Circle of Nine: Circle of Nine Trilogy 1 (7 page)

As I left The Silver Hen and headed back toward the main street, I felt her eyes watching me, filled with a smug expression. I felt her cross to the phone and dial a number, shaking as she dialled.

‘Ruth? She’s been in here. No, she doesn’t know. Oh Ruth, I think she’s found it!’

I frowned, the vision fading. Sometimes with the shining I didn’t know what was truth, or what was an overactive imagination.

I went into the supermarket and threw items randomly into a small carry basket. Crackers, cheeses, olives, Brazil nuts, some grapes and dark chocolate. Cocoa, for the cold nights ahead. Fish, and some green vegetables. The young, gum-chewing checkout girl looked straight through me as she rang up my purchases. Two elderly men stood discussing the unexplained deaths of cattle in the area recently. Their words washed over me, my mind felt absent from my body.

Walking home, hunched against the cold winds, leaves blew wildly around me. The trees stood stark and silent. I held my breath as I passed each one. The sky was a pale-grey wash, and in the distance, thunder could be heard. I walked faster, my mind filled with chilling whispers.

*

Wendy leaning toward me, her pentacle dangling. A mural that changed shape and form whenever I left the room. An old woman running down a mountain track screaming. A schoolboy in a red-and-grey cap, his eyes as ancient as the ocean. Myself, turning and whirling among falling leaves and seasons that were distorted. Shadows, feeding hungrily on cows and sheep, their mouths sucking, working furiously to get the blood fresh and hot from the vein.

In our dreams lie the seeds of our deaths.

Never alone, you are always mine.

Voices, calling to me, mocking me in the winds. Then the sound of a young girl laughing, lost in the wind, splintering into light.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

My day of socialising was far from over.

I
gaped at the vision standing at the back gate in the afternoon, displeased at the interruption to my examination of my aunt’s sketchbooks. She had startled me as I sat on the back porch. The visitor was tall and thin, with short hair in sausage-type curls. She wore a long velvet skirt, and a black feather boa hung around her neck. She carried a small tabby cat which she continually stroked. Her teeth were sharp and pointed —
all the better to eat you with
, I thought. She reminded me of a permed piranha.

‘Darling!’ she cried. ‘I live just down the mountain. We’re virtually neighbours! I’m Skye — I was a good friend of Johanna’s. May the Goddess bless her soul. I just had to come and see you, poor lamb, to see how you’re getting on.’

Grudgingly, I invited her through the garden gate. My initial response was to keep her from entering the house. Weren’t vampires only able to enter your home if you invited them? I tried in vain to suppress my irritation at this interruption to the day.

‘You rest here,’ I said, indicating the garden seat. ‘I’ll fix us some tea.’

I observed the woman furtively from the kitchen window as I brewed some tea and hastily arranged some cheese and biscuits on a platter. She sat there quite happily, amusing herself by patting and talking to the cat. She was probably one of Johanna’s witch buddies.

I resigned myself to the unwanted tea party, determined to extract something of value from the time it would take. Perhaps Skye would be able to shed some light on Johanna’s murder. As we shared the tea and biscuits I realised a disturbing fact. Unlike the policeman, I could observe no colours emanating from Skye. Her mind was unnaturally calm, and no thoughts invaded my mind. Not for the first time in my life I cursed the fact that my shining worked so intermittently.

‘Have you been comfortable in the cottage?’ Skye enquired, her long brown fingers stroking the tabby. There was a reassuring warmth to this movement of her hand that somehow relaxed me.

‘Yes,’ I replied, stifling an impulse to yawn. ‘Although I’ve been kept busy clearing out things.’

Skye raised a purple eyebrow. Why hadn’t I noticed those purple eyebrows before?

‘Really? You haven’t noticed a small locked box, by any chance, have you? It’s mine. It’s wooden, with a beautiful shell painted onto the lid. I loaned it to Johanna before her distressing incident.’

She raised a black, lace-edged handkerchief to her eyes which had begun to fill with tears. I was never quite sure of what happened next. I opened my mouth to inform Skye that her box was safe inside the studio and I’d fetch it for her, but I heard myself replying, ‘No. I’m sorry. I haven’t seen anything like the box you mention. Of course if I do find it I’ll return it to you at once.’

