by Carl E. Mullin ©2020
She was not smiling.
Sister Ziya’s head rocked side to side as she slept. The horseless carriage crushed loud the gravel road under her seat. Her hands clasped her key in her lap. Sister Loretta looked up from her Book of Common Rites and glanced out the window of their side door. She glanced at her sister and breathed deep. She marked her book before putting it away in her bag. She sat back for a moment observing the sleeping form before her. She reached across the aisle to give a gentle shaking on her knee.
She didn’t open her eyes. “Fire…” she muttered. “Fire. Death.”
Loretta frowned. She shook her knee again.
“Fire. Devastation” She shook her head in distress. “No. No. The sword. Stop. Stop.”
Alarmed, Loretta shook her stronger.
“No,” Ziya muttered. “No!” She woke with a start. She looked around in confusion.
“Sister? Are you alright?”
She stared at her for a moment. She recovered and breathed deep as she sat up, “Yes.” She straightened her hair and adjusted her hairpin with two eagle feathers hanging down on the right side of her face. “How do I look?”
“Lovely as ever. Always did love your feathers,” she smiled.
She smiled back with a wane smile and looked outside.
“Sister? Are you sure? You look tired. The preparation must have taken a toll on you last night.”
“I am quite alright.” She watched the trees pass by their carriage. “I’m well, Sister.”
“Are you certain? You were dreaming just now.”
“Was I?” She frowned. “I do not recall.”
“I…see.” She did not believe her but she was a senior rank above her and more experienced, more practiced than she was. She would trust her judgement. With reservations.
“Where are we?”
“Okehampton. We just passed West Okement River. We’re almost there.”
“Thank you.” She looked out again. The land was mostly flat and pastoral with a few flocks of sheep and some cattle and a group of woods demarcating the boundaries. The soft clouds towered over the land. The sun was warm today. She sat back and prepared herself as the woods grew thicker as they passed them by. In a little while they stopped.
Loretta peeked and got up, “This is the place.”
Ziya tugged up her green hood and climbed out. She noticed a Tudor-style cottage in the bucolic setting. She claimed her luggage while Loretta paid the driver who tipped his top hat from his rear seat and drove off. The Sister walked around, letting her eyes explore the space. The front door opened. A man stepped out and shut the door behind him with an anxious and gentle speed. He stepped out to greet, approaching Loretta to converse for a few minutes, while Ziya continued to pace the land. Her experienced eyes were searching and probing for flaws in this land, a hole, a weakness. She stood there staring into space when Loretta approached from behind.
“Sister? Mr. Brownlow. Daryl Brownlow, Sister Ziyatoestah Holl-Mahpyuatashuke. She is of our Order, sir. A goete of the highest degree as we have promised.”
His eyes had deep and dark bags for his youth and his smile was both kind and forced. “Is it true? You can help us?” he asked, his voice carrying a knife-thin edginess as he hugged himself.
“She’s practiced in such matters, sir. She was personally trained by our Revered Mother Owena who was trained by Morgan Le Fay herself.”
“Whatever. I just – I just want this to be over with, you understand? I mean no disrespect to you two and your Order, Sisters.” He looked at Ziya. “She doesn’t look English, beg your pardon and all that. Can she really help? I mean the others have tried and…” his voice trailed off.
She touched his hand in sympathy. “Have faith. Not in me but in our Lady who we serve. Lady Hekate is the Mistress even of the shades that wander the night. Your daughter will be freed of this eidolon. This I swear in my Lady’s name.”
He licked his lips with a worried look then nodded. “I don’t suppose we have much choice do we?” He shrugged, “Fate.”
“Fate,” she agreed. “Shall we go in?”
He nodded again and took up the bags, “Come in.”
Ziya entered the cottage first, pacing the house with a cat’s walk as her eyes searched and her heart reached out. “Mr. Brownlow?” a ragged voice came from the kitchen. A woman emerged, wiping her hands on her apron. She froze, “Daryl, are they the ones?”
