by K.N. Lee
"Michelle," he said quietly eyes finding one of the figures on the table to stare at. It was easier than looking at this woman who had every reputation of being a witch. Yet as he sat in her living room, he couldn't think of her as a witch. Instead, she was just an old woman with an old woman house who seemed to understand in a way he didn't understand himself. "I think I love her. I don't know if she loves me back."
"How long have you waited to tell her?"
"A year."
"Why?"
"She's perfect."
"All lovers say things like that," Mother Sky chided him lightly. "Once upon a time someone said that about Helen of Troy and the goddess Aphrodite, and yet they were loved by men. Perfection is no bar for love."
The Mother turned a ring on her hand and rose from her seat to take his face in her hands and look into his eyes. He shrank back and then caught in her gaze relaxed. As she looked into him, she saw the threads. They were some thin, nothing more than suggestions, others were like ropes, nearly chains holding him to someone else. Mother Skya followed each in his soul, seeing the people responsible for creating them. His parents, both of them still alive, reclined quietly on a porch somewhere the sun had yet to set. A woman who shared a familial resemblance played on the floor with a little girl who also looked as though she were family. A sister perhaps. Then there was the woman who had the brightest thread, it glittered with emotion suppressed. This woman was surrounded with light as she moved through a dancehall on the arm of an older man.
Mother Skya reached out and tugged on the connection, feeling its attachment holding fast in the woman as well. They were bonded and the bond was true.
"She loves you or rather will once you make the effort to love her."
Returning to her living room, Mother Skya found herself feeling light and weak, as though her bones had taken on the nature of birds, completely hollow.
The young man lurched forward to grab her as she started to slip toward the floor, supporting her slight weight easily. He half-led, half-carried her back to her chair and helped her to resettle in it.
"Are you all right?"
"Yes, it just takes some strength to see what I must see to know what you would know. Perhaps I'm getting entirely too old for this sort of thing." Then she chuckled before patting his hand. "Thank you very much, young man. Now why don't you go talk to your pretty lady and let her know exactly how you feel? There's no time like the present to go make love and go forward into your life."
He smiled. It was one of the many smiles she had seen over the years brought on by the arrival of good news. It was the reason she did this. The reason she had taken the ring when it was given to her so many years previously. Overcome with emotion, he kissed her gently on the cheek.
"Thank you. Thank you."
All thoughts of her being a witch disappeared beneath the thoughts of Michelle and holding her in his arms. He let himself out, closing her door behind him. Mother Skya listened to him as he made his way down the old staircase to the street. He must have been on the pavement when she heard him let out a great howling whoo which only made her smile harder.
Her eyelids fought their own weight and she started to rise from the chair. Then she sat back, one hand coming to her chest and pressing hard against the deep blue fabric of her shirt trying to find her heart beneath it. With a gasp, she tried again to rise unsuccessfully.
The darkness of death slipped around her vision, wrapping her in velvet and dulling the flashing net of pain radiating from her heart.
Melina had become used to the feeling which occasionally sat on her shoulder and told her something was coming. Sometimes it was a hummingbird, it came and went so quickly she knew it wasn't anything which really required her attention. On that day, it settled with the weight of a bald eagle, and nuzzled her hair with a certainty which kept her looking around every corner for something to happen. When the ring began to warm and even itch during her third period French class though, she knew something very big was coming. She asked to be excused to the bathroom and rushed her way through the halls, one step down from running.
When it first began to chuckle, then laugh she was glad to be standing in a stall in the Girl's bathroom alone. Especially when suddenly she wasn't standing in the Girl's bathroom. Instead, she was in a living room. Three chairs. A coffee table. A television set which had been current sometime in the 50's. The entire place smelled of cinnamon. Not that Melina minded. A woman sat in one of the chairs, her silver hair hanging down her shoulders. Her eyes were closed, but without a thought, Melina knew she was dead. Perhaps it was the blue-gray smoke issuing from her lips that Melina recognized as being for her. Or maybe it was simply her senses becoming more acute to the feeling of Death as it settled on a previously living body. Either way, she moved toward the woman, opening her mouth to take in the smoke.
A heavy hit snapped against her side and threw her into a wall. The rest of the creature Canenda issued through a crack in the window to float in the living room. Melina made a face as she pulled herself back to standing.
"Really? Are we going to go through this again?" As she rose, she put her hand out for the scythe of Death and it came to her obediently. "One chance. Leave or die."
Funny how easily that phrase came to her now. Then again, a few months as the keeper of Death could make one rather sure of themselves.
The smoke man looked at her with what she could only guess were eyes before turning its attention to the woman in the chair. It wasn't interested in the smoke now hovering above the body. Instead, it reached for the body itself.
"Leave it." Melina snapped and swung the scythe at the creature. It went through most of it, pulling wisps of smoke with it, but then it clanged against something. The creature winced and ran away, retreating out of her reach. Obviously he was more interested in the body than fighting with the girl, but Melina followed him as he moved first one direction then another around the room, trying to lure her away from the body.
