‘Anything else?’ She shook her head.
The other Enforcer, who’d been leaning against the wall, waltzed over. ‘That took a mighty long time for one jar of honey,’ he commented.
Aisleen kept her eyes on the ground. ‘I was also looking for tobacco, for my husband. But I couldn’t find any.’
‘No tobacco? That’s unusual.’
‘Yes,’ Aisleen agreed. Although she wanted to keep moving, she had noticed there had been no tobacco stock as she’d walked around the store, so she felt comforted the Enforcers could not prove her wrong. But perhaps she’d underestimated how much attention they were paying her.
‘All right then, on your way.’ The Enforcers walked back to their previous positions, one of them pulling out a deck of cards as he dragged a second chair over, so they could sit and play. Aisleen released the breath she’d been holding and decided she’d taken enough risks for one day.
CHAPTER NINE
ANNA FELT THE nerves in her stomach as she sat at the bus stop after work that Friday night, on her way to her second Women’s Circle meeting. She hated being nervous over something so dumb. She was pretty sure the circle wasn’t a cult – even though Jeanette had jokingly suggested it when Anna told her about the eye gazing and hugging.
‘You think I shouldn’t go back?’ Anna had asked, worried that her curiosity about the crystal was clouding her judgement.
‘No! I mean, yes, definitely go back! I’m just joking around, I promise. It sounds so good. I might come along one day, I could use a good meditation.’ A flicker of something, maybe sadness, had flashed in Jeanette’s eyes then and Anna had almost asked her if she was all right. But then Jeanette had laughed and made another joke and the moment had passed; the attention returned to Anna and her problems.
The brakes of the bus screeched when it pulled up and Anna attempted to bury her nerves as she boarded and took a seat, thinking about work. Her first week at the register had passed without any further incidents. Besides his voice message, Brayden hadn’t mentioned Anna’s fainting or outburst again, except to ask Anna one more time if she was feeling well enough to be back. None of the other staff said anything either, but they were all casuals filling different shifts – mostly students working around their school or university timetables. When she first had started her job there, a few of them had tried to get to know Anna by asking questions and sharing facts about their lives, but Anna only ever answered with a couple of words or nodded, so they soon gave up. A smile, a hello and a goodbye was as close as Anna wanted to get to anyone. Anna didn’t mind talking to Brayden, because he really only spoke about the restaurant – what he needed to order, and profit charts. Listening to him didn’t bother Anna, especially because he didn’t ask her too many questions. So the job portion of her parole conditions felt okay to Anna. She was pretty sure she’d be able to keep it for the six-month period she needed to. The therapy part, on the other hand, Anna didn’t feel as sure about. Could she really spend every Friday night for the next six months staring into the eyes of other women? And what if things got weirder with the crystal? Anna tried to distract herself by thinking of questions she would ask Nina at the end of the meeting. Maybe once she had some answers, she’d feel better. The first thing she wanted to know was how she’d been able to see what she’d seen. She wanted to be one hundred per cent sure it wasn’t some kind of witchcraft; her Latin blood needed to release that worry. Then she wanted to know who that woman was. And when was she from? Her clothes and the way she spoke made her seem ancient. But then, there was something so familiar about her. Like she could have been a woman Anna already knew, playing a role. Anna wanted to understand why she’d seen the woman’s face again when she was alone, and why she kept thinking about her.
When Anna arrived at the Women’s Wellness Centre, she was almost exploding with her questions for Nina. Her nerves had eased a little, melting away completely when she stepped inside the room and the scented candles, soft music and gentle warmth embraced her. She took off her shoes and went straight over to the same cushion she’d sat on last week. Nina was chatting to a woman on the other side of the room, but she looked over at Anna and grinned. Anna smiled back and glanced at the crystal that was in the same position as last week, on the mat in the centre of the circle. Anna itched to get closer to it. Would she touch it again today?
