by Maya Daniels
With those words, the old woman stands up, walks to the sink and washes the cups of the long-forgotten tea while my mind swirls with what she just said. She spoke in riddles, saying a lot yet saying nothing, but I understood the implication. It cannot be! I have existed since the beginning of time and I believed it was just a foolish story. The balance has been tipped one way or the other through the years, but that is not a secret. It’s an eternal battle and it’ll continue to be so forever, so long as this universe exists or a new one is created in its place to pick up where this one left off. Such is the cycle, never ending.
What she says brings all my hopes and dreams blooming in my immortal heart and I cannot stop it. It also brings dread that what I thought was a power play to keep gods and angels alike on their toes is much more than that. But how? How did I not see this? Maybe the old witch is correct and I am a blind fool, dwelling in my self-pity, high on my arrogance. When the light and dark unite, time will disappear, melding the realms together to exist as they were meant to be from the time of creation, in perfect balance. The Time Maker will lose its grip on us all. My hands start shaking as I remember her words earlier about how I will regret it if I don’t wake the witch up. I bolt up from the chair and in one step I’m at the
bottom of the stairs.
“It’s a bit late now,” she whispers.
I hear her, and my heart is in my throat. What have I done?! I should’ve known. I should’ve recognized the signs. Fool! I scream at myself in my mind as I reach the door and throw it open. In two steps, I’m next to the bed and I freeze with my hand halfway to her shoulder to wake her. There is a glow around her like shimmering lights and her face looks otherworldly. It's not changed much; the witch always stirred my attention since there is something primal in her that she does her best to suppress, but now, even I can’t move.
Her hair fanning around her head, her face tilted to the side and her lashes making dark crescent shadows on her high cheekbones, cause her to appear almost elven. Stupefied, I stare, the urgency to wake her all but forgotten. Her brows crease in a slight frown and I snap out of whatever had me frozen in place. The blood drains from her face and I grab her shoulder and shake her.
“Alexia, wake up, witch!” Her body shakes like it’s in shock and I shake her harder. “Wake up, witch!”
The shivers stop and she slowly opens her eyes to focus on mine. I am suspended in space and time as dark blue stormy orbs focus on me and I feel like a mortal man dumbfounded by a nymph. As I watch, they change from deep ocean blue to her dark brown color with blue circles around them. Her eyes started doing that after she woke up from her ordeal with the bleeding—integrations of energies and powers take time, but this is different. Something fundamental has changed. I prod at her energy with mine, trying to see what to do and how to act, and I realize her life force is holding on with a thread to this lifetime, and I panic.
I was not aware over my very long existence that I could panic like this. When she almost bled to death, I was angry that I couldn’t solve the puzzle I challenged myself to solve. This is different. If I were mortal, I would’ve died right this moment, with her. Softly she speaks, and the air whooshes out of my lungs like I have been punched.
“Save my sisters from Tomorith’s realm. Promise me!”
“We will both save them, Alexia.”
My voice is hoarse and I’m struggling to keep my panic at bay. I’ll kill her myself if my power unleashes itself, out of control. I squeeze my eyes shut and grind my teeth, breathing like I have ran for miles at high speed. She whispers again, and I hear the sadness in her voice. Her soul is almost visibly ripping out of her physical body. I feel my own shake in return.
“No. I need you to promise! I have to go, Lucifer. If nothing was real, at least do this one thing for me. Promise me you’ll save my sisters.”
She smiles, but it doesn’t make me feel better. What has happened? I need to know so I can fix it. I want to roar at my own arrogance while the words of the old witch haunt me into berating myself for not letting her wake Alexia. The emotion almost makes me faint while I struggle to hold myself under control.
“Don’t you dare, Alexia! I will hunt you to the abyss and drag your ass back here, do you hear me?” I growl through clenched teeth.
“Promise me,” she repeats, begging with her eyes that change from blue to brown and back.
“Witch, if you let go, I swear to you in my own immortal existence, I won’t just bring you back, you’ll be indebted to me for it for eternity. You hear me?!” I’m angry and I shake her. She laughs without humor. It sounds eerie to my ears.
“Promise,” a barely audible whisper that makes my control almost slip from me.
“It had to unravel like the Fates had it set, Alexia, but I promise we will get through this. Just don’t let go. We will save them together. I will not leave your side. Look at me!”
She’s looking at me like an equal, straight in the eyes as she never did before, and I’m not sure if I’m happy or scared of the effect she is having on me.
“Promise!” she prompts.
I feel something on my face that she watches with such focused fascination that it takes me a second to realize it’s a tear sliding down my face. That makes me panic even more. Angel tears are never a good sign, and I wasn’t even aware myself that it happened. I feel her palm cupping my face. Instinctively I lean in and close my eyes. The implications of the old witch’s words are clearer now than anything else in my existence, and I hear Alexia whisper one word.
“Goodbye.”
A roar like I’ve never uttered in my long existence rips from my chest and my control slips from me. I feel veils shrink and expand, the fabric of life tearing slightly while my voice echoes through space and time, but I’m powerless to stop it. Alexia’s body tenses under my fingers and I grab on to her arms, trying to shake her awake by sheer will. I feel the bones break under my fingers like twigs, and I’m terrified that I’ll end up killing her instead of bringing her back, so I wrap my arms around her and slam my mouth on hers.
