I had spent most of our prep time with Sara, following Tamar’s instructions to ready myself for what lay ahead. Once I was in the trap with him, I’d be on my own, without the fail-safes or protections I’d had in other journeys. Tamar wanted me ritually bathed, cleansed of any spiritual ick that might weigh me down or make me vulnerable to the whispering obsession of that realm. And then I was to meditate, to sharpen my focus and resolve any doubts or fears that could hold me back.
Before I did any of it, I went back to my tent and held my key and called out to Rosa Vermelha. She needed to know what I was going to do. She’d appeared, sitting opposite me, fixing me with her fierce green eyes. “You found his true name, huh? You surprise me, girl. Didn’t think we’d get to this point so quick.”
“Does that mean you’re not going to tell me not to do this?”
She looked sad. “No. This got to happen. This fight is too big now to let this chance pass. I can’t be in there with you, my girl, you know that, right? Just--do all you can to get out. I ain’t ready to lose you so soon.”
Sara and I went to the Goblin Market, to the racks of costumes and clothes donated for anyone to take, and picked out things for me to wear. Rosa had urged me to dress as lavishly as I could. “Make yourself irresistible,” she’d said. “Seduction, the tried and true method for spirits and gods throughout time trying to get each other to come after them.”
We brought everything back to Sara’s tent and then went together to the shower. When we got there, she wrapped her long braids in a scarf and removed her halter top, remaining partly dressed in loose cotton harem pants and her jewelry. I had shed yet another set of dirty borrowed clothes at her tent and walked over wrapped only in a sarong; I wore nothing but that and my key hanging around my neck.
I hung the sarong on the fence surrounding the shower as Sara turned on and adjusted the temperature of the water. I turned to face her.
She was so lovely, like she’d stepped out of an ancient relief depicting a water spirit. The cool water flowed and splashed on the ground between us. Her skin was so smooth, her limbs so long and graceful, her collarbones strong and symmetrical, her waist and hips narrowing into her endless legs. Drops of water sparkled on her lashes and cheek and breasts. She held out her hand to me to draw me under the water.
We stood close, not quite eye to eye, and I imagined that I could feel the place where the heat rising off of our skin mingled. I was aware of Rosa’s presence strengthening in that space, awakening in me a desire that was tinged with the ecstatic.
Sara stole a kiss. Small and soft, just the briefest press of her ripe cherry mouth against my lips, but my whole heart surged with it. She began to wash me with salt and oils.
I surrendered to the pleasure of her hands on my skin, the roughness of the salt scrubbing every bit of grime from every bit of me. She caressed me as she went, her hands scooping water and pouring it over my body, smoothing away my tension as they rinsed. It was an exquisite tenderness, as though I were the most precious thing she had ever touched. Now and then her fingertips pressed into my flesh, into the muscle beneath, coaxing my relaxation. Her wet pants clung to the slopes of her body and her skin cooled in the splashing of the water.
She stood behind me to wash my hair, working her fingers with great care through the tangles to rub my scalp and begin to un-knot the whole ratty mess. I felt her nipples press against my back and I leaned back against her, craving the closeness. Her hands stilled and then trailed down from my head to my shoulders, down the length of my arms, her fingers lacing through mine, her cheek pressed to my neck and her lips resting on my shoulder. Her hands traced along my arms again and came down over my shoulders, the flat of her palms smoothing the front of my shoulders and crossing high on my chest as I reached up and cradled her forearms in my hands.
When she rinsed my hair, the water flowed over my face as I tipped my head back, and I felt new.
Once I was clean, she turned off the water and poured half a bottle of rosewater over my hair and down my body. I took it from her and poured a little into my hand, sprinkling it over her head and marking her forehead with it, then pouring what remained over her shoulders and torso.
She dried me as tenderly and with as much care as she had washed me, and wrapped me in the sarong again. Neither of us had spoken a word throughout this entire process.