She closed her eyes, taking in the soft sounds and smells, and tried to calm her thoughts. She marvelled that it had been only three weeks since her release from prison. Less than a month ago at this time, she would have been sitting in the shared television room, watching some dumb show, listening to the others talk crap. Sam would have been next to her, but that’s the only good thing Anna could conjure from the memory. Now she was in a room with women she didn’t know, surrounded by crystals and candles and probably about to spin out over some weird cult-like activity. Life was odd. But in that moment, Anna didn’t mind.
Anna held a card in her hand. It was painted with an image of a beautiful woman with long green hair, standing tall beneath a stormy sky, breathing out a bolt of lightning.
‘What does that card say to you?’ asked the woman Anna had been partnered with. Earlier, Nina had instructed them to pick a facedown card from the centre of the circle and sit with someone they felt ‘called’ to work with. Anna had picked her card easily, but didn’t feel ‘called’ to talk to anyone, other than Nina, who was already sitting with another woman. So she’d returned to her cushion, deciding to do the activity by herself. But an older woman, probably the eldest there, came to sit with her. She’d lowered herself very slowly to the ground, her knees making loud cracking noises.
‘Arthritis,’ she’d explained. ‘But I’m seventy-eight and can still sit on the floor so I think I’m doing all right.’
‘You are,’ Anna agreed, impressed. She hadn’t spent time with older people since she was in Chile. Inside, the oldest inmate had been in her fifties. For the first time since she’d been out, Anna let her mind wander to her grandmother. The way her wrinkled hands had expertly rolled dough to make fresh bread every morning. Her serious expression breaking into a smile when a very young Anna walked into the room. The cakes she would make every Sunday, knowing Anna’s favourite was a sweet caramel tart – torta tres leche. Anna could almost taste the caramel now. Before Anna’s mind could travel to the darker times, when Anna made her grandmother cry rather than smile, the woman spoke.
‘I’m Leslie,’ the woman offered and Anna blinked. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Anna.’
‘Lovely to meet you. What card did you draw?’
Anna held out the card to Leslie and her eyes widened. ‘Well, that’s perfect for you, I feel. Look how powerful that woman is, she’s a goddess. You strike me as a strong woman.’
Anna was surprised by the compliment. Did she really appear strong? She felt so weighed down by her thoughts most of the time, like she was fighting a losing battle. Leslie pressed her for her own thoughts on the card. Anna stared at the image for a long time.
‘I think it means I don’t need to get my power from anyone else. I already have it.’ Anna continued to stare at the card as she spoke, thinking about all she had survived. She could feel Leslie’s eyes on her.
‘Oh, I love that. And I agree. We all hold enough power inside us to get through anything, don’t we?’
‘Hmmm.’
‘But that doesn’t mean we can’t ask for help from time to time. That’s what my card means, I think.’ Leslie held out her card to Anna. ‘See the hands, the way they’re offered out.’ Anna focused her attention on Leslie, genuinely interested. ‘I’ve always done things myself, suffered in silence. It’s only as I’ve grown older that I’ve realised there’s no shame in asking for help.’
Anna nodded. She couldn’t remember asking for help, ever. She’d had help, though. Jeanette mentoring her. Talia explaining to her things about the house and Sako letting her eat most nights what she cooked. Even being here
, at the Women’s Circle, was some kind of help.
Nina closed the group with a shorter meditation and Anna remained sitting this time, not really wanting to repeat the experience of the week before when she’d felt like she had left her body. When the meditation finished, Anna felt relaxed, as though she’d had a nap. She stayed sitting on her cushion as the other women left. Once Nina had closed the door to the last woman, she signalled for Anna to get up and join her, right by the crystal. Anna had avoided looking too closely at it during the evening, not wanting to experience anything weird before talking to Nina. She looked at it properly now and remembered the woman who’d dug it from the earth, the way she’d held it in her arms, like a baby.
‘What are your feelings now about what you saw last week? Have you made any sense of it?’ Nina asked.
‘No. It still feels weird. Like a dream … or … I don’t know.’
‘Do you hold any fear around it?’ Anna went to shake her head, but then paused. Nina raised her eyebrows slightly. ‘What is it?’ When Anna didn’t answer, Nina’s voice was even gentler. ‘You can tell me.’
