by Tony C. Skye
“I did,” Julianna forces out a whisper.
“Yes you did,” Lilith answers without understanding. The girl's breathing returns to its short shallow bursts. Lilith continues caressing the child's soft face while her physical body is being destroyed by death's touch.
“It... it... was nice... meeting you,” the teen forces her words between each failing breath, “My name... is... Julianna.”
Lilith stares as the girl's greeting is followed up by one long exhale. The woman sadly looks upon her black-veined body.
“Yes, I know,” the woman answers.
Cradling Julianna with both of her arms, Lilith looks up to the wall where the child's ending story is appearing. She tilts her head curiously. The woman of many braids moves Julianna's lifeless representation of her physical form. She gently lays her body into the white sand, stands up, and walks over to the wall of writing.
Lilith begins reading where Julianna first entered her realm. She grins. The woman had assumed that the girl had appeared upon the sand. After all, that's where everyone appears. But not Julianna. The woman of many braids throws her head back and rejoices with a shout. She turns back and looks at the lifeless sixteen-year-old. The girl is fading away. In a few more seconds, she will appear in the Place of the Dead. Julianna’s eternity will begin. Or at least, that is how it should be. Lilith looks back to the wall with curious eyes.
She quietly boasts, “The mother of darkwaters is come.”
Her green eyes scan over more of the writings as they appear. She attempts to make sense of the how part of Julianna's ability to appear in the black sea without succumbing to its death.
“Ah, there you are,” Lilith whispers her announcement as her eyes find the words. She continues reading about a hitchhiker – an uninvited intruder. But strangely enough, the intruder is an actual spirit-soul. Some poor sap lying in a coma inside of a hospital. Only the man doesn't know he is a spirit-soul. He believes he is an entity that is tasked with helping lost souls. It appears the man had attached himself to Julianna while she was at the hospital after her boyfriend died. And according to the writings on the wall, this guy did it on accident.
Lilith chuckles as she reads on. The part where the guy believes he has been in existence for millennium is especially amusing. And while it seems upon the surface that his intentions are in a good place concerning Julianna, his spirit-soul is not in its rightful place.
Lilith laughs loudly whenever she reads how the guy couldn't make sense of how Julianna kept blocking him out. He thought he had awoken inside of her. But the reality is that he was only attached to Julianna's strong electrical energy from her spirit-soul. It was only whenever the teen had a grief-stricken laughing episode that the man was given his first lucid moment since his coma.
Lilith knows the prophecies about her bloodline. They are permanently seared into her consciousness. Prophecies and stories, all seared by Him. Another part of her punishment, no less. But sometimes, even she doesn't know how some of these things will manifest themselves. And Julianna is most accurately a prime example of this.
The woman's smile widens as she reads how the spirit-soul felt Julianna's contemplation about the God of Heaven. Unbeknownst to the spirit-soul, every single time Julianna reasoned the concepts of Him, the attached spirit-soul would feel a crushing all-consuming pressure. Inconsequentially, it always led to the man's own blackout from conscious awareness.
Lilith's eyes flashes over full of anger when she reads about the mirror incident.
“Just like a man,” the woman's venomous tongue reacts, “So weak and shifting his blame.”
It becomes quite clear that this man wasn't one of His children. It seems this man was full of good intentions while his mind was always filled with sick and vile thoughts. Thoughts he always pushed under the rug in an attempt to hide his own twisted mind. But because of his unnatural attachment to Julianna, his own spirit-soul couldn't remember everything so clearly. He actually believed it was Julianna's fault for lingering in the mirror with those desires of his. But it wasn't.
“Ha-ha-ha,” Lilith laughs joyfully as she reads about Julianna's uniquely strong will to fight – even those things unseen and not understood.
“Anguisette, indeed,” Lilith says adoringly. She briefly glances over to the empty space where the child once laid in the white sand, “Good for you, Julianna.”
Lilith turns back to read the last part about the coming of the mother of darkwaters as it pertains to the intruder. It is so simple, yet elegant. The man's physical body is dead. It is kept free from rot and decay by some kind of breather machine. But his spirit-soul was released from its confinement soon as Julianna passed by his hospital room.
Normally, a spirit-soul will not detach itself from a body which still breathes – machine or not. The wall is not specific on why the spirit-soul detached and then reattached to Julianna as he did. And this vagueness is usually a strong indicator that the details are being withheld for some reason. Withheld by Him. The One who is self-serving in all that He does.
Lilith, however, must give Him His props concerning how He fulfilled this part of the lengthy prophecy. The intruder's spirit-soul did not serve Him. Therefore, the man's punishment is to be sentenced to the Place of the Dead until judgment comes for everyone there.
Soon as Julianna's feet appeared in the water, her hitchhiker paid the price required. The man would have wound up here, regardless. How the man ends up here is irrelevant. Riding with Julianna's consciousness doesn't matter in the slightest. But what does matter is that the prophecy has now been fulfilled. And some amazing things occurred because of it.
Since Julianna's conscious spirit was technically within her physical body, the teen could never touch the black water without a physical consequence. But with the man attached as he was, not only could she touch it, but she was given an immunity shot. Immunity from its price.