I was not jesting. I will drag her back into this realm and life if I have to stand against the Creator itself. My energy surges through her, and her back bows off the bed, pressing her against my chest. I lift my head and stare at her again. My thoughts about how I would stand against creation itself to bring her back come back and hit me so hard in my gut that I drop her on the bed and jump away like she just burned me. I breathe like a freight train, feeling lightheaded from it all, looking at the witch unconscious but still alive on the bed. What did I just do?! In the distance I hear my own voice. “What kind of sorcery is this?”
10
Alexia…
My whole body hurts. If I’d known that you could hurt this much in death, I would’ve fought harder to stay alive. I can’t focus my thoughts. I get snippets of huge spiders, owls, dark temples that look like castles, cloaked monsters, Inanna screaming at me, Lucifer crying, but I can’t make heads or tails from it all. The pain is so great that it’s almost numbing me inside and out. I have an uneasy feeling that my subconscious is jumbling my thoughts to protect me from something, so I let it be for now. I hurt too much to worry about what I am being protected from. I’ll think about it later.
Trying to open my eyes doesn’t seem to work until I realize that my eyes are open, but I see nothing. Pitch black! Blacker than black, since black is a color and this looks like all-consuming abyss. On second thought, apart from the excruciating pain, I feel nothing else, either. I wonder why that is. Maybe from that blast of energy Lucifer slammed me with, which obviously didn’t work. I would’ve laughed if I hadn’t hurt so much. Sore loser, that angel. I guess I messed up whatever plan he had going on.
Now I wonder if this is what will become of me for the rest of eternity; thinking about stupid things while in so much pain, sitting in darkness. Something doesn’t feel right. I can’t put my finger on it, but I’m sure of it. Did I merge back to the Source? I hear my g
randmother’s voice from days long past. ‘The universe is mental, all is mind.’ If I’ve merged, it makes sense, but that does not explain the pain. That makes me think …Every cause has an effect and every effect has its cause. It’s all connected—as above, so below. Thinking about Hermetic principles will not explain things this moment.
I don’t know how much time passes while I’m trying to figure out what is going on and I want to scream from the pain when I’m startled, because I’m looking at my reflection in a mirror. I wasn’t aware there was a mirror here. As I watch, my face is cleared of my features. I have no eyes, nose, mouth or eyebrows. I watch numbly as my identity is stripped from me and it hits me at that moment. It’s the void! The abyss! But how did I get here?!
As if someone was reading my thoughts, my image flickers and just the lower part of someone’s face floats in front of me smiling. I’m not sure if it’s a good smile or bad smile but I’ll go for the latter. It looks like it’s mocking me. I’m not sure anything good will come from this, but I’ve been known to be wrong on many things, so don’t take my words for granted. I hear a chuckle and the half face disappears, showing me my faceless reflection again. It starts flickering again like a bad TV signal back in the 70’s and 80’s when you had to slam your TV so the picture would stop shaking.
The faceless image disappears and is replaced by a shadow. My shadow. I feel dread looking at it and the chuckle echoes again. If I could feel my body, I know I would be shaking, so I’m grateful I’m only a consciousness. At that thought, the voice or voices for all I know, laugh in amusement and I forget about the fear and the pain. The anger rears its head. Before I form a thought, the shadow separates and I see a gold glowing aura come out of it. I can feel it’s my aura, so I concentrate on it. Anything but the damn shadow and that creepy voice. My aura and my shadow start separating, then blending multiple times, and I’m thinking that they look like they are fighting. Who will win? The light or the darkness? It gives me an uneasy feeling, so I try to encourage my aura with my thoughts but as soon as I try to push my thoughts towards it, it stops frozen, standing shoulder to shoulder with the shadow. The mirror separates in many pieces and they circle around with me in the center, surrounded by it on all sides. The next second, they start spinning around so fast like a carousel that I can’t make out which one has my shadow reflection and which one has my light. Then I hear the voice again.
“Choose!”
The word echoes around me like it’s repeated by a million voices and I panic at first, but then out of nowhere, calm envelops me, and I have no idea how, but I hear my words spoken out loud with conviction. “No! I will not choose.”
I don’t know why I didn’t choose my light. There is a loud screech and I’m jerked out of there. I feel my body now, still in agony from the pain. I cry out. My eyes pop open and I frantically look around, trying to see where I am. Seeing that I’m in my room on my bed, I plop back down and try to calm my breathing. As my heartbeat slows down, I feel the pain slowly releasing the hold it has on me. Movement out of the corner of my eye gets my attention and I turn my head slightly to see what it is. Lucifer is standing in a corner of the room looking at me warily with his arms crossed across his chest. It takes me a second to realize what strikes me odd, and my eyes widen when I understand it. His posture is defensive, like he’s afraid of me. I take a second to see if I can remember anything that could’ve caused the angel to act this way, but I come up with nothing.
