by Jen Ponce
"Tom?"
He and Bethy both looked up from where they huddled on the couch.
"I have to go on a call. It's an intake for the shelter so I'll probably be home late."
"Stay safe."
I nodded, unable to speak. He always said that before I left the house. Stupid to get sentimental over something so simple, but I did. I grabbed my purse and keys and left before I did something dumb like run into his arms and forgive him.
I should forgive him. But I couldn't. Couldn't stop picturing Tom and Anabelle together at the game as if they were a couple. As if the kids and I meant nothing to him.
Asshole.
I drove downtown, parking a block from Hidden Treasures where Zech had set up his sugar tent. A brick wall. “How the hell am I supposed to get there? Walk through it?”
With the heart inside you, yes. Otherwise, you would need to consume some of Zech's sugar to go through.
"Magic sugar," I murmured, remembering the scary woman in my vision so long ago. I glanced around, feeling like Harry Potter in the train station. As I neared, the bricks blackened and the alleyway formed. “Weird.” I reached out my hand and felt the bricks that made the walls of the alley. I glanced back, Omaha still visible, though it was like looking at the city through a veil. “So weird.”
The air thickened the farther I ventured, tugging at and lifting my skin, and then the strange streets of Midia stretched before me. "You'll have to lead, now," I reminded her.
She didn't talk. I wasn't sure if she wasn't able to or if she was having some sort of sad moment being back in her own world without her body. Then she spoke. I'll give you the directions in your mind.
A moment, nothing. The next moment, I knew where to go. The city laid before me in my mind as if I'd always lived here and had always known how to get to Sacred Crow Park. "This is trippy."
I'm not sure I know what that means.
"You can't look up the word in my mind?"
I'm trying to stay out of your memories. Your private thoughts should be your own.
Oh. "Thank you." I nodded to a woman walking by me, who glanced at me askance for chattering away to myself. Or maybe she wondered why, as a human, I wasn't exploding. “Can they tell I'm human?”
Some. People from Earth have a tight wash of color around their bodies. Midian auras are large and loose and flowing. Not all of us have the ability to see them. She said something else I couldn't catch.
“What did you say,” I asked, the hairs on my arms standing on end.
I don't think you are quite human anymore.
“Tytan already told me as much.” My voice startled a few purple birds frolicking in a fountain, which swam sensuously through the air. Water spouted from its ceramic back. “Holy shit.”
Do you believe shit is holy? The slight amusement in her voice clued me in to her ribbing.
"This is a beautiful city." Much greener than Omaha. Trees and vines, plants and flowers bloomed in impossible, whimsical places. Houses had flowers clinging to their sides, growing from under the eaves and out chimneys. In front of one house flowers danced and bobbed in midair. I stopped to gawk, wishing I could take pictures of it and show Liam and Bethany.
Arsinua gave me a mental nudge and so I continued on, gazing back at the flowers until they were out of sight.
"Tell me more about this coven you belong to."
It's a group of thirteen witches. They're leaders of their own covens of thirteen, making us a nightmare of one hundred sixty-nine witches.
"A nightmare?"
She smiled. Yes. We maintain the Omphalos of Midia, our source of concentrated power. It has been dwindling for some time now and with it the protections against the Wild.
“Isn't everything made of magic?”
It is. Wild magic. The Omphalos was constructed long ago to organize the magic and with it our society developed. Streets, homes, education, safety. Healers and engineers. We don't live at the whim of wild magic, we construct our own reality. Only now that's fading and with it our civility. People are scared. They want to have families without sacrificing love for safety. They are desperate. Which is why Yarnell has been able to convince more and more people that harvesting stumblebums is an acceptable solution.
“Stumblebums? You mean humans?” I felt sick. “Is the Wild so terrible?” An image of anemic trees and the smell of rotted flesh assailed me. My stomach rolled. “Okay, I get it. Stop.”
I wish I could present you to my world in a different way. It is a place full of magic and wonder. Unfortunately, there is good and evil here, too.