Lilith grins as she rereads the details. This slight exposure allowed the girl to gargle the seawater and be reborn. The minute amount of water that made its way down the teen's throat has only been a completion to the prophecy. Not an ending.
The woman of many braids turns and watches the sea disappear. Lilith looks out into the physical realm where the black sea had its home. It is the realm which houses the living and the dead together. Only most of the living is unaware of the dead who walk among them. A veil covers their eyes. And whenever this veil is looked upon too closely, it appears as a black stormy sea to the living.
Very few have ever seen the churning dark waters. And no one living has ever seen the Place of the Dead in its entirety. Until today that is.
* * *
Lilith smiles as she watches Julianna conversing with her mother Theresa. They speak for a little while longer before hugging and saying their good-byes. The girl walks back onto the white sandy beach.
“I am not dead,” the girl excitedly speaks, “and mom found me.” She motions in the direction where the sea used to be, “See? I wanted her to come, but she said she couldn’t.”
“No, Julianna. You are not dead,” Lilith agrees, “You could not cross the earth-line if you were. It is why Theresa cannot cross.”
The teen points at the wall, “That divides the others from this place.”
Julianna's right arm point out past the earth-line to a being that glows brightly, “But yet I see some of them out there.”
Lilith gazes into the child's black eyes which are returning to their natural green coloring by every passing second, “How astute of you. They can traverse into both areas when allowed by Him. In the Place of the Dead, they are always on some sort of self-righteous mission. I try and stay clear.”
“The ones who are residents of the Place of the Dead,” Lilith continues, “They cannot cross the earth-line like you just did. You surprise me by how quickly you identified your mother upon waking. You called to her with your mind. You acted from instinct without knowing anything. You cross the earth-line like the rules do
not apply to you. I suppose they don’t. I take it that your mother escorted you back here?”
Julianna nods, “If that’s what you want to call it.”
Lilith chuckles out a quiet laugh, “Yes. Travel is a little different here.”
“You cross the earth-line at will?”
“Yes,” Lilith looks back to the wall, “And no. It is part of my punishment for refusing to have sexual encounters with someone in whom I did not know.”
“What? That's horrible,” Julianna scans up the wall into the clouds. She glares angrily, “I really hate what He did to you. No one should ever be forced.”
Lilith takes a deep breath and lets out a quite sigh.
“Yes. Some do not see things the way you do,” the woman's head movement indicates the clouds above. She smiles as though Julianna is her firstborn held within her arms, “It'd be nice if they did.”
“When did He do this to you?”, Julianna's eyes strains to figure out the distance the wall travels to the left.
“Before Eve,” Lilith coldly answers.
Julianna's shock animates her voice as she turns her head to look upon Lilith.
“Eve? As in Adam and Eve?”
Lilith nods with her thoughts in a distant place and time. She vaguely hears the girl ask more questions, but is tired of reliving the nightmare of her punishment.
“It's all in the Collection,” Lilith speaks calmly.
“Oh,” Julianna understands the sensitive nature of the topic, “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry.”
“It is fine, child,” Lilith lies. The woman points to the wall, “The prophecy branches, detours, splits off into parallel lines, and even stops and restarts many, many years later. But the prophecy is always fulfilled.”
“Why is it on the wall if you are the only one who sees it?”, the girl naively questions.
Lilith slightly lifts her right brow.
Julianna immediately catches on, “Oh, right. Eternal punishment before eternal punishment.”
The teen looks at the wall before turning her stare back onto the watchful Lilith.
“That is beyond cruelty. I despise Him with all of my heart,” Julianna coldly states with finality in her voice.
Lilith winks her right eye slowly, “I know.” She lovingly reaches out. Julianna walks up. Lilith touches the girl's left cheek, “Come and visit me anytime you want.”
Julianna comprehends the woman's intentions, but is unsure about something.
“Um, Lilith?”, she inquires.
“Yes. What is it?”, the woman answers her.
“How exactly am I supposed to get back into my body?”
The woman lowers her hand and leans in. She kisses the teen's forehead before stepping back to view the wondrous young woman before her.
“You said it yourself. You are not dead.”
Lilith looks down with admiring eyes. She stares at the open space where Julianna had just been standing. The woman of many braids smiles.
“And she's never even read a single book,” Lilith quietly boasts.
Lilith covers her eyes when a bolt of blinding white light strikes down from the clouds above. It strikes over and over again. For everywhere Julianna walked after her return from the Place of the Dead, the white sandy beach turned black.
Lilith's smoky voice quietly mocks, “I guess Somebody's upset about their sandbox.”
She watches between each flash as the black sand returns to white.
Lilith defiantly fakes a yawn, “I'm bored.”
She crosses over the earth-line and enters back into the chaotic place of intermingling realms.
* * *
Julianna takes a sudden deep breath. It is the kind of breath a body takes when it is held under water until the last possible moment before a drowning. She smiles.
The teen sits up and looks around the empty room. She spots the table across the way and quickly checks herself for yuckiness. The girl silently thanks her grams for a job well done.
