Women Scorned

by Angela Alsaleem

  Aludra didn’t look back as she ran through the woods. The High Priestess would die. It was just a matter of how. She would not be their sacrifice. So what that she didn’t have the spirit? To die in a ritual was not her purpose. Her purpose was to lead. She felt this in the deepest part of her being. She would be all powerful. She would not die so the rest of them could live forever. She would not bring the spirit back so they could kill her for her troubles. She was younger and therefore stronger. She was created to be smarter and more powerful of mind. She could overpower the High Priestess. She would.

  Angry, no longer thinking of ways to torture innocent people, she ran to the portal that would take her home, to the manor, guided by her stronger senses, plotting how to achieve her new goal.

  * * *

  Cackling, the crone disappeared into the hut.

  “I will stop this ritual one way or another. They will regret the day they cast me from the manor.” She scooped the dog up again and patted his head. She whispered what she was thinking to the little animal, loath to have her voice go unused for so long again. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed talking until this day. Rory was now in the spirit world, still bound to the flesh. They shouldn’t be able to leave, but if they managed it somehow, then Aludra would stop the ritual. Aludra would become the chosen one she was meant to be, rather than what the Order thought she would be. She was strong. Even if they could find Rory, the ritual would still fail.

  * * *

  Darkness and more darkness. Cold. Wet. Camilla shuddered next to Libitina who groaned, sounding on the verge of nausea. Camilla saw nothing but heard everything. Laughter, whispering voices echoing through her head. Something inhuman roared nearby, getting closer, closer, then passing overhead and diminishing in the distance. She turned her head to look, following the sound with her eyeless face. Blackness.

  “What the fuck happened?” Libitina gasped. “What is this place?” Her fingers dug into Camilla’s arm.

  Camilla’s pain felt distant, less important than what she heard. The air swirled around them, pouring into her mouth, making her feel clammy, sticky, a bit slimy.

  And then she could see again.

  Red light bloomed. In the distance, two glowing figures crouched, looking poised for an attack. They shimmered, their lights faint in the crimson glow surrounding them. She wondered what the source of her new vision was when the glowing figures sprung at them, flying toward them with incredible speed. At the moment of attack, she caught sight of the larger one’s face, a shredded, mutilated mass. Empty sockets stared at her in shock, revulsion, and then pain seared up her back as claws sliced through her flesh, burning her from the inside out.

  Camilla screamed. The glowing figure moved away, but not before she realized she’d been looking into her own face. She hadn’t seen the attacker, only herself being attacked.

  Her image surrounded her in a ring. She saw Libitina and herself through multiple eyes. Her own image flew at her from every angle. Her bleeding face closing in, receding, coming down on top of her, from behind, from in front. She felt slashing and biting, but didn’t think the wounds were physical. The pain vanished almost as soon as it came.

  Libitina screamed and thrashed next to her, battling the intangible and losing. Camilla cringed from herself, screamed with her hands over her ragged face, unable to avoid her image attacking her again and again, her black hair now matted, her naked body trembling and covered in blood, the green tinge growing at the corner of her mouth.

  Libitina grabbed her arm, pulled her to her feet, dragged her away. She ran with Libitina guiding her. The glowing figures ran too, one holding the other’s arm, the one being guided bloody, stumbling along as if her body didn’t work right. Her image ran away from her, gaining distance, fading into the red. Then she was gone, left with nothing but blackness and Libitina’s touch, the voices whispering, the damp cold closing in on them.

  “I think we’ll be safe here,” Libitina whispered. They crouched low, leaning up against something rough and hard. A rock, she thought. She ran her fingers over it, grounding herself in the moment.

  Then she could see again. Two figures huddled behind a large boulder, one looking around the front, the other rubbing its surface.

  “Something’s coming,” she screamed. She saw the figure turn and face the thing casting its sight to Camilla.

  “Where?” She watched Libitina look around from a distance.

  Her view grew larger as whatever came toward them closed the gap. But it didn’t hurry. It took its time, examining them, perhaps contemplating. Camilla faced forward. It came closer and closer. She looked down at herself then seemed to bend or crouch because now she looked at her own ear. She turned toward whatever was sending these images and screamed, shocked to see her own face again, the optic nerves still dangling, wet, clotting on her face. What looked at her, what made her see herself in this way, didn’t flinch from her image but moved in closer. She wanted to cry, to hide, to run but found she couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.

  Then her image faded while the world around her grew brighter. She could see another form in front of her growing more solid. As her image faded, this new image grew. At one point they were balanced, creating something new altogether, one with a torn yet whole face. The visage beneath the mess appeared beautiful yet translucent in its own way. Then the transition ended. She only saw the thing looking at her. In fact, she could see everything around her, the rock she’d been caressing, Libitina gawking, holding her breath, eyes wide, the spirits all around them, swimming in the red light, bobbing, dipping, twirling, some more distinct, stronger than the others.

  “Be healed, young one,” the spirit said as it removed a gossamer hand from her face. Sharper images jumped out at her. She realized she’d been seeing everything through the spirit’s palm.

  “Did you give me back my eyes?” she asked and felt at the shredded flesh.

