Page 40 of Prometheus' Priestess

Inside, the anger was beginning to build. How dare Kiaria put all the blame on her?! Where was John’s responsibility? Where was his admonishing? He was the one who had made the move and now Amara would pay the price at work. She wasn’t safe here. She wasn’t safe anywhere. She didn’t even feel safe in her own skin. Amara still didn’t quite understand what had happened, why she’d been unable to move, but that guilt just poured gasoline on top of a fire that had enough kindling already.

And this time, Theo wasn’t here to save her.

Moving into the back garden of the house she had moved into in the three months since his disappearance, Amara set coals in the garden firepit with black iron tongs that creaked with age. She placed kindling strips and bunched up pieces of newspaper around them, as if arranging flowers in a crown. Finally, she topped the stack with the brick of a QuickFire starter and struck the match.

She got the odd sense that she had done this before. The ritual felt old, heavy in her bones, and the firepit reminded her of an altar. Her limbs moved slowly as if reacquainting themselves with old muscle memory, but the last time she had lit a fire had been in the chapel with Father Michel and it had been with a quick, mechanical thing with a long lighter that flicked with a switch. This felt different, ancient somehow.

The altar looked different too. For some reason, in her mind, she was picturing a water altar. One with a bath that was filled with spring waters and petals as the full moon passed over it, essential oils added with incantations as nymphs came to pay their respects. The fire couldn’t have been any more different. And yet, somehow, the two rituals were linked. Amara just couldn’t place her finger on why, and like those feelings of home that hounded her, those thoughts that teased and tormented her, the answer whispered just out of reach.

She stared desperately into the fire to get the answer to come back, but to no avail.It must be the alcohol, she told herself as she took another large swig of brandy. She enjoyed it burning down the back of her throat, penance for her inability to get the answers she so desperately kept seeking. Each question in her mind a cut on her skin.

As Amara sat there, listening to the fire crackle and watching the flames dance, the coals glow, and the embers spit, she became entranced. Pulling the tartan scarf, the one that she’d been wrapped in as a baby, over her lap, she began to hum. She didn’t recognise the tune. Her throat opened and phonetic vowels fell out with a melody of a soft lullaby. The song pitched and fell effortlessly from her lips, like the coming and going of the tide, and the flames flickered in unison. She could feel the humming vibrating through her bones, the melody cutting through her lungs, the rhythm tugging at her womb, as if her body thrummed with humanity.

The water in her mind, the fire in front of her, the earth beneath her sit bones, the air in her lungs ... it all added up to humanity.That was the answer, she whispered to herself as her eyes drooped, her head slumped and she fell asleep in front of the roaring fire.

Amara tossed and turned. The dream she was having morphed, and her eyes flickered beneath her eyelids. In the dream, she imagined someone was watching over her, a man with delicate features. Blonde hair that flopped over his forehead in a boyish manner. The eyes that were staring at her were a deep blue, and he had a sad smile on his face as if watching her sleep was bittersweet.

But then the man morphed into Theo and he climbed into bed with her. She could feel his arms wrap around her and she snuggled deeper into the curve of his legs. She could feel the coarse hairs of his legs cause delicious friction against her smooth ones and his hot breath tickle the back of her neck. Smiling, she angled her head deeper into the pillow to allow him better access and felt a rough kiss scraped with stubble against her cheek as his calloused hands began to move across her skin.

Amara awoke with astart.

There was no Theo in bed with her. She didn’t even remember putting out the fire or getting into bed. Instead, the cotton white sheets were tangled around her limbs like vines. The window, which she usually made sure was shut before her head hit the pillow, was ajar and a cool night breeze blew out across the room, raising goosebumps all over her skin. Rising, wearing just a navy blue camisole and a pair of grey cotton briefs, she crossed the room and shut the door, shivering as she did so. She dived back under the covers and wrapped herself in the duvet like a cocoon. Burying herself deeper into the bed, she tried desperately to fall back into that dream with Theo, butit was no use. The fresh air had slapped her wide awake.