Back in her tent, away from the others, she laid me out on her wide low air mattress, covered in exotic-looking patterned spreads of soft cotton. She traced my skin with sweet almond oil, drawing the patterns and sigils Tamar had given her, that would offer me some small protection and help when I was alone with Murmur. I closed my eyes and sighed beneath her touch. I heard her wriggle out of her shower-drenched pants, felt her body pressed against my back as she stretched alongside me and slipped her arm around me.
I wanted to make love with her. My entire body called out to hers, the edges of my perception blurring with this sweet clear craving. I turned my head and she kissed me again, more deeply this time, lingering. My abdomen ached with tickling pleasure where her hand rested. I reached up, pulling her scarf away, feeling her braids tumble over me, tangling my fingers in them.
At the same time, we stopped. There wasn’t time for anything more, and we both knew it. She dabbed rose oil on my pulse points, in my palms and on the tops of my feet. The unsatisfied desire was part of it, a slow-burning energy build that drew from our connection to Rosa and filled me with the smallest drop of Her infinite power. An ember I could fan when I was in the trap with Murmur and needed to anchor myself to the love that waited to receive me when I returned.
I dared to meet Sara’s eyes. They were so luminous, so deep, and I fluttered inside when I saw how she looked at me. Yet there was something else there too--excitement, anticipation, pride. I felt a little of it myself, despite everything. For this part of things, at least, we had been called. We were sisters in spirit, sharing this rite in offering to the one whose glory warmed us like sunlight and left us breathless.
After I dressed, she combed my hair and did my makeup from a fishing tackle box filled with more cosmetics than I could name. And then she left me to meditate and finish my preparation alone.
I was afraid, but strangely peaceful. I searched my heart for doubts and found none. I wasn’t sure that I could succeed, or that I would be strong enough not to get lost in the trap myself, but I was ready to try. As long as I got Murmur sealed up in there, my friends and family and countless people I didn’t even know would be safe. That was enough for one life.
I found myself thinking about everyone who gave me a reason to return. My new friends here, of course. I wanted to know them all better, to return in time to laugh and play and celebrate together tonight. My parents; even though things had gone so wrong, I didn’t want them to be like Joe’s mother, always wondering why I’d vanished. Suzanne, for whom I could search if I returned and learned to use my abilities better, and maybe I could give her peace.
Rosa Vermelha. I hadn’t known her, or what she would be like, when I’d agreed to belong to her. But now that she’d revealed herself to me, I found that I was glad that I did.
And my Beloved. If I returned, maybe I could find him. Maybe I would discover that he could appear to me like Rosa did. Maybe he would come to me in my journeys, the way he’d come to me when I lived under his protection on the island, in the deep night full of sultry breeze and the secret scents of flowers that loved the moon. Maybe I would hear his voice again, so low and thrilling against my ear, his whispers calling me his refuge, his delight, his love. I remembered the last hasty kiss we’d shared, the urgency in his eyes as he pushed me away to flee down the path to the gate that would lead me back to life and far from him. If I could have even one more glimpse of his face lit with adoration, I would walk through a hundred dead realms, a thousand trap dimensions.
It was time to go. I stood up and ran my hands ove
r my hair. I was ready.
We gathered near Tomas’ grave, all of us and Teo. It was a risk to be here, close enough to camp that the noise from our ritual might attract attention. But it was the spot where Murmur’s claim on Teo had been staked, and Dionne said that would give us an advantage to kill Teo’s egregore, which was older and more powerful than Vivi’s. She guessed that it was on its way to becoming an independent entity under Murmur’s control but no longer reliant on Teo’s bond with him.
And perhaps more importantly, this grave was a reminder of Murmur’s defeat at our hands. To kill Teo’s egregore here would make it almost irresistible for him to manifest here, and we needed that. The first step was to get him here and get his attention on me so that I could lure him to the site of the trap.
“Oh, my god.” Tamar stared at me as I approached. “That’s...wow.”
“Is it too much?” I smoothed my hands over my hips and touched my outfit here and there, self-conscious. “I don’t know what I look like.”
