Circle of Nine: Circle of Nine Trilogy 1

by Josephine Pennicott

  ‘Do you have any of her paintings or drawings left?’ I asked in an effort to change the subject before she asked me to join her group.

  ‘Only one. It’s out the back. I was going to keep it for myself, actually.’ She disappeared, returning with a small, unframed oil painting. Two figures: a young girl like a fairytale creature, holding an owl; an elder female, an ancient Crone figure, with eyes piercing and sunken with age. Around the two women was a broken circle of light. It was a beautifully executed painting, but there was a sense of despair about the figures. The background was painted in various shades of black and shadows seemed to creep toward the women, who were caught in the broken circle. I frowned. Had I seen these women before? Was it in a book at my aunt’s? Maybe they were in another painting that she had done.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ I said. And it was. I felt the same sense of helplessness that I always did when I saw my aunt’s work. My own work in contrast appeared much more laboured, crude and clumsy compared to the astonishing array of emotions that Johanna managed to capture in oil.

  Wendy seemed embarrassed. ‘I’ll pay you for it, of course. I just really liked it, and I thought that I would get it framed.’

  I turned the painting over. On the back was scrawled, Khartyn and Rosedark — the circle is broken. I handed it back to Wendy, wishing that I could hang onto it, but it would seem churlish to reclaim it.

  ‘No, that’s all right,’ I lied. ‘I’m sure Johanna would have wanted you to have it.’

  ‘Is there much of her stuff up at the house?’ Wendy asked. She leaned closer to me, and I resisted the temptation to move away.

  ‘Heaps. Lots of studies, completed works and half-finished paintings. There’s a half-finished mural on the lounge room wall.’ I laughed nervously, not liking the intense way that Wendy was looking at me.

  ‘Well, any stuff that you want to get rid of, bring it to me. I’m sure that the craze for her work will continue. I know all the galleries are selling out of Johanna Develles. There was some journalist guy in here the other day after them. He’s planning on doing a book on her. I’m surprised that he hasn’t contacted you. By the way, if you ever come across a wooden box that she has in the house, then I’d be interested in purchasing it. It has a large shell on the lid of the box.’

  ‘I’ve seen that box,’ I said carefully, and I felt the energy between us change. Her tongue flicked her lips nervously, and I sensed her desire and need. ‘There’s no key to it. I was thinking of busting it open.’

  ‘Please don’t,’ she said. ‘I’m interested in the box, key or no key. You might damage it if you force the lock. Besides, there is a key. Johanna told me. The key must be in the house.’

  I knew she was lying. The easygoing camaraderie that we had shared swiftly evaporated with that knowledge.

  ‘Well, I must be going,’ I said. ‘I’ve still got some shopping to do.’ I stood up, feeling exhausted. Wendy crossed to the counter and passed me a business card.

  ‘My home and work numbers are both there,’ she said. ‘I’d love you to come along to one of our meetings. You can come as little or often as you like, there’s no pressure. If your interests lie in the same directions as your aunt’s, then I think you’ll get a lot out of it.’ Her hand touched her pentacle briefly, and I nodded, knowing that I would never attend one of her meetings.

  As I left The Silver Hen and headed back toward the main street, I felt her eyes watching me, filled with a smug expression. I felt her cross to the phone and dial a number, shaking as she dialled.

  ‘Ruth? She’s been in here. No, she doesn’t know. Oh Ruth, I think she’s found it!’

  I frowned, the vision fading. Sometimes with the shining I didn’t know what was truth, or what was an overactive imagination.

  I went into the supermarket and threw items randomly into a small carry basket. Crackers, cheeses, olives, Brazil nuts, some grapes and dark chocolate. Cocoa, for the cold nights ahead. Fish, and some green vegetables. The young, gum-chewing checkout girl looked straight through me as she rang up my purchases. Two elderly men stood discussing the unexplained deaths of cattle in the area recently. Their words washed over me, my mind felt absent from my body.

