Fallen Gods: Lotus Blooming

by Lorie O'Clare

  “This one might be too big even for you, Gramma,” she conceded with a sigh.

  Somehow she had to sort through this on her own. She’d taken care of herself for years, and she wouldn’t stop now. When things got a bit too sticky, she’d always resorted to the comfort of her surroundings, and her magic.

  Even though she’d grown up here, too many years had passed for her to feel this was her home. She’d brought her personal supplies with her, packed safely in her suitcase, so that she could perform any incantations or spells needed.

  “Could I actually do magic without them?” She’d never fathomed the thought.

  But after everything that happened today, she was starting to have a few new thoughts. One of them being the intense desire to explore what might have been inside of her all along.

  She paced from the kitchen into the living room, staring at the front door briefly while the urge to leave and go find her mother surged through her.

  “She’s probably out looking for me.” And suddenly she felt bad for running out on her.

  They needed to talk, sort through this newfound knowledge of her father.

  “I wonder where he went.” But she didn’t want to know. She wasn’t ready to see him again, not yet. “No. I want to know where Mom is.”

  And she began pacing again, frowning while she thought of possible places her mother might be.

  She tugged on the plain T-shirt she’d donned, fidgeting with the material as she closed her eyes, imagining her mother driving into town.

  “Wherever you be, appear for me,” she whispered, no longer pacing but standing in the middle of her mom’s living room.

  Her heart beat silently against her ribs, while she slowed her breath, keeping her mind focused on her mother’s face.

  “Wherever you be, appear for me,” she repeated, relaxing the muscles throughout her body.

  She repeated her plea one more time, her body completely relaxed now, her thoughts focused on her mother.

  A strange urgency rushed over her, emotions that didn’t feel like her own. She was sensing her mother’s thoughts and she grasped them eagerly, wrapping her own thoughts around them. But where was she?

  Her body slowly levitated, like it often did when she cast her spells. But focusing on keeping her feet on the ground would distract her from her mother. And she didn’t like the feelings that were coming over her.

  Wherever her mother had gone, she was worried, concerned about something.

  Thena squeezed her eyes shut so hard they hurt, but she wouldn’t do anything to ease her own body. All of her attention had to remain on her mom, or she would lose the connection she’d created.

  Where are you? She needed to see around her mother, create a bigger picture in her mind to help her figure out where her mother had gone. Suddenly the sensation that she was gripping something really hard made her hands hurt. A view of town flashed in front of her, the road, the glare of the sun.

  An unpleasant sensation rippled through her—fear, something evil.

  Her mother was in trouble!

  That simple knowledge hit her so hard that she opened her eyes, suddenly gasping for breath as she fell to the ground—for the third time that day. Her tennis shoes eased her landing on her mother’s carpeted floor.

  “I’ve got to find a way to get to her,” she said, looking around her quickly at her quiet surroundings.

  The image she’d just seen in her mind was fading. But she knew that for a brief moment, she’d seen through her mother’s eyes. Thena fought to hold the image, place where in town her Mom had been. Margaret had been gripping her steering wheel. Thena could still feel its hardness against her palms. And she was in town. Thena had seen the grocery store. At least that’s what she thought.

  The mental picture faded, and she slapped her hands to her temples, fighting to hold on to it, desperately needing to focus on where her mother was so possibly she could guess where she was heading.

  If only her mother carried a cellular phone.

  Thena had no car. And she still had no clue exactly where her mother was.

  Aggravation rippled through her. She hated feeling helpless.

  Priapus.

  He would be able to help her. She thought of calling out for him, curious if he would simply appear before her. Someone knocked on her door, the intrusion of sound almost making her heart explode when it skipped a beat.

  She hurried to open it, ready to tell Priapus that she needed to find her mother.

  Tommy Joe Baker stood in front of her, his hand lifted ready to knock again.

  Sunlight drifted in around her when she opened the door, but she didn’t feel it. A cold chill swallowed the warmth as she stared into his dark brooding gaze.

  Tall and thin, he towered over her, but his gaunt frame barely blocked the sunlight behind him. A wide black belt held his worn blue jeans to his waist, while a white T-shirt clung to his narrow frame. He had the sleeves rolled up to his shoulders, making his long arms almost look skeletal. In ten years, he hadn’t changed much in appearance.

  “Had a feeling I’d be able to catch you alone here,” he drawled.

  She caught a glimpse of his pickup truck pulled in sideways in the driveway, the front tires sinking deep into the soft ground of her mama’s front yard. Tommy Joe reached for the screen door, pulling it open while a slow sneer appeared on his face.

  “What you come back to Barren for?” he asked, his mouth barely moving when he talked.

  Something was definitely different about his manner though. Tommy Joe had always been awkward, a bit on the shy side—far from good-looking, he’d never been in with the cool kids or athletes. But he’d always been friendly, seeking her out, willing to do whatever she wanted. Harmless and sweet were the simplest words to describe him.

  At the moment, his aura suggested quite the opposite.

  He still wasn’t good-looking, but his shyness seemed to have left him. Determination saturated the space between them. His washed-out blue eyes seemed cold and distant. The insecure boy was gone. Something hard and mean had taken over.

