it got, the less likely it was to actually be carried by the wind. It spun through the air, dodged the traffic around it…aiming for Mary. It finally came to rest on the windshield of the car, removing the roads—and traffic—from the view of the occupants.
Mary didn’t know what was more disturbing: the loss of view at sixty; or the tormented face of Hell that grimaced through the glass at her. It looked like Death. Its half skinned fingers wrapped around the edges of the car—curling around the corners of the doors. It slid its face up the windshield and leered with rotten skin and through rotten teeth at her, and through the glass, and the wind, she heard its voice.
“You betrayed him…”
Mary pulled the steering wheel hard to the right, pulling the car off of the road. It spun under the sudden change of direction—and the change of surface—and ended up in the dust and dirt of the side of the roadway. Before the car had stopped moving…it was gone, and Mary leapt from the car as soon as it was stationary. She staggered backwards away from it, the yellow and brown mist spinning around her. “What was that?” she screamed. Through the fog created by the car she saw Dina get out at the same time that Excalibur and Lady pulled up next to them.
Excalibur jumped from the car. “I told you!” She shouted at Dina and pointed at Mary, “I told you we couldn’t trust her, but no, you said it was all right…you said that we needed to do this for Lady…and now what? I saw the Monger as much as you did. What now, huh? We’ve got who knows what on us, we haven’t done anything…Lady has no closure…” She slammed her clenched fist on the roof of the car, “…how is this good?”
Dina sighed as she looked at
Mary. “She is right. Just who have you wronged to bring down an Essence Monger?” She waited for an answer.
Mary looked around her—at the three of them, their stationary cars, and the vehicles that thrashed past them—and then shook her head. “I don’t know what it was…” her voice trailed away as she spoke. She had never seen anything like that before. “Where did it go? What was it?” she asked again.
“See?” Excalibur exclaimed, to which Dina raised her hand in acknowledgement, and also to silence her.
“Mary.” Dina spoke quietly—only just audible above the noise of the traffic. “Before we go any further together we should have some answers.”
Mary nodded as she watched the vehicles pass, looking to see if this Essence Monger was still here.
The three of them closed in around her. “Mary…” Dina insisted, “…concentrate.”
Mary snapped her eyes up to her, blinking away the thought of the thing that was on the hood of the car.
“I will explain later, but first you must tell me who you have wronged. The Essence Mongers only come after those that they are instructed to, or wish to take a vengeance on.” She waited for Mary to respond again, but all she could do was look back to the sky blinking in stark surprise.
“I don’t know.” Mary looked down at Dina. “I haven’t done anything…apart from the deal with Him.”
“Have you crossed Him? Is that it? Or is there something else…think.”
“Why are we…” Excalibur began, but was cut off by the hand of Dina rising to silence her again.
“Think, Mary.” Dina backed away and shooed the other two back. The three of them stepped away from her as she thought.
Mary looked to the ground, her eyes darting from side to side as she thought. “No,” she said, “there’s nothing. The deal…it was done…and my meanderings with things are never that dark. I don’t scorn people…if anything, I enrich them.”
Excalibur snorted contemptuously.
Dina glanced back to the street. “I see no profit in continuing here. Let us go on, and we will decide what to do when we reach Mary’s apartment.”
Mary shuffled—a little uncomfortably—and Lady nodded in agreement. It was only Excalibur that disagreed. “I don’t see why we should be in this position because of her.”
“It is not because of Mary that we are here, Excalibur. You would do well to remember that.”
Whatever the statement meant—and it meant nothing to Mary—it seemed to do the trick. Excalibur turned without further word and returned to her car, followed by Lady, and Dina and Mary returned to the other.
The rest of the journey back to Mary’s apartment was silent.
***
The two cars drew to a stop outside of Mary’s building and the four of them got out. Mary went straight to the door with Dina, but Lady and Excalibur held back by their car. As Mary opened the door, Dina glanced back to them, whispered, “Please wait,” to Mary, and crossed the sidewalk to them. Mary couldn’t hear what they were saying, though it sounded as if Excalibur at least, was vocalizing her displeasure once again. After a moment, the three of them joined Mary at the door. “Are we ready?” she asked.
Dina nodded, and they went inside.
In the apartment the coven took seats in the living room and left Mary to provide refreshments. “Bibit faciunt.”
She returned with a tray of glasses, handing each of them a glass, with every one of them receiving their favorite beverage.
Dina began. “Mary, as we are here now, would you please enlighten us to the endeavor? The—shall we say—arrival of an Essence Monger has put a cloud over the proceedings.”
Having emptied the tray, Mary sat on the couch next to Lady. “I made a mistake.” She looked at the floor. “Many years ago, when I was still learning what powers I do have, I was practicing the arts of transformation. I’ve mastered it now, but, then, I had to practice. It was all an accident.” She took a deep breath and sighed. “When I was in the state of another I had to fight the changes in my mind—the mental challenges that go with the transformation—and I hurt a child. I didn’t kill him, although that might have been for the best, because they went on to blame someone else for it, the woman whose face I had taken.”