  Walking home, hunched against the cold winds, leaves blew wildly around me. The trees stood stark and silent. I held my breath as I passed each one. The sky was a pale-grey wash, and in the distance, thunder could be heard. I walked faster, my mind filled with chilling whispers.

  *

  Wendy leaning toward me, her pentacle dangling. A mural that changed shape and form whenever I left the room. An old woman running down a mountain track screaming. A schoolboy in a red-and-grey cap, his eyes as ancient as the ocean. Myself, turning and whirling among falling leaves and seasons that were distorted. Shadows, feeding hungrily on cows and sheep, their mouths sucking, working furiously to get the blood fresh and hot from the vein.

  In our dreams lie the seeds of our deaths.

  Never alone, you are always mine.

  Voices, calling to me, mocking me in the winds. Then the sound of a young girl laughing, lost in the wind, splintering into light.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  My day of socialising was far from over.

  I gaped at the vision standing at the back gate in the afternoon, displeased at the interruption to my examination of my aunt’s sketchbooks. She had startled me as I sat on the back porch. The visitor was tall and thin, with short hair in sausage-type curls. She wore a long velvet skirt, and a black feather boa hung around her neck. She carried a small tabby cat which she continually stroked. Her teeth were sharp and pointed — all the better to eat you with, I thought. She reminded me of a permed piranha.

  ‘Darling!’ she cried. ‘I live just down the mountain. We’re virtually neighbours! I’m Skye — I was a good friend of Johanna’s. May the Goddess bless her soul. I just had to come and see you, poor lamb, to see how you’re getting on.’

  Grudgingly, I invited her through the garden gate. My initial response was to keep her from entering the house. Weren’t vampires only able to enter your home if you invited them? I tried in vain to suppress my irritation at this interruption to the day.

  ‘You rest here,’ I said, indicating the garden seat. ‘I’ll fix us some tea.’

  I observed the woman furtively from the kitchen window as I brewed some tea and hastily arranged some cheese and biscuits on a platter. She sat there quite happily, amusing herself by patting and talking to the cat. She was probably one of Johanna’s witch buddies.

  I resigned myself to the unwanted tea party, determined to extract something of value from the time it would take. Perhaps Skye would be able to shed some light on Johanna’s murder. As we shared the tea and biscuits I realised a disturbing fact. Unlike the policeman, I could observe no colours emanating from Skye. Her mind was unnaturally calm, and no thoughts invaded my mind. Not for the first time in my life I cursed the fact that my shining worked so intermittently.

  ‘Have you been comfortable in the cottage?’ Skye enquired, her long brown fingers stroking the tabby. There was a reassuring warmth to this movement of her hand that somehow relaxed me.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied, stifling an impulse to yawn. ‘Although I’ve been kept busy clearing out things.’

  Skye raised a purple eyebrow. Why hadn’t I noticed those purple eyebrows before?

  ‘Really? You haven’t noticed a small locked box, by any chance, have you? It’s mine. It’s wooden, with a beautiful shell painted onto the lid. I loaned it to Johanna before her distressing incident.’

  She raised a black, lace-edged handkerchief to her eyes which had begun to fill with tears. I was never quite sure of what happened next. I opened my mouth to inform Skye that her box was safe inside the studio and I’d fetch it for her, but I heard myself replying, ‘No. I’m sorry. I haven’t seen anything like the box you mention. Of course if I do find it I’ll return it to you at once.’

  Skye paused in the act of stroking the cat. Her ha
nds fluttered in front of my face briefly. The odour of ylang ylang and orange oil floated over me. I felt so peaceful and rested. I beamed at Skye contentedly. Her pupils were now huge and dilated, staring at me. Her breath was sweet and minty.

  ‘Would you mind, dear child, if I had a look around for it myself? I know you must be very busy, but it’s a family heirloom. It has great sentimental value and I’d feel much happier if I could take it home with me.’

  Her hands fluttered again. Sensations of pleasure swept through my body. I felt a tugging in my mind. Skye appeared to have transformed into a panther. The panther opened its mouth.

  ‘I won’t inconvenience you, dear child,’ the panther said, ‘I just need to enter the cottage.’

