by Tanai Walker
Juliette arched her back and danced in a tight circle; she shed another piece. This continued until seven swaths had fallen to the ground and she was completely naked. By then the music had reached a wild rhythm.
A dozen or so sisters stood on either side of her. She danced away from them, but they crowded her, shielding her from my sight. In the light of the fire, I saw them all dance a slow, choreographed struggle that disturbed me.
The fire burned brighter and higher, seeming to take on a life of its own. Once it reached a certain height, it bent over like a sapling too weak to hold its own weight.
“She comes,” Quinn said and placed the mask on my face.
A sudden wind whipped the flames of the fire into a wild frenzy. It seemed to stretch miles into the star-filled sky and burn as bright as the sun. On the ground, sparks lit the grass as if thousands of lightning bugs had lit amongst the blades. I shivered at the sight.
The beast took over my body in just a few bone-crunching, muscle-tearing minutes of agony that caused me to feel nauseous. My first full transformation. I writhed in the grass like a slug doused with salt.
Quinn backed away, her eyes on me, the crop and whip in her hands.
The strange wind picked up. Claimed by agony, I watched the Sisters crouch low as tendrils of fire whipped over their heads.
Then the beast was up. The pain was gone. Quinn stepped in front of the beast, brandishing her crop and flail. They frightened me on a truly primal level. The beast hated and feared them at once. It lowered itself to the grass and growled.
The sparks in the grass rose into the air. They lit the face of my aunt, Quinn Tinsley, Sister of Ash, tamer of the beast. She circled slowly, crouched low, her steps slow and deliberate.
The beast leapt at her. Quinn lashed out and dodged with the grace of a bullfighter. The other members backed away, their frightened faces blurred in the firelight. Quinn lunged again; this time, her weapons made contact. They burned the beast. She struck the beast again, and things went black.
I woke seven days later in the chapel. Quinn stood over me in her red kimono. Neither of us said a word as she stooped and draped me in a very large towel and led me out of the chapel. The daylight stung my eyes.
Quinn put me in a tub of warm water and began to wash my back. I cried a little more as flashes of memories from the past week flickered through my brain. I remembered the voice that had spoken to me through the fire and shivered.
Quinn moved to look at my face. She smiled wanly.
“Why do we hold her captive?” I asked. “Why did we have to take what is hers?”
Quinn bit her lip worriedly. “She spoke to you.”
“Who is she?”
“A goddess, a willful spirit who will do what she can to take the beast from you,” Aunt Quinn explained. “She cannot hurt you.”
She helped me out of the tub, as docile as a lamb. She dried me, dressed me, and put me to bed. I sank into the soft mattress.
“What have you done to me?” I said.
“You must stop this.” She leaned over me. “What is done is done. The memory of it will fade, and one day you will be able to see Juliette again.”
The thought of her did little to comfort me. “Can you undo this?”
Quinn closed her eyes and sighed. “No, Tinsley.”
“Will this happen to me forever?” I asked and tried to get out of bed. She held me there.
“Every seven years when we burn the great pyre, you will transform. It will last for seven days,” Quinn said. “As the years go by, this will get better for you, and we will always be here to help you.”
I gave up my fight and sobbed. “What if you don’t light the fire?”
“We must in order to keep this world safe.”
“I didn’t get to say good-bye to Juliette. It’s not fair to rip us apart like this.”
Quinn smiled. “Look at you, Tinsley. You’ve changed so much in a short time, and now you carry within you a great power.”
“It doesn’t belong to me.”
Quinn leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Sleep. You need rest now.”
I slept again, but woke in the night thirsty. I drank from the bathroom sink and then undressed to bathe. I happened to look at my backside in the mirror and saw the tattoo. At once, I saw a flash of frightened faces, the whites of the eyes of the horses as they reared in terror, and I heard the fire-voice demanding what was hers.
I looked at my reflection. “You should have taken it and left me alone.”
In the quiet of the night, I bathed and dressed. I found my knapsack that I used to pack my summer reading. Those books seemed so ridiculous to me then, trifles. I put an extra shirt, underpants, my toothbrush, and Tylenol for my pains in that backpack, then went down to the library. From under the desk lamp, I removed the cover of Justine and replaced it with one from a copy of Leaves of Grass.
Downstairs, I stole the keys to the Buick. As I had with Juliette, I coasted out of the drive and started the engine when I was far enough out of hearing range.
I was only a child, running home to my mother and father. In the months that followed, what I told my parents ripped my family apart. My mother killed herself one night that December, just a few days before Christmas.
Quinn came to her funeral, though she had fled the country with several American members of the Sisterhood. She looked as if she had aged twenty years, and her clothes billowed around her. When one of my father’s brothers asked her to leave, she caused a scene. When she saw me watching, she shouted, “What have you done, Tinsley? What will you take from me next?”
She left the country before the trial, abandoned Salacia. For years after, I imagined her somewhere with Sophie and Juliette. As for my first lover, I never spoke of her to my father or the therapists he sent me to. It was my way of protecting her, my way of apologizing for taking away her beloved Sisterhood.