"I know there are witches and fleshcrawlers. What else?"
What can you imagine?
My mind conjured up the millions of fairy tales, horror stories, books, video games and the plethora of monsters that inhabited those imaginary worlds.
She laughed, softly. Perhaps not such a variety, but there are plenty of creatures, beings here that you've heard tell of in your stories and legends. Plenty more that might give you nightmares.
"Nex didn't give me nightmares," I said, realizing that I'd slept pretty well for someone who'd done what I had done, seen what I'd seen, yesterday. Arsinua was silent. "What happened to you in the Slip? Neutria said you'd been there before."
I don't wish to speak of it. Not now. Not yet. If it matters, if I must, I will tell you. But now I cannot.
"Fair enough," I said. I stopped on a cobblestone street corner and gazed in amazement at the fanciful carriage coming down the road, drawn by four unicorns. Unicorns. I laughed aloud and then stopped myself, sure I'd end up in a Midian loony bin. Wishing for my camera again, I remembered I had my phone in my pocket. It took pictures. "Just one? Do you think it would hurt?"
You could take it, but it wouldn't stay in your camera. Magical things don't last long on your world.
"The hook. The heart is a hook, didn't you say that?"
Yes.
"Then why couldn't I hop over to Midia from my house, say, or from the car? Why did I have to go downtown?"
I'm not sure how to use the heart. I don't know if I want to use it any more than I have to.”
"How did you make it?" The gate loomed ahead. Elaborate curlicues of wrought iron spelled out the words Sacred Crow Park, along with a number of other symbols I didn't know the meaning of.
Not here.
Her shame filled me. What had she done to make it? Did I even want to know? Something—or someone—horrible had happened to her in the Slip.
Tytan? The woman from the park and my vision?
I pushed on the gate but it wouldn't open. "Now what?"
Close your eyes. Repeat these words. 'Allow me entry.'
"Allow me entry."
'In peace I visit.'
"In peace I visit."
Now place your hands on the gate and think them open. Don't push; think of them swinging wide.
I did, doubting that I would be able to do anything by the force of my mind alone. I pictured the gates opening with an ominous squeak as they would do in a movie. As I pictured it, it happened.
What on Midia was that?
"What?"
What you think, so shall it be. Remember that. Don't add anything extra. Ever.
I swallowed, glad I hadn't been thinking of zombies and other dead things at the time. I'd only begun with the squeak. The gates swung shut behind me. A shadowed expanse of lawn spread before me. I veered left along a rock-strewn path.
There were things buzzing and flitting in the dark. Squinting, I realized they weren't bugs but little people. Little people.
"Fairies?" I shrieked it. Arsinua hissed at me to be quiet and I apologized under my breath. Fairies. I wanted to do a little dance. I'd always loved fairies. My favorite bedtime stories always included fairies taking human children with them to their world and raising them as their own. I'd always wanted to be a fairy. That had been my Halloween costume six years in a row until my mother had put her foot down and told me I could be a witch, a ghos
t, a pirate, a damn princess—anything but a fairy.
That had been my last year trick-or-treating because I'd refused to go if I couldn't be a fairy.
Okay, I get it. You like fairies. They aren't that nice, you know.
"Don't ruin my childhood dreams," I muttered, still following the darting lights with a hunger I didn't know I still had inside me.
I heard the Coven of the Lotus before I saw them. I'd pictured chanting, a group of thirteen naked females dancing about a circle of ancient stones. Instead, a woman's shrill voice lifted in angry tones and a man's lower voice returned a volley of words.
The argument slowly dwindled as, one by one, they realized a stranger had entered their circle.
An older gentleman looked at me from across a fire-lit clearing. I could see his eyes clearly, which was ridiculous given the distance and the dancing shadows between us. Magic, I guessed. "Do you come in peace and truth?"
I come to supplicate myself before the coven.
"Uh, Arsinua says she comes to supplicate herself before the coven."