She looked at her alarm clock − 4 a.m. The sky outside her small window, opposite the bed, was a dusty pink that promised summer thunderstorms. Amara huddled under the covers for as long as possible. It would only be an hour until she had to get up for work anyway. That thought, and the fact she had to see Kiaria today, made the contents of her stomach curdle. She raced to the bathroom before depositing what remained of the alcohol in her stomach into the toilet bowl. She spent the next hour shaking and retching on the bathroom tiles before showering and trying to make herself halfwaypresentable.

By 5.30, she was out the door, walking down stone pavements lit by the early morning sunshine, a rare occurrence in Edinburgh she had learnt. Yet even with a thin red coat and the sunshine on her skin, she felt a biting cold that sent her numb inside. The only thing that would help was if she made herself a pot of hot black coffee to warm her up as soon as she entered the café. Then she could begin prepping for theday.

“Morning Amara, coffee?” Alice called out as she heard the bell above the door tinkle. She had caught on quickly to Amara’s little routines. It turned out she found them quite charming. Though the coffee she offered was often as strong aswhisky.

“Morning, love.” Graham, Alice’s husband, sent Amara a short little wave from the kitchen doorway out back. He was responsible for preparing the baked goods for the day and was carrying a load of croissants, fresh bread that Amara would now butter in preparation for the hot sandwiches at lunch, doughnuts, and an array of muffins. He set them on the steel kitchen table out the back.

Graham was a couple of inches taller than Alice, his hair and beard speckled in salt-and-pepper shades. He didn’t ever say much more than a greeting. But when he smiled as he waved hello, his eyes crinkled at the corners. He had kind eyes. Between the two of them Amara felt safe, even as the thought of confronting Kiaria today ripped her anxiety wound open anew.

“It’ll be a busy day,” Alice told her.

“Oh?”

“Yeah ... Kiaria’s just called in sick and I have no one else who can cover. I hope you sleptwell.”

Amara forced a bright smile, her anxiety fluttering to a stop. “Ofcourse!”

She got to work immediately slicing and buttering the loaves of bread.

Once the immediate food was prepared for the day, Amara set up the coffee machine, checked the tables, and then began on the back-of-house tasks, like sifting kilograms of flour into old, large paint containers for Graham’s baking tomorrow and other assorted jobs. The tasks, for the most part, kept her busy enough that she didn’t have time to pause and think.

But every so often, her mind would wander back to the dream this morning, which released a cascade of unanswered questions. Where had Theo gone? Why hadn’t he said goodbye? What was wrong with her that everyone hurt her? Abandoned her? Left her? Blamed her? Would Kiaria seek retribution? What had John said? Would she lose her job over this?

Then the bell chimed as the first customer entered and the morning rush began. Amara’s mind remained occupied for the rest of the day, dealing with customers, orders, and coffees. After the early morning commuters in their suits, surgically attached to their phones demanding “the strongest coffee you have” left, the mums with their prams arrived.

“Busy day, Amara?” one mum asked, as she pushed a pram at the counter and balanced a screaming two-year-old on yoga pants that did their best to hide the bulges. The child’s screams continued to pierce Amara’s eardrums until the dull ache at the back of her head turned into a full-blown headache. She tried not towince.

“You know what it’s like here!” Amara laughed it off, scribbling down the woman’s order and handing her a table number. Seeing that a table had left, Amara went to clear it down, wipe, and reset. It held new occupants not even a minute after she was done.

After the morning rush, those local to the area would often stop by for lunch, though there were usually a few new faces every time given the reputation the café was building. But the afternoons were Amara’s favourite, for that was when the old Scottish women would come to see her.

“Tell us, Amara, have you eaten today? Look at you ... you’re skin and bone,” the taller and stricter of the two − Rhonda − scolded in lieu of a greeting. She took off her coat and draped it over the table in the window that the two ladies always took, despite the fact the sun was shining outside said window.

The table easily had the best seats in the house. Two faded red armchairs looked out onto the street. It was perfect for people watching, and the alcove provided by the window kept it far enough away from the other tables that you could have a good gossip as you did so.

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