  She didn’t want to step backward to allow him into the home. But holding her ground would have put them way too close to each other.

  “I was just leaving,” she told him, immediately aware of a foul stench that surrounded him.

  It turned her stomach. She crossed her arms, confused that he seemed so cold-hearted. Tommy Joe had always been a friendly sort, nothing like his old man who’d always been an asshole.

  “You fixin’ to take a walk? Or were you going to fly out of here? How were you going to leave, Thena? It’s quite a hike into town.” When he looked down at her, she saw the hatred, the swarming evil that put all the cruelty his father had ever shown to shame.

  “Tommy Joe, you get out of here.” Nothing about him intimidated her. She wouldn’t let it. “It’s none of your business where I’m going, or how I get there.”

  “I don’t think you’re going anywhere.” He reached for her, his dirty fingernails grabbing her attention when he tried to touch her face.

  Outrage. Fury. Anger so intense that it clogged her senses rushed out of him.

  “What’s gotten into you, Tommy Joe?” She tried to make a show out of her confusion, frantically biding time while she tried to figure out what to do. “We were always friends, I thought. You come back later and we’ll have a soda, catch up on old times.”

  He reached for her again, this time grabbing her arm. His icy fingers chilled her to the bone. Looking up, she saw it—the same evil that had harbored in little Nate.

  What the hell was going on here?

  There is evil lurking everywhere. Her Mom sure hadn’t lied about that.

  “Who are you?” she asked before she could stop herself.

  “You just said we were always friends, and now you ask who I am?” Tommy Joe’s laugh curdled her blood.

  She glared at him, trying to yank her arm away but he held on fast, moving in closer and forci
ng her to back up until they stood in the middle of the living room.

  “I don’t have time for games.” She stared at her arm where he held on with icy cold long fingers. “Let go of my arm.”

  “Believe me, Miss Thena. This ain’t no game.” Tommy Joe yanked on her arm, causing her almost to fall into him.

  “Let go of me!” Thena pulled back as hard as she could, surprised when she couldn’t sway Tommy Joe. “I don’t know what you’ve done to Tommy Joe, but you need to get the hell out of here—and now!”

  He was a lot stronger than he looked.

  “You aren’t wanted here,” he hissed, his voice sounding almost too deep. “This is your only warning to get out of town. Do you understand me?”

  No. She didn’t understand any of this. But she was beginning to see that something was possessing the people of Barren, Kentucky. Some type of evil harbored within these people. No wonder her mother had wanted her to come home.

  Tommy Joe had always had a puppy-dog personality, a sheepish grin on his face. She’d been forbidden fruit to him, his daddy not approving of her. He’d never judged her for her race though, and she never thought less of him for coming from a line of bigots. They had been friends. She wouldn’t have dated him even if his daddy had approved. But she’d never disliked him.

  The man who held her arm in a vise grip right now wasn’t Tommy Joe Baker. He might look like him. It was Tommy Joe on the outside. But whoever, or whatever, existed inside his body, was evil and disgusting.

  “I’ll stay here as long as I damn well please.” She was getting sick and tired of being manhandled.

  She glared at his hand, which was beginning to cut the circulation off in her arm.

  “I don’t think you understand,” he sneered, his voice seeming to echo in the living room.

  “No. I don’t think you understand.” A memory hit her, something she and Tommy Joe had shared in the past.

  A trick…nothing fancy…just something she’d learned how to do at an early age. She’d showed the other children and they’d laughed at her, teased and despised her for being different. Everyone but Tommy Joe. He’d been fascinated, and had asked her to do it again and again.

  The memory that hit her was when she was no more than ten at the oldest. She and Tommy Joe had been in the field out back, and she’d been able to set blades of grass on fire with her finger. It had been so simple. The other kids had run off, calling her weird, the daughter of a witch, making her feel silly that she’d shown them her trick. But Tommy Joe had been impressed. And they’d spent the rest of the afternoon starting small fires and putting them out quickly so they wouldn’t get discovered.

  She stared at Tommy Joe’s hand, his long fingers wrapped around her arm. “Remember the fires I used to start, Tommy Joe?” she asked, hoping to put enough mystery in her tone to feed his worry. “I could start fires with a finger. Maybe I could start a fire with your fingers.”

  “What?” he stammered, and his grip lightened.

  Whatever consumed Tommy Joe had access to his memories. She could sense it. The evil that lurked around him changed to fear, worry, suspicion.

  “You remember. With just a thought…poof! There was the fire.” She didn’t take her gaze off his fingers, her mind working, her thoughts focused on burning his fingers.

  She felt the heat in her arm at the same time that Tommy Joe let go of her, yelping loudly like a beaten pup.

  There wasn’t much time. She couldn’t let his fear subside, but instead needed to work off of it, take the upper hand.

  “If you don’t get the hell out of here right now, I’ll burn your entire body. Don’t think I can’t do it. Lighting a finger on fire was child’s play. And I’m not a child anymore.” She’d never lit anything on fire since those childhood days, but she’d be damned if she would let Tommy Joe know that.

