The women gathered under the waning moon, their billowing cloaks offering protection from the cold night breeze. Fire cast wicked shadows in the ankle-deep grass as they spun and danced. Beyond the cliff, calm waves lapped the nearby shore. The low singing thrummed through their circle but sounded like a stir of whispers beyond their enclosure. Children wandering on nearby streets moved in awe of the night but in ignorance of the veil that had lifted.
Each woman traced the outer edge of the circle, dropping violets and lilies as they moved, gathering force and speed. One broke away to kneel before the fire that crackled in the center of the withering blooms. Her red cloak pooled at her knees and soaked in the warmth and light before her.
As she flung small packets with whispered pleas into the flames, the air shivered and lightened until she felt as if gravity might lose out and cast her into the sky. She stood and turned to the others, holding the earth to her feet and the parted shroud to her back.
“The veil between the worlds is thin. Make ready.”
One by one, the women advanced, lit their candles. Spoke into the wind and poured out their love and pain and sorrow. Some begged for forgiveness, some for comfort. One lingered before the fire longer than the others, tears washing her face, words she had not known she carried escaping her. She flung her candle whole into the flames, and as the wax melted and bubbled, a wave broke, and calm washed around her.
When the last had cast her offering into the flames, the circle expanded, spiraling away, until only the one with the red cloak remained within the circle of light cast by the muted blaze. With a deft will, she closed the veil and doused the flames. The broken circle filled with cold, filmy air, and the laughter of unaware passersby floated to the on the breeze.
She cast off her cloak and returned to their world.
“Blessed be,” she called to her sisters.
And from the reaches of the widened circle came their replies.
“Blessed be…”
“…Mother.”
“…Lady.”
“… Rhea.”
***
Exhaustion from the demands of the evening weighed on Samantha, making a struggle of an easy walk to her home. Trick-or-treaters scuttled by in a throng of motley and sweaty costumes, overflowing bags of sugar dragging behind them. She smiled at the children, wondered when or if she’d ever have the chance to make the rounds with her own child.
When she reached the final stretch of sidewalk to her home, she felt the presence walking behind her, so she turned. Absence greeted her, but she felt the energy of the being lingering near.
In due time, she thought, too weary to seek him out, too drained by mourning.
She had only ten feet to the path leading to her front door when she heard the first whisper.
Samantha….
Her legs stopped moving, and her breath seized in her throat. Though her mind fought her, she shuffled her feet around until she faced the presence she could not see. Shadows loomed and receded, dashed and lay still. The edge of her vision crackled with sparks of black, and all around her she could feel the vibration of the veil that had parted again.
Samantha….
The wind gasped at her with its coldest breath, stinging her cheeks and bringing tears to her eyes.
“I hear you,” she said.
The breeze shifted, whipping her loose hair into a tangle. Shadows moved in concert with the air, and small dots of light coalesced in the trees and shrubs surrounding her darkened home, tiny eyes alight with mirth. Small laughs surrounded her, titters that could have been wood rubbing wood in the wind, movement that could have been the rustle of leaves as they twirled about the yard.
My Samantha.
A shiver raced down her spine as she heard the intransigent undertones of the statement. A surety, a finality.
The presence formed behind her. She turned, facing her home and her visitor. The wind carried the sound of giggles and movement again. But the sudden whistle of a gust overshadowed other noise, leaving only a crystal awareness of the man before her, clad in black and surrounded by dark heat shimmering like air over sun-baked asphalt.
“Who are you?” she asked, but he didn’t answer because she already knew.
The veil had parted.
He had stepped through.
She felt her mind separate from her, taking with it any will she might have had, any certainty she might have felt. With a black-gloved hand, he held out a bouquet of lilies and violets, dew-covered, the scent of the sea mingling with their own sweet fragrance.
She accepted the spray and his arm and allowed him to lead her through the veil. In the blackness, she felt a gust of air as the partition closed behind her.
The smell of the flowers in her hand withered away.
***
The world spun counter-clockwise around her, turning her stomach and reminding her of the effects of too little water to counter an excess of drink. She squeezed her eyes as her gorge rose and black sparks exploded in her vision and forced her eyes open.
Gray light emanated from a candle in the center of the room. The rest remained hidden in the corners where the flickering candlelight could not reach even as it strained and sputtered against a stubborn draft.
In the corner hovered a darkness so complete, she was sure the light would never manage to illuminate it, no matter how close its creeping glow reached.
“Is someone there?”
The darkness shifted, and he moved toward her, scraping by the edge of the gray light. She dug her feet into the hard earthen floor for traction, crawled back, away from him. Animal fur brushed her palms as she pushed hard against a cold wall. Stony protrusions dug into her back, and still she pushed.
His hand, now free of the black glove, reached out to her, palm up and cupped, and somehow it soothed her to see this, a peaceful gesture. As he cupped her cheek, calm flooded her until she felt as if she might float away, like she had when her sister, her mother, her priestess had parted the veil.
“You,” she whispered.
He backed away, and the meager candlelight cast a shadow of his smile, enigmatic and peaceful, and the calm left her.
“Let me go. I want to go home.”
You are not my prisoner, he said without speaking.
“Then let me go.”
You are free. Take whatever course you choose. He waved his arm as if revealing the room, and the gray light responded, imbibing his darkness and reflecting more light.
She weighed the statements, unsure what he meant and what she should do, but decided she must take him at his word. She slid herself sideways and off the animal skins, walked the periphery of the room looking for a door or window, tracing her hands along the stone walls.
