Pockets of Darkness

by Jean Rabe

  Around and around and around. She should be dizzy, a child trapped on a carnival ride, but it was so very calming. For the first time since she’d acquired the buckle, she felt true peace. Bridget knew she should be seeking a way to trap a demon, just as whoever had made this bowl intended it as a trap. Fast-forward, she told herself. There was Otter to consider.

  And Michael, Rob, Marsh, Alvin, and Quin to protect.

  She should be using her psychometry to pursue the information she craved. But she’d suffered so much, physically and emotionally these past few days. Tavio’s brutal death, Jimmy’s heart ripped out, Dustin most assuredly slaughtered by her demon, Otter in her less-than-stellar mother care, the beloved brownstone in ruins, her antique store and its precious and priceless treasures slagged, on and on and on and on.

  Around and around.

  The wordless song of the potter continued, like it was a spell cast on her.

  The hands working the clay-that-she’d-become felt like a lover’s caress, sluicing away at the horrid memories of the past few days and making her memories of Dustin clearer.

  Around and around.

  Enjoy this for just a little while.

  The woman’s hands on the clay-that-she’d-become were restful and addicting and at the moment oh so necessary to ease her tortured, splintering soul.

  Around and around.

  Enjoy this for just a little while longer.

  The potter’s sweet song became her breath.

  Around.

  There was Otter to consider.

  Was it that she wouldn’t pull herself from this relaxing sensation … or couldn’t? Would this be the closest thing to heaven Bridget would ever experience? She’d damned herself, with her thieving, but more by releasing the demons in the museum. Ashes to ashes, the guards’ bodies. Their deaths on her. Her soul destined for the bottom of hell.

  Around and around. Make the memories go away.

  Around.

  For just a little while.

  One more turn.

  One.

  More.

  Wait. What was that? A different impression. Suddenly a cold and prickly wave rushed through her, no longer the welcome massaging pulse. But whatever uncomfortable numbness it had caused, it was fleeting, and so Bridget again concentrated on the strong, elegant fingers, the water sluicing up, and the rhythm of the wheel. The beautiful song.

  Around and around.

  Seeing the red-brown of the clay she’d become, cut here and there by the stylized characters, vaguely wondering what they meant, and then—

  —being assailed by the cold and prickly touch again.

  Bridget was jarred as if she’d just slugged down another of the syrupy sweet Monster drinks. She tried to press her mind outward, to get beyond the present memory of the clay and away from the prickly sensation, like forcing the fast-forward of a CD. This time the painful chill did not pass. It persisted. Think about Otter! Get free!

  But something prevented that and held her fast. She felt a coil loop around her and tighten. The rhythmic sound of the wheel and the potter’s song that had been worked into the fabric of the pot vanished to be replaced by a sibilant string of words. Foreign and exotic-sounding, it was as if a sultry Etta James was speaking ancient Sumerian. And because she was part of the bowl, her gift mentally translated each word.

  “Morsel you are, come to share my prison.” The coil rose higher, circling all of her essence; she felt like she couldn’t breathe. “Morsel feels sweet.”

  I’m not a morsel! Bridget raged. I am a visitor, passing through the clay.

  “Not I think,” the voice continued, deepening to a baritone. “Not passing through. Staying in my prison, sharing my prison. Wonderful company for eternity. Companion until the end of everything.”

  Bridget felt the chill increase, like she was stuck in a forming ice cube.

  “The end of time.”

  No! I am passing through.

  “Caught as Ku-Ninsunu is caught.”

  Is that your name, demon? Ku-Ninsunu?

  “Aldî-nîfaeti.”

  Is that your name, Aldî-nîfaeti?

  “Ku Ninsunu is my beautiful name. My beautiful self. She who was spawned by the river, it means, though no river was involved. Caught as Ku-Ninsunu are you—”

  Bridget.

  “Bridget is caught with Ku-Ninsunu forever.”

  The demon was female? Did her own demon have a sex? Male? Female?

  “Ku-Ninsunu and Bridget caught until the end of time. Caught by Hilimaz, Ku-Ninsunu and Bridget. Together forever. I will eat you slowly. Nibble by nibble so you last a very long time.”