“Yes, dear. Sisters, my wife, uh…”
She fell to her knees and grasped Ziya’s hands. “Please, ma’am, you have to help me, help us. My baby,” she sobbed, “you have to help my baby. She’s all we have, all I have. Please!”
Ziya rested her hand on her head, “Your daughter will be well. Lady Hekate will see to it. Do you believe?”
“Yes! Oh, yes, I believe. Just-just help. I cannot take it anymore, seeing my baby like this. There’s a monster in there, with her.” She nodded toward a closed door at the end of the hallway.
Ziya looked at the closed door and then down at the mother. She tightened her grip on her hands, “Your daughter will be well soon. Now, please get up and make tea for us.” The mother looked up with desperate hope and nodded. The Sister helped her to her feet. The mother wiped her hands on her apron and adjusted her hair in an absentminded manner before venturing to the kitchen.
Ziya stepped closer to the door. Halfway, she ordered the bags brought to the kitchen. When Daryl was inside the kitchen, the sisters moved closer to the door. With ginger care, Ziya touched the door as if it was a hot pot.
“Sister?” Loretta asked, edginess in her voice, her hands clasping tight her key.
She pulled her hand back. “You feel that?” she whispered.
“Yes. A dark feeling. At the grave.”
“It’s him. The toadman.”
“Such rage. I’m frightened.”
“Have courage, Sister. We serve Lady Hekate and she is greater than all the shades.” She swallowed, noiseless.
“Blessed be the holy Nurse of Persephone,” Loretta prayed as she kissed her key.
The kettle whistled in the kitchen. The Sisters returned to the kitchen where Mrs. Brownlow made a quick lunch with practiced effectivity, eager to prove her worth to the nuns. Loretta aided her in preparing a tray of food for the coming ritual. The cooking proved a tonic to the mother, calming her fears with a comfortable habit as Ziya had expected.
Meanwhile, Ziya stepped outside for a small pig purchased prior to her arrival. She set down her bucket to examine the pig while the husband held him down. Approving the animal, she pulled out her sacred knife. A quick and clean deed was done and she placed the bucket under his luckless neck as she said her prayers over it. The husband dug a pit and she made a complete burn of the pig and covered the pit.
After washing her hands and blessing the meal and burnt a portion to Lady Hestia of the hearth, they ate in silence, gaining their strength for the coming ordeal.
When that was done, they made their final preparation. Ziya poured some of the fresh blood into a little saucer dish and set it along with wine and fresh honey and the food on the tray.
Time.
She gave the couple two Hekate’s keys to use for their prayers and warned them to stay in their kitchen for their safety. Then she took the tray to the closed door with Loretta.
She stopped and breathed deeply. She closed her eyes and nodded to Loretta who opened the door for her. She stepped inside and waited for it to shut behind her.
The room was dark with heavy curtains drawn tightly together. She stood still, letting her eyes adjust to the dark. Then she saw her.
In the center of the room a little girl was sitting alone in her simple nightgown with an unnatural stillness. She sat on a child’s chair with a bowed head and hands on her knees. The child sat silent with the patient self-possession of a mature adult. The room was fastidious. The bed was made in military fashion. The books were kept in neat order. The crayons were stacked away and the papers kept in a neat pile. Not a doll was out of place. Ziya knew then without a doubt that the child was possessed by a shade with none of a childish nature in him.
She squatted to set the tray on the floor before her. She picked up a bag of salt and poured out a circle on the floor around the child. The circle completed, the witch-nun replaced the empty sack on a dresser and returned to the door. She stared at the child with a mild disgust for a moment and then faced the door.
She stood with patience.
Then she heard a shuffling and scratching behind her. The plates clacked as the food was consumed. Then a greedy slurping and smacking of foul lips. It was always the same with all the shades. They hunger for the vitalizing blood, to restore their sense, to renew their consciousness with a fever of a wolf. It had disgusted and horrified her the first time with Mother Owena. Years have passed and it disgusted her still.
More slurping, slow and savoring. She closed her eyes. Then the clacking of a plate.
Minutes passed.
