While she missed the time she had spent with her grandmother as a child, she relished the fact that she was a hot commodity in the corporate world.
Offers crossed her desk daily trying to woo her away from Bennette, Starling, and Matelin, but none could match what she had. She could afford a beautiful loft apartment in the city. The firm gave her a driver if she needed it, but she liked to walk to work. She was a rock star in the advertising arena, she had exceeded her expectations for herself.
The only thing that was missing was love. She was alright with that. She worked a lot, so there wasn’t much time to fret over someone. When she wasn’t in her office, or the boardroom, she was rubbing elbows with the corporate elite. She attended benefits, had tickets to events all over town, and even had most of her meals on someone else’s dime. Being powerful was good to her.
One day on her way to work, she walked the same sidewalk she had for the last five years, passing the same masses of people, the same local vendors, and all of the public transportation depots. Today, she noticed a face in the crowd. The face that changed her world. The face that brought her back to her roots.
He was the most handsome man she had ever laid eyes on. She was drawn to him, without knowing a single thing about him. Then it happened. He looked up and his gaze met hers, she heard his voice, even though his lips were not moving. She was stupefied and stopped right in the middle of the sidewalk. She was jostled by a few passers-by who didn’t see her abrupt halt, but she didn’t even notice. Her head was filled with a voice.
She only heard them once in a while now. She tried to brush them away, but had accepted the fact that you don’t choose to have the touch. It chooses to have you. She swooned, losing her balance, only to be up righted by this gorgeous creature.
After she got her wits about her, he introduced himself. Eros was his name. To Madeleine, it was the most beautiful name in the world. From that moment, they were never separated for long. She took him to all of her events. He took her for long weekends to the ocean. They were meant to be each other’s world.
She was in the office when Ally, the receptionist, knocked on the door. She was a stunning beauty, Madeleine knew why the partners kept her around. When she entered, she handed Madeleine an embellished envelope. She stopped Ally before she exited the office.
“Ally, I’ve got a question. Do you mind?”
She turned and looked at Madeleine surprised, “Sure. Whatever you need.”
“What would you do if you knew something was going to happen, but you had no control over it at all?”
“I suppose I would let it happen. There’s not much else you can do is there?”
Madeleine nodded, “I suppose you’re right. Thanks.”
Ally looked confused, but nodded, smiled and went back to the reception desk.
Madeleine opened the invitation. It was to another fundraiser the next weekend, but she could not decline. It was one of her biggest accounts. It was also another opportunity to create more business and that was her specialty.
The week flew by. She and Eros spent every free, waking moment together. They walked the city in the evenings, tried new restaurants, or sat in the park talking.
The night of the fund raiser came. Madeleine donned a stunning floor length gown and Eros arrived in a dapper tuxedo with an ascot rather than a traditional bow tie. They were the best looking couple in the room.
She chatted up the partners, Marco Polenzino from the Cargas Group, her largest client, and made a few business appointments in between. She and Eros danced the night away, once they were together, they were the only ones in the room.
After a night of drinking and dancing they went back to her apartment and made love until they both couldn’t stay awake any longer.
Eros slipped out in the early morning to get breakfast for them, while Madeleine still slept. She dreamed of him, his smell, and his embrace.
When he returned, they sat in bed eating bagels and cream cheese from the local Jewish bakery and sipping mimosas. Eros had to leave for an appointment, but they had plans to meet for drinks that evening.
The following weeks were a blur.
She had met a few people over the years that had some form of the touch, but never anyone like Eros. She fell in love with him immediately. He was rugged, yet soft. His idea of romance swept her right off her feet. She was stunned with love. He was also the reason why she hated the touch now.
She saw Eros one night in a vision. She saw him walking down the sidewalk chatting with vendors and people on the street. She saw him buying flowers, then she saw something she could never forget. She saw the bus careening out of control down the street. She watched it jump the curb and mow down several of the vendor carts and more than two handfuls of pedestrians. She watched in horror as the bus, without slowing, plowed into the flower stand and her lover.
The cruel vision that would not cease, showed her Eros laying on the sidewalk. He was clasping the flowers to his chest as he lay there bleeding. There were no sirens, there were no first responders. There was just carnage. She was watching him take his last breath. It hadn’t happened yet, but it would. There was nothing Madeleine could do to stop it. She couldn’t tell him about it, it’s not the way the touched worked.
She learned that the touch brought you visions, but not words. She had tried to stop a school bully after a vision, but the words would not come. She could see what she wanted to say in her mind’s eye, but her vocal chords were locked. It ended in a beating that put her into the hospital for three days. Although the bully was expelled, the incident she saw still took place. It shook her to the core.
Madeleine spent as much time as she could with Eros, attempting to treasure every moment as if it were their last. They made love every chance they had. They laughed, hers more forced than his because beneath all of this joy was the ultimate sorrow. She guarded her thoughts because his touch seeped into her mind. She couldn’t let him see the sorrow she felt. Although the vision was gone, and there was no danger in him accidentally stumbling upon it, she couldn’t let him see the anguish because she could not explain it. No matter how badly she wanted to.