Anna wasn’t sure how to put her question into words without offending Nina, but she supposed she should just say it. ‘You haven’t put some kind of spell on the crystal, have you? I mean … You’re not a witch?’ Anna mumbled the last word, mortified both by her ridiculous question and what the answer might be. When Nina didn’t answer right away, Anna looked up at her.
Nina smiled, her expression amused. ‘No, there’s no spell on the crystal and no, I’m not a witch, whatever that means anyway.’
Anna’s cheeks burned. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean that you seem like a witch. I just wanted to make sure, there’s no, I don’t know, dark magic with all this stuff?’ She shrugged and tried to laugh as though it was no big deal.
‘Nothing like that,’ Nina assured her. ‘Magic is a strange thing, it’s not spells and witches like people think. Although witches, as they’ve been called, would more likely have been experts in herbs and medicines, back in the day. But that’s a story for a different time.’ Nina laughed and the tension in Anna’s shoulders released. She hadn’t caused any offence.
‘It’s just that in Chile, this kind of thing,’ Anna raised her chin as though gesturing to the entire room, ‘is deemed evil. You know, Catholic country and all that … It must be in my DNA to be worried about it.’
‘I get it. It’s the unknown, and that’s weird and scary for a lot of people. But when you look at the crystal, when you touch it, are you scared?’
Without needing to think about her answer, Anna shook her head. ‘It’s actually kind of comforting.’
‘Well, that’s good. Really good.’ Nina seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about what I should tell you about the crystal.’
‘I have a lot of questions. Besides the witchcraft stuff, that is.’
Nina laughed. ‘Of course you do. So did I when I first found this crystal. It came to me in a very strange way. I was on my first overseas holiday, backpacking through England, and I’m in one of those memorial villages – you know the ones with remnants of castles or churches, but no-one lives there anymore?’ Anna didn’t really know anything about England, except it was where the queen lived, but she nodded along and Nina continued. ‘So I’m in this museum-like town and as I walk past a souvenir store, there’s a sales assistant placing the crystal in the window display. The weirdest feeling came over me and I just had to have it. I marched right in and bought it, spending way too much! And the strangest part was the sales assistant said to me it was a donation that had arrived that same morning. I’d bought it before she’d even managed to display it!’
‘So when you touched it, did you see all that stuff too?’ Anna asked.
Nina shook her head. ‘Not at first. It felt kind of warm in my hands, at best. But when I came back to Australia and was figuring out what to do with my life, well, I don’t know how to explain it … One morning I just walked over to my shelf, took the crystal down and held it tightly, and bam. I saw the woman, how she’d found the crystal in a field, the oppressed time she lived in. Her story just sort of downloaded in my head.’ Nina laughed. ‘And this was before I even knew what meditation was, so it was as strange for me as it was for you, I promise.’
As hard as it was for Anna to imagine Nina freaking out over the crystal, knowing that she’d once been as clueless as Anna comforted her.
‘So why do you think you saw that woman? Why have I seen her?’
Nina seemed to consider her words carefully. ‘There’s so much more for you to see, Anna. I don’t even know how to explain my thoughts on what I saw.’
‘Can you try?’
‘I think it’s better if you see for yourself.’
Anna reached out, ready to touch the crystal again for answers, but Nina guided Anna’s hand away. ‘No. You need more time with it. I’ve decided to lend you the crystal. Just for the week. That way you have as much time as you need with it and hopefully you will get all the answers you’re looking for. If not, ask me anything next week and I’ll do my best to answer.’
‘You’re giving me the crystal?’ Anna stared at the precious rock, both terrified and excited at the thought of taking it home.
‘Lending it to you. I’d like you to bring it back next week.’
‘Aren’t you worried about lending it to me? You know … Why are you trusting me?’
Nina gave Anna a sad smile and shook her head. ‘Why wouldn’t I trust you, Anna? Besides, it’s really the crystal’s decision. She’s chosen you.’