Getting close again, it reached for the woman's hands. Then it hissed like a tea kettle. The hands were bare. It whipped around on Melina as she came at him again. Then it swirled like a whirlwind before becoming nothing at all. Melina caught sight of a core, something in the center glowing like a disco ball. Then it was all gone. Looking at the body, Melina let the scythe drop.
"Who were you?" The question was an easy one to answer. Stepping up to the shadowy blue gray cloud of life left behind, Melina pursed her lips and sucked the smoke into her. It came willingly, eagerly. As it filled her, Melina let herself feel the impressions left behind by the soul now resting within her.
The body opened its eyes in Melina's mind and smiled.
"Hello Fellow Ring Bearer," it addressed her.
"Hello. I'm sorry about your furniture."
"What does it matter to me now? I have no more use for it." The body did not move, but it was obvious it would have gestured towards the now cracked coffee table and the dent in the wall left by the fight if it had been able. "Be wary, Ring Bearer. There are things moving now which you do not completely understand."
"What do you mean?"
"That creature seeks the lives of the Ring Bearers, perhaps it is too weak to fight you now, but it will not always be so. Be careful."
"The Ring Bearers?"
"The Immortals have gifted part of their power to certain mortals through their rings. I wore the Ring of Love. It has now gone on to another. The next ring bearer will have it soon. Protect them while they come into their power; otherwise, there will be trouble."
"How do you know this?"
"I only know what I know. You are capable of much, Bearer of Death, but not all. Seek the other Ring Bearers. Seek them before it is too late. Do not let those creatures take away the power from man. All the world pays if you do."
The woman’s eyes closed, once again becoming a lifeless body; leaving Melina alone in the broken living room.
"Well, that's interesting," Melina said, looking
down at the ring on her hand. "Take me back."
The Girl's bathroom wasn't empty when she returned. A group of older girls, lipstick stains on their teeth and cigarettes in their mouths, were congregated at the far end when she stepped out of the stall.
"Hey!"
"I don't care what you're doing, but if you get in my way, you'll regret it," Melina said quickly making for the door. Six far too red mouths stood open as she strode back out into the hall. Making her excuse to the French teacher, something about having eaten something that didn't agree with her without saying exactly what, she gathered her things and moved on to her fourth period, where she told a very similar story with a similar lack of real details. Best to keep lies as vague as possible. After all, you never knew how many lies you were going to need over the semester.
Her fourth period teacher had little or no interest in the lie anyway, preferring instead to simply go on with class as if she hadn't walked in late. Dustin made a face at her when she sat down which got a smile and a chuckle.
The rest of the day passed fairly quickly. Thankfully.
The Coven House was quiet when Melina entered and put her bag down by the door. It wasn't really necessary for her to do her homework right then, so she would get to it later. Instead, she needed to talk to Gergot. The Gargoyle was lying at the base of the stairs in the shade looking moderately displeased with things. Or maybe that was just the arrangement of his features. He didn't have a lot of facial mobility to start with and unless he was actively smiling, it was incredibly hard to tell when he was pleased at all.
"Gergot." Melina sat down on the stairs near him and called his name. He half-turned his head and opened his eyes completely.
"I need to talk to you about the Ring Bearers."
"Can't tell you a lot, but I'll tell you what I know. Would be better if you talked to Grimm about it. He knows entirely too much about the Ring Bearers and the Immortals in general."
"I'd love to talk to him about a lot of things, but you know what? He's not here. So I'm asking you."
"Stow the attitude or you can go talk to a wall," the gargoyle growled at her. "What do you need to know?"
"What is a Ring Bearer?"
"You're one. You have the Ring of Death. Do you have any better questions?"
"Is there one for every Immortal?"
"No. The Melesan never actually gave her ring to anyone so I would assume it’s still in the library somewhere."
"So Death has one. I met the woman who had the ring of love and fought a giant smoke man."
"A smoke man?"
"Yeah. He was made of smoke, but there was something in the center of him. I heard it when I hit it. Made him run from me."
The gargoyle looked thoughtful.
"Didn't you tell me you fought a woman made out of flame at one point?"
"Yeah." Melina didn't have to think much to remember the woman who had attempted to take Death's ring from her months earlier. The woman who ran at the last minute and the ring had simply started laughing. "They connected?"
"I think so. I'm pretty sure that's Cassandra and Canenda."
"I remember Uncle Peter screaming for a Cassandra when I fought him."
"Well, they're the children of the Immortal of War or Conflict if you want to go with what he really ought to be called. He lives to see the world plunged into chaos, conflict, and bloodshed. It's his goal. The others usually just keep him in check and go on about their business. He really can't affect enough people at any given time to plunge the entire world into war, just parts of it."
"So Immortals can have children?"
"Yes, it happens occasionally." The gargoyle rose from his place and shook himself like a dog, his leathery wings making their own percussion in the air as they moved. "Was there anything else you wanted to ask?"
"Is there a way to track the Ring Bearers?"
