Page 98 of Girls Night
Mentally, I was obese. Soon, the honor above all honors seemed like a hack. I lashed out. Rebelled. Wasted my magic-born talents on shitty pranks and household spells. I met Electra. Fell in love with the unstable bitch and spiraled out of control. Meanwhile, my siblings – even the most disturbed, misunderstood ones – grew into unparalleled mages in their own rights. I was nothing more than a loser who magic was hell-bent on punishing for the ways I had abused it in the past.
Copper-Eye accused me of being wasted sperm. That I was an embarrassment. The purest embodiment of failure. We didn’t speak again after that.
Yet, despite our past, I find myself standing on the porch of the only blue house on a rather grassy hill dwarfing Cotton Rock. Maybe it’s a perverse arrogance that drives me to potentially save her from some faceless evil that keeps me going. A chance to prove to Copper-Eye that I’m more than a failure or wasted sperm, even though I may not believe it myself.
The door opens on its own accord. I’m clearly expected.
Stepping inside, I wait for something – anything – but I’m only greeted by silence. With a creak, the door closes behind me.
Sunlight leaks in through cracks between frayed curtains hanging over windows, highlighting spores that dance and float in the air. A grand staircase stands proud in front of me.
I pull the pouch from my tote bag and dig my fingers inside for the fae ring. Once it warms up and its center glimmers, I bring it to my right eye and brace myself for the worst. Hearing grotesque screams is one thing. Seeing things…
But all that presents itself to me from the spirit world through the fae ring is a celestial cord running from my chest. It sparkles and glows a summertime orange, fading in and out. In and out.
With the ring to my eye, I roll my shoulders and follow the rope, ascending the staircase one step at a time. Keeping a hand over my nose and mouth, so as to not inhale the spores around me, I hold down the wiry sense of unease gathering under my skin.
The cord leads me to the second floor of the large house, past closed doors, dusty portraits and moldy wallpaper. It bends into an open room, where ivy climbs over the doorway and flowers of every color drip and bud.
I venture forward, not allowing myself to second guess or hesitate. The unease inside me threatens to froth, but I push on. Step, by trembling step. I will see this through. I have to. I’m so close.
Pushing vines and leaves aside, I enter the room even though my nerves are on fire and panic whistles in my ears like a neglected kettle.
A woman, no older than me, stands naked amongst the foliage. Eve in her garden of Eden. She wears a cherubic face, with blonde hair that cascades over her slender shoulders and comes to rest by her hip. The shimmering cord is attached to her stomach. Her large blue eyes look me up and down curiously.
“Who are you?” I whisper, the hand holding the fae ring over my eye beginning to quiver.
She smiles and raises her hand to greet me. “I am you.” Her voice is the sound of God making love. “And you are me.”
A flower, growing from the ceiling, falls onto my hand. Startled by the sudden movement, I drop the fae ring into the leaves.
I look up just in time to see Eve has been replaced by a hideous demon with a copper eye protruding from between her breasts. Bald, wrinkled and sharp-edged, the woman splits her mouth open unnaturally wide and roars.
She rushes at me, and the greenery parts in her wake. I feel the sting of her nails puncturing my flesh before my senses reel and everything cuts to black.
Chapter Eight
Love knots
Back in the city, at the esoteric shop known as the Three Blind Mice, Electra is explaining to new customers the differences between Angel’s Trumpet and Salvia Divinorum, when an invisible rope twists itself around her heart and squeezes tight.
The girl screams, dropping the muslin pouches of herbs she’s holding to the carpet and keels forward, crashing to the floor in an agonized mess.
The customers – magic born, yet still amateur spell casters – think this is a performance, one that would find a home in kitsch mystery tours run by pranksters in the city. They roll their eyes at one another and leave the Three Blind Mice, irritated and threatening to give the shop a low rating on Yelp. They don’t care what their parents, mentors and teachers told them about the store, theyknewit was a sham and a quack joint before they walked through the door.
Alone in the shop, Electra can barely breathe against the raw pain as the rope bites into her heart.
With trembling lips, her mouth forms Delphi’s name and she gasps. “Delphi… Be gone. Delphi, be gone. Delphibegone!”
At once, the invisible rope releases its hold on her organ and the pain ebbs away. Blood rushes through her body once more as Electra sits up and wipes away tears.
“The mirror. Now.”
Olectra sounds pissed.
Upstairs, in the sisters’ tidy bedroom, Electra sits at their vanity and stares into the three-panel mirror attached to it. Olectra — vicious and beautiful — arrives first, as always, and occupies the mirror on the right. Alectra — lazy-eyed and hunchbacked — brings up the rear and appears in the left.
“You fucking cretin,” Olectra shouts, prodding her finger against the glass. “I thought you’d severed the love knot ages ago. You promised us you did!”
