My hand held Annabel’s wrist, but somehow, it slid down as Rick began to speak, and I felt her fingers clench around my own.
“In the book of Elysian, it states that the Oracle not only has the gift of sight, but of power,” Rick said, and The Char-Lee pursed her crimson lips and gave an almost invisible nod.
“Likewise, it states that this power can be conveyed to those seekers who offer sacrifice, both heroic and brutal to earn it.”
Again, she nodded.
I felt the heavy weight in my pocket shift as Annabel’s hand gripped mine tighter, pulling me closer. The moment was nearly here. Rick would take her from me, and open her neck with his Bowie, so that he could gain the magic to rule the gangs of madmen that ruined our homes, and haunted our nightmares.
In my pocket, my fingers found and clenched the wooden shaft.
The shadows of the hall seemed to move around us, a twirl of shifting light and darkness that could not be seen, only glimpsed. Forces were moving.
“I have studied the teachings and made the sacrifices of Odun and Nothfair,” Rick said, his voice growing louder and more sure as he spoke.
“I have traveled the paths ordained and brought to you an acolyte, and a sacrifice, so that I may be imbued with the power.”
Annabel’s grip felt as if she would crush my hand, and her lips suddenly brushed my ear.
“Love is
always
bitter,” she whispered, as Rick turned, grabbed her by the arm and yanked her from me.
“For you, I dedicate this life,” he pronounced, drawing his Bowie and holding it high in the air as he crushed Annabel to the floor with his other hand tight around her neck.
On her throne, The Oracle observed but said nothing, her face expressionless.
“May this blood rinse the room with life and set your generosity free,” he intoned, and brought the knife to Annabel’s throat.
In my mind, I saw the water trickling down her breasts again in the bath, and felt her hand, chained to mine, a binding that was, at its end, not unwelcome. I felt her hand pinching mine just moments ago, and felt her breath in my ear.
I felt the razor in my palm.
I felt my throat constrict in utter fear of my next step.
But still, I took it.
I pulled the razor from my pocket and stepped forward at the same time, grabbing Rick by the hair and yanking his head backwards. Taken by surprise, he fell back into my arms, a heavy, deadly burden that almost instantly began to struggle.
“I dedicate this sacrifice to love,” I said, and brought my razor down across his throat. I could feel the flesh give way, and felt the hot spray of his blood and saliva as I dragged it down deep and severed his throat from ear to ear.
Rick’s eyes bugged out wide and white; his brows clenched in shock and anger. His lips struggled to speak as his blood washed my white shirt. Red, the color of death. Red, the color of love. A sharp pain ripped through my side and I heard Annabel scream “No!” as Rick fell away from me and I tried to stand. But there were teeth, blades, acid fire in my gut and I staggered backwards, falling down at the feet of The Char-Lee.
Annabel knelt and pressed her hand to my cheek.
“Be strong,” she said, and a new blaze, ignited by her words ripped from my belly to my groin and back to my heart. A blaze that almost staunched the wound.
She kissed my lips then, gently. “Strong,” she repeated and drew back. The world seemed to be growing fainter. Hazy. I pressed my hand to still the screams in my side and felt the heat, the wetness there. Flowing fast.
In the distance, I heard Annabel.
“Accept this sacrifice from your handmaiden,” she said, and I heard something, it had to be Rick, squeal and sputter. “I have brought him to you,” she continued. “He has strength for your strength, and life for your life. May I beg of you the power?”
I awoke in a sea of fairy green, in a bed of down and air.
When I started to sit up, I felt the blades bite my side, and I collapsed instantly.
“You’re awake,” a familiar voice cried, and then warm hands and lips were on my face.
“She said you would wake, that it would take time, but I’ve been here waiting for so long and sometimes it seemed that your breath would stop for minutes at a time and I would kiss my breath to your lips and pray that you would hold on, that you would come back for me once more but I was so afraid because…”
“Whoa,” I gasped, grabbing her by her shoulders and pushing her back, just a little.
“Slow down,” I begged. “What’s happened. Where’s Rick?”
“I finished him,” she said. “He was my sacrifice.”
Annabel’s face filled my vision and her eyes looked sad, scared. Her mouth trembled as she told me.
“When you found me, us, I was already on my way here to find The Oracle. I know the teachings; I have studied the power. And I had a quest, too. When you slashed Rick’s throat and set me free, I used the knife to cut out his heart.”
“And The Oracle?”
“She granted my request,” Annabel said, her face suddenly serene and calm.
“Are you going to try to rule the world?” I asked, incredulous that this quiet, beautiful woman could have practiced the same rituals and followed the same paths I’d found Rick wallowing in.
“Rick was studying the path of the powers of death,” she said. “I sought the power of life. The sacrifice I was bringing The Oracle had volunteered for the honor. Then you and Rick showed up.”
She ran a finger across my chest and smiled.
“The Oracle accepted my new sacrifice and said I should practice the power she granted on you. So you’re my first patient!”
“Can you do something about the pain?” I said, wincing.
“Maybe,” she smiled, then looked at my face. “Did you mean what you said at dinner and when you cut Rick?” she asked. “About love?”
“You got your bath and Rick got laid when we went to our rooms,” I said. A shadow crossed her face.
“The Char-Lee told us that the rooms would provide us with whatever we needed.”
She nodded, but looked confused.
“I needed a razor,” I said. “To gain a love that doesn't taste bitter.”
The corners of her mouth raised and then bent to kiss me.
Love wasn’t bitter at all.
— | — | —
Tanya loved the roses; she only wished she could look at them.