I forgot about Juliette, and I forgot about the goddess in flames demanding what was hers. I forgot the horses mangled in their stalls. I forgot about changing into a beast. I forgot that night when Juliette danced naked before a pyre of flames.
Every now and then, I would slide those postcards from that book so deceptively covered. The beast came to me every seven years. I went to Salacia and shut myself in the house. Except for work, I kept to myself. In my twenties, there was the occasional woman, but I never let her into my life. In my thirties, I fully embraced my solitude. I had my career, my postcards. I eventually built my secret room in my fortress on Valentine Street, and for good measure, I built one around my heart.
Chapter Eleven
They took me to a house in an old but well-kept neighborhood of Houston. Claudio carried me into a small stucco-covered house. Inside, several young women lounged around in their summer clothes, listening to obnoxious pop music. They didn’t seem to notice my arrival until Leda stepped in behind us.
“Everyone. Get the fuck out of here,” she said.
A chorus of disagreement bubbled forth from the young women as they gathered their handbags and smartphones to leave. Claudio dumped me on a vacated couch and lumbered out of the house with the others.
Leda didn’t say a word. She only stood staring at me beneath her heavy-lidded eyes. She wore her hair in curls, but they were raven’s-wing black.
I managed to sit up a bit. My blouse had not been torn too badly in the transformation. I gathered it around me protectively.
“What happened back there?”
“It’s the beast’s nature to choose my side in this. They no longer need the beast to help them seek me out. They were going to induce the transformation and lock you away.”
My heart clenched, and tears threatened my eyes as I thought of Sandra, the kindness and tenderness she had shown me.
“How do you know this?” I asked.
Leda stood. “I’ve played this game many times before, across the ages.” She walked barefoot across the wooden floor to a portable bar stocked with various li
quors.
“Sandra pretended to care for me. She was one of the Sisterhood the whole time,” I explained. “I actually thought…”
Leda brought me a very large martini and placed it in my shaking hands. She sat next to me on the sofa and sipped from a short snifter.
“The beast is the weak point in this game,” she said. “Whoever controls the beast controls the game. Even now, with you so close, I cannot take it.”
I snorted. “I would give it to you.” I paused and took a swig of martini, eyeing her around the rim of the glass. “They say if you ever had the beast it would mean the end of the world.”
She laughed bitterly. “The end of their world. They would no longer have my power at their disposal, and I would go to the underworld, out of their reach.
“I have more than suffered for whatever transgressions I committed,” Leda said decidedly. “I deserve to return from where I came, to go back to eternity.”
Stunned, I drained my glass. I would have to eat soon or else be sick.
“Would that mean danger to this world?”
“The physical world has pleased me greatly over the centuries. I feel like I’m one of the last patrons of humankind, and I would never see harm come to it. Even if it meant my sacrifice.” She took my hand. “Come and I will show you.”
We went down a short hallway to the back of the house to a darkened room with a bed and a stand with a mirror on top. I heard a drawer open, and Leda placed a bundle of soft fabric in my hands. Another shirt. I rid myself of the torn one and put the new one on.
Leda opened a door that led to a deck built around a towering pecan tree. There were a few chairs with cushions strewn about, and two short glass tables. A high wooden fence surrounded the area.
Leda kneeled in front of a terra-cotta chiminea and directed me to do the same. With a fireplace lighter, she lit the contents of the open belly. As the flame began to grow, I saw that her tinder was a ball of dried flowering plants and herbs on a pile of sticks. There was something holistically primal about the fire. I smelled sage as a thin column of smoke rose from the vent on top.
Leda stared into the flame. The glow from the fire seemed to infuse her skin. She turned to me, and I saw that a light did radiate beneath her skin, a flickering orange light as if her blood were on fire.
After a moment, she looked back into the chiminea.
I did the same. The edges of the world blurred as if I were moving in a fast car, and I found that the world around us had changed. The little terra-cotta fireplace was a great, roaring head of stone, and tongues of flame issued from its fanged mouth.
I looked back to Leda, and in her place saw walls made of stones and a doorway of large blocks in a primitive post and lintel. Night waited beyond, and more stars than I have ever seen in the sky. I heard a voice and turned to see a procession of brown-skinned people. The women among the group were young and wore white linen robes that left little to the imagination. The men were older and shaved bald. One of them wore a tall crown of hammered gold. They were adorned with various gold cuffs and jeweled collars. They carried bowls of fruit, and grain, and raw meat.
Leda walked out to greet them. Her robe was dyed black but was sheer enough to reveal the silhouette of her breasts and the press of her nipples. The robe opened to reveal a golden girdle. She carried a flail in one hand, a crook in the other.
In the polished reflection, I saw myself as the beast with the face of a lioness with a crown of seven horns, the body and tail of a dragon, and four legs, the back ones stouter and longer than the front, which had almost ape-like digits but clawed.
I crouched low next to Leda. The smell of incense prickled my nostrils. More interesting to me were the smells of the people in the procession. They began to file forward past the older man and shuffle toward the table, on which they each placed a gift of fruit, meat, golden beads, or blue stones. They kept their eyes downcast except to steal second glances, as if looking directly at Leda was forbidden.