Skye paused in the act of stroking the cat. Her hands fluttered in front of my face briefly. The odour of ylang ylang and orange oil floated over me. I felt so peaceful and rested. I beamed at Skye contentedly. Her pupils were now huge and dilated, staring at me. Her breath was sweet and minty.

‘Would you mind, dear child, if I had a look around for it myself? I know you must be very busy, but it’s a family heirloom. It has great sentimental value and I’d feel much happier if I could take it home with me.’

Her hands fluttered again. Sensations of pleasure swept through my body. I felt a tugging in my mind. Skye appeared to have transformed into a panther. The panther opened its mouth.

‘I won’t inconvenience you, dear child,’ the panther said, ‘I just need to enter the cottage.’

The tugging sensation continued in my mind. There was a strong smell of roses in the air. The odour of roses permeated the garden. Inside my mind a flower opened. I heard myself forming words, replying to Skye, who had just then turned back into a woman.

‘I’m terribly sorry, but I’m really too busy at the moment. If you leave a contact number with me I’ll get in touch with you when your box turns up.’

Abruptly I stood up, ran into the cottage and barricaded the doors. I rushed for the bathroom where I was violently ill. Trembling, I stood against the door, nausea rippling through my stomach in violent waves. The house vibrated, murmuring soothing whispers. I vomited again.

*

Skye walked slowly home toward the mountains. The evening shadows were commencing their nightly flirtation with the moon. Skye walked slowly. Her feet hurt in the unfamiliar high-heeled shoes. Her visit had not proved a success. The Bluite had more power than they had previously estimated. The tourists had now left the mountains for the day, retreating to hotel rooms and cafes to drink steaming hot chocolates and write their postcards. With this departure the Earth elementals re-emerged from the bush. Their wiry, spidery foliage arms ceased their twilight dancing when Skye walked into view. The largest elementals in their dancing circle, the twilight elders, hissed at Skye to retreat. Skye ignored them. She stooped to the ground and placed the tabby down.

‘Scat!’ she ordered. The cat’s finely tuned sense of self-preservation warned him to leave her presence immediately. He exited hastily into the darkness of the bush. Skye stood in view of the Three Sisters. The towering, triple-headed rock formation, named for an Aboriginal legend, was besieged and diminished by tourist buses and admiring bushwalkers every day, and only gained its full majesty under the cover of lonely darkness. In the twilight evening the rocks emitted a satin gold glow that hung over the still valley. Their floodlights had yet to come on. Skye raised her arms in homage to the guardians that protected the Sisters.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw a group of the Looz Drem, children who had died violently or suddenly and couldn’t accept their death, standing watching her. A young girl stood in front of the small group. She had fair hair that lifted in the wind, and eyes that glowed with hate. They muttered a few words to each other and laughed. She ignored them.

Wind elementals darted around Skye, attempting to soothe her with their long grey fingers and mother-of-pearl hearts. Skye stood, accepting their caresses, her long velvet skirt blown back by their breath, her hair teased at the scalp by their touch. She watched the moon’s proud advance against the night sky through slitted eyes. Here in this ancient power spot, this sanctuary, where the foundations still whispered of ancient civilisations that existed before the Shell began, here she could feel the Dreamers. And they were dreaming strongly tonight. Her pulse kept time with the rhythm of their breathing. When the moon finally called to her she raised her arms and they became claws. The Glamour slid away and for one split second the moon illuminated the face of Sati. Then she lurched herself into her bird form and flew from the cliff, vanishing from view as she merged with the night sky.

*

The Dark Angel smiled as he mounted Effie and began thrusting his organ deep inside her. He was training her well. This was the most pleasure he had extracted from a human woman in centuries. They had managed to satisfy each other intensely several times every session, and she was taking the encoding extremely well. Not all Earth women could cope with the pressure of this ritual. Insanity was a regrettable side effect, but inside Effie flourished the same lust for power that permeated his own being and which lubricated their sexual mergings.

‘Not much longer,’ the fire inside him promised her. ‘Soon you will be one of us. You will be Azephim. One of the holy winged ones.’

Effie moaned as the dark, sacred fluids spurted inside her body. Another tiny section of her brain died as pulsating green tentacles linked the two together.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

S
he was waiting for me when I slept. Small and delicate with golden hair and yellow eyes. She floated toward me smiling, and her breath was the kiss of a grave.