  He took a step backward, his eyes bulging open so wide for a moment they looked like they would pop right out of his head.

  “I’m not done with you,” he hissed, pointing a long skinny finger at her as he backed to the door. “Show your strength. In the end, it will be your downfall. We are much stronger than you ever will be.”

  And with that he backed out of her door, letting the screen door slam closed behind him.

  She stood there for a minute, shaking and trying to understand what he’d meant by his words. We are much stronger. Who the hell are “we”?

  There wasn’t time to stand there and ponder his words. She hurried to the door in time to see him hop into his truck, mumbling something she couldn’t catch before pulling his truck door closed and firing the engine to life.

  “May your truck break down on the way into town,” she muttered, wishing him good riddance and bad luck.

  Before closing the door and locking it, she looked around the yard, curious to where Priapus had disappeared. It almost surprised her that he hadn’t run to her rescue.

  “But I didn’t need him.” She’d handled the matter nicely all by herself.

  And although she had half a mind to rush outside, make sure that Tommy Joe had left, she needed to focus on where her mother was. A sinking feeling in her gut told her that her mother might be in trouble.

  Chapter Eleven

  Her mother had a book of spells. And regardless of the fact that Priapus had told her that she didn’t need to use incantations or props to work magic, it was the life she knew.

  “Old habits just die hard,” she said out loud, speaking to Priapus even though she didn’t sense him anywhere nearby.

  Maybe he’d achieved his goal with her. Now that he had his piece of ass he wouldn’t be around as much. Wasn’t that just like a man?

  Well, she didn’t need him anyway. She’d gotten rid of Tommy Joe Baker all by herself. Now she would find her mother, and figure out how to get to her.

  Priapus had given her the time of her life. She wouldn’t deny that. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined a cock that size. He’d left her so satisfied, yet already she fantasized about doing him again. There were other positions, a variety of ways to satisfy each other.

  Thinking about all of that right now wouldn’t help her accomplish a thing. She didn’t need a man in her life anyway.

  Nonetheless, she let out a deep sigh, fighting off the uncomfortable settling in her tummy, and focused on figuring out what to do about her mother. In spite of the thoughts she kept having about Priapus, the worry that her mother needed her was becoming more than a distraction.

  Her mother always kept her book of spells on a shelf she’d put up in their living room. “We’ll call it our mantelpiece,” Margaret had teased so many years ago.

  Thena still remembered the satisfied smile her mother had on her face with hammer still in hand after they’d successfully mounted the shelf on the living room wall.

  “If we did have a fireplace, it would look best in this wall, don’t you think?” Her mother had always inspired the use of imagination.

  And Thena had agreed. She hurried over to the shelf, remembering how she’d pretended there had been a fireplace in that wall for years after that shelf had gone up. There had been days when she swore she could feel the heat and hear the crackling wood when she sat on the living room floor and played.

  The book of spells rested on the shelf, next to a bowl of fresh herbs. Not a spot of dust lay on the shelf. Her mother still used the book often, its worn pages proof of the attention it got.

  She took the book into the kitchen and flipped through the pages carefully, not wanting to accidentally tear the fragile paper.

  “A spell to find someone…there you are.” She ran her finger over several of them, opting not to use any that required blood.

  She’d never been into poking herself, or inflicting pain just to get results. Her finger stopped over a directional spell.

  The power of the book seeped through her finger as she stroked the page. She could feel the warmth, the strength from her mother as a result of so many successful spell
s pulled from these pages.

  “All I need are compass candles.” She’d become an expert on learning what type of candles worked best for what spells.

  She hurried to the cabinet in the dining room where numerous candles had always been kept, intent on her task, and ignoring the small voice deep inside her that suggested she might be able to find her mother without a spell. There wasn’t time to dabble with the unknown. It was best to stick to what she knew how to do. Pulling open the wooden door, which was actually part of a very old kitchen cabinet where most of the family heirlooms were kept, she hurried through the stacks of candles until she found what she was looking for.

  The wax of this particular candle, the compass candle, burned quickly, dripping heavily, which was what she needed for her spell.

  She looked down at the half-full box of matches and smiled. “Candle, you don’t need matches to light, do you?”

  The candle burst into flame, building her confidence that she would soon find out where her mother went. She might not be a goddess like Priapus had suggested, but she was a damn good witch.

  Placing the candle in a candleholder on the kitchen table she relaxed her mind, worked to release the anxiety that had built up inside her while Tommy Joe had been here. No longer would she dwell on Priapus, or where he might be. This wasn’t the time to think about the incredible sex she’d had on a magical bed in the middle of a field. All she would do right now is focus on where her mother was.

  “You are to the north,” she said, guiding her hands over the flame, directing it to the north. “And you are to the south,” she said, pulling her hands back to her belly while she stood over the burning candle. “You are to the west. And you are to the east.”

  She moved her hands over the flame in each direction, closing her eyes, feeling the heat of the small flame dance under her skin.

  “Burn the wax. Let it drip. Show me the direction in town where my mother went.” She directed the candle, telling it what she wanted to know.