She opened her eyes and turned slow and on guard. The girl remained on her little chair with her hands on her knees still. She looked at the tray and found it shored of all food. Even the blood was licked clean like a cat. She commanded her stomach to be still. She stepped up to the salted circle and stared at her with clasped hands in front.
She waited.
A while passed. The toadman was testing her patience she knew. Some dead enjoyed the feeling of power once freed of their mortal coils. Some did with a perverted taste. He was one of the second group, her heart warned her. She could feel it in her bones.
They waited facing each other. The dead have all the time. She will make time.
Then the girl lifted her head slow, her long blond tresses slid from her back to the front of her shoulders, her lips showing no sign of blood. The innocent blue eyes stared at her with an unnatural interest of a man. She was studying her, disrobing her with the eyes that were not hers. She tilted her head sideways and sat back with her legs spread. She made a slight leer at her. Then a man’s raspy voice came out of her, “‘El-lo.” It was a playful voice made raw by years of smoking and liquor.
“Hello. Who might I have the pleasure of addressing, sir?”
The little girl tilted her head the other way in wonder. “You don’t scare easily, girl.”
“That’ll require some effort, Mr…?”
She didn’t answer but took a deep breath and slid her hips forward. “Don’t feel like sharing, girl.”
“As you wish, sir. May I ask how you found your dish?”
“Tasty. The piglet’s blood too. Yummy. Saw you slicing that squeaker outside. My! Does that little pork bleed a bit, wot?” She made a small ill-humored chuckle. “Where you find that poor sod, uh?”
“I’m happy to hear your report, sir. How is little Haylee? Is she well?”
“Uh,” she scratched her belly. “She’s well, girl. We’re friends, you know? Very, very, very good friends. We’ll have a lot of fun together, her and I.”
“I’m happy to hear that. May I speak with her?”
She gave her a sour look. “Little Haylee’s busy, girl. Business.”
“What kind of business, sir?”
She shrugged her shoulders, “Just…business.”
“Haylee? Are you in there?”
“Shut. Up. Fucking whore. I told you, girl. She has things to do. But you,” she smiled a wolfish smile. “You’re a Vinlionar aren’t you?”
“I am of a Lakota stock of the Westlands, yes.”
“Nice. You’re a tall one. How tall?”
“Five feet and ten inches. English foot.”
“They’re like you, Vinlionar? Rail-thin and tall?”
“Many. Not all.”
“Your fanny smell good, Vinlionar?”
“I wouldn’t know,” she answered in a calm voice. He was testing her reaction, seeking to shock her. She could see why the parents were unnerved by this thing’s vulgarity.
The toadman saw this too and grinned a nasty grin on the child’s plush lips, her small teeth flashing. “You’re not like the others. You should have seen the look on her mum’s face.” She laughed a little nasty laugh. “Pussy. Pussy. Pussy. Cunt!” she shouted out the last word.
She didn’t take the bait and her eyes narrowed.
“No? Heh. You’re of a stiffer stuff, girl.” She studied the witch-nun. “You have an interesting pair of eyes.”
“I thank you.”
“So green. Like jade. They seem to glow, ye know? Doubt the Vinlionars have them. You’re a mutt?”
“From my father, yes.”
“What’s he like?”
“I have not the pleasure, sir.”
“Dead like me, eh? How amusing. Maybe I’ll meet him one day. Then I’ll tell him what a whore you are, girl. Maybe he’ll punish ye then. Wot fun, wot?” She grinned that nasty smile again.
“I doubt that you will convince him if you do meet him, sir.”
“Always with that ‘sirs’. Fucking boring, those proper stiff upper lips. Fucking cunts, the lot of them.”
“You have a foul temperament, sir.”
She looked at her with a sly glee. “You find me offensive. I like that. I hope all the world find me disagreeable. I will have my fun. I find you foreigner rather attractive. Red skin, jade eyes, lusty lips, high cheeks. That stirred my loins.” She leaned forward on her knees. “That sister of yours, Loretta. She’s fine too. Call her in. Get stripped. Play some sapphic games with me.”