Eros was on his way to meet Madeleine for drinks. He chatted with the vendors. He knew most of them by name. He had walked these streets since he was a boy. He saw the flower cart and decided to buy some for Madeleine. There was an unusual assortment today, it should have triggered something for him, but it didn’t. He chose some red anemones, as they were beautifully nontraditional.
He heard sudden and mounting screams. He turned around at the moment of impact. He never even had time to react. As he lay on the ground, half beneath the bus, he clutched the flowers to his chest and with his last breath, proclaimed his love to Madeleine.
At the quiet bar they were to meet, Madeleine felt him. She knew what had happened. She quietly paid the tab and went home.
The following weeks were nothing but misery. She couldn’t go to work, she couldn’t sleep, and all she could see was Eros’ body lying on the sidewalk, helpless. Her heart was broken. Her mind was full. She quit her job and locked the door. She spent her days drifting in and out of hellish sleep.
She opened one eye, just enough to discern what time of day it was. Since she quit her job, she slept more and at odd hours of the day. She had tried to start a more normal sleep pattern last night, but she tossed and turned for hours.
She could see nothing in the darkness. She assumed it was the witching hour and slammed her eye shut. She didn’t want to be awake at the witching hour. Nothing good ever happened for her then. The voices grew louder, the thrumming of the air was palpable, and the visions were much clearer.
Previously, she would have enjoyed that time of night. She used to like feeling a bit supernatural, despite her affinity for the cosmopolitan. She could see sounds and hear things that were out of the spectrum of people without the touch. It was an awesome ability, but one she tried to forget.
The voices quieted during the day
light hours, but at night they teased her with thoughts of Eros and how she could have saved him. How she could have been happy.
She tried everything to stop them. Alcohol, medication, loud music, meditation, herbal teas, and even went so far as to inflict pain on herself so the screams she heard were hers and not his. Nothing worked. She was going out of her mind and there was nothing she could do. She felt responsible.
Which brought her to this night. The night where she woke during the witching hour. The night she would battle the demons of the touch, whether she wanted to or not.
She squeezed her eyes shut tightly and willed the voices to go away. They relented for a moment, but came back ever more fiercely.
She yelled aloud, “Away with you!” Still they kept on. “I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t make the rules, you evil gifters named the game and I am just a pawn! Be gone!”
An evil laugh she had never heard before filled her mind. She didn’t feel afraid, she felt unwavering.
The voice came again, “You chose your gift, long before you even knew. There is but one way to rid yourself of it.”
Madeleine spoke with vigor, “I had no choice, it was chosen for me, as you are well aware. Your lies will do nothing to strengthen yourself. I do not want to rid myself of the gift, but I want to rid the world beyond of you!”
Another maniacal laugh filled her head.
“You are but a vessel, you can do nothing to banish me. I will give the gift to another who will do my bidding, and I cannot be stopped!”
Madeleine began chanting in a language that she had never heard, let alone learned. She felt empowered. Her words came swiftly, confidently, and gracefully.
She chanted louder.
The maniacal laughter continued.
She opened her mind to those she loved and lost. Eros appeared in a form so solid she could feel him in the room with her.
Her body seized, but her tongue continued. Eros lifted her to him, she was in between now. She opened the door. Her mother, who was stronger in the touch than Madeleine was, her grandfather, and her brother came through. They five of them now chanting in unison.
The laughter ceased.
“What? What are you doing? This is not how this works! I am the one who gives the gifts! I am the one who decides the rules! I cannot be banished!”
The circle of five closed.
The voice weakened.
They came together, head to head, hand to hand, and heart to heart.
The voice ceased. The door slammed shut.
Madeleine’s eyes fluttered open. She closed them again, she wasn’t ready to leave her loved ones. She wanted more time.
The voice she heard in her head now was Eros. “You’re free. Do not mourn for me, I will always be here. We will all care for each other and we will all care for you. Use your gift now as you have always wished.”
“I love you,” she whispered.
“And I will always love you.”
She felt great relief. She started to return to herself, slowly. Her heart had a hole that would never be filled, but it had been cauterized so that the pain was aching rather than piercing. It allowed her to function.
She didn’t return to work, she went home to Louisiana to be with her grandmother. Fortunately, she had not only been a shrewd business woman, but she was also a fiscal genius. She had created enough wealth that she needn’t work another day in her life.
She settled back into her grandmother’s estate with ease. It felt as if she had never left. The garden looked the same, even her grandmother looked the same. She figured it was potions and herbs that helped keep Seraline’s youth. She went back to her days as a young girl. Talking and planting and reading. She liked to be secluded.
Seraline saw a broken woman whose resolve worked much the same as stitches. It held her together. She saw a battle raging inside of Madeleine that she was not privy to, but was still aware of. She did her best to help guide her through the dark struggle without letting on that she knew there was trouble brewing.