“It’s...a lot to take in,” said Joe. “I mean--in a good way.” The way he was looking at me filled in the blanks of his opinion.
“Here, take a look,” said Cherry, opening her phone and turning the camera on so I could see myself on the screen.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d worn so much makeup, and I had never had the skill to arrange my long hair as artfully as Sara had done in minutes. I was all in red and black, a motley of pieces that on my own I’d have overlooked but that Sara had pulled together to make me witchy, mysterious, alluring in a kind of wild and dangerous way. Like I was some untamed spirit that lived in the shadows of some primeval green place and lured mortals from their paths.
Which, I supposed, was appropriate.
Dionne looked me over and nodded approval. “Are you really sure about this?”
“As much as I can be,” I said. “As much as I’ve been sure about anything this weekend.”
“Teo?” Tamar touched his arm. He was kneeling beside the grave, his gaze turned inward.
He nodded. “I’m ready.”
We set everything up as we had when we’d done this for Vivi. There hadn’t been time for Tamar to find more glasses to enchant, so we would have to rely on Teo to sense or see the egregore himself. I offered up a little prayer to whoever might be listening that this would still work. Even if everything else went south, Teo could still be free from this suffering.
This time, when Teo pricked his finger and squeezed out the drops onto the poppet, the firewood, and the candle flame, the sound of hissing and rustling was much louder. The winds whipping up around us were even stronger, as though stirred by the beat of huge wings in flight. And this time, I smelled ozone.
It was time.
“I can’t do this,” I said, as loud as I could. Everyone turned to look at me.
“Focus,” snapped Dionne.
“No. This is crazy. Don’t you see? If you go through with this, he’s going to destroy all of us. He won’t stop until you’re all dead. There’s only one thing that can save us.” My trembling fingers fumbled with the cord as I pulled the key from around my neck.
“Mari, don’t do this.” Sara reached out to me.
“I have to. Don’t you see? I caused all this. I’m the one that Murmur’s mad at.” I put an extra emphasis on his name. Ozone buzzed in my nose. “I renounce my oath to Rosa Vermelha. I remove myself from her protection. Here, take her key. You serve her now, she’ll take care of you.” I grabbed Sara’s hand and put the key in it.
“Mari, no!” Joe rushed toward me.
I backed away, holding my hands out between us. “You can’t stop me. None of you can. He can claim me if I give myself to him, and if I do, he’ll leave the rest of you alone. It’s worth it. I’m nothing to this world, but I’m something to him. I have to use that.”
“It’s here!” Teo stared into the air above the poppet. I couldn’t see the egregore, but I had a sense of it, immense and dark, out of the corner of my eye.
“Shit! We can’t let it go. Tamar!” Dionne gestured to her.
Tamar threw the knotted cord in front of the poppet to bind it, and the egregore. “Everyone, we need all hands here. Focus!”
I turned and ran.
Sara ran after me.
I bolted down the path, back into camp, heading for the art installations at the center of camp. I ducked and wove among them, putting them between me and Sara. She chased after me for a minute more, getting frantic as she searched for me. When I reached the bed sheet labyrinth around the temple, I peeked back out after her. She was turning in slow circles, searching the faces around her, desperation in her face. At last she held up the key, touching it lightly, clutched it in her fist again, and trudged back toward the path.
Good. Good. I hadn’t told her much about what I was going to do, just that when I ran, she had to chase me until she lost me and then give up. It needed to ring true to Murmur, that I was ready to break my oath to Rosa and hand myself over to him. Sara needed to seem afraid and confused and distraught.
I felt in my pocket. There was a piece of chalk in there, carved with enchantments to make it useful to me in the spirit realm as well as here. Dionne had given it to me along with instructions on what to do with it. I glanced up at the sky. The sun was behind the trees now, the early evening shadows growing longer. It wouldn’t be long before sunset. I had to go now, if I had any chance of finishing this before the fire marshals cleared out the temple and packed it with firewood.