  No!

  “Else unshackle Ku-Ninsunu. Together unless Bridget unshackles Ku-Ninsunu. Eat you ever-so-slowly, piece by piece, unless Bridget unshackles Ku-Ninsunu.”

  Hell no!

  She was indeed trapped … with a demon named Ku-Ninsunu inside the bowl she’d dipped her mind into. Trapped as tightly as if she’d been placed in manacles, sucked in like the demon had been pulled inside however many centuries past. What would happen to Otter now? Had she done this to herself? In allowing herself a few moments of pleasure feeling the potter work? Had Bridget doomed herself to an endless mind-locked existence with a piece of ancient pottery?

  “Forever with Ku-Ninsunu. Eat you piece by piece.”

  By all that’s holy!

  “No, Bridget. Nothing holy is here.”

  Just passing through.

  “Pass back, Bridget, and unshackle Ku-Ninsunu. Pass back. I will not let you go farther. Only despair is here. Captured until the end of time. Free Ku-Ninsunu, or Ku-Ninsunu will not free you.”

  No. I am passing through!

  “Pass back and unshackle Ku-Ninsunu.” The voice was louder and hurtfully angry now.

  No! No and no!

  The red-brown clay cut through with the characters became a wall of black, changing again to swirling shades of grass and ocean. The colors shifted and settled and sharpened to form the blue-green scales of the coil that had wrapped around her.

  Ku-Ninsunu. She was seeing the demon.

  “Yes, Ku-Ninsunu. I am the vexer of farmers, wilter of crops.” The demon was a long snake, its hues transitioning in brightness until they glowed electric. As it coiled more of itself around Bridget’s delving presence, the colors ran like a sidewalk chalk painting caught in the rain, the edges coming in and out of focus. The scales seemed to grow and shrink in size, but she realized that was just the beast breathing. It relaxed its grip and the coils dropped farther down so that its head lowered even with her eyesight.

  As beautiful as the shades of its scales were, the head that crowned the body was in even measure hideous. Looking like a plague-pocked mandrill, the face was twice the size of a human’s. Its lips were covered with thumbtack like spikes, and the tongue that darted out over them was bloated and black and dotted with open sores. The beast’s eyes were round, the irises a dark purple, and the pupils shiny red like drops of fresh blood. When it turned, she saw that instead of ears it had nickel-sized holes from which ooze trickled, reminding Bridget of her own demon and its never-ending rivulets of goo. It had a second set of eyes, one above each ear, both with hot red pinpricks in their centers. It was not bald, but neither did it have hair, rather a gray-green mass of short wriggling worms, each with tiny bright eyes that flared like matches being struck.

  The Aldî-nîfaeti stank of myriad spoiled things, reminding her of the garbage-choked alleys she’d chased the Westies boys through twenty years ago. Two decades, that was but a heartbeat compared to the eternity she was facing inside this prison with this hell-born monstrosity.

  “Unshackle Ku-Ninsunu. Free the wilter of crops.”

  Seriously? Instead Bridget decided she had better free herself.

  If the beast could hold her inside the clay, her mental presence might also have some sort of a physical quality. She envisioned herself moving her legs, meeting resistance against the Aldî-nîfaeti’s coils
. Working harder, imagining that she was pumping her legs in a run up the Empire State Building’s stairs, she made a little progress. Eighty-six floors, she’d managed the run several times. One thousand five hundred and seventy-six steps, the lower third taken two at a time.

  The muscles in her legs strained.

  The coils seemed to loosen.

  Faster, the steps two at a time, she imagined that her arms were swinging at her side, that she was working to keep her feet free of the other runners, her breath puffing and her lungs filling with the demon’s stink.

  Faster! Bridget pushed out with her imagined arms against the thickest coil that pressed against her chest. The scales were smooth and cold and felt oddly good against her palms, one big muscle that she fought against to get her more breathing room. She fancied that she was lifting weights, which she often did to keep her mind off her business worries. But when that connotation came to mind she saw Jimmy laid out on the weight bench, ribs broken and a gaping hole where his heart had been.