  “No. I gave you sight.”

  “How is this possible?”

  “Would you like me to take it away?” The spirit looked like a shimmering cloud, with glowing red eyes. It seemed to be the source of light wherever they went.

  “No. Please.” Camilla looked at Libitina, saw her flinch, and felt sorry for her. After seeing what she looked like to others, she knew this girl had been tolerating a strange horror and felt her incredibly brave for it. She turned back to the kind spirit and asked, “Who are you?”

  “Just one who wishes to help,” it responded. Though it didn’t have a distinct form, its soft voice was more masculine. Camilla began thinking of it as a he.

  “Where is this place?” Libitina asked.

  “This,” the spirit said, gesturing around him, “is the spirit world. And we are on the level where the angry and lost spirits dwell.”

  “Then you’re a lost spirit?” Camilla asked.

  “As I said, I’m only here to help. These lost spirits, I help them find their way, help them gain new lives. My goal is to help them move on to higher levels, to ascend to the happier realms of our world. These spirits are troubled, as you might define the word, angry. They seek vengeance. I help them find it or I help them get over it. Either way, with no anger, with understanding, they can be born again.”

  Camilla nodded. It sounded an awful lot like what Rory, the spirit supposedly inside her, was meant to do. She didn’t know if she could trust what was being said but believed she was in the spirit world.

  “Allow me to show you a bit more.” He drifted away. They followed. The landscape reflected anger in every surface. Like Hell, only colder, she thought. Everything was red, but so frozen, so forlorn. Flat. Empty. A red void. The angry voices still whispered and laughed but she didn’t feel as afraid as before. Somehow she felt more powerful, protected.

  Eventually they came to a large building, out of place in the desolation. The roof disappeared into shadows overhead. Its pillars and arches reminded Camilla of an ancient Roman cathedral.

&
nbsp; “The Akashik Records,” he said as he swept his hand up, displaying the grandiosity of the ancient structure. “Where every spirit’s past, present, and future are kept. I will show you what you need to know.”

  He took them inside. The marble floors did not echo their footsteps. “Many of the spirits in here are from those who sleep,” he explained. Well-lit tables lined the walls and filled the large room. Books lined the shelves from floor to high ceiling. Camilla looked up at the high dome, into the shadows at its peak, and wondered just how many spirits were in this world. “Often, when people dream, they come here and look over their records. When they wake, they don’t remember being here, or if they do, they think it only a dream and don’t put any importance on what they’ve seen.”

  Camilla looked at the translucent forms inhabiting the tables, turning the pages of the various books. She passed next to a table with an open volume on it. The picture on the page moved, playing a scene from someone’s life like a movie. The spirit watching wept without making a sound.

  “Wait here,” the spirit said as they came to an empty marble surface toward the back of the hall. He drifted up into the shadows then came back down with two books. “Only you can view your own records,” he said and handed Libitina and Camilla each their personal tome. “Allow me to direct you to certain moments in your life that may now be more important than you realized at the time.”

  “Wait,” Libitina said. “Are we dreaming? Did that old woman make us sleep?”

  “No,” the spirit responded. “You are, in fact, the first spirits to ever come here with bodies still intact. Until today, I didn’t think it possible. This also means you still have all the physical limitations of someone in the flesh. Here, we are without boundaries.”

  “So, what do we need to see?” Camilla asked, impatient. She could sense time growing short, although she couldn’t say why.

  “Go wait over there,” he said to Libitina. “I’ll be with you in a moment.” To Camilla’s surprise, Libitina obeyed, if with a skeptical grimace.

  He then turned to Camilla’s book and opened it in the middle. “Here is where you were born as Camilla Benedict. People always think names are arbitrary things, labels put on us when we are conceived, but they are so much more than that. Your name, being six syllables long, has heavy importance. Your parents chose not to give you a middle name, making you simply Camilla Benedict. Six syllables. Rory was drawn to this aspect.”

  Camilla flinched. How did this spirit know about Rory? She didn’t say anything but listened more intently than before.

  “Also, your birthday, October 24th, 1991. The numbers, 10, 24, and 1991 add up to the number 9 when you continue to add them until you get only one digit. The number 9 is a six upside down. Rory was drawn to this, too. The day you were born and the name chosen for you holds much significance as to how you live your life.”

  He turned a page. “And here is how you died.” Camilla watched herself fighting the cop on top of her, fighting until he punched her. Then she watched what he did to her as he thrust in and out of her, watched as he took out his knife and stabbed into her vagina. The blade thrust downward, cutting through the flesh. She looked at the blood slicking and crusting over her legs and cringed. Now she knew how it had happened. The cop ripped the earring out of her ear, tore her necklaces from her, then left, pulling up his pants as he went, leaving her bitten and bruised, bleeding to death in the back of her car.

  If she had not witnessed and participated in such horrible events over the last couple of days, her own tragedy would’ve appalled her, sent her screaming from the spirit world. At this point she felt the horror, but the connection was distant, removed, not like someone who had actually lived the experience.