“You okay there?” I ask slowly, and shock myself with the
huskiness of my voice. It almost sounds like a purr that reminds me of Inanna. I shake my head, clear my throat, and try again. “What happened? Did I do something?” I ask him, but he only stares at me and doesn’t say a word.
I close my eyes and try to think. My memories are still jumbled, and it hurts my head when I try to combine them together. I reach up to rub my temples and pain shoots across my arms, so I cry out. He moves like a flash and takes my hands, gently putting them down next to my body. What on earth is going on?
“Give it few more minutes for the bones to set properly. I healed them, but the pain needs to go away completely before you move,” he mumbles and when I look at him, there is guilt that’s hard to miss in his eyes.
“Ok, I won’t move for a few minutes, but can you please tell me what happened? My mind is jumbled, and I can’t remember why I’m in pain.”
“You don’t remember anything?” He looks at me with doubt, as if I have nothing better to do than lie to him.
“No. Well, I remember you walking out saying you’ll come back to talk after I rest, but that’s all. I don’t understand why I’m in pain…that reminds me. I wanted to say I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything bad by saying I forgot you were in the room. You have to understand that there is an overload of information in my head from the initiation, so it’s hard to distinguish what is mine and what belongs to Mother. On top of that, with everything that happened and what Daisy was saying…” I shake my head. “It hit home hard, the realization of what has been happening throughout lifetimes, not just this life.” I look at him and he is still watching me mutely, like he’s waiting on something and it makes me wary. “Can you say something? Please?”
“I’m giving you time to remember. It’ll come. Just stay quiet and breathe, witch,” he mumbles again like it’s hard for him to talk to me.
“I was in the void just now.” I close my eyes and take a deep breath. “I don’t know how I got there, but it was unnerving, and luckily I got jerked back when I did. It was asking me to choose.”
“Choose what?” his voice is closer, like he is next to me, but I didn’t hear him move, so I open one eye to look where he is. That’s how I saw the fear in his eyes and I open my eyes to look at him better.
“Why are you afraid? Nothing scares you. Can you please tell me…?” I trail off because memories slam so hard into me that I almost lose consciousness again. Everything came back. Everything!
“Alexia! Are you okay?” he asks frantically, touching my shoulder and I shrink back in the bed.
“Don’t you dare touch me! What the fuck did you do to me?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” he says defensively, and I look at his eyes. His own are widened from whatever he sees in me, and he steps back.
“I remember everything now.” I say with a calm that surprises even me. I watch as he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, slumps his shoulders and leans back on the wall behind him.
“Care to share what happened on your travel, witch?”
“Sure, right after you tell me what you did to me when I got back. And why you kissed me.” I narrow my eyes at him, but my voice is even, calm. He rolls his eyes.
“It was not a kiss, witch. You were ready to throw the flag, and I couldn’t let you do that. So I made sure you lived. This is the thanks I get for the effort! Ungrateful mortals!” He spits the word ‘mortals’ like it’s vile, but there is no heat in it. No. There is something, but it’s not anger for sure, so I stare at him, waiting.
“Your turn,” he says tilting his chin up, urging me to talk.
As if!! “You’re lying!” I say simply. I’m not sure he is, but something is off.
“I don’t lie.”
“You just did.”
“I most definitely did not.”
“Okay, fine. You didn’t lie but you skirted the truth.”
We stare at each other with narrowed eyes until he throws his hands in the air dramatically and pushes away from the wall. I watch as he starts pacing up and down in front of the bed.
“I have no idea what I did, okay? I was not myself before I came to wake you up and you coming out of the astral realms, your soul holding onto a thread to this lifetime, made my power get out of control.” He stops and points a finger at me like I’m a two-year-old. “And that is the truth!”
“Okay, I’ll take that for now.” I’ll get back to it later after I tell him what happened. Maybe things will
make more sense then.
“Well? Speak!” he snaps, and I lift my eyebrows. He seems to be on edge again.
“Want to calm down a bit before I tell you? Because unfortunately, I was not in a realm with unicorns skipping rainbows. It will get you more upset.”
“No. Speak.”
“Fine! Asshole!” I snap and start retelling him everything that happened from the point when I found myself in the mist to the moment I opened my eyes with him holding me on the bed. As I speak, his eyes widen. It’s almost comical. When I get to the part about seeing Derik, I feel a sharp stabbing pain in my heart, but thankfully it quickly goes away. I guess after so many betrayals, you get used to the sensation when you have a minute to think. I can tell the pity finds its way into his eyes as I retell the encounter, but there is something else there that stops me from making a comment on it. It makes my stomach flip-flop for no reason, and it takes me by such surprise that I forget all about being angry and not wanting his pity. He stalks towards me, taking my right arm in his fingers gently.
“Let me see,” he growls, and I stare at the top of his head that’s bent over my arm. Only the Goddess knows what is going on with him. That reminds me of Inanna.
“She knew, Lucifer. I don’t know how she knew what would happen, but she did. And she just left when I started waking up with a poor apology about how she’s sorry she couldn’t save me from the pain.” I don’t even know why I’m telling him all this.
