by Graham Joyce
How could he argue? "It'll never work, Maggie. Alex would never, forgive me. Haven't I encouraged you enough? Made you ill with it?"
"You can persuade Alex for me."
"Me? He's not going to listen to me!"
"You owe me."
Alex, as predicted, hit the roof. Maggie had persuaded Ash to wait with her until he returned from work. She sat her husband down and told him.
"Is this your fucking idea?" he snarled at Ash.
"No, it's mine. Ash was firmly against it. But he's agreed to help me if I'm determined to go ahead. Which I am."
"It's not going to happen."
"You can't stop it."
"I'll stop it. Whatever it is you do, I'll be there. I'll stop it. It's lunacy! Sheer lunacy!"
"Then we'll simply go somewhere else to do it."
"Does De Sang know about this?"
"What do you care about De Sang? You don't value his opinion."
"He won't allow it! He simply won't tolerate it!"
Maggie took hold of Alex's hand and spoke to him, calmly and gravely. "Alex, the days when you have the last word are over. You have to understand that, or all of this will have been for nothing. I'm still here because I love the children and I think that there is still a possibility for us. But the way we were before is over. It has to be. There will be times when I have to decide what's best for me, and you'll have to accept that. We're moving forward or not at all."
Ash had been sitting quietly listening to this exchange. "Can I say something?"
Alex looked at him. "No, you fucking can't! You've done your piece to get Maggie in this state! Maggie is my wife, not yours, and while we're talking you'll just keep your fucking mouth shut."
"Can you leave us, Maggie?" said Ash.
Maggie let go of Alex's hand and went out. Alex scrambled to his feet.
"WHERE ARE YOU GOING? GET BACK HERE!"
The door clicked softly behind her. Alex was left red-faced and impotent.
"Are you going to sit down?" said Ash.
"No, I'm not."
"Fine. Then I'm going to stand up." Ash did so, and took two steps toward Alex. He had a height advantage of at least four inches. Alex tensed.
"She's decided she must do this thing," said Ash.
"I don't have to listen to any of this."
"You're going to listen to it all. And if you don't, I'm going to walk in there after Maggie and I'm going to take her away from you. Which I could do."
"Don't flatter yourself."
Ash took a step closer. "Want to put it to the test?"
Alex looked away.
"I could go in there now and she would come with me. And nothing would make me happier than to have an excuse to take her away from you. A lot of this is down to you. Now you have a choice. You let her do what she's going to do anyway, or you lose her for ever. Simple. Now, are you going to make that choice?" Ash could see that he already had. "And don't think about bleating to De Sang about this. He doesn't need to know."
Ash called Maggie back into the room. "I've managed to persuade Alex to accept this course of action. He won't stand in your way."
Alex had tears in his eyes. "What if you die, Maggie? What if you die?"
"I'm not going to die."
FORTY-FIVE
The final ritual was to be conducted at Ash's house, in his study. This was not merely to spare Alex's feelings. There it was that they'd conducted the early, successful flying experiments and the room was charged with positive associations. Maggie persuaded Ash that flying would be enough. Flying was to knowledge, she said again, as shifting was to power. In any event, Maggie couldn't face the depredations of the shifting again, and Ash would have nothing to do with it; the flying was itself terrifying enough, and Maggie knew it would take them where they wanted to go.
They were fastidious in their preparations, trying to recreate exactly the conditions which had blessed their early experience. The process was begun at dusk: incense was set to smoulder in brass bowls, red and white candles were lit. Separately they took a purifying, aromatic bath. The only thing absent was the aphrodisiac tea and the love scent. Maggie certainly didn't want to complicate what was already a confusion. As before, she wore an engraved copper talisman round her neck. Ash also wore one.
Ash was a knot of anxiety, but in Maggie he found a focus of resolution. Even so, she was sensitive to his anxiety. "You don't have to join me, Ash."
"It's all right."
"You could simply watch over me."
"It'll be all right."
The hour came. They slipped off their dressing gowns and stepped into the rope circle. Maggie closed it behind her. They were naked but for their talismans. They dipped their fingers in the bowl of water and made the banishments: I have purified myself and my heart is filled with joy. I bring gifts of incense and perfume. I anoint myself with unguents to make myself strong... They watched each other apply the flying ointment. Ash had an erection which wasn't there the first time round. Maggie had the bloom of perspiration on her; Ash was sweating heavily. She leaned across to him and kissed him full on the lips. Grant me the secret longings of my heart.
Ash sat cross-legged, his erection bobbing angrily, stimulated by the tingling heat of the flying ointment. They'd pretended to each other, tacitly, that it wasn't going to happen; but in a moment she was lowering herself onto him. The moment eclipsed all external considerations. Both could feel the heat of the flying ointment inside and out. Ash made love to her as though it might be his last time on earth, and she writhed in his arms like a bitten serpent. They were already hallucinating in each other's arms before orgasm catapulted them almost into loss of consciousness. Ash saw their bodies replicate, locked in an endless procession of loving and birthing, a girdle of light spinning from their glowing, corporeal and coupled form, spreading round the planet; Maggie saw it as an unbroken scallop of light, an eternal caravan of reincarnation fanning from the circle and sourcing from this act of love. His hot seed was inside her, running like the mercurial thoughts firing in her brain, each seed a ball of energy she could ride to take them anywhere she wanted to go.