No. You say it as you. I am no more. I no longer exist. I cannot supplicate myself.
"Yeah, well I don't plan to supplicate myself to strangers, so ..." I muttered, trying not to move my lips as I spoke. Yes, I could talk with her in my mind, but she seemed so real, so separate from me that I found myself talking aloud to her.
"Zech told us of this strange thing that has come to pass. Our sister, our leader Arsinua, not dead but living inside a Silent One."
Silent Ones are those without the magic in them.
I figured that out, thanks. Aloud, I said, "Zech asked me to come. I'm not sure how I can help, but I brought Arsinua, so perhaps you guys can ask her your questions and get some answers." I counted their numbers. There were thirteen of them. Replaced Arsinua rather quickly.
We cannot meet with any power without that number. It is not unusual.
'You're the expert. What do you want me to say to them?'
The old man crowded up in front of me. "I sense her, inside you. Darkness and a great well of limitless power." His bushy eyebrows drew together. "What are you? Why aren't you mad with the magic here? Instead you drink it like water, spooling it up inside of you like a coiled snake, waiting for its chance to strike."
"Okay, that was a lot of mixed metaphors, there. I'm just me. An accident caused what you see before you. Not divine fate, a choice, or a spell. Just an accident. Now, I like Arsinua and I'm here because she wished to be here and because I saw the depravity in that so-called Bazaar."
Like an odd new species of worm, that's how he studied me. I looked around at the other faces, most shadowed by the hoods of their capes. I didn't see Zech; he must not have been invited to the party, although it had sounded like he'd be here. "What do you need from me? I have a life I have to get back to."
The older man glanced around at the hooded figures, nodded, and one stepped away from the ring. "We need power. We work tonight to give strength to the Omphalos of Midia, to strengthen the boundaries between our lands and the Wild.”
"I don't understand most of this, but I know I don't like you guys using humans like super cell batteries. So yes, I'll help if I can." The group muttered, offended that I'd lumped them in with those harvesting humans, but frankly, I didn't have the time to differentiate. "What can I do?"
"Come." He held out his hand and after a brief hesitation, I took it. His flesh was soft, doughy, his fingers cool. One after another they joined hands until we made an unbroken circle around the fire. As I watched, the licking orange-red flames burst into a brilliant blue. There were a few gasps other than mine. Nice not to be the only one shocked all the time.
'I take it that's unusual?'
Never have I seen it. Read about it, yes.
"It's a good thing, though. Right?"
Astonishing. It wasn't an answer to my question.
We began to circle the fire and as we did thoughts that weren't my own or Arsinua's sprung into my head. 'What's happening?'
Your mind and the coven are one. Now that the link has been made, you can share their power. And they can use yours.
A chant rose up from the coven members' lips including my own. I didn't recognize the language, but understood it anyway. We called up power, the chant said, called it from the center of this world. That frigid rock inside me that I'd stopped noticing now grew in importance. It tugged inside of me and I knew the heart was reacting to what we were doing in this circle.
Energy crackled outside the circling backs, sizzling the air and filling it with the smell of ozone. I'd never known what authors meant by the smell of ozone, but the scent was so unmistakably that of electricity and lightning I couldn't believe I hadn't realized it before. My senses came alive in full-on HD. Colors brightened, the shadows faded as if a sun had exploded into existence above us. I could see them and I reveled in the beauty of their faces even as my nose took in the rich soil, the smell of worms in the dirt, the trees, the sap. Power coursed through my hands and I wanted to dance faster, to move better.
My voice rose louder, the heart singing inside me now, humming with power. Dizzy with it, drunk with it, I circled and chanted, my head thrown back to see what looked like a giant, golden cloud churning above us. I pushed thoughts into that cloud, thoughts of power, thoughts of change, thoughts of peace between our two universes, thoughts of no harm done to people like Yvonne and Jeremy or anyone else unlucky enough to stumble upon this crazy world.