  “Unshackle Ku-Ninsunu.”

  Like bloody blue blazes I will, you Aldî-nîfaeti fecker! Bridget’s simmering hate fueled her, and she pressed harder still, the snake-demon a three-hundred pound weight she was hell bent on lifting. In her mind’s eye she saw her knees raising and lowering like pistons.

  One thousand five hundred and seventy-six steps.

  “Caught forever,” the demon purred. “Unshackle Ku-Ninsunu.”

  You sons of a bitches don’t have much of a vocabulary. Unshackle Ku-Ninsunu. Unshackle Aldî-nîfaeti. Bridget strained that she imagined the veins in the sides of her neck were going to pop.

  “Morsel for Ku-Ninsunu.”

  One more step!

  One more!

  Sol’s Gym had been an old clothing factory on Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn. It was near a stretch of row houses and rundown warehouses, and it had recently been converted into a boxing gymnasium. Bridget and some of the Westies boys went there after the place closed for the night and they were certain the infrequent cleaning crew was long gone. They’d sneak in through a side window over an alley. It never latched properly, and they would have to climb on a Dumpster to reach it. They’d shimmy in and turn on only a few lights, none in the front of the building where someone passing by might see. Though who would have called the cops? It wasn’t a good neighborhood, and it wasn’t a store someone would break into to steal from. Looking back, Bridget realized they were needlessly worried of discovery.

  Bridget and her friends were thieves, but they never stole from the gym, they only used the equipment for a few hours, taking turns holding the punching bag, and then setting up matches in the ring. They didn’t let Bridget spar the first several months of their forays. They said it wasn’t that she couldn’t fight; they well knew she was strong and quick. They said that they didn’t want to fight her, didn’t want to risk marring her pretty face.

  So while they boxed she hit the weight equipment, her presses in time with their swings and grunts. Sol had posted signs on the ceiling for the boxers to read while they bench pressed. Dig Deep, was the largest. Want It More Than Anything. Ambition Is The Road To Success And Persistence Is The Vehicle You Drive. What Are You Waiting For? Never Give Up. Great Effort Springs From Great Attitude. One More.

  That last slogan had become Bridget’s catch phrase for all her teen years.

  One More.

  One more push up, sit up, bench press. One more set at the punching bag.

  One more match with her Westies friends who had finally relented and fought with her.

  And lost to her.

  Not one of them had bested her, though she wondered now if they’d pulled their punches to “not mar her pretty face.” And one night she’d clobbered Seamus Doyle so hard he hit the mat like a dropped sack of potatoes. They had to carry him out, and it hadn’t been easy sliding him through that alley window. He didn’t come to until they were halfway down the street and in the shadows the row houses cast in the streetlights.

  One More.

  The memory of that one sign on the ceiling became thicker in her mind than the coil that tried to tighten its grip.

  One more, you Aldî-nîfaeti fecker! One more push, one more kick. One more run up the thousand five hundred and seventy-six steps, the lower third taken two at a time.

  One more!

  Free!

  The binding she’d felt was gone, and there was a sensation of air moving around her. The scales were gone and Bridget thought she was peering through a dense fog. But after what seemed like several minutes, things cleared. The bowl she was delving and that she now looked out through sat high on a rough wooden shelf in what appeared to be a potter’s shop. Bright light streamed in through a doorway, letting her see every bit of the one-room building. The walls were wattle and daub, the roof tightly packed reeds. There was a fireplace filled with logs, but no ashes and no odors to indicate it had been used in a while.

  The image was so intense that Bridget could feel the breeze playing across her. She spiraled out from the bowl, seeing pottery everywhere … on shelves, a table, large pieces on the floor against the hearth and set against the walls, on the windowsills. Jars with matching lids that might be intended for honey or butter, narrow ones for oil and wine. Pitchers, vases. The vases were extraordinary; some had pointed feet made to resemble animal claws, some were on stands or set on rectangular wood frames, a few were flat-bottomed. A couple of the containers were sealed with clay, and there were dishes of all sizes.

