Page 8 of Nix and Tell

Chlo never looks dishevelled.

She’s always so immaculately put together, her Marcel waves slicked back, her suit pressed. Only today they’re all askew, and she looks as if she hasn’t slept a wink.

“What’s up with you?” I ask, but she’s not paying attention to me, looking back and forth from the door like something’s after her. “Chlo?”

She looks at me then and her eyes aren’t the dark green they usually are, they’re wild. Sparking in a manner that’s simply not possible. I blink a couple of times and look again. Yup. Still sparking.

“Do you need to sit down, Chlo?”

She looks like she’s about to speak, but then the door opens for the second time today and Hazel pops her pink head around. “Oh good; you’re here, Chlo.”

Chlo glares at her with a ferocity that makes me take a step back. I have absolutely no idea what’s going on, but Hazel is one of the shyest people I’ve ever met. I can’t possibly imagine her doing anything that warrants that kind of look.

She doesn’t shrink back though, rolling her eyes and quietly entering the store. “Are you really all that surprised? You knew you couldn’t avoid her forever.”

“I could have fucking tried.” Chlo is spitting angry, but it’s not entirely aimed at Hazel, it seems. “And now she’s given me an order and Hazel, what the hell am I going to do?”

“Well, I don’t think you should be letting anyone order you around, if it means you end up in a state like this.” They both turn to stare at me, as if they’d forgotten that they were, after all, standing in my shop. “Now can someone please tell me what is happening?”

Hazel nudges Chlo forward, and Chlo buries her head in her hands and string of mumbled words stagger their way from behind her fingers. I can’t decipher a single one of them.

“What?”

“So I’m supposed to have sex with you. As an offering. To a Goddess.”

“You fuckingwhat?” I don’t think Chlo’s ever heard me swear before, because that makes her start even more than my tone of voice. She looks at me, all panicky, and her face crumples.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. I’m fucking it up. I’m–”

I cut her off and turn to Hazel, trying very hard to keep my cool. “I don’t suppose coherence is on the cards for you? Because I’d quite like to be brought up to speed. Now.”

Hazel winces. “It’s not Chlo’s fault, really. I’m surprised that she was able to hold back from telling you as long as she has, with a compulsion like that on her.”

Compulsions. Goddesses. These are words I know, that I’ve studied. I’m no fair-weather pagan; I know spellwork, and I know when something is being forced.

Looking at Chlo again, I take in the anguish in her eyes. A tear trails down one cheek, and I’m filled with the kind of anger that I left behind in my childhood.

“Where is she?” All I can tell from looking at these two women–at myfriends–is that they are being propelled forward by a force outside of their own control. It stinks of coercion, and I’ll be damned if anyone fucks with my people like this. “Where?”

Hazel points wordlessly at the bridge, viewable through the open door, and as I follow her finger I realise that she’s not pointing at the bridge. She’s pointing at the church.

Pushing past them both, I storm out of Spellbound, heading for the abandoned building. I hear the door slam shut behind me, and then open and close twice more as Hazel and Chlo run after me. They’re talking to me, pleading with me to turn back, but I’m having none of it.

I thump on the door so hard I scrape my fists, and it’s only the trickle of pain that keeps me anchored in the moment, that stops me from losing my temper entirely. So when the lock turns and the door silently opens, I stalk in and, glaring at Chlo and Hazel, slam it shut in their faces.

The church is silent, oppressively so.

Everything in me is screaming to keep my damn mouth shut, and turn and leave this place, now, before something happens that I can’t take back. But I’ve never been all that good at listening to the angel on my shoulder. People think that I’mall cute and adorable, because I smile politely and make gentle conversation, but I’m not really. Or rather, I amnow.

Grow up with an alcoholic father, fond of swing his fists around, and see how sunshiny you are then. I’m so laid back now, because nothing could compare to that.

Only Chlo,myChlo, is crying. And all that rage that I thought I’d shoved down deep inside, is bubbling up so fiercely I think it might swallow me whole.

“I’m waiting.” My voice is curt, quiet, yet couldn’t be clearer.

“I like you.” The voice comes from a figure, hidden behind a column. “My goodness, I haven’t felt anger like that in centuries. Delicious.”

“Are you the Goddess Chlo spoke of?” I’m being blunt to the point of rudeness, I know, when I should be careful. Gods are known for being capricious, but the figure laughs, and it sounds like the river on a sunny day.

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