“No. That’s the tricky part. Rory is only half a spirit right now which means it needs to join with another to be whole. You were already whole, so now you are more than one spirit, therefore, more powerful. This is how Rory can do what it does. This is how it is able to take the spirits from others.”
Like a parasite, Libitina thought.
In a whisper, Camilla asked, “And what does Rory do with the spirits it takes?”
“That I’m afraid, I don’t know. They are simply gone. Rory doesn’t absorb them or you would have their personalities as well. It just takes and takes and takes. But it is only drawn to those people who have angry, haunting secrets.”
“So, if I have Rory’s female half, then where is the male half?”
“In a man, of course. He avenges angry male spirits. Every spirit must move on, otherwise they stay in a place much like Hell. They are tortured, angry, malicious, only wishing to harm those who harmed them. Once Rory helps them, they move on, free of their anger. This release makes Hell smaller each day.”
The air grew stale. Libitina shifted. What the woman said seemed to make sense, but she still couldn’t trust her. She shifted backwards a bit. The woman smelled like garbage and sweat. Libitina wondered when she’d last bathed.
“So, how do I make it stop?” Camilla twitched and grimaced, as more visions danced through her mind. “They’re getting worse. I can’t keep living like this.”
“The visions won’t stop until you take care of their source.” The old woman snickered, a dry and brittle sound. “The longer you wait, the more intense they become, the angrier they become that you, Rory, aren’t doing something about their problems.”
“No. I just don’t want visions anymore. I don’t want to help these spirits. If I’m supposed to be dead, then just let me die. How do I get rid of Rory? How can I rest?”
“Oh, that. Well, there are two ways.”
The entire house hushed around them. Birds stopped singing. Even Cerberus’s breathing seemed to slow.
Camilla leaned forward even more, bloody hands splayed on the dirt floor in front of her. Libitina noticed with a grimace that the red seeping from between Camilla’s legs formed a dark puddle where she sat. She scooted away about an inch. She looked at the old woman, crinkled her nose at the rotten smell that seemed to grow stronger with each breath and listened, growing more and more agitated the longer they stayed in this place.
“The first way is to let the spirit run its course. Rory will use up your body. Slowly, slower than normal, your body will decay. I see your neck is broken but this will not speed up the process. You’ve torn out your eyes but this will also not speed up the process.”
How does she know this? Libitina wondered. Who’s to say someone or something else hadn’t torn out her eyes?
“The more your body decays, the less inhabitable it becomes. Eventually, Rory will no longer be able to use your body or your spirit as both will grow weak. It will leave when another body becomes available. Your body will simply vanish. I don’t know why or how, but it does. It will vanish and your spirit will be released.”
“And how long does that take?”
“It depends on how long your body and spirit last. Sometimes only a few years. Sometimes a few hundred.”
“I can’t even wait a few days. I’m done now. I need to end this now.” Her voice rose in a raspy growl sounding like it was tearing her throat to speak.
Libitina looked from the haggard crone to the torn corpse and back again. She shuddered. How the hell had she gotten herself mixed up in this mess?
“There is an alternative. I happen to know a ritual that will thrust Rory, at least this half of Rory, back into the spirit world.”
“Will I die?”
“Of course you will die. Your spirit will be at rest. And Rory will be forced to find another host.”
Camilla sat back and placed her hands on her knees. After a moment’s thought, she said, “Okay. The ritual then.”
* * *
Camilla lay on the floor. The smoky aroma of burning herbs helped her relax. She was ready to accept her proper fate. The old woman chanted something indistinct. Another language, perhaps? Must have been. She couldn’t understand any of it. A rattle shook in rhythm. The crone tickled her face, belly, groin, with a bouquet of feathers.
Libitina gasped from beyond her feet. Cerberus growled next to her head. She wanted to laugh with the soaring hope that this might work.
The woman said something more pronounced than anything else she’d been muttering and stomped her foot. That was when the pain started. It twisted through her body. Her back arched, the muscles contracting as her torso lifted off the ground. She screamed, hating the grating sound of her voice.
Fire. She was on fire, had to be.
“Stop it, stop, stop, stop,” Libitina yelled.
Cerberus barked and whined and growled.
The woman chanted louder. Screaming echoed in her head, a voice she knew to be Rory’s, the feeling of otherness beginning to leave. Rory’s spirit clung to every part of her like a spider’s web over its meal. It pulled from her core, from the eyes she no longer had. Every part of her burned, pulled, fought for release while Rory fought to stay.
She screamed again and felt her entire body lift from the floor. Rory screamed in her head, louder than the sound of her thoughts, her voice. The scream was more agonized than anything she’d ever heard.
* * *
Libitina sat at Camilla’s feet, fascinated by the ritual. The old woman danced around Camilla’s prostrate body. The incense smoke filled the room, cloying; the herbs were bound by some type of fiber. This is stupid, she thought. A spirit ritual. Right. A bunch of mumbo jumbo is all this is. But it fascinated her nonetheless. She loved everything about the occult for its theatrical value. It didn’t matter if she believed the witch woman or not.