"Not that I know of, but then it’s not like this is a club where there are meetings or anything. Each of you has your own business to be about." Then he stopped. "The woman who HAD the ring of Love? Where is it now?"
"I don't know. I'm assuming its somewhere on someone's hand. It wasn't on her body."
He grunted and shook his head.
"I wish we could talk to the Melesan. She might know something we could use."
Melina folded in on herself a little at the mention of the Immortal of Knowledge. Gergot had told her about the fire in the library and how she had thrown everyone out. Now the mirrors went nowhere and she seemed to be deaf to any attempts to summon her. This was precisely why Gergot was still living at the coven house waiting for something to change. Waiting to be able to go home.
"Melina," the Gargoyle started then paused. "I have a bad feeling about this."
"I do too, Gergot, I really do."
The feeling mirrored the pre-storm moments before the first flash of lightning would split the sky, when it was just the fitful rain. This was the promise of something far, far worse. Yet she couldn't do anything but try to push it from her mind as she got up and went back into the house. There was nothing she could do about it right then. She had homework to do- and then to figure out how to find the Ring of Love.
Phoebe was standing in the living room as she moved back to the front door to pick up her bag. Her mouth was set, lips pressed over words she didn't say. Melina looked at her and then away. Her mother was not her favorite person.
"I wanted to ask you something."
"So ask," Melina replied picking the bag up off the floor.
"Have you felt anything about Grimm?"
Alion Grimm. Or just Grimm. Her father. The man who had come into her life, stayed for a total of weeks, and then disappeared again, taking the Kumon, the book of the Immortals, with him. Not Melina's favorite person either. She shook her head and hefted the bag over one shoulder.
"He's not coming back, you know that right?"
Melina regretted the words as soon as they were out of her mouth. Phoebe loved Grimm. Phoebe had given up nearly everything she was in order to save him from the consequences of their affair.
"He wouldn't just abandon us."
"You keep saying that, but the truth is that he did abandon you, didn't he?" She didn't say 'us'. She never said 'us'. Melina headed for the staircase, turning her back on the woman standing in the middle of the living room. "He turned his back on you again."
"Just like you are now, Melina."
The words brought her up short.
"You understand I love you, don't you?"
"Phoebe, I really don't want to talk about you and me right now, either. I have other things to worry about."
Sixteen had been a rough year. Seventeen wasn't exactly starting out to be any easier. Melina tromped up the stairs barely noticing Christine as the girl squeezed past her. Christine still hated her, though she did everything she could to keep it under control. One didn't really forget the death of a father at the hands of someone who was seen as lesser. And so Melina had been until she had taken up the ring of Death and saved the family from the curse which had turned them all to stone. The girl gave her as much space as she could on the staircase before disappearing into the living room herself.
In her bedroom, Melina looked at her bright red phone, willing it to ring. Willing Death to pick up from wherever he was and let her know he was ok and that things were going to be okay as well. Except he didn't call. He was lying in a coffin underneath an abandoned church. He had been there long enough for Melina to wonder if he was ever coming back. It was another thing she really didn't have time to worry about. Her homework wasn't going to do itself.
3
Back to School
The alarm clock buzzing hadn't been enough to get her out of bed. In fact, it hadn't been enough to even penetrate the sleep wrapped tightly around her. It was only when Phoebe came in, a half hour later, to turn the clock off and wake her that Melina moved. Her dream faded immediately leaving behind only a sense of foreboding like a heavy cloud over her.
"What time is it?"
"You're late," Phoebe said simply. "I'll have to get one of your Aunts to take you to school." Phoebe couldn't drive. Blindness made that sort of difficult.
"Shit."
"Language."
"Sorry." Melina was halfway to the bathroom as she apologized, trying to make sure she didn't smell like she'd skipped a shower even though she didn't have time to take one. By the time she was out of the bathroom and dressed, her Aunt Pauline was standing at the bottom of the stairs. She threw the rest of her homework, finished, in her bag and dashed down the stairs.
They didn't talk during the ride to school. Thankfully. Melina had been raised to fear her aunts, Patrica and Pauline. They, along with their brother, Patrick had been the ones to help Mother raise her. Phoebe only joined them recently. Now Patrick was dead, killed by Melina herself under the influence of the ring. Patrica and Pauline had not taking it well, though they did not make any attempt to hinder her. Instead, they simply stuck with the time honored tactic of ignoring her unless absolutely necessary. Melina always had the feeling of a mouse in the presence of a snake when left alone with either of them.
Sun City High School's front lot was quiet and empty when they pulled in and Melina climbed out.
"Thank you, Aunt Pauline."
The older woman sniffed and waited for her to close the door before she drove off.
"I really appreciate it," Melina said to the empty air. There was no use in saying it at all, but she'd always tried to be polite, especially when it came down to those who could actually turn you into a toad. Walking up the stairs, her eyes concentrating on her shoes, she might have missed her uncle, Murphey, but he gave off a similar magical aura to most of the family.
Melina was aware of him standing in the doorway. He crooked a finger at her. Obediently, she followed him into his office.