The pace quickened. A frenzied, desperate race to raise even more power. At once our voices crescendoed, then cut off on a sharp exhalation of breath. We hovered on a precipice. One tiny push would send us over the edge.
The heart pulsed. I felt a snap as if scissors cut an umbilicus that ran between me and the cloud of power above us. A boom like that of a sonic jet vibrated my bones and then the night was night again. Faces disappeared once more into the hoods that had been flung off in the frenzy.
The older man sat down, as if his legs had given way. A few others collapsed as well. I stood panting, feeling more alive than I'd ever felt before. I wanted to do it again and had to bite my lip to keep myself from prodding them to their feet.
We could end world hunger. We could cause a great peace to fall on Earth. I knew we could. That power was astounding. I was drunk with it.
"Arsinua," the man said, softly. "Arsinua. What have you wrought?"
I waited, but my inner companion stayed silent. My giddiness faded. Was he actually upset? Upset by that upwelling of power? They never would have been able to generate anything like it without the heart. I knew because Arsinua knew. But she wouldn't speak—I felt her shame.
'We did well. We did a good thing, didn't we?'
Yes.
She didn't sound happy about it. I looked down at the man, pale in the firelight.
"That power, it will change things, right?" I needed to hear the affirmation from his lips.
"Oh yes. Indeed, I can feel power in the air right now. The Omphalos is beating stronger even now in my ears. The problem, I fear, will be keeping Yarnell and his bunch from trying to take the power from you."
Oh.
"I'm safe in my universe. Aren't I?" But even as I asked, I knew the answer. Sure, they couldn't use their magic, at least, not in the way they did here. They could still visit, still hunt me down the old-fashioned way. "Shit."
Again, the old man said, "What have you wrought?"
What have you wrought, Arsinua? What indeed?
TWELVE
I lay awake that night with Tom beside me. He'd convinced me to let him stay in our room and, like a fool, I'd agreed. We didn't talk, but he knew I was awake. I'd hear a sharp intake of breath as if he were going to speak, but a moment later there would be a long exhale. His words were stuck in his throat.
I didn't have anything to say to him. What could I say? By the way, I'm involved in some crazy shit: alternate universes, demons, and an evil witches' coven that might be pl
anning to hunt me down and cut a heart out of me. Ha. Grounds for divorce? Wife's a nut job.
So we lay there, side by side, him thinking of his mundane troubles and me thinking of how out of control my life now was that I actually considered asking a demon for assistance a good idea. That would cost me, I knew it.
You shouldn't. He'll use it to bind you more securely to him.
'I know, but what choice do I have? I can't let anything happen to my kids.'
I'll keep them safe. Let me hunt. I will kill them.
'Thank you, but I want to avoid mass murder.'
Yarnell won't have the same compunctions as you. He and his group, the Theleoni, they call themselves, look upon humans as cattle. Worse. Objects.
'That makes me feel better.' I rolled over onto my side, staring across the room, wondering if I should go downstairs, get Liam's metal baseball bat, and hide it under my side of the bed.
Let me hunt them. They are bugs. Worse than bugs.
'No. I'm not killing.' Yvonne and Jeremy rose in my memory and my vow not to kill wavered. If I could have saved them, would I have killed to do so? 'Maybe Nex can help. He can see into the future. Tell me what he knows.'
Both my companions were silent. I got the feeling they didn't particularly like Nex. I'm not certain why I did. Floating vampire head and all. Maybe because he symbolized to me my strength. Hell, I defied a demon and lived to see another sunrise.
I rolled again and found myself nose to nose with Tom. He looked uncomfortable and I bit back a nasty question about how he spent his time with Anabelle. Deep breath in and out, forcing the anger away. Honestly, I had to let that go. There was no use wasting my energy on it.
Still. Was I sick, wanting to know? How did he treat her? Did he suck on her neck? Did he do that lovely thing with his finger as he screwed her? I curled my hands into fists and tried to breathe away the rage building inside.