“I will not. I have business to attend to.”
“Ah, you’re too serious for me, big-lipped Vinlionar. You need a real man to keep you a well-stuffed pig. Heh, you’ll look funny with a big delicious apple balling your mouth on the dinner table.”
“Haylee Brownlow. Let me speak to her. Haylee?”
The child threw a furious glance at her. “Haylee is not here, witch-bitch. She is where she is supposed to be.”
“You have no right to keep her a prisoner, eidolon.”
“Shut up! I have every right to do as I wish, witch-bitch. She’s mine. My toy to play with. I have so many plans for that sweet little tart.”
Ziya struggled to keep from striking the foul-mouthed ghost. The child was a helpless pawn in a foul game, a puppet of frail flesh and bones. The shade already had tasted death so he no longer feared it so a change of tactics was in order. She sighed, “You have a power over her, it’s true.”
The child’s face twisted into a smug self-satisfaction. “I do. Nice of you to say that.”
“I must say that you have proved yourself clever at evading your ultimate fate, sir. How have you evaded the Gods?”
“Oh, I have my secrets, girl. Heh.”
“I have heard of Achilles, of Agamemnon, of many dead who have spoken from the grave, but I have never heard of you. May I ask who is this clever shade before me?”
“Why, yes,” the child drew herself up with pride. “My name is Ru-” She stopped with a sudden realization, then her soft face twisted with an ugly masculine rage. Her eyebrows seemed to have grown ape-like, her eyes grew small, and her soft cheeks grew angled and hard. “Stupid bitch, you think you can trick me? Uh-huh, I’m cleverer than ye think, you witch-bitch. Get the fuck out!”
She drew herself up, “As you wish.” She turned and put her hand on the doorknob.
“Wait,” the hard voice demanded.
She smiled inside. He was a lonely and bitter man, starving for attention from the mortal world, she knew that now. Everything was his attempt to get it, the foul language, the erotic suggestive speech, the child hostage. Better, she have his name. He was smart enough to have caught on to her scheme but he still betrayed himself. He was indeed Rudulf Hoggard. She had chosen a pig for this purpose, to trick him into revealing himself. His constant word games around the pig confirmed his family name that must have originated with an ancestor who had raised pork livestock long ago.
She faced the eidolon. “Why? Why should I stay when you have all the cards?”
The child relaxed and sat back with a wolfish grin distorting her childish face. She pursed her lips in an adult manner. “Yes, yes, I have all the cards, don’t I? Oh, but the fun’s just getting started, Vinlionar. She’s a sweet, sweet little girl and such an interesting subject of study. The way little girls like you piss. Heh.”
“Does she enjoy your company?
She stopped smiling, “Of course she enjoyed my company.”
“How can I believe you when you have all the cards?”
A crafty look crossed her face, “I don’t play games.”
“Nor do I.”
She tilted her head back to study the witch-nun’s face. “Oh, what the fuck. This might prove amusing.” She made an unpleasant chuckle and then rolled her eyes back to whiteness. Her face transformed and a frightened little girl looked out of her big blue eyes. “Mum? Mum, I’m scared,” she begged in a quiet little voice.
“Haylee?”
“Please, ma’am, help me. He’s holding me back inside. Help me!”
“Be patient, Haylee. Give it a little time, dear.”
“But I’m scared, really scared.”
“It’s okay to be scared, dear. I’m Ziya.”
“Hi,” she answered in soft voice.
“Hello, Haylee. Tell me, when and where did this start?”
“A long time ago. I don’t know. Just happened. Are the trees gone?”
She squatted, “The trees? Were you near a graveyard when this happened the first time?”
“I’m tired. I want to go sleeping with my Mum.”
“Patience, child, your Mum is near by. Answer my question, girl. Were you in a graveyard when this happened? The first time?”
“Can’t remember,” she said with downcast eyes.
Ziya changed her questioning and spoke with more urgency, “The trees. You mean the trees outside?” The child nodded. “What happened in those trees?”
