by Tina Smith
Despite herself, Tisane remembered the strange smell of Narine before she left, the noises, the night activity – the bare feet and mud, the torn clothes – all the things she had seen in her visions. She squeezed her eyes tight not wanting to remember the suffocating depressing energy of the seamy atmosphere at the compound, and the faces of the Cult members with their tiny pupils marooned in a dappled iris ocean. Tisane cast her mind to a few months ago when they had let her into the compound to shut her up. Alarmingly, Narine’s eyes had glowed and she seemed changed somehow. In a strange way they all were. Lively, yet somehow dead, intelligent but different to how they had been. Those feelings weren’t tangible, and Constable Whitlock had advised her to let them be. All of them had protested that they had wanted to remain in the compound, but Tisane could never quite shake Shelly Bealy’s expression - eyes that had asked for help. Whatever infected them had their souls firmly in its grasp. Tisane had returned home and washed off the pungent smell that hung in the atmosphere at the compound.
This memory of her one and only visit sat so uneasily with her; the beguiling stares, the inanimate faces. Tisane saw the ghostly figure in the shadows, on the edge of the trees.
“The headstone at the graveyard, was she a friend of yours?”
Lila was caught off guard by the question; she was quiet for a moment and then she thought of Sky.
“I see a girl with red hair around you.”
“What is she doing?” Lila asked.
“Helping you,” she offered in a monotone.
Lila narrowed her eyes at Tisane, suspicious.
“I don’t see her now, she chooses when to appear,” Tisane offered, awkwardly.
“She was one of them,” Lila uttered coldly.
“In the Cult? How did she pass?”
“Can’t you tell me?” Lila challenged.
“No, not unless she shows me. It’s not clear.”
“Why do you see her, things like her?” Lila’s green feline eyes narrowed, questioning.
“Only they know. I like to think it’s so I can help you, because they want to help you.”
Lila stood up and walked away, stopping to face to the trees. “Lily died trying to kill me.”
“So you killed her?”
“No.”
“But you feel responsible?”
“No, the woman who trained me stopped her.”
“She forgives you, that is clear. She wouldn’t tie herself to your soul and help you if she was angry, she would be earth-bound – a ghost, if she was bitter.”
“How can you know that?” Lila hissed sceptically.
“Well it’s my opinion that she has crossed, as she is a spirit not a ghost,” Tisane said calmly.
“Is there a difference?”
“Yes,” Tisane said earnestly.
“Did she speak to you?” Lila scanned her eyes.
“No she hasn’t yet. Sometimes they speak to me in dreams.”
Lila tried to fathom this new information.
“What do think she wants to help me with?”
“I think she wants to help us both.” Tisane tried to see the Cult in her mind’s eye, to see if Lila had been there, to pick up if she had been mistreated or hurt. The Cult had victimized Lila and she had run, escaped somehow. But nothing came. She normally saw through people like they were translucent.
Tisane was suddenly too terrified to see this truth or ask more questions, but it was no longer for herself that she feared. If the people in the Cult were werewolves, the families of the taken would never have their loved ones back in their arms. There was no chance of rescuing them for their children’s sake. They were indeed lost forever. If Lila was correct then Tisane had to mourn her sister and there would be no hope of her return, ever. But she couldn’t let Lila step in to cull them, either. Tormey had always said all life was sacred and that there was no wrong or right. But why then had her mother’s presence abandoned her for these past few days when she was most needed, even as she stood at her grave. Her spirit guide seemed now replaced by the strange apparition. Lila had unwittingly brought her, from wherever she had come.
30. Monster’s Bar
Narine wasn’t a particularly caring person, she realized all too late that she didn’t want to be a mother or a housewife. Whether it was nature or nurture was debated though she knew it was nurture, or the lack of it. Her mother had been a topless bar maid amongst other things, when she wasn’t too drunk or stoned to make it to work.
When Narine was in High School she found out she was pregnant to her boyfriend and secretly knew it was deliberate. She had sabotaged herself and she pretended it was an accident and that they were happy about it. That way she could escape her mother and school. After her third pregnancy, which ended in an abortion, she became distant, even more so, if that was possible for her. She’d always been the troublemaker of the family. Independent.
Her kids got their looks from their father and their personality traits from Narine. Her son was a firecracker from dawn ‘til dusk and her daughter was as mischievous and manipulative as she was. Narine decided she hated her. At times she coped so badly with the housework she refused guests and slept all day while the children swung off the washing line, until it remained permanently bent. She often dreamt of moving to an island in the Pacific to get away from her mundane life, before forcing herself to cook something resembling dinner and attempting the dishes. She wished she was rich so they could afford help, she wished she wasn’t so tired all the time, she wished she still loved her husband like she did when they were seventeen. She didn’t want to get old, she didn’t want to be a pathetic career mother and drive a dated four-wheel drive and spend her days vacuuming and wiping piss off the toilet seat, pretending it was all fun - but for the most part that’s what she did.