The naked girl spots her folded clothes and gets up to put them on. When she finishes, she walks out of the room, turns right, and then makes a left into the kitchen area. She hears the humming of a new refrigerator and walks into the living room. As she approaches the screen door at the front of the small house, Julianna can hear sounds of muffled crying. She peers outside. The Lady Lanecia is staring out into the forestry of the bayou. Her grams is crying in Frank's arms. And Frank, himself, has tears streaming down his face.
Damn. What happened?
Julianna pushes open the squeaky screen door and steps out onto the porch. Martha pulls her face from Frank's chest and looks. She screams and then runs faster than Julianna ever thought she could. The red hair woman nearly knocks the teen off her feet when she wraps her shaky arms around her.
Frank looks questioningly at Lady Lanecia.
The voodoo priestess shakes her right pointer finger at Frank, “Don't be lookin' to me like dat, Frankie Dermott.”
The dark woman points over to Martha and her patient, “Dat be new to me.”
* * *
Chapter 6
Union
“Yes. I saw her,” Jennifer reconfirms to Rebecca, “Her clothes were covered in blood.”
“And she told you that she didn't kill her?”, Rebecca questions for the second time.
“That's what she said. But I really don't know what to think. She's not answering my texts,” Jennifer explains.
“She's not answering anyone's texts,” Caroline informs.
“Well, I hope she's alright. We need her back here to deal with David Snow.”
“Becca, if she killed that girl, David Snow will be the last of our problems,” Caroline points out an obvious fact to her bff.
“Dammit!”, Rebecca shouts. The S.V.C. captain quietens her voice, “I told her she'd carry things too far one day.”
“Relax, Rebecca,” Jennifer attempts to help lower the growing anxiety levels of the group, “We don't know what has happened. She said she didn't kill her.”
“And how many killers say that?”, Rebecca counters.
Ring. Ring.
“Let’s just go to class and act like we don't know anything,” Caroline directs.
Rebecca nods, “I agree. And we don't talk to anyone about her at all. Everyone on the same page?”
Jennifer and Caroline nod their agreement. The three cheerleaders cross the street from the parking lot and enter into the front entrance of West Hills High.
“Jennifer!”, a boy's voice yells out from down the busy hallway, “Hold up!”
The three cheerleaders look nervously at each other as Jason and Marcus jog up to meet them.
“Hey, where's Tamara? She's not answering my texts,” Jason sounds more demanding than concerned.
“Uh - I don't know,” Jennifer lies, “I thought she was with you.”
“What?”, the boy worries briefly before second-guessing the truth within her statement. His brows narrow.
“Where is she, Jennifer? And don't lie to me. She always tells someone where she's going. If she didn't tell me then you know exactly where she is,” Jason accuses.
“Gawd!”, Jennifer dramatizes by looking upward. Her eyes falls back onto Tamara's boyfriend, “If you must know, Tamara went to a retreat. And if she hasn't told you about it, then she probably didn't want you to know. Capish?”
Caroline and Rebecca follow Jennifer as the girl turns to storm away angrily.
“Retreat?”, Caroline whispers.
“It's the best I had at the time.”
“It'll work,” Rebecca's mind churns its calculating engine, “Let's go work out the details.”
The three friends head towards the bathroom. Today is just one of those days where they will all have to be late for class. There are much more important matters to contend with. Tamara needs a cover story to settle the student body's swarm of gossip bees.
* * *
Mandie approaches the back corner of the old farmhouse. She stops an
d turns back around. Tamara crawls out of the cellar on her hands and knees. The taller girl looks up and glares at Mandie with her teary brown eyes. She vomits on the edge of the grass where the concrete stairs begin their dissension down to the man-woman.
The eighteen-year-old with black hair turns and walks around the house's corner. She makes her way to the front, walks up the creaky stairs leading to the front porch, and walks inside of the house. She hangs a left into the room of her massive beating.
A cheap mop, a bottle of pine-sol, and three bottles of bleach rest in the back left corner. Mandie closes her eyes and inhales the scent of cleanliness. When she reopens them, the girl strolls over to her stereo. A neatly piled stack of broken branches lay upon the floor directly in front of the expensive system. Mandie smiles.
She looks to the stereo's left. Propped against the wall and tied with a blue ribbon, she sees two unforgettable whipping sticks. They were her favorite. But more importantly, Tamara clearly enjoyed using them as well. After all, Tamara's the one who has tied Mandie's blue hair ribbon around them.
Mandie glances back down to the sticks lying on the floor. The broken switches only frustrated both girls. It seemed just as Tamara would start getting into it, a stick would break. Mandie would then mock the cheerleader concerning her knowledge about trees, and Tamara would curse back at her before running out to grab another one. After about six sticks, Tamara finally figured it out.
Her last trip was successful. And whenever she returned with the two sticks now having a bow around them, Tamara kissed each one. She then grinned and calmly told Mandie what was coming, “You've had it now, bitch.” And she was right.
The branch about an inch thick was a solid piece of equipment. Its primary function was to bruise. And it did its job well. The smaller green one, however, had its own purpose. It didn't bruise like its thicker counterpart. Instead, it stung something awful. In a sense, the thinner branch was definitely more intense. But that probably has something to do with the fact that Tamara was partial to its results.