Running through the labyrinth, I saw no one else there. Good. Now I just needed enough time to get into trance and start my journey. I ran up the stairs to the second level and went inside. There was a grid chalked onto the floor, a series of numbers with lines connecting certain ones. Beside it, my metronome sat beside an incense burner on a tile and a lighter. I lit the charcoal in the burner and started the metronome. The crackling line of orange-red crawled across the charcoal, leaving pale gray and ember in its wake. It was going so slowly. I blew on it to hurry it. As soon as it was ready, I piled the mugwort back on top of it and musky, mossy smoke curled up from it. I went to the grid, careful not to step into it, and made the final chalk line between numbers that Dionne had described to me.
I lay down outside the grid with my head close to the metronome, closed my eyes, and worked to slow my breathing. The incense filled my nose, the scent shifting my consciousness and making my body feel light. It took me only a minute or two to slip into journey.
When I sat up and looked around, I saw that where the grid had been was now an arch, tall and smooth, containing a darkness in which tiny lights blinked and streamed. I got up and left the space, going outside to the stairs, which were now wide and magnificent. The clock in the tower ticked loudly. I glanced up at it. Its hands still moved backwards, but now the numbers were disappearing as the minute hand passed them. I ran down the stairs to the wall where the red spiral was carved.
Now that I knew where I was going and how to get there, it was much faster going. I bounded down the stairs, landing on the ones that matched the pattern, and floated off the last one toward the pillar of smoke.
I lifted the box from the pillar, this time not even bothering to hesitate or try to stop its eerie music from playing. The faltering notes echoed off the walls, playing faster and faster, and the eyes in the walls opened. Their red light bathed me, scalded me, making the music box glow with heat. I turned back to the stairs.
Murmur stood on the bottom step, flanked by vultures, the void roiling where a face should be. His gloved hand reached out to me. Fat wet drops, even more luridly red in this light, fell from below the hem of the glove and vanished into the nothing below me. He clenched his fist.
My throat closed off.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
I struggled as Murmur pulled his fist back, drawing me closer to him. “What do you thi
nk you’re doing with that?” His voice was a furnace blast. The eyes around me glared, red and oozing accusations, following me as I moved.
He opened his hand and I dropped below the last step, clutching the box with one hand while with the other I flailed in panic. Some tiny animal instinct kicked in, and I willed myself back upward and away from him. “You know what I’m doing. I said I’d give myself to you, like you asked. I threw away my key and broke my oath.” I stretched my neck, holding the neckline of my top aside so he could see that my throat was bare.
“Give me that box.” Beside him, the vultures ruffled their feathers and opened their wings, menacing.
“Not so fast. This is my leverage. I need to make sure you’re going to keep your promise to leave them all alone. My friends here, my family, everyone I’ve ever known. You promised. Prove to me they’ll be safe or I’ll destroy this.” I was drifting to one of the walls, above the line of the awful eyes.
A rumble from within the void. “You’re that desperate, at last? You’re as weak as I remember. Very well. Your loved ones would only have been amusing diversions for me anyway. Now come to me, and let’s discuss our new arrangement.” He reached for me again.
I took the enchanted chalk from my pocket and made four swift lines on the wall. “If you want me, come and get me.” The square on the wall became a doorway and I dove through it with the box tucked under my arm.
I tumbled out into the second level of the temple, the space where I’d started my journey. The room around me snapped like a rubber band and dazed me. I shook it off. There was just enough time for me to run to the arch and stand in front of its glimmering darkness before Murmur emerged from the doorway after me. “No more games,” he rasped as he stormed over to me.
“This was never a game to me.” I waited until he was close enough to touch me, and stepped through the arch.
We stood in a place of blinding whiteness, a stark contrast against the utter lack of light in his form. Where the crisscrossing lines in the grid had been, there were walls now, forming a warren of corridors. Numbers streamed like water down the walls. They made patterns, equations, puzzles, calculations.
MetamorphosUS: Book 1 of the Mythfit Witch Mysteries Page 48