Madeleine was in Seraline’s library when she saw the beautiful ironwood box with its intricate carvings and brass pig snout latch. She had forgotten about the box over the years. Her grandmother had told her stories about the box when she was growing up; about its power.
She spoke of how the ironwood trees were chopped down by the Giants of Nawd because no mortal could cut them. They trimmed the trees to the specifications of the Maerlins of Carc to be made into useful materials for crafting. The Maerlins then proceed to assemble the pieces, in this case, into a box for the Whyte Wizard. The wizard had needed something to store his magical possessions in so they could not be accessed by the undesirables.
Ironwood, of this sort, is impenetrable and the wizard, Kaelic, could cast a spell on the latch so the box would stay sealed. The Maerlins labored seventy years on the box. When it was completed, Scarnith was to deliver the box to Kaelic. The beauty of the lovingly crafted box was too much for him to bear the thought of giving it away so he absconded with it.
He opened the box and cast a spell, but because he was simply a messenger, his spell was wrong. Instead of binding the box to him, it bound him in the box.
The box sat in the forest for years, but remained as beautiful as the day it was crafted. Nothing would go near it, not man nor beast for it whispered constantly. Scarnith was trapped inside, constantly chanting incantations, hoping to release himself. It never worked.
The Dark Magician happened upon the box. He put it in his satchel, not noticing the whispers coming from it at all. He rode on to Dumebarge and continued his work. He admired the box very much. He had beautiful things, but nothing such as this. He carried it with him everywhere.
One day, one of his adherents pierced a hole in time. It was the moment he’d been waiting for. He was going to slip through the fabric, but first, he would send a scout. He called for his aides to bring him Darenth, his beast. He would send him through first, use him as a vessel before Darkaeth himself would step through.
Once Darenth returned, Darkaeth stepped through himself, carrying the ironwood box with him. Over the millennia, the box, Darkaeth and Darenth shifted through the rifts created by his adherents. They placed the box in the hands of those he thought would use it. He had discovered Scarnith in the box. He had opened it on his side of time and watched as it greedily pulled the distraught adherent inside and depositing said serf back in their world, on their side of time.
Madeleine knew this tale like the back of her hand. Seraline had told on many an occasion when Madeleine had tried to handle it.
Today, she was alone in the library while Seraline had gone into the swamps to gather some roots and plants. She heard the whisper of the box. It was the language she had uttered when she banished the gifter beyond the door. She still didn’t understand it, but she assumed it was a spell her grandmother had placed on the box to fend off anyone who decided to pick it up.
After Eros’ death, Madeleine had a darker outlook. She was becoming more distraught daily and could hardly bear to live. She was going through the motions with her grandmother, but there was no joy, just an aching pain.
After about fifteen minutes, she took the box down from the shelf. It pulsated beneath her fingertips. She sat down in the middle of the library and ran her hands over it. It was cool to the touch. She flipped the brass latch and sat for a moment, contemplating her betrayal to her beloved grandmother. All at once, she flipped open the lid to the box and it flooded the room with a sickening green light. She felt the draw, it pulled at her and she began to fight it, realizing that what Seraline has told her was more than fairy tale. It pulled and pulled and she looked down. She saw the face of what could only be Scarnith, and he was smiling. She let go and was pulled into the box.
It snapped shut.
Then a figure appeared from the shelves donning the books that Madeleine had read throughout the years. He collected the box, then disappeared.
Epilogue
; When John opened his eyes, he knew he wasn’t in upstate New York anymore. He gave himself a once over. He felt the need to make sure everything was working properly. His heart beat like a bass drum and he began to sweat. He looked to the sky to gather his bearings. The accountant gasped.
The sun was huge! He thought the sun being so large and the air temperature being so mild was odd. He realized he could only see the sun because of its size. His attention turned to the trees. The canopies of the trees were high and thick and the trunks were of amazing girth. They would have blocked the sun back home completely.
He had seen photos of the redwood trees in California, but even those were dwarfed by the magnificence in front of him. He could see no end to the forest in any direction. Where John didn’t see trees, he saw rocks. He looked at the ground and noticed the rocky terrain. He thought that was unusual in forests, but he wasn’t a world traveler. Some of the boulders were bigger than anything he’d ever seen, even the ones in the distance were mammoth.
He bent over to pick up a leaf that had fallen from its father. He hesitated as thoughts of poison ivy flashed in his mind. He didn’t know what type it was, but he snatched it up anyhow. He was too curious. The leaf was as big as his head and it was heavy. He carefully folded into a pouch, reached into his pocket, and pulled out the tooth and spike. He placed them carefully in his pouch expecting them to rip through, but they didn’t. He took a few careful steps looking for something to use to secure the pouch to him.
He found some vines dangling from a nearby tree and went back to his Boy Scout days. He braided them tightly together creating a strap, which he wrapped along the top to close the pouch. He didn’t want to risk losing the items. He walked a little further into, or out of, the woods searching for more vines to fashion a waist strap. He happened upon something else unusual.
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