  The tugging sensation continued in my mind. There was a strong smell of roses in the air. The odour of roses permeated the garden. Inside my mind a flower opened. I heard myself forming words, replying to Skye, who had just then turned back into a woman.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry, but I’m really too busy at the moment. If you leave a contact number with me I’ll get in touch with you when your box turns up.’

  Abruptly I stood up, ran into the cottage and barricaded the doors. I rushed for the bathroom where I was violently ill. Trembling, I stood against the door, nausea rippling through my stomach in violent waves. The house vibrated, murmuring soothing whispers. I vomited again.

  *

  Skye walked slowly home toward the mountains. The evening shadows were commencing their nightly flirtation with the moon. Skye walked slowly. Her feet hurt in the unfamiliar high-heeled shoes. Her visit had not proved a success. The Bluite had more power than they had previously estimated. The tourists had now left the mountains for the day, retreating to hotel rooms and cafes to drink steaming hot chocolates and write their postcards. With this departure the Earth elementals re-emerged from the bush. Their wiry, spidery foliage arms ceased their twilight dancing when Skye walked into view. The largest elementals in their dancing circle, the twilight elders, hissed at Skye to retreat. Skye ignored them. She stooped to the ground and placed the tabby down.

  ‘Scat!’ she ordered. The cat’s finely tuned sense of self-preservation warned him to leave her presence immediately. He exited hastily into the darkness of the bush. Skye stood in view of the Three Sisters. The towering, triple-headed rock formation, named for an Aboriginal legend, was besieged and diminished by tourist buses and admiring bushwalkers every day, and only gained its full majesty under the cover of lonely darkness. In the twilight evening the rocks emitted a satin gold glow that hung over the still valley. Their floodlights had yet to come on. Skye raised her arms in homage to the guardians that protected the Sisters.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw a group of the Looz Drem, children who had died violently or suddenly and couldn’t accept their death, standing watching her. A young girl stood in front of the small group. She had fair hair that lifted in the wind, and eyes that glowed with hate. They muttered a few words to each other and laughed. She ignored them.

  Wind elementals darted around Skye, attempting to soothe her with their long grey fingers and mother-of-pearl hearts. Skye stood, accepting their caresses, her long velvet skirt blown back by their breath, her hair teased at the scalp by their touch. She watched the moon’s proud advance against the night sky through slitted eyes. Here in this ancient power spot, this sanctuary, where the foundations still whispered of ancient civilisations that existed before the Shell began, here she could feel the Dreamers. And they were dreaming strongly tonight. Her pulse kept time with the rhythm of their breathing. When the moon finally called to her she raised her arms and they became claws. The Glamour slid away and for one split second the moon illuminated the face of Sati. Then she lurched herself into her bird form and flew from the cliff, vanishing from view as she merged with the night sky.

  *

  The Dark Angel smiled as he mounted Effie and began thrusting his organ deep inside her. He was training her well. This was the most pleasure he had extracted from a human woman in centuries. They had managed to satisfy each other intensely several times every session, and she was taking the encoding extremely well. Not all Earth women could cope with the pressure of this ritual. Insanity was a regrettable side effect, but inside Effie flourished the same lust for power that permeated his own being and which lubricated their sexual mergings.

  ‘Not much longer,’ the fire inside him promised her. ‘Soon you will be one of us. You will be Azephim. One of the holy winged ones.’

  Effie moaned as the dark, sacred fluids spurted inside her body. Another tiny section of her brain died as pulsating green tentacles linked the two together.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  She was waiting for me when I slept. Small and delicate with golden hair and yellow eyes. She floated toward me smiling, and her breath was the kiss of a grave.

  ‘Follow me,’ she hissed, her hands stroking my face. I felt myself rising from the bed, and she smiled, running her tongue over her grey lips.

  ‘Rachel’s long dead, but my heart still beats. Poor little Rachel is long cold, but my blood still flows. Come with me, Emma, fly with me into night, into memory.’

  We rose together. I was clasped in her tiny arms; her strength was hideous and her breath was stale and hot. We hovered in the night sky, and I saw below me the lights of the mountain town, with everything surrounding it in shadow.