Every morning, her husband Mel guided her down the stairs from her bedroom, through the house, and down the rocky steps to the rose garden.
“Let me help you with that, he’d say, and tenderly lift the shirt over her head, undo her brasierre and slide her pants to the ground. With a kiss and a pat he sent her forth, into the tangle of thorns and leaves and sharp, rocky earth.
Tanya loved to run naked through the rose garden. She loved to feel the roses’ feathery touches, their sharp bite. Once she had been able to smell the humid sugar of their perfume, and see the vibrant smears of crimson across their petals. But that was long ago. Now Tanya could only experience her rose garden by touch, and so she drew the prickling bushes to her bosom and bled with every kiss of their stinging boughs.
She’d been 16 when it happened. Skin of virgin vanilla, cheeks blushed bright cherry, eyes like sapphires glinting against the stark satin of her raven hair. The boy had been called Marshall then, and she met him late each evening—a mute moon the only spectator to their urgent, exploring gropings.
They whispered and laughed and lay down on the bricks to stare out at the stars. “I wonder who’s out there,” they said aloud, but inside they thought,
I wonder who’s in here.
She had ached for the taste of his tongue as the tickle of fallen rose blossoms caressed her neck. Each night after 10, she would climb down the trellis beneath her bedroom and wait on the brick patio by the fountain. She always heard him before he arrived, heavy shoes clicking like flint strikes against the stone. She was smoking inside; nearly ready to go up. Each night as they kissed and necked, he was tender with her and warm…at first. But as their meetings lengthened, as the moon waxed, his fingers strayed from tremulous sneak attacks beneath her shirt to bolder thrusts under her skirts. He grew insistent. One night, as the moon blinded the owls with its full searchlight shine, he pressed for more.
First he stripped her favorite blue T-shirt from her completely—a bold move being just yards from her father’s back door.
“Wait,” she whispered, but not too convincingly. Soon her jeans were gone too, and his own flesh fully exposed to the pale tan of the moon, and open to the massage of her hands. A tremor ran through her belly at this unfamiliar territory, but still, his flesh felt soft and delicate, yet solid as wood. She could feel herself warm and grow under his watering kisses, her tight bud engorging with first passion, unravelling in a satin-slick flower of invitation.
But then with the pass of a cloud over the fairie light she shivered and whispered “no.”
He seemed not to hear and pressed himself tighter to her. She felt the rose of passion wither and scorch and she pushed with tight fists against his shoulders again, “No.”
“Yes,” he answered this time, through gritted teeth. “I can’t wait anymore.”
A pain shot through her like the sting of a thousand thorns, and Tanya at last opened her mouth to scream, only to have it filled with his thick, sour tongue that suddenly tasted not so delicate and fine but fat and base and ashy with the flavor of cigarettes. She panicked then, and struck him in the ear with a fist, but he didn’t relent. In fact, her struggles only seemed to encourage him.
Replacing his mouth with a gritty palm, he held her to the brick as he took her, impervious to her cries and wiggles and wide eyes. Finally, she bit down on his hand, hard, so that she felt the skin give way. The hand yanked backwards, but rather than nurse his wound, her sweet and gentle Marshall brought that hand back down in a closed fist and struck her mouth ruthlessly.
And again.
With his hands on her neck then, he kissed her, but not with the blending of a lover, rather with the penetrating jabs of a conquerer savoring his bloody victory. Then he pulled back to ride her in animal fervor, lifting her head with each thrust and slamming it back to the brick with each release.
Tanya felt the warmth pooling beneath her head, at the same time as it slicked and gathered beneath her buttocks. Her heart was screaming as her flesh cried in pain. How could this be happening? How could she have been so wrong about this boy, this wicked young man? She swam in a sea of black filth, every light touch and kiss of the past nights seen now as a violation, a betrayal. There were stars of hurt in her eyes as the heady scent of roses engulfed her like a savior as Marshall came to climax. She breathed it in and savored it as if to blot out the knowledge of the situation, eyes closed, mind seeking another world. And then its sweet perfume turned sickly in her nose, icy sharp in its character. Distantly she felt him remove himself, heard the rustle of his jeans dragged across stone. Heard him murmur, “Shit.” She kept her eyes closed as he scurried away into the night.
««—»»
When she woke next, Tanya strained to see through the blackness, but could not. Her nose felt itchy, but she could not smell the roses.
“Marshall,” she called.
Then, “Mom?”
The nurse’s hand on her brow was cool. “You’re in the hospital dear. How do you feel?”
“Could you turn on the light?” Tanya asked. “I can’t see.”
There was no answer at first, and then she heard the nurse talking to someone at the far end of the room. Whispers, and the tongue clicks of pity.
“It may pass,” she heard a woman say.
But it didn’t.
Her world remained a black void where only sound could enter. Tanya was alone in a room without windows. Her food had no taste, the roses had no smell. And no color.
But she could feel them. It became her only release. To press the world against herself in a smothering embrace. “You’re there,” she sometimes murmured. “You’re there, I can feel you.”
««—»»
Tanya met Mel at a special education class. He was the teacher, and she loved to listen to the melifluous tones of his voice. It was caramel and chocolate. Molasses and cream. She already loved him when he told her she was pretty one night, as she stood in the foyer, waiting for the familiar step of her mother who came each night to drop her off and pick her up. She felt her skin flush, but at the same time, shrugged away his compliment.
“No,” she said softly, “...but thank you.”
He took her hand in his—wide, leathery, strong—and pressed it tightly.
“Yes, you are. Do you like coffee?”
“