  Next, a woman came to the back of her car. Camilla got a good look at her face when she leaned inside and placed her hands on Camilla. Her long, dark hair was matted the same way Camilla’s was. Her body looked beaten and rotted. A hole in her cheek showed her white teeth, grinning like a sick joke. In a flash of light, she caught a glimpse of Rory traveling through the woman’s arms and into Camilla. Then the woman stood and left. After the wolves came, Camilla woke up. The rest, she knew.

  “The way you died, so violently, this final thing is what drew Rory to you. Rory only knows this last part, that you have to die violently, but if that were the single requirement, then it could choose any woman to enter. It didn’t have to be you. No. Your name and your birth date were key.”

  Camilla absorbed this information, attempting to keep the expression on her face unreadable. The spirit paused. After a while, he continued.

  “You must know that while Rory is in your flesh, bound to your body, it will try to force your essence out.”

  But the old woman had said Rory needed her soul; that having a body with more than one spirit made that body stronger, made the spirit stronger, that Rory was melded with her. She didn’t know who to believe.

  “While Rory allows your spirit to remain in your flesh, you are just as Earth-bound as Rory, but Rory will want full control. Make no mistake. This is an evil spirit with an evil purpose. It wants to trap the souls of this level here in misery. You don’t want to play a role in this. I want to help them leave.”

  “And I just want Rory out of my body,” she whispered, the sound so soft she didn’t expect to hear a response. But she did.

  “There is a way. A ritual that can only be done on this day.”

  She spun toward him. This she’d heard before. A ritual had brought her here in the flesh. She shook her head. “No. Not another one.”

  “What do you mean another ritual?” The spirit’s voice rose, skeptical, unsure for the first time since their meeting.

  “I said I won’t do it. How do I know I’m not going to end up here again?”

  “Child, I’ll make sure of that. I’ll put you back in your world, where you need to be. You will find a group of people already preparing for it. As a matter of fact, they’ve been waiting for you, waiting to help you exorcise Rory from your body. They deal in possessions and situations of this sort.”

  “How do I know I can trust you in this? How do I know I can trust them?”

  The spirit surrounded her, swirled through her, caressed every part of her body. It felt good. It felt nasty. She wanted more. She wanted him to stop.

  “Because I haven’t harmed you in here, have I? I’m showing you what you need to see to make this happen. As it is, the woman walking with you, she needs to be part of the ritual, but you say someone has tried this thing before?”

  Camilla nodded.

  “Then she must not have had the tools, the knowledge required to perform such a delicate task.” Camilla never said the person doing the ritual was a woman. Her guard was heightened but she listened. “Libitina is needed. Libitina Flesher. Such an interesting name, don’t you think?”

  At first, Camilla wasn’t sure what the spirit meant but then she caught on and whispered, “Six syllables.”

  “Yes. And what number do you think her birthday adds up to? Just one guess, though.”

  Camilla didn’t have to say. She knew. “But I won’t turn her into this. I refuse.”

  “No. She’s needed for the ritual but Rory won’t have her. And there is a third. One who’s been following you. One you’ve felt along the way.”

  Camilla looked down at her belly button. The green light no longer extended from her body but she understood.

  “Yes,” the spirit said. “The green-eyed one.”

  She looked up, her neck popping in its ascent. If her face hadn’t been mangled, her eyes would’ve been wide with shock.

  “Her name is Aludra Erebus. It means ‘The Dark Virgin’. She was born on September 9th, 1971. She’s been drawn to you and you to her and she must take part in this if it’s going to work. The power of nine, the power of six, the power of three. It is the only way for you to be at peace. Rory must possess Aludra’s spirit power for the ritual to work and you must take it moments
before the procedure begins. Libitina has another purpose.”

  He knew so much. She couldn’t tell if she was being lied to but it all sounded too incredible to be made up.

  “Now, I must speak to Libitina.”

  Camilla stepped back so she could think about what was to come, wondering who had lied to her: this spirit or the old lady in the forest. Or was the truth hidden in a mixture of both their words?

  * * *

  Libitina listened as their strange guide told her something she thought impossible.

  “My name can’t be part of this because I chose this name myself,” she said. “When I turned eighteen.”

  “Yes. You hated your parents and no longer wanted to associate with them, with your given name. Why do you think you chose this one?”

  “I know why I chose it. It sounds pretty and Libitina is the name of the guardian of the dead. I always liked the name. You know what I like to do? I want to be a pathologist. I want to work with the dead, so I chose it. It suited me, nothing more.”

  “Why ‘Flesher’, then?”

  “Because it sounded right. Felt right. Besides, it also has to do with the flesh.”

  “See. The name called to you. You might say the name chose you. You were naturally born on December 22nd, in 1982. Add it up. Nine. It’s you. And what have you been doing if not guarding the walking dead?”

  Libitina turned toward Camilla. She faced away from them, gazing up at the billions of books lining the walls of the Akashik Records.

  “Become all your name needs you to be. Become the guardian. Lead the dead. Protect her. Stay with her and help her on this journey. She needs you.”

  “But who’s going to help me along the way?” Libitina looked around the great hall, the malevolent spirits mingled with the sleeping ones, all of them swirling around her. “What if I don’t want to do this?” Her voice rose with her question, echoing off the columns.