  ‘Nothing can grow in the night, only fear,’ she said, and she laughed.

  We entered the doors of a white stone chapel. She held my hand, and I felt horror rise inside the demon child at the act of entering this place of worship. I recognised the small chapel as one of the oldest churches in Sydney. We were at the funeral of my aunt Johanna. I gazed around the church; it was undergoing restoration work and so was a curious hybrid of old and new. The priest who had read the service was old and frail, and his face was filled with wrinkled lines of pain.

  How Johanna would have hated this! Or maybe she wouldn’t have. How could I possibly know what my aunt would have liked for her own funeral? For all I knew Johanna may have converted to Catholicism years ago. Though it was hard to imagine. The memory that I had preserved of Johanna was the idealised aunt that I would always adore, the kindred spirit. Years ago, before her hands and her eyes had lost their warmth and her paintings had lost their light . . .

  The overcrowded chapel seemed oblivious to the presence of the dream interlopers. With a sense of unreality, I saw myself. It took me a couple of minutes to recognise my own features. The Emma from a few months ago was pressed against Helen’s florid body. I could sense the gratitude I was feeling that Jade had still not been contacted. Dreading the venom she would inevitably spit upon discovering her exclusion from Johanna’s will.

  Helen, despite her ill-concealed surprise that I had been awarded the honour of prime benefactor, had displayed no resentment. She had known Jade and Johanna for years, having lived next door to them when they were children in the suburbs of Sydney. Despite the differences between them, Helen had remained loyal to the sisters over the years, although her life had taken her in an entirely different direction. She had married a headmaster and had four boys, whom she worshipped. Recently, she had returned to the workforce, taking a part-time position in a local library. She was also extremely obese. I could imagine how horrified Jade would be at the sight of her. My mother never wasted an opportunity to remind me how I had ruined her figure. I could never imagine warm, uncomplicated, breezy Helen blaming her sons for her drooping breasts or cellulite bum. But, like Effie, she had been desperately trying to tell me what I should do with the house I was given. Unlike my mother, Johanna’s friend Helen had proved a great source of support and strength on the couple of occasions I subsequently met her. She had helped me deal with the press and arranged the funeral service. I was grateful for her unobtrusive, practical manner.

  Helen had been longing to help me organise Johanna’s belongings but my intuitive feeling had been to kee
p her away from the cottage. There was no logic to my instinct. The house belonged to me. It was my chance to recapture some childhood magic. Magic didn’t belong in Helen’s world. She would dust it away, vacuum it away, file it away. By the time Helen finished organising the magic, it would be gone. The entire time that she spent in Sydney with me, I had been desperately trying to avoid the subject of the house. Although Helen had finally succumbed to silence on the issue I had been left with the uneasy feeling that I had won the battle but not the war.

  I had been disappointed by Effie’s refusal to attend the service.

  ‘I’m sorry, Emmy, but I’ve got some agencies to go see. It’s not as if I knew her. You’ll be okay. You don’t mind, do you?’

  Hastily I had assured her that I didn’t mind, but the truth was I felt slightly offended. I had never seen Effie as focused on her career as she had been those last few days. She had even shut up about my cottage.

  I saw again, as if for the first time, Geoff and Robert sitting together to give their support. Thankfully, there had been only one television crew outside the chapel. The story was already rapidly fading into yesterday’s news before we had even buried her. Johanna’s mysteriously bloodless corpse had been knocked off the headlines by the murder of a young Sydney model in a Kings Cross alley. Suddenly the news hounds had bayed to a different scent.

  Still, I was surprised by the number of people who attended the service. I could see the shock register in Helen’s eyes when she saw the small chapel filled. There was standing room only for the latecomers. Hundreds of people had come. How little I had known of Johanna! I had assumed that the tabloid reports of her hermit-like existence were based on fact, but judging from the vast crowd assembled to pay their last respects, my aunt had enjoyed a social life more active than most.

  As I hovered above the congregation, I could hear Helen’s thoughts clearly.