Dina leaned forward from her chair. “You maimed a child whilst cloaked as another?”
Mary felt the tears rising in her. “I did.”
“And you wish us to do…what?”
“They punished her for my crime. I want to bring her back…and her husband…so that they can live the life together that they should have been able to.”
“Very admirable,” Excalibur said dryly.
Dina threw a look at Excalibur—enough to quiet her—and then turned back to Mary. “We would need to visit the burial grounds of the two of them, is that possible?” Mary nodded. “Is it in this country?”
“Yes,” Mary answered, “they are both buried in Massachusetts.”
“That only leaves the question of the Essence Monger.” She sat back in the recliner, “And you are sure that you have no idea where it came from…who sent it?”
“No, I don’t even know what it is.”
Dina sat forward again, taking a sip of her vodka. “The first time I met with one was in the winter of 1895. I did not understand what it was at the time, even after I had seen it much clearer than you have today. They are souls, sometimes roaming the lands in search of unfathomable answers, and sometimes within the contract of another…a ghost wishing to be freed…even a monster awaiting revenge. In times past, the Witch Finders would use them under promise of freedom from their jails of solitude in exchange for the whereabouts of a witch, however, that was hundreds of years ago. Not since at least seventeen hundred have I come to cross an Essence Monger that was working for a man. I have heard that today they only do the bidding of forces that we dare not cross or are trying to right a wrong against themselves. They don’t have the power that they once had.”
“But I still don’t know…”
“It spoke to you in the car.” Dina interrupted, “What did it say?”
“It said I betrayed him.”
Dina looked to Lady and Excalibur for opinions.
“I don’t trust her, and I don’t like them…not after last time…” Excalibur placed her empty glass on the coffee table, “We were nearly lost.”
“Think about Lady.” Dina moved her eyes slowly from one to the other.
“Of course,” Excalibur sat back.
Looking to Mary, Dina spoke, “As I said, it would be unusual for it to be working for a man, but you have spoken of a maimed child, a scorned husband and wife, and Him. All are a possibility. We will do what you have asked, but the Essence Monger makes it a perilous journey for you. Clearly, it is not seeking retribution with us. In order to do this, you will be placed in great danger. Do you understand?”
Mary nodded, “If it’s after me, why do you think it’s only come now?”
Dina looked at her, “It felt the power.”
IV
Mary watched Dina as she spread a white cloth over the coffee table, trying not to think about what Lady and Excalibur had done to her bedroom. They had said that they needed to rest and had disappeared from the living room in order to sleep. Whatever incantations they had done, she would hopefully be able to restore her bedroom to the way it was, later.
Dina had stayed with her and had told her that she needed to learn new ways before they could go forward…she had said it wouldn’t take long.
Dina glanced at the runes on the wall. “I see that you have the rites of the old. You need to change.”
“Are you sure that Excalibur has taken to me?” Mary asked.
“She has.”
“And Lady…she doesn’t say much…what about her?”
“Lady will speak when she has something to say.”
“Are you their leader?”
“You are full of questions, Mary,” Dina sat next to her on the couch, “perhaps y
ou should take this time to listen rather than speak.”
Mary nodded silently.
“Many years ago we changed our ways. You are still using the old, whilst we ingratiate the new. Now you must take the new. Within the old ways we never fully realized our power, it was impossible, limited…unfulfilled. Tell me, today, at the cemetery, did you not feel a power that was unlike that of which you are accustomed?”
“I did.”
“Without it, it is not possible to achieve what you ask. It is also what led the Essence Monger to us. This power is achieved in two co-dependent ways. First, and that we have already succeeded in, is aligning four of us together. The second is to embrace the learnings of Ridian.”
“Ridian?”
“Ridian was a most humble yet powerful alliance of the craft many hundreds of years ago. He taught us to see the way. I met him—if only briefly—in my travels over the Mountains of Himalaya. The true divide of power lies not in the incantations, or,” Dina waved over to the runes, “in such baubles, but in the mind. In the true belief of what it is we seek.”
“I don’t understand.” Mary shook her head.
“Put simply, your runes, your words, mean nothing. They are only a way for you to channel your energy.”
“But the three of you spoke—you all chanted.” Mary frowned as she questioned Dina.
“Only for your benefit. It was clear to us that you had no experiences like ours, and we required you to join with us. It was successful. Now I wish to enlighten you, make you our fourth for a time, rather than the crutch that you currently are.”
Excalibur walked out of the bedroom in the late afternoon followed by Lady, and they waited by the door. They watched as Mary and Dina held their hands out facing each other, holding a ball of light suspended in the air between them. Dina was quietly muttering support to Mary. She stopped, the light disappeared, and she acknowledged the two of them.