The girl opened her mouth and a hard, smoke-roughed voice came out, “That’ll be enough, witch-bitch.” Then she laughed a hard laugh.
Ziya drew up to her height. “Haylee doesn’t seem to enjoy herself, eidolon.”
“Oh, but she does enjoy it. Enjoys it very much.”
“Let her be. You’ve had your fun, eidolon.”
“No. No, the fun’s just beginning.”
“You shall let her go, eidolon.”
She shook her head in fake sadness. “No, witch-bitch, I shall not. Now, ‘Ziya’. That’s an interesting name. That’s a nickname isn’t it? What’s your name, witch-bitch?
She stared at her. Then, “Ziyatoestah Holl-Mahpyuatashuke.”
“Ziyatoestah Holl-Mahpyuatashuke,” she said, tasting each name as if food. “I wonder what they mean.”
She stood in silence.
“Come, come, satisfy my curiosity, witch-bitch. Maybe I’ll let you chit-chat with my pet again if you’re nice to me, witch-bitch.”
She breathed deep. “Green Eyes, House of Cloud Horse.”
The child made o-shaped lips in mock wonderment. “Oh,” she drew out the word. “’Green Eyes.’ The name fits you, witch-bitch. I like the sound of that.”
She made a face. “I gave you my name. Now let me speak with the child again.”
“I’ve heard of you, big-lipped Vinlionar. Yes, the dead talk. We talk many things. We shades, we live beyond time. We can see the past, the present, and the future. And I know things. Secret things.”
Ziya’s disgust melted. “Some shades lie, like you, eidolon.”
She leaned on her knees. “Oh, no,” she smiled a gleeful smile. “I heard interesting things about you, Vinlionar. Yes, we talked about you in the Otherworld. Secret things. Secrets that pursed (I don’t see pursed in your dictionary of terms – do you mean pursued?) you without end, witch-bitch. You should not have told me your name, stupid cow,” and she laughed an unkind chuckle.
“You have had your little fun, eidolon. Now release the child to me or I shall have to deal with you in a distinctly unpleasant manner.”
The girl barked out a long and harsh laughter. “Or what? You have no power over me, witch-bitch.”
“I do, son of a swineherd,” Ziya said as her hand entered her belted purse.
Rough humor drained out of her small face. “Don’t play games with me, fucking whore.”
“Why? You seem to have fun and I thought I should join in, son of a swineherd.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Why? You made enough jests about the pigs. You betrayed your obsession with pork, Rudulf Hoggard.”
The child stopped as if slapped in the face. “That name means nothing.”
Ziya lifted up a small skull of a toad, “It does, toadman.”
Understanding came over her. “You bitch! You have no right to disturb my body!”
“You have no right to invade an innocent child’s life, Hoggard,” she answered with a quiet confidence as she held high the skull. “You are a sad little man. You cannot even possess a man’s body.”
The girl’s angelic face changed to a hard face with beady-eyes. “Don’t test me, fucking whore! I know you. I know what you did. Your secret, your shameful secret. A girl. A childless girl. Incomplete girl.”
Her eyes showed fear for a moment then she became calm and crushed the skull into powder.
The toadman screamed.
She recited his name, “Rudulf Hoggard. Rudulf Hoggar-”
The child leaned out of the salt circle and grasped her breast. She gasped in shock. She hadn’t expected him to break through the charmed circle. How? She didn’t pursue the question. She slapped on the transformed face hard in rage. The toadman leaped at her again. Ziya slammed back onto the door.
The door resounded with urgent knockings. “Sister? Sister Ziya? Answer me!” The doorknob rattled hard.
The girl yanked Ziya’s hair back hard. “I’ll rip your fucking heart out, fucking whore!” Pained, Ziya scattered the salt on the floor. The little chair fell over. With a grunt, she shoved her off. Then she slapped her for a good measure.
“Sister Ziyatoestah! Answer me!” Loretta’s voice echoed through the door.