The crone took out a knife. Libitina gasped and sat back, unsure of what the woman planned on doing with it. She wanted to grab Cerberus and gain comfort from his tiny warmth, but she didn’t dare interrupt the ritual. Looking at the knife, she thought, great; I’ve led us to the house of some woman who likes to hack people up.
The ritual intensified. She didn’t intervene, though she wanted to. It was all too weird.
Camilla screamed, her body arching off the ground.
The sudden change in Camilla startled her into action, her paranoia taking over. She stood up and screamed, “Stop it,” repeating the words, trying to force her will over the dancing woman. Her dog barked next to the fire, backed up, tripped over the strap of Libitina’s backpack, and almost backed into the flames. Camilla’s screams became intermingled with another voice, another scream. The two screams filled the room, filled Libitina’s senses, almost breaking her sanity.
Then the crone raised her blade in a high arc over her head. Camilla’s body rose, suspended in the air. When the woman moved to plunge the knife into Camilla’s body, Libitina lunged without thinking, throwing herself on top of Camilla. The stench of rot wafted up her nose from Camilla’s mouth as she forced Camilla’s body back to the ground with her own weight, knocking the air out of her. Libitina gagged and turned her head away from the horror of Camilla’s face. She felt the knife graze her arm then the world changed.
* * *
Still clutching the blade hilt, the crone stared at the empty floor, at her knife buried in the dirt where the body used to be. From the depths of her core, for all the years she’d spent waiting, she screamed her rage, head thrust back, hands clawing at her balding head.
“That idiot girl! She ruined everything!”
Cerberus barked and lunged at the space from which his keeper had just disappeared. He bit at the air and hopped in little circles, then sat and whined, tail tucked between his legs.
The crone looked at the dog and said in a softer tone, “But they can’t get Rory there, can they? No, not where they’ve gone to.” She petted the dog then picked him up. “What am I going
to do with you, now?” She took the dog into the room in the back, dim lighting slanting in through the windows.
“I’ve never had a friend.” She sighed and smiled at the tiny black dog. “If you like, you can stay.”
* * *
Libitina clung to Camilla as they swirled into darkness. She opened her eyes and wished she hadn’t. The darkness roiled around them like tar, but alive and hungry. The spinning made her dizzy, disoriented. She clutched Camilla, pressed her face into the tattered flesh.
The air wrapped them like a wet blanket, suffocating her. Voices whispered in the dark. She couldn’t understand the words but could understand the tone: mocking. The whispers pushed into her ears, her head, her mouth, drawing out the life in her body, making her numb. She almost lost her grip on Camilla who screamed in the dark. When would the spinning end?
“What’s happening?” Libitina yelled, her voice drowned out by Camilla’s howls of pain, fear, loathing. “Make it stop.”
Just as she said the words, their passage ended. All became quiet.
And then there was light.
Chapter Fifteen
Aludra waited outside the small hut in the receding light. Bushes provided the perfect hiding place, allowing her to peek through the tiny branches and keep her eyes on the windows and doors. The sky blushed as it prepared to don its evening gown, the sun slowly slipping behind its horizon. Rory waited inside for her. She felt the spirit stronger than ever before and longed to charge in, grab the woman the spirit controlled, play with her and the old hag. She would have herself a little party with the three of them, indulging in all her desires before heading back to the manor with Rory in tow.
Only seconds remained before she could take Rory. The moment the light disappeared behind the trees, she would rush into the hut and claim what belonged to the Order. Anticipation mounting, she headed toward the front door licking her lips and rubbing her palms together. Her stomach clenched and twisted. Her hands trembled. She almost bounced as she walked. Soon, it would be over. Soon, she would have eternal life. Soon, her purpose would be served. She looked up at the treetops and held her breath as the sun set.
Finally.
Shrieks filled the air. The most venomous sounds came from the hut. Eyes wide, Aludra gawked at the house.
“No,” she screamed at the same time the crone did. She knew the crone made those sounds and she knew why she howled in rage. Rory’s spirit had vanished. Aludra felt emptiness building inside her. Emptiness and fear. She’d only felt this once before, when looking into the soulless eyes of Rory’s first victim, but this fear was more intense, more primal. The Order would surely kill her if she returned to them without the spirit.
If she couldn’t feel the One, couldn’t track it, then how could she bring it home to the manor? How could she fulfill her purpose without Rory? She was a failure now.
Without thinking, she stomped to the house, teeth grinding as she imagined throttling the hag. If the other woman had thought those screams were real, just wait until Aludra finished with the bitch. She had to have done something or else Rory would still be here. What had she done?
“Fuck!” she yelled. She’d heard exclamations of pain so many times before, screams of rage from her victims. Aludra found she liked the way it felt to scream as well, to express her anger and pleasure in this way. She threw open the door, knocking it from its hinges.
The hag sat on a patch of moss in the back of the hut with a little black animal in her arms. The redhead’s beast.
The two women stared at each other for a second that seemed to last an eternity. They gazed with identical green eyes. The old crone’s face cracked in a broad grin.
“My child,” she whispered. At her words the image of the stained glass from the cathedral, the mother and child, flashed before Aludra’s eyes. That sense of longing wrapped around her, then dissipated as soon as she’d felt it, like fog.