  A pottery wheel sat under the largest window, a tall woman worked diligently at it, her hands so smooth Bridget guessed her to be a mere teenager. She hummed a haunting tune, perhaps the one Bridget had heard while she wrestled with the demon. Clay tools were arrayed on a bench next to the potter, including a variety of wedge-shaped reeds, some with dried clay on their tips. Bridget realized those were what the potter used to engrave words and pictures into the bowls.

  Bridget hadn’t known the art of making pottery on a wheel stretched back so many centuries; primitive man wasn’t so primitive, after all.

  “Join me,” the potter said. “There is no one else here, no one else to see you.” She continued to work the clay.

  The potter’s eyes were closed, but she turned her face toward the shelf Bridget’s delved bowl sat on. One side of her face looked young and smooth, but the other was a mass of ugly scars that made the skin look wet, and on that side, no hair grew.

  “Come join me,” she repeated. “You are not Aldî-nîfaeti, and I have no fear of ghosts. There is no need for you to hide on my shelf. There is no need for you to fear me.”

  ***

  Thirty One

  She can see me? Not possible.

  Bridget’s gift of psychometry was a one-way street. She could look into the past through an object she held and concentrated on, but just look and listen and mentally translate the language of the speakers. The object, the bowl in this case, was a window that she could see and hear through. She wasn’t truly there.

  Right this very moment Bridget was in Adiella’s pit off the winter-cold subway tunnel, her back against a graffiti-covered wall, and the ancient bowl nesting in her hands. She was looking into that bowl’s past, to a land that was now called Iraq or Iran; geography and politics were not precise in her mind.

  A one-way window.

  It was not possible for anyone on the other side of time to look back at her. Such a person was millennia dead, and the place … Sumer … no longer existed. The building, the potter, dust, memories of the earth tramped on by soldiers and buried by centuries.

  “Of course I can see you,” the potter continued, her eyes were closed. She turned her head back to the bowl she was shaping. “And I welcome you to my shop. Come visit with me.” She reached an arm to her side and indicated the bench next to her. There was an empty space amid the clay tools. “Come. Come, little ghost.”

  Not possible.

  Or was it? Bridget was more than six thousand miles aw
ay and more than six millennia disconnected from ancient Sumer.

  “Come sit with Hilimaz.”

  Hilimaz … that was the name the demon in the bowl mentioned.

  “I’ll not entreat you again, little ghost. Come sit with me or be on your way.”

  Bridget nudged her senses toward the bench and imagined herself sitting on the rough wood.

  “Ah, that is better. Who are you, little ghost?” The potter put the finishing touches on her bowl, fashioning a lip around it, and sluicing water up to make it smooth.

  “Bridget.” Bridget had thought the word, but it came out as clearly as if she’d spoken it. “My name is Bridget O’Shea.”

  “Pretty. Does Bridget mean anything?” The potter understood her, so the translation apparently went both ways.

  “Mean? I don’t—”

  “Your name, little ghost. Does it have a significance?” The potter removed her foot from the pedal and the wheel slowed and then stopped. She appeared to scrutinize the bowl, and then turned to face the bench. Her eyes were still closed. “Your name, does it mean anything? Mine, Hilimaz, means beauty, though I am not. I was, though, years ago, and always in my mother’s eyes I was lovely.” She stood and walked to a nearby barrel, dipped her hands in and sloshed them around. She wiped her hands on a rough-spun cloth, hung up her apron, and returned to her stool. “But my mother died before she saw me like this. So always in her view I am beautiful. Your name, little ghost?”

  “Bridget is Irish, inspired by St. Brigid of Kildare. She was a nun, and she founded the Convent Cill-Dara, the Church of the Oak it came to be called. She also founded an art school, and the students were proficient in metalwork and illumination. My mother taught me all of that when I was very small. The name Bridget means strong-willed and virtuous. I am the former, but certainly not the latter. And I am nothing like the nun I was named for.” A pause: “How is it that you can—”

  “See you?” Hilimaz smiled. Half of her teeth—those on the side of her scars—were broken. She opened her eyes; they were milky white. She was totally blind. “I see with my mind, Bridget the strong-willed. And I listen with my heart.”