That they were talking about a rock as though it was alive struck Anna as weirder than anything else about the Women’s Circle so far. But she was still excited. Nina wrapped the crystal in a pale orange sarong and Anna placed the crystal carefully in her bag, wearing her backpack on her chest, rather than her back.
‘I know you’ll take care of it for me,’ Nina said as they stood up and hugged. ‘I hope you have a week full of answers, Anna.’
CHAPTER TEN
AS ANNA UNLOCKED the front door, she hoped the house would be quiet. With Talia working six nights a week and Sako going to bed straight after dinner most evenings, it usually was. But there was always the chance Mads would be home and moping around, making Anna’s skin crawl with her disgusting habit of hacking the phlegm from the back of her throat and then loudly swallowing it. Anna wasn’t in the mood for putting in the effort to ignore her; she just wanted to get straight to her room to look at the crystal closely and alone. But the moment she stepped inside the house, Anna could hear Mads’ voice. She gripped her backpack tightly and walked down the hallway, determined not to make eye contact. But as Anna walked past the kitchen, she heard Jeanette’s voice. She paused in the doorway and Jeanette jumped up from the stool she was sitting on next to Mads.
‘Anna, you’re home! How was your day?’ Jeanette’s cheeks were pink and as she kissed Anna’s cheek Anna thought she smelt alcohol.
‘It was good. How are you?’ Anna asked, ignoring Mads and remaining in the doorway. Jeanette chattered about her teenage sons driving her crazy with all their gaming and scattering of dirty clothes around the place. Anna nodded and tried to smile, but she couldn’t help looking over at Mads who was sitting like a sad statue, her eyes glassy and unfocused, gripping a glass of water in her shaking hand and staring at it. Jeanette followed Anna’s gaze and reached out to pat Mads’ arm. Even as she reached up and brushed strands of sweaty hair from Mads’ forehead, Jeanette continued her story about her eldest son hogging the bathroom every morning. When there was finally a break in Jeanette’s chatter, Anna excused herself.
‘I’m just going to put my things away.’ Anna rushed down the hall to her room and shut the door behind her, blocking out Jeanette’s coddling of Mads. Anna wanted to shake them both. Mads was obviously loaded and ruining whatever second chance she’d been granted. Why was Jeanette wasting her time? Anna placed her bag on her bed and
carefully unwrapped her crystal. She wanted to sit here with it and try to understand the mystery of the woman from her vision. She didn’t want to compare herself to Mads and wallow in all her own mistakes and chances she’d wasted.
‘Hey, Anna, I’m going to head off now.’ Jeanette’s voice, along with her knock on Anna’s door, made Anna jump. She rewrapped the crystal and shoved it into her backpack.
‘Hang on,’ she called, pushing her bag under her bed. She opened her door and walked with Jeanette down the hallway to see her out. Jeanette raised her finger to her lips as they walked past Mads’ room.
‘I tucked her in bed,’ Jeanette whispered. ‘She isn’t doing too well,’ she added as they reached the front door.
‘Oh.’
‘She’s using again. Not here, she’s been visiting an injecting centre. She knows she can’t use in the house.’
Anna pulled a face. ‘But it’s okay in some deadbeat room with other junkies?’ Jeanette looked hurt by Anna’s sarcasm. ‘Sorry. I just don’t see how it’s different.’
‘Well, it’s controlled. At least we know she won’t overdose there. I’m looking into rehabilitation options for her. I think she’ll need another full detox.’
Anna wanted Jeanette to stop talking and go home. She didn’t want to hear about Mads’ struggles with addiction. She knew exactly what would happen to Mads – the same thing that happened to all users like her. She would keep using until she died. Anna had seen it enough to know that was just the way it was. The finality of that thought filled Anna with such a heavy despair that she wanted to punch something, to scream, to run away.
‘Anna?’ Jeanette took a step towards her and placed a hand on Anna’s shoulder. She was too close. Anna stepped back and fought to control her breathing. ‘It’s all right, you’re safe. You’re not going to use again, Anna. You’re different.’ Jeanette spoke the same way she did to Mads; Anna was just another pathetic junkie who needed comforting.
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