Page 26 of Marginally Yours
Callie nudges the top of her head against the bottom of my chin. I bring my hand up to cup her face, pressing it against my chest before trailing back to thread my fingers through her loose hair. Gently running my fingernails over her scalp, I lean back on the bed and pull her down with me.
It doesn't take us long to fall asleep like that, snacks and coffee and brainstorming forgotten. I wake up shortly after, just enough to drag a blanket over us, and immediately pass back out. When I open my eyes again, I know I'm dreaming because I'm in a dark cave. Water drips from the ceiling in a steady rhythm.
As my vision adjusts to the low light, I glance around the rough stone walls. I never could remember the difference between stalagmites and stalactites, but there are three of them sticking up out of the ground directly in front of me, and I could swear I saw one of them move. I squint at them, tryingto bring them into focus, and have to swallow a scream when three horrifying mouths full of gnarled teeth become clear.
I rub my eyes and focus again, scrambling for my phone to shed some light on whatever the fuck is in front of me. Of course, I'm in a dream, so my phone is nowhere to be found. A tiny light appears in front of one of the figures, and I squint again until it's clear. A white taper candle floats in the air, its small flame illuminating the three figures. Their tattered hoods hide their faces from the nose up.
Their smiles aren't quite menacing, but they are definitely unnerving. What I can see of their faces is pale, probably from living in a fucking cave doing weird cave-dweller shit. The one on the left looks like a teenager, with smooth skin and a round face. Her right hand holds up one side of a piece of golden twine. In the center is definitely a middle-aged woman, the lower half of her sharp features illuminated by the flame. I realize that the candle isn't floating, but rather held in her outstretched, cloaked hand, the skin on her fingers so pallid it blends in with the white wax.
I don't know a ton about Greek mythology, but I know these have to be the Fates. Whether they're real or just my brain pulling all the information it has stored on the Greek pantheon and dumping it into my dream has yet to be determined.
The last figure, an old woman with deep wrinkles around her mouth and covering her fingers, holds the other end of the golden twine with her left hand, stretching it out in front of the three of them. They stare at it intently, as if they don't even see me here.
And then, all at once, their eyes trail from the twine to me. Their gaze feels like thousands of bugs crawling on my skin. Like it's unnatural to be making eye contact with them. My body shakes with an involuntary shiver as the one in the middle raises a thin, ghostly finger to pointat me.
"He who knows too much and too little," she says, her otherworldly voice made up of layers like multiple people speaking different languages all at once.Ouch.I'd be offended if I wasn't about to shit my pants. "He who loves selflessly and gives freely. He stands against an unbeatable foe with an unbeatable ego."
The thread stretched in front of her is glowing bright enough to illuminate the cave now, and the woman in the middle raises a pair of golden scissors to it, opening them and hovering below with the thread poised between the blades. Is this supposed to be Apollo's lifeline? Do they think I'm somehow supposed to kill him?
They have entirely too much confidence in me.
Snip.She slices through the thread, but it doesn't fall. Hovering in the air, both pieces quickly turn black, the color bleeding out from the cut edges. All four of us watch the thread with rapt attention, though only three of us have any idea what the fuck is going on.
The second the blackness touches the ends of the rope in the other women's fingers, the cut edges start to fray in midair, knitting the raw fibers back together like they'd never been severed. From the newly uncut center, the black starts to fade out slowly, giving way to a bright lavender. It doesn't glow quite like the gold did. It's bright, almost pastel, and it looks like it's lit from within.
It looks like Callie's eyes.
The familiar tint spreads across the rope until all the black bleeds out, dripping from the rope like blood and staining the floor before them. The brightness dulls, leaving behind just the light bluish-purple coloring.
"What is lost in anger will bloom," the old woman on the right says. She has the same layered voice, but it's hoarse and feeble. "What is given in love will nourish."
"What... What does that mean?" All three hooded facessnap to mine, the old fabric rustling from the sudden movement. The hoods lift just enough that I catch a glimpse of three sets of empty eye sockets, and it takes everything I have not to jump back. I'm not sure how they manage to convey this much sass without eyeballs, but it's like being chastised by three moms who aren't mad, just disappointed.
"We watch," the younger girl on the left says, her winsome voice less ethereal than the others. "We see and we know. We see in your heart, and we know you are true. Do not let us down. Put your faith in her." She glances down at the thread and back to me.
"Okay, I think I get what you're telling me. So, I need to tell Callie what you said, right?" I wait expectantly, but they leave my question unanswered. I'm not sure they're even breathing. "What if we meet with him and he just kills us both?"
In lieu of an actual answer or anything that could possibly be helpful, the woman in the middle simply parrots the younger one's words. "Do not let us down," she repeats, and the others drop the thread on the ground to let her walk past them. She stops a foot away from me. Up close, I can see that her skin is almost translucent, thin blue veins trailing along the skin. Her cloak hides most of her stringy black hair, but small tufts stick out around her neck.
She holds up a hand, jabbing one knobby digit at my face. I back away slowly as she hovers a finger at me, her jagged, yellowed nail dangerously close to my face. With a speed I don't think she could possibly possess, she jams her finger into my forehead, pushing me back so fast that I lose my balance and topple backwards into the shallow water on the cave floor behind me.
The second I touch the water, I'm blinded by a bright light. I squint while my eyes adjust and find the offending light is the nightstand lamp in my bedroom. Calliesits up on her knees at my side, hands on my shoulders trying to shake me awake. My hands snap up to wrap around her wrists, eliciting a startled scream from her.
"Oh, thank fuck," she breathes, cupping my face with both hands. "You were moaning like you were in pain and I couldn't get you to wake up. I thought... I was afraid he did something..."
Now that my eyes are semi-functional, I can see that she was panic crying. I reach up and swipe a thumb across each cheek, wiping tears away.
"Hey," I whisper, peeling her hands from my face and wrapping my own around them. "I'm okay. I just had a weird... dream?" Her eyebrows knit in confusion. "I thought it was a dream," I continue. "Maybe a nightmare. But now that I'm awake, I don't think it was. There were three women in this cave with this thick thread between them, and they were trying to give me advice that didn't make any sense."
A knowing look washes over her face. "The Fates," she says, nodding. "What did they tell you? The exact words, if you can remember."
"Okay, um..." I scoot back on the bed and sit up. "Well, first they said something about us facing an unbeatable foe with an unbeatable ego. Talking about Apollo, obviously. The thread was glowing gold, but then they cut it, and it turned black." Alarm flashes in her eyes, so I continue quickly.
"The cut edges came together though, like nothing ever happened. Then the whole thread turned this purple color, and they started with the riddles." She rolls her eyes like this is an irritating but completely normal occurrence. "'What's lost in anger will bloom,' and then something like 'What you give in love nourishes', I think? Then they told me to trust you, and not to let them down. No pressure though, right?"
Her face scrunches up while she considers the women's words. "Did they say anything else?"
"Uh, not really. The one told me that they're watching us, and they know I'm true, whatever that means. And then she shoved me back into the water and I woke up."