When she returned to the skins, she spun around the room, shocked, realizing she could see no way out.
“Where is it?” she asked. “Where’s the door?”
His smile, vague and haunted in shadow, brought a lump to her throat.
“I’m trapped.”
But he only shook his head and moved back into the shadowy corner.
Bone-weary, weighted, drained, she dropped to her knees and crawled onto the skins, falling asleep before she had even arranged her limbs. She dreamed of fire and twinkling eyes in the forest.
He kept watch from his perch.
***
He had moved the table, the one bearing the candle, next to her. When she sat up, Samantha found it also held a silver goblet with red wine, a bowl of pomegranate seeds, a chunk of grainy bread, and an abalone bowl filled with glimmering water.
She sipped the wine, delicate and reminiscent of the clutch of lilies and violets, tore a hunk of bread and nibbled at it. And as she did so, she searched the room for the darkest point.
She found it closer to her than it had been before she’d fallen asleep. Her suspicion deepened as she watched him sit like a marble gargoyle. Had he drugged her food?
You are not my prisoner, she heard again.
“Then why am I here?”
Your blessing to the dead.
Her whisper, carried through the veil to the mighty dead. She began to remember what she had said, the words she had cast as the energy swirled through her head. The desire that had clutched at her, eliciting such sorrow and yet feeding her need to live, to bring back the one she had lost, to relive the passion and comfort of his arms. She remembered.
She felt that sorrow again, the empty desire, and tears choked her throat. “Is he here?”
He who died so that new life would rise from his ashes….
“Please, where is he?” Desperation, fear, hope.
He who suffered and felt the pain of his body in a hundred pieces….
The sobs moved upward, freezing out all other sensation, opening old wounds. “Please?”
He who descended to await her arrival and his return….
She collapsed onto her side, the goblet turning with her hand, spilling its contents onto the stone. Bread crumbs soaked up the trickling liquid. Her body, tormented by grief, curled into itself, her fist jammed against her teeth, drawing blood.
You called me, Samantha. You wanted to see.
He knelt beside her, stroked her hair until she could breathe again. The anguished cry that escaped her filled the small room and collapsed onto her, a soothing rainfall in the warmth of spring. The sensation fed the horrible loss, and she cried until her eyes could no longer bear the strain and her heart felt empty. She turned onto her back.
Death in life, life in death. Do you see?
He placed a single pomegranate seed on her lips.
It tasted of the sea.
She sucked the seed until only its hard core remained on her tongue, and when she placed the remains with the spilled wine, she felt relief.
He hovered over her, persuasive and repelling, daring her to look him in the eye.
“I can’t.”
When he leaned in close, she froze, her breath becoming short and quick in a desperate attempt to keep up with her heart. She kept her eyes averted, unwilling to suffer the pain of seeing what his gaze held, dark, full of mysteries, and brimming with the pain she had unleashed.
She did not need to look.
But she did, she glanced up at him just as he placed warm, soft, coaxing lips on hers. The hurt vanished. The darkness receded. She began to understand, and so she opened to him, accepted his tongue into her mouth, tasted the wine he had drunk, knew the passions he felt.
When he backed away from her, she tasted another pomegranate seed, balanced on the center of her tongue. She sucked it clean and dropped the core into the spilled wine.
Her breath rushed through her, and when she nodded to him, he removed the black shirt.
His pale, muscular chest did not move, as if breath were unnatural to him. His black eyes stared down at her, waiting.
She nodded again, and when he bent over her, kissed her neck, nipped her shoulder, took her breast into his mouth, she moved against him, helped him to undress her.
His fingers played over her stomach, and her body responded with a warm chill. She opened herself to him, gave him everything, filled herself with all he offered. And when the last seed rested inside her, he receded into the shadows, so pale he appeared translucent, so inconsistent she wondered if he had ever been there.
She gathered her cloak around her, took the soaked breadcrumbs into her hand, and threw a pinch of the wet mass across the flame of the candle.
“I am life,” she whispered.
The flame popped and sizzled.
She threw another pinch. “I am death.”
The room began a clockwise spin. She threw the last pinch. “I am life.”
The spinning overcame her, and she slept.
***
“Samantha.”
She turned her head away, not wanting to wake from the nightmare, not prepared to face the light.
Hands shook her shoulders. “Samantha,” the woman whispered.
She opened her eyes and turned to see the speaker. Rhea, come to rescue her.
“I fell,” she said, her voice little more than a rasp.
“We found you in your yard this morning.” Rhea shook her head. “I guess the ritual was too much for you, too soon.”
She turned her head away as she felt a tear form. “You’re probably right. I just need sleep now.” She didn’t want sleep, though.
Rhea offered her a mug of spicy tea. “You should drink.”
Samantha obliged, if only to make certain she would be alone soon.
“I’ll stay,” Rhea told her when she had finished the tea.
“No,” she said. “I’m fine. I just need to rest.”
Rhea’s concern showed in the tightness around her eyes. “Are you sure?”
Samantha nodded.
“I’m leaving the phone by your bed. Call me if you need anything.”
Her high priestess left. When the front door clicked shut, she rose from the bed and went to the bathroom to fill the tub, dropping dried catnip, basil, sage, and sea salt into the steaming water. She undressed and sank into the fragrant warmth.
Under her breath, she sang.
Floating in the water, she caressed her belly, and the taste of pomegranates filled her mouth.
Copyright © 2003 Kerri-Leigh Grady