‘Follow me,’ she hissed, her hands stroking my face. I felt myself rising from the bed, and she smiled, running her tongue over her grey lips.

‘Rachel’s long dead, but my heart still beats. Poor little Rachel is long cold, but my blood still flows. Come with me, Emma, fly with me into night, into memory.’

We rose together. I was clasped in her tiny arms; her strength was hideous and her breath was stale and hot. We hovered in the night sky, and I saw below me the lights of the mountain town, with everything surrounding it in shadow.

‘Nothing can grow in the night, only fear,’ she said, and she laughed.

We entered the doors of a white stone chapel. She held my hand, and I felt horror rise inside the demon child at the act of entering this place of worship. I recognised the small chapel as one of the oldest churches in Sydney. We were at the funeral of my aunt Johanna. I gazed around the church; it was undergoing restoration work and so was a curious hybrid of old and new. The priest who had read the service was old and frail, and his face was filled with wrinkled lines of pain.

How Johanna would have hated this! Or maybe she wouldn’t have. How could I possibly know what my aunt would have liked for her own funeral? For all I knew Johanna may have converted to Catholicism years ago. Though it was hard to imagine. The memory that I had preserved of Johanna was the idealised aunt that I would always adore, the kindred spirit. Years ago, before her hands and her eyes had lost their warmth and her paintings had lost their light . . .

The overcrowded chapel seemed oblivious to the presence of the dream interlopers. With a sense of unreality, I saw myself. It took me a couple of minutes to recognise my own features. The Emma from a few months ago was pressed against Helen’s florid body. I could sense the gratitude I was feeling that Jade had still not been contacted. Dreading the venom she would inevitably spit upon discovering her exclusion from Johanna’s will.

Helen, despite her ill-concealed surprise that I had been awarded the honour of prime benefactor, had displayed no resentment. She had known Jade and Johanna for years, having lived next door to them when they were children in the suburbs of Sydney. Despite the differences between them, Helen had remained loyal to the sisters over the years, although her life had taken her in an entirely different direction. She had married a headmaster and had four boys, whom she worshipped. Recently, she had returned to the workforce, taking a part-time position in a local library. She was also extremely obese. I could imagine how horrified Jade would be at the sight of her. My mother never wasted an opportunity to remind me how I had ruined her figure. I could never imagine warm, uncomplicated, breezy Helen blaming her sons for her drooping breasts or cellulite bum. But, like Effie, she had been desperately trying to tell me what I should do with the house I was given. Unlike my mother, Johanna’s friend Helen had proved a great source of support and strength on the couple of occasions I subsequently met her. She had helped me deal with the press and arranged the funeral service. I was grateful for her unobtrusive, practical manner.

Helen had been longing to help me organise Johanna’s belongings but my intuitive feeling had been to keep her away from the cottage. There was no logic to my instinct. The house belonged to me. It was my chance to recapture some childhood magic. Magic didn’t belong in Helen’s world. She would dust it away, vacuum it away, file it away. By the time Helen finished organising the magic, it would be gone. The entire time that she spent in Sydney with me, I had been desperately trying to avoid the subject of the house. Although Helen had finally succumbed to silence on the issue I had been left with the uneasy feeling that I had won the battle but not the war.

I had been disappointed by Effie’s refusal to attend the service.

‘I’m sorry, Emmy, but I’ve got some agencies to go see. It’s not as if I knew her. You’ll be okay. You don’t mind, do you?’

Hastily I had assured her that I didn’t mind, but the truth was I felt slightly offended. I had never seen Effie as focused on her career as she had been those last few days. She had even shut up about my cottage.

I saw again, as if for the first time, Geoff and Robert sitting together to give their support. Thankfully, there had been only one television crew outside the chapel. The story was already rapidly fading into yesterday’s news before we had even buried her. Johanna’s mysteriously bloodless corpse had been knocked off the headlines by the murder of a young Sydney model in a Kings Cross alley. Suddenly the news hounds had bayed to a different scent.

Still, I was surprised by the number of people who attended the service. I could see the shock register in Helen’s eyes when she saw the small chapel filled. There was standing room only for the latecomers. Hundreds of people had come. How little I had known of Johanna! I had assumed that the tabloid reports of her hermit-like existence were based on fact, but judging from the vast crowd assembled to pay their last respects, my aunt had enjoyed a social life more active than most.