A job was an excuse to leave the house and the kids - and get a break. Domestic life was mundane and thankless. Jerry was always at work himself, but they had no money and worse, no intimacy. She hated it. She was bored with it and now she wanted more than sitting there suffering the consequences of her choices. She wanted more than this life had provided her.
Jerry used to hit her in the beginning, luckily not so much after the kids were older. Either it was that or they just both gave up fighting. When he screwed her at night there were no cuddles or foreplay and more often than not he slept on the couch, at first for varying reasons: his back suffering from the old mattress, the flu, the kids’ earache and then her snoring. The last pieces of excitement were sucked from her life. The only reason she ever dated Jerry in the first place is because he was someone else’s. After a while he never came back in except to have sex with her and leave her there again, like she had serviced him. She wondered what had attracted her to him in the first place. He had no dreams, no goals, and the man didn’t know what a holiday was. She hadn’t wanted those things when she had tied herself to him, but somewhere in her soul she knew she was meant for more. That she was better than this, better than her mother’s legacy. She knew Jerry drank because he hated himself, even more than she hated him, in the end. Narine knew she was better than this and that she deserved more. She wanted more but every day when she looked in the mirror all she saw were the lines etched around her eyes as her face slowly aged before her. She was trapped in her miserable life.
One day she decided either she was going to end it or get up and do something. Leave, run away. It occurred to her she might need more than five dollars to do that, so she came up with the idea of a job - one with tips and the chance to meet people. The bar was an ingenious choice and the girls currently employed there were unreliable at best. She went at opening time with her tits out in a new push up bra and was surprised at how easy it was to get a few shifts.
After she started, she considered quitting every five seconds for the first few nights. Jerry didn’t mind though and even seemed chuffed she’d got a job. He looked after the kids and was actually supportive - the dumb schmuck, she thought.
Once she got the hang of it, she liked bar work, she liked her freedom. She flirted with the customers and more than once smacked a hand off her arse. It was more affection than she had felt for a long time trapped in her house with the dog on the edge of town and she got some of her strength back.
Four weeks later she was shacked up with Dieter Pawston ‘Paws’ in the Cult compound. Turns out he was the Cult leader, out scouting for members.
31. The Ace of Pentacles
“Your mother?” I supposed.
“Yes.” She touched the photograph. “Narine had a different mother – we had the same father…”
The phone rang in the background, loudly.
“Don’t answer it.” My eyes were hard and Tisane dropped her gaze, obediently ignoring the ringing. She swallowed and tried to continue before the racket stopped. The further away the real world stayed the safer everyone would be.
“My mother was a park ranger.” The machine clicked on and the caller hung up. After a moment she continued. “She was the longest serving ranger ever, she didn’t fear the wolves of this valley.”
I knew about Tormey, recalled learning of her murder. At my eighteenth birthday party as my tipsy mother again told the story of my near death experience in the Artemis river.
“Who killed her?” I enquired softly.
“It’s unsolved.”
“What about her?” I pointed to the other woman in the photograph.
“This was taken when I was in Uni.”
I thought maybe that explained the diagonal haircut.
“How did she end up in the Cult?”
“Narine has two kids and a husband and she had a job at the local pub, she worked evenings. Some way or another she met this guy, he was younger than her, he liked her singing. Said he wanted her to write a song for him. The bar manager didn’t recognize him until after that. He was from the Cult.” Tisane hugged her arms close to her body as she continued.
“Her boss didn’t think they’d come out to bars, being religious and all. She got up and walked off and emptied the dustpan in the trash out the back. That was the last night she worked in the bar. She missed her next shift - one night later she was gone, without a word. The bar tender was sure it was him.” Tisane’s mouth drooped at the corners.
“She was a singer. She had a gift for music, not like me, I can do a lot of things, but I can’t sing much and I can’t play. For her it came like breathing. She had a wide mouth like God gave her those lips so she could use her voice. She had never left town in her life.”
“She always did what she wanted, when she wanted. It got her into trouble and she and her husband fought. I never saw bruises though the rumours go that more than once he raised a hand. When she was a kid Narine lived with us, on and off. Growing up, her mother was unreliable at best. There were more than a few father figures in and out of her life.”
“What happened to her?”
“She left her family as though they were something disposable. I guess she didn’t want that sort of life any more. Her husband begged her to come back. He was so relieved when the police said she was alive and okay - but he was so hurt that she didn’t call. He was so angry when he spoke to me, on the phone – he thought she would turn up at my place.” Tisane wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed her shoulders in a self-soothing way.
“Was he a bad guy? The husband?”
Tisane shook her head. “No – Jerry was okay. Narine probably gave as good as she got, she had a lot of issues. She was my sister and I love her. I have convinced myself they had just brainwashed her so badly, but I had nightmares of her sky clad,” Tisane admitted.
“What’s Sky-Clad?”
“It means - naked - it’s a Wiccan term. So I moved home, came back to the valley after mum died and forgot that person I was pretending to be.” She chuckled under her breath though it was more of a sigh.
Maybe I should have laughed. “I didn’t choose this role,” I said solemnly.