Maggie passed out of consciousness and came to in that familiar, timeless grey corridor. Ash was there. Grey and black geometric shapes drifted by, fracturing, reforming. The helping face appeared. Maggie promised a gift, and the face changed to become the parting in the grey corridor. This time the parting revealed nothing but an ethereal light. She moved toward the light and Ash wanted to follow her. She made him understand he couldn't come with her; that he must wait behind, stay and safeguard a way back for her. They were beyond speech. She was unable to explain. She waved him back, turned and stepped...
Into the turquoise light! Swimming, flying in the turquoise light! The light of far memory. Far memory. And she sits in a chair, in the middle of a room she should know. She is waiting. They are coming for her, but she no longer has any fear. She has placed herself beyond terror, with her secrets, which are also safe. Only she knows where they are, hidden behind a fireplace boarded with wood, where they will never look. She sits, patiently waiting, knowing of their approach, sensing that they are close. It is summer and the smell is high. Odours of decomposition and sadness, from within the house. Her dog and two cats lie decomposing in the kitchen. Flies are thick in number. She herself is starving, but she cannot eat. She has placed herself beyond hunger.
There comes the hammering on the door. Again. Then a splintering of wood as they force their way in. Oh, Bella. The splintering noise becomes a ripping sound, like a tearing not of cloth but of the ethereal light as she is flung again—into the turquoise light!
And she is no longer Bella, and they have her at the gibbet and the rope sore round her neck the gibbet, and the gibbering crowd. Faces. She recognizes faces in the crowd. The light goes out as the hood falls over her head, her legs kicked away and she swings, oh swings, and the small crowd gasps and is silenced, for her neck has not snapped, only burned on the hemp rope,
and she swings, choking, and there is a rumour and consternation from the crowd, and they cut her down.
The Scottish way, they say, they will the Scottish way, and they parade her bare-breasted and carrying the brands of the irons on her breasts, as they taunt and spit. She is carried to the place in the square where she sees them, bundling faggots high in the place of burning.
And again faces she should know. The women bundling the faggots high, she knows them! Two red-headed women, and another old woman with loose skin at her throat like a turkey's wattles.
The old woman spits at her as she draws near, curses her, pushes her toward the pile of faggots. Confusion. Betrayal. The men leave off her and let the women take up the cry, spitting, cursing, and this old woman is among the most vicious, though drawing close and talking to her roughly, and under cover of this action presses something into her hand. Here, little sister, she says in a whisper, an under-breath that betrays her own fear, here, little sister. And it is a pressing of the herb dwale, belladonna, which will be her only relief from the flame. She is comforted in her torment, knowing her sisters have not abandoned her; she bends double in disguise of swallowing the dwale and the old woman pretends to cuff her and heap curses upon her head.
Yes, she is beyond all help, and her only fear now is for the Chain. How shall she pass the Chain when they will not let her little sisters draw near? How shall she chant the song of dying to a one? Two thousand years and the Chain broken? And how shall she, Annis, truly die if not by the Death Lullaby? Oh, little sisters! Oh, little sisters! My heart is a little bird! Tear it from my breast!
And they are surely other sisters heaping high the faggots of wood to burn her! And there are others she should know. Here the white-haired priest whose name she should know, damning her, book and bell; and here another man whose bed she should know full well, bearing the torch to ignite the wood. Who are these men?
The dwale takes effect, clouds sense, closes her eye, glory to the little sisters who did not forget her in her hour. And though the fire licks lazily at the wood under her, trailing thick grey plumes of smoke, she sees the sisters watching, watching in stillness while others bray, names she should know, names which confuse her, Liz the elder, Bella the redhead, and this other flame-haired one turning her face is Maggie.
Confusion! The dwale has befuddled her senses. How can this be if she is Maggie? I am Maggie; no, I am Annis. The dwale. And there comes the pungent smell of burning chestnut in her nostrils. Chestnut! The sisters! They know!
The flame gutters out. She comes to, still alive, unburned. Rumour and fear in the crowd. They light the faggots of chestnut brush again. A second time it smokes and it'll not catch. The sisters! Oh, the sisters!
Three times they light the wood. It smoulders; thick, acrid coiling serpents of smoke, but it will not catch. Three times. The sisters know, piling the wood high with sweet chestnut of the season and it will not burn! Chestnut scarce at all: who has the knowledge of the wood? Sisters, you have saved me from the noose! You have saved me from the flame! Come to me now and take the Chain! The dwale has made me weary of this world and it is for you and no other I am ready. Come, those of you who are maiden, and let me print on your lips the lullaby of death and departing} In the midst of smoke and death I am in song!
Annisl Maggie!
But they cannot draw near lest they betray their natures, those sisters. And worse is to come. She passes from consciousness and they take her down, many even afraid now to handle her. For what work is this? What trickery? What truck with demons?
The white-haired priest. He approaches, bell and book. His voice quavers. So be it. If she shall so defy death, then grant her a living death. They say she can curse. Then sever her hand and foot that she may not point her curse at any man! They say she speaks magic words to her like. Then brank her that she be denied all faculty of speech. They say she can fly. Then bury her, so that if she sprout wings they be no help for her! And keep her alive that she endure her living death. Do this in God's name!
And they sever her hands and her feet, and cauterize the bloody limbs with burning brands. And they brank her head, and the spike bleeds her tongue. And they squeeze her into a tiny casket and bury her, leaving a breather pipe with which to water her and make hers the torment of many days and nights.
And in the night the brave sisters come, whispering words to her though she cannot answer them, and trickling potions to her lips to assuage her agonies. And they bury moon plates and knives and ask for the intervention of Hecate, to keep her heart from hatred. But the potions and her agonies derange and confuse her, and one night there comes a one, a sister. The sister whispers to her, whispering strange words in the blackest hour, rare words in the darkest night of her suffering.
I have come to you, says the voice. I am Maggie, and I will take away the brank of time.
Maggie woke inside the rope circle, cradled by Ash. She was shivering and weeping. Ash had draped one of his white shirts round her shoulders.
"I was there, Ash," she wept. "I saw it all."
"You're back; you're safe. It's all right."
Ash had come to some time before Maggie. On recovering he realized Maggie was still out cold, but weeping. Maybe she was dreaming, but in her unconscious state she was racked by a profound, distressing sobbing. He'd tried to make her come to. Then he'd found something to drape over her shoulders, returning to cradle her in his arms until she recovered consciousness. He got her to sip a little water.
"I was watching. I saw everything. Yet I was Annis at the same time. I was both Maggie and Annis."
"Drink this."
"She was one of the innocents, Ash. They twisted her. I know what she wants. They hurt her; oh, how they hurt her." Maggie sobbed in his arms. The things he was unable to see were tearing her heart. "Did you see it? Did you see it?"
But Ash hadn't seen it. He'd been left waiting in that grey place, that mysterious corridor between seeing and understanding, the memory of which was already fading for him. Whatever she'd witnessed was not for his eyes. Now there was nothing he could do but believe what Maggie told him.
"I understood, Ash. All of us. We're all branked by what life does to us. You. Me. Alex. Amy and little Sam. All of us, Ash. We're all waiting to take the brank away. And it hurts. It hurts."
Ash held her, until her sobbing had exhausted itself.
FORTY-SIX
Maggie told everyone what she wanted and whom she wanted. De Sang was recalled and Ash dispatched on an errand. Maggie asked Alex to stay close by. She wanted him to be there, to know.
Maggie's feverish sense of authority betrayed to De Sang that something had occurred, but in performing what was required he kept his suspicions to himself. He was sceptical about what else he could offer; he was also deeply apprehensive after the experience of Annis' occult scream.
"On the count of three I will touch you lightly and you will come to us as before, calm, and rested. One, two, three. There. Hello, Annis. You've been away."
The session was conducted in the lounge, as before. She blinked and looked at De Sang. Then she looked at her hands.
"How do you feel, Annis?"
A sneer came across her face. "Priest."
"No, I'm not the priest. Not anymore, Annis. I'm a friend of Maggie. You know who Maggie is, don't you?"
She looked blank.
"You don't have to play with us, Annis. Maggie is the one who will help you."
She licked her lips, and spoke with difficulty. "Water."
De Sang handed her a glass and she drank.
"Maggie wants you to tell me the Death Lullaby. The song of death and departing. She wants you to tell me."
Silence.
"You know you want to, Annis. Then you can be free."
Silence.
It was broken by a ringing on the doorbell. Alex went to answer it. De Sang heard muffled voices in the hallway. He resumed the interrogation.
"Let me ask you something else. Who taught you the
Death Lullaby?"
"A one."
"And you have to give it to another one? But it can't be a man? What happens if a man sings the Death Lullaby?"
"No man can know it."
"But if he did?"
"No power. Only women can know. Deeper in the cycle of life. Spring from womb, grow a womb, spring from a womb."
"I understand. So I don't want you to tell it to me. I want you to tell it to Maggie."
Silence again. Then: "No need. I have it for her."
"But if you don't, then two thousand years of craft will be broken, Annis. A hundred generations of witches, and the Singing Chain broken. Forever. Give it to Maggie. Let her take it."
"No need. We are one."
"No, no, Annis. You are separate. You must separate. She doesn't have the Chain. You have it."
No answer.
De Sang was already at the end of his rope. He didn't even believe in the existence of the Singing Chain, whatever it might be, and therefore wasn't surprised when he was unable to find it. He belonged to a school trading only in the cantrips of logic. But Maggie had given him a key she claimed would unlock the secret. He sighed. "I have a message for you from Maggie. She wanted you to have this special message."
"Tell."
"She asked me to say to you the following words. Are you listening. Annis? She asked me to say: / am Maggie. I will take away the brank of time"