As I hovered above the congregation, I could hear Helen’s thoughts clearly.

Where the hell did all that bunch come from? Crikey, it’s hot. Jo would have hated this service!

And Geoff’s thoughts.

Hope Emma’s okay. Damn Effie for not coming! I hope we’re on the news tonight, that’ll piss her off!

Then I realised that I couldn’t pick up a single thought from the congregation of strangers! Bewildered, I glanced at the dream child. She too was looking about herself, sneering. The congregation all seemed normal enough. Some had their heads bowed in prayer. Some stared blankly straight ahead. But there were no thoughts!

My eyes alighted on an elderly lady seated next to an exquisitely beautiful young girl. For a split second a wave of familiarity swept over me and then receded. The girl was straight from the pages of a Hans Christian Andersen tale. Her long, corn-coloured hair was woven into plaits, and her eyes were a peculiar shade of mauve. They had to be coloured contacts.

The girl seemed to notice my gaze, then she shocked me by looking up, directly at me, with a warm, almost welcoming smile. It was practically a smile of recognition. Embarrassed and confused, and certain I was still dreaming, I returned the smile awkwardly. Then the old woman beside her raised her head and stared coldly at me. I felt myself gasp as words came slicing through my mind, causing my spine to jerk rapidly.

Oh, very good! But you’re nowhere near clear enough. The energies are too scattered here. The Solumbi are restless. You must get out of that house.

My eyes frantically scanned the pews. Where was the voice coming from? Surely not from that frail old lady? Was the demon dream being playing games with me? A small schoolboy dressed in his school uniform looked with derision at me. His ears appeared overlarge for his small head. They protruded from under his cap. He was the schoolboy I had spotted in the street of Katoomba. Then, with disbelief, I saw a long, forked tongue flick out of his mouth quickly. Sweating, I tried to break free of my astral escort, and return to my sleeping body. It’s stress, I told myself. Or suppressed grief. I could be having a nervous breakdown. Below me, I saw Helen pat my hand.

The poor girl
, she thought,
so nervy and pale. Poor little scrap. She didn’t get Jade’s looks or temperament, thank God! She needs some good meals.

Her thoughts helped me to anchor myself, to steady my breathing. Down below, I leant against Helen’s motherly bulk thankfully. I needed to ground myself, to nestle against her in my dream state as well. But the demon’s grip held me tightly to her. I stared at the abstract stained-glass windows of an androgynous Jesus on the cross. His glass blue mouth was fixed in an endless silent scream.

‘Watch!’ the child said. Her tongue was black, her eyes innocent, blue and lost, and they flashed to yellow and gold.

*

Seated behind the Bluites the Crossas commenced their mourning keen. Their Queen was dead. The energy that emanated from the goddesses to give support to the mourners was permeating the small wooden chapel. Hecate hovered anxiously by the coffin, waiting for the soul to emerge. The keen, unintelligible to the ears of the humans, resembled the sound of thousands of insect legs rubbing together. The Crossas glanced anxiously at each other as they keened. Johanna had not responded to the summoning. The crossing had not been an easy journey for many of them; were their efforts in vain? The young schoolboy Crossa flicked his tongue repeatedly as he attempted to follow the keen. He was inexperienced and had not yet perfected the art of Glamour.

Johanna’s coffin was pushed into the flames and Hecate walked into the furnace to retrieve the soul, sensing the time was near. Through what had been human flesh she pulled the tendril of the encoded soulseed out. The keening rose in its intensity. Hecate felt herself transmuting to sacred ash, still holding the seed. Flutterings of life still emanated from the soulseed, the birth, heartbreaks, dreams and the death of the Earth woman that had been. A small bird emerged from the soulseed and flew from the flames into the chapel. The keening abruptly subsided. So mote it be! the Crossas chanted as one.

I watched myself from above as I shifted uneasily on the pew. A small sparrow had flown into the interior of the chapel, and had released the tears from Helen’s eyes. Geoff and Robert were sniffing as well, carried away with the emotion around them, mourning a woman they had never known.

However, I was too filled with fear to respond to the burial bird. I was struck by the irrational thought that if I turned around to face the crowded congregation once more, I would be face to face with the creatures that inhabited my aunt’s paintings. The creations had arrived to honour their creator. Terrified, I closed my eyes and began to pray.