“We all choose.”
I wanted to assure her it was all right, that Narine was a monster now so it didn’t matter, but I knew it wouldn’t change the way Tisane felt. Somewhere inside myself I understood why, but I pushed the empathy away.
I had felt that way once - that I could escape it. Until I stood here not knowing if it was my heart beating or if it was hers inside me. Artemis had chosen me, as though I’d ever had a choice.
32. Queen of Dog Town
The young handsome guy came in one night, he took in a few glances from around the dim bar and more than just an admiring inviting stare from all the watery-eyed, aging women in it. But he always looked at her - no matter where she was in the room. She could look over and their eyes would meet like the two of them were on some wavelength not consciously known to anyone else in the bar.
She made extra effort on her appearance after that, and was disappointed when she didn’t see him. After several months, one night on closing he hung about. She toyed with the idea of being in his arms and knew she was just being crazy, like Jerry believing what she wanted, so she wouldn’t give up on it all. Boss was watching as usual. Though she was now hardly new at the job he micromanaged her still. She knew it was just an excuse to look at her arse and feel like a big man by ‘helping her’ when things got precarious behind the bar. She ignored his watchful eye and knelt down with the dustpan.
“Hey, gorgeous.”
Narine looked up to confirm it was her cowboy.
“Hi, trouble,” she replied with a slight smile of her wide mouth and a tilt of her head.
“I bet you thought you’d never be cleaning floors when you were a little girl,” he teased. He was unshaven and his hot breath smelt of alcohol but strangely she liked it.
“No. Well how do you know what I dreamt of when I was little?”
For a moment he didn’t answer, he was glassy-eyed and he looked into the bottom of his empty beer tumbler and replied, slyly “I bet you wanted to be a princess.”
So she rebuffed, “Well, at least I get paid for it here.” Standing up, she added, “At home I get to play maid for free.”
He smiled at her and looked away, almost bashfully.
Later that night she took the bins out the back and suddenly a hand grabbed her, pulled her to him and he whispered warmly in her ear, “If you were mine I’d never let you get those beautiful hands dirty.”
His sultry voice raked through her. She let him hold her but she remained tense. “Well my hands only feel dirty when you touch me,” she retorted, automatically resisting as his hands tightened.
“I want them all over me.” He kissed the palm of her right hand. He held it firmly and kissed her flesh softly.
“ – Narine!!”
She jumped as her boss’s voice carried through the back kitchen.
“Your husband’s here!”
Quickly he kissed her quivering body, down her neck and he began to bite softly, then hard and then all at once, so hard she struggled and almost screeched at him to stop and then he did, quickly.
She looked about and he was gone. Trembling she touched her neck. It was wet. As she approached the light of the door she made out the dark stain of blood on her index finger.
She waited a moment for her heart to stop racing and swallowed. Narine covered the bruising and spots of blood on her neck with her hair, wiped her shaky hands on her dark apron and unsteadily readied herself to turn back into the light of kitchen door at the back of the building.
She was wracked with guilt. Thinking of him and the ways he had kissed her, the strange things he had said, and the way he had stalked and bizarrely attacked her in the alley. Maybe she should have said something, but she was unwell for the next few days, too unwell to go to work or cook.
Then she would disappear during the night, come home dirty and without clothes. Jerry was convinced it was a psychotic break. When he noticed the behaviour he was angry. He accused her of being a worthless bitch. He was fortunate she was so sick with
fever - he was lucky. He left with the kids and after he did, she ached and transformed - grizzly and hairy. She crawled about in terrible pain on the floor, vomiting and clawing the linoleum. Being infected was easy, being born was the worst part and after the dog ate the vomit off the floor she ate the dog. Warm, raw and bloody, she even ate the bones, crunching them slowly. Young wolves are hungry, unusually aggressive and vicious. This tendency subsides after a time but like any other creature you either have an agreeable demeanour or not and the wolf mind is simpler, dominated by body gestures, focused on survival, sex and food.
Not long after Toby the Labrador-cross ‘disappeared into the shrubbery’, Narine never came home and never went to her next shift at the pub. She didn’t even take her toothbrush when she left. Her family thought she was dead, abducted. Rumours swirled that the husband had done it, until they found out the horrible truth. She had abandoned her family for a local cult. They comforted themselves by telling each other she had been brainwashed, and the authorities were powerless to remove her.
33. The Gift
Tisane had called both the spirit and Lila here in a power spell during the waxing moon. If she had wanted to, she knew she could probably try and dispel them as easily in the light of the waning moon. She knew from one look into Lila’s clear webbed green eyes and stony expression that she meant what she said about trying to shoot them. Tisane remained on edge as she toasted frozen bread and sat tentatively back at the table.
Lila’s eyes flickered to Tisane’s soft face. “I thought about what you said…about Lily. You’re wrong,” she said, biting her toast.
Tisane retorted as the line of her mouth hardened, “Well they say familiarity breeds contempt.” She avoided the fluorescent green flames around Lila’s pupils.