Aludra stormed into the hut, ready to destroy this woman, but stopped halfway across the room. She recognized those eyes as her own and couldn’t deny what the woman had said.
The old woman laughed.
Aludra’s legs buckled and she sagged to the floor, watching the woman rocking back and forth, cradling the dog, cackling the way the High Priestess was known to do on occasion. That animal cradled in her arms… she so longed to be that dog.
But certainly this woman was far too old to be her mother. It couldn’t be true.
“How do you know me?” she asked.
“My daughter, you have finally come for me. I knew you would one day. I knew I’d see you again.”
Aludra sat in silence for a moment, then asked the question burning inside her. “So why did you leave the manor?” She felt the connection from across the room, felt the love that had been denied her.
The woman barked a bitter laugh. “Is that what they told you?”
Aludra nodded, never dropping her gaze. The emotions filling her threatened to spill forward. Dizziness promised to send her sprawling. She’d never felt anything as intensely as what she felt now. Her eyes burned. Tears? Was she going to cry like her stupid victims?
“Well, then I have something to tell you,” her mother said. “You are coming after the spirit, Rory, correct?”
Again, Aludra nodded.
“You can’t feel Rory any longer, correct?”
Aludra nodded.
“And now you must go back to the manor empty handed.”
“You echo my thoughts,” Aludra whispered.
“Because I know what you seek and why you seek it. You seek Rory for the ritual to come, for eternal life. You know you were chosen, created with the sole purpose of bringing the spirit back to the manor. Have they told you how you were conceived?”
“No.”
The mother she’d been denied patted the mat of moss next to her. Aludra went to her, found herself resisting the urge to sit too close. Part of her yearned to feel the woman’s arm draped over her shoulder, to bury her face in her mom’s hair, breathe her in. But instead, she sat and waited to hear the story.
“Your father was the first son from the High Priestess. I am her first daughter. Twins. We were raised knowing we had one purpose: to conceive you.” The old woman blurted the information as if she had been waiting her whole life to guide her child. Aludra supposed this wasn’t too far from the truth. She listened intently. “The Dark One told the High Priest when to perform the conception. So we did what we were told. This took place with your father’s first seed and my first egg. It could happen no other way. They took great pains to ensure my safety, for your safety, while I carried you. On the day of your birth, September 9th, 1971, you were cut from my belly. You see, you had to be born on that day, when the numbers came to nine-nine-nine. You weren’t coming, so they made you come.”
The crone lifted her shirt and revealed the jagged scar across her abdomen. “They took you from me. All I wanted to do was hold you and they took you to raise you as the ‘chosen one’.” The crone explained all this the way someone might explain how a gadget worked. There was no emotion.
Aludra had never been told any of this but it didn’t surprise her. These things were not unheard of in their home. The High Priest was the father of all who dwelled there. The only shock was that he wasn’t her father but her grandfather.
The crone continued. “I knew they planned to sacrifice you for the ritual, use you to draw the spirit there, then use your blood to give them eternal life.”
“No. That’s not true. I’m to have eternal life, too.”
“Child, you are to have eternal life as a spirit, not in the flesh. While carrying you, I knew what your fate was to be and I accepted it, until I saw you. You were so perfect, so small… helpless. I knew you would grow into a beautiful young woman and I knew what they would do to you. I couldn’t have that. I only wanted to take care of you, to hold you, nurse you, keep you as my own.”
Her voice quavered. Aludra wasn’t sure how much she believed. M
aybe the woman had gone crazy, being alone for so long. Just how much of what she said was true? She kept listening.
“They turned me into this,” the crone said, and pulled the skin at her face. “Since I was thirteen, I’ve looked like this. I can’t stand to look at myself. I was beautiful once, like you. I thought I’d be beautiful forever, but I wanted you instead.”
“They’re going to kill me?”
“Yes, child. To serve their own purpose.” She sighed. “After they made me look like this, they sent me away. I stayed here, away from the rest of the world. The people were beneath my presence, even though I’d been cast away, and I couldn’t stand the thought of others seeing me like this. I’ve made a life for myself knowing that one day our paths would cross again. I almost feared I might have been wrong, that I’d never see you again, but here you are.”
Aludra stared, transfixed, the reality sinking in.
Her mother smiled. “But, you know what? I know how you can stop them,” she whispered, leaning over as if afraid someone might overhear them in the middle of the forest.
“How?”
“You are the chosen one. This means more than just being chosen to draw a spirit. Why do you think you are the only one capable of bringing the spirit in?”
Aludra shook her head.
“You are stronger than the rest of them. So much stronger. They need you. You don’t need them. You could lead them. The High Priestess is weak. Her powers fade more and more each day. You could get rid of her and lead them into a new era, use her blood in the ritual instead of your own.”
Aludra thought about this, picturing the High Priestess’s death in her mind, imagining how she could kill her.
“Go, my child. Go back to them and lead. Use your strength to really be the chosen one.”
The old woman stood and ushered Aludra out of her house.
“And then return for me. Bring me back to the manor. I will help you rule them all.”
Women Scorned Page 16