“How dare you!” Ziya snarled at the possessed girl. She grasped some powder from her belt and threw it to the floor. The floor banged into a tower of smoke and a weird blue light. She threw her hands out on either side and they began to glow. “Do you know who I am, toadman? Do you? I am Ziyatoestah Holl-Mahpyuatashuke, scion of the feared Cloud Horse kin. I am a goete trained in the highest order handed down from Morgan La Fay herself, the beloved sister of mighty Arthur of Britons. I am the nun of the Morrigan Order, taught by Mother Owena. I am the handmaid of Lady Hekate herself who taught Morgan the arts. I am of the Mistress of the Dark Moon, of the soul-guide of the wandering shades like you! Hear her white-eyed dogs bay for you, Rudulf Hoggard!”
“No! Shut ye lying trap, fucking whore!”
“You command me? You command me?”
The door resounded with poundings.
“You are a fool, Rudulf Hoggard, and a swine. You have no idea what I am capable of. Leave that child or I will make you in the name of my Mistress.”
“Never! Death has nothing for me. I never had a life. I want a life. A life!” He tried to attack her but her light prevented him.
She pulled out her inscribed plate from her bag. “Here is your name, foul shade. With this I shall break your bondage and all your ties to this world.”
“No! I’ll stop up her hole! She’ll die. She’ll die, die childless, incomplete. She’ll die incomplete and she’ll wander this god-damned earth like me.”
“Rudulf Hoggard. Rudulf Hoggard. Rudulf Hoggard,” she chatted, “attend to me, foul shade, and obey me.” The toadman groaned like a beast. “This plate I bind thee to. This name, thy true name, I hereby bind to the script upon this plate. Now I break you!” She threw the plate to the floor.
It shattered.
The toadman screamed. The child screamed. Their distinct voices cried together as the room erupted into a vortex. The books and toys flew around the people. Sister Ziya walked toward the child with a regal manner, her cloak snapping in the wind. “Haylee Brownlow, take my hands.”
The door shook hard. “Ziya! Haylee! Open the door!”
The girl looked up in fear, tears tracking down her cheeks.
“Take my hands, Haylee. It’s all right, child,” Ziya said in a soft voice, her jade eyes kind.
The girl sniffed and took her hands. Ziya jerked her to herself. The toadman roared. The girls fell backward and outside the salt circle.
They looked back and saw a grey-face of an old man with beady-eyes full of rage. “I’ll fucking kill you! I’ll find a way and the little whore will join me forever!”
“Behind me, child.” The witch-nun pulled out her greybeard bottle from her purse. She flashed the bottle at him, “Rudulf Hoggard. Rudulf Hoggard. Rudulf Hoggard. A body I give thee. A body I bind thee to. A body I enslave thee to.” She pulled out a small paper. “Thy name I have written. Thy true name I have written upon this paper. I now consume thy name and possess thee.” Her eyes flashed an unnatural light and the paper self-ignited.
“No!”
She dropped the burning note inside the witch-bottle and let it burn to a crisp inside. The toadman struggled hard but he was unable to resist being pulled toward the bottle. The wind snatched him and blew him into the bottle. She capped it in a sudden movement.
The blue light and the vortex vanished along with her own light.
Ziya closed her eyes in relief. She turned to the pronated child on the floor. She was very still. Her heart was caught in her throat. With hesitation she touched her hand.
Baby blue eyes opened in weariness, “Ma’am?”
The witch-nun broke into a relieved smile and pulled her to her chest.
“I’m scared.”
“So was I, little Haylee but the danger’s passed now.”
She lifted the child in her arms and opened the door to the parent and Loretta with fear and worry marking their faces. She handed Haylee to her mother. “Give her something to eat.”
“B-baby?”
“Mummy!” she leaped onto her mother’s neck.
The mother could say nothing but her tears told the tale. Father joined in the embrace.
Ziya turned to survey the wreckage in the room. Loretta joined her, “Ziya? What’s happened here?”
“The battle’s over, Sister.”
She shook her head. “We’ve done this many times before but never like this. What did you do? What have you done?”
Drained Ziya did not answer.