The old man gestured to the table and spoke his ancient language in a reverent tone.
Leda spoke back in the lilting tongue. The old man closed his eyes serenely and nodded in a low bow. As Leda continued to speak, her tone grew grave, her voice echoed throughout the stone room.
The fire blazed brighter as she spoke, stirred by a sudden chilly breeze. The white robes of the procession billowed as they all fell to their knees and pressed their foreheads to the floor. The old priest lowered himself to the floor. He was pleading now, his voice shaking.
All the while, I paced and prowled a tight space near Leda, tethered to her side by an unseen chain, excited by her anger. I shivered and shook. The chain snapped and I was upon the old priest, my black claws tangled in his white robe, tearing his skin and staining it red with his blood.
I startled to present day and saw that the fire in the chiminea was nothing but dying cinders. Leda was still next to me, watching. I felt at once thrilled and sickened by what I had seen.
“That is what we were, the beast and I, my familiar. People worshipped and feared me. I gave and I took at my own whim.” She closed her eyes, the memory sweet to her.
“Such power, Tinsley, and it was taken from me.”
I shook my head. “That’s not what I wanted.”
She touched my hand. “I know.”
“We should get out of here,” I told her. “Anywhere in the world you want to go. I’ll take you there.”
She smiled. “There is something I must do here first.”
“What?” I asked.
She looked back into the fire. “Tomorrow is the pride parade.”
“The pride parade?” I stood.
Leda extended her hand and looked up at me. “I have a plan. Something that will help us in our flight.”
I helped her to her feet and she snuggled close. “Would you be mine tonight, Tinsley?”
“What?” I asked, not sure if I wanted to bring myself to comprehend what she was asking of me. My stomach growled, and I thanked the heavens that other parts of me couldn’t express their desires.
She laughed. “I could be yours. Certainly.”
I moved away from her. “The transformation takes a lot out of me. I need to rest.”
She followed. “I know just the place to take you.”
We walked to a Thai place a few blocks away in a little storefront. The place was even smaller than the outside suggested, and misty with food and smoke. A few patrons ate or puffed from hookah pipes. I wondered if the owners knew about the city ordinance against smoking. The staff seemed to know her, and they began to bring out food right away, deep-fried bread with a spicy chicken mixture on top, grilled strips of beef in a spicy glaze, and a soup of shrimp in a coconut milk broth. Even though I had never tried Thai food before, I was ravenous. I ate everything while she smoked from a hookah pipe and drank glass after glass of rice whiskey straight.
“Don’t you have to eat?” I asked as I scarfed down a noodle stir-fry.
“No,” she said. “It doesn’t bring me any pleasure.”
“Is that how you get by?” I asked. “Pleasure?”
She took a pull of smoke from her pipe and blew it away. She lifted her eyes and gestured with her chin behind me. I turned to see Juliette of all people, and Sandra two steps behind her. I turned around to face Leda again. She sat smoking calmly.
They came to our table dragging two chairs with them. I tried to stare daggers through Sandra as she sat.
“We all need to talk,” Juliette said.
“Me first,” Sandra said. She looked to me. “Tinsley, I never meant to hurt you. I have a distant aunt who found me in eighty-six. She’s a member of the Sisterhood. My family goes back pretty far.”
“When were you going to tell me?” I asked.
Juliette opened her mouth to speak, but Sandra raised a hand to silence her. “Think about it. None of the sisters who ever carried the beast turned away from their duties, none of them ever heard the Lost Goddess
speak to them from the fire, and none of them ever found pictures of her.”
“She set it all up,” Juliette growled, pointing her finger at Leda who, in reply, let out a short stream of fragrant smoke. “She’s had you under some kind of glamour all these years.”
She reached into her jacket and removed my postcards, the two of Leda. She slapped them unceremoniously on the table. Leda raised her eyebrows as her gaze wavered between her likeness in black and white, in repose and in armor.
“You broke into my house.”
“You’re not seeing,” Sandra pleaded and placed a hand over the postcards. “She put her spell on you before you were even properly initiated.”
“How would she do that?” I asked. “She wasn’t around.”
Sandra glared at Leda, and then at me, her eyes softening. “Just get up and come with me. I’ll take you home. Tomorrow night, you’ll change, and when it’s over, I’ll be waiting for you, just as we planned.”
Her words refreshed the realization that she had lied to me, that she had infiltrated my job, cozened and cajoled her way into my bed with her promises.
“Are you even a real designer?” I asked.
She sighed. “Honey, I’m more talented than all those hacks at OddDuck.”
I nearly smiled.
A waitress approached with a tray with a green clay tea service and four glasses. She carefully set it down. Juliette reached for the steaming teapot, and I knew something was wrong before her fingers could grasp the handle.
Leda knew as well. She hissed and floated away from the table, her violet irises bleeding into the whites of her eyes. She bowled over another small table, some chairs, and a passing elderly server.
Juliette stood and, with a flick of her wrist, tossed the contents of the pot toward Leda. Instead of tea, orange and red embers burned an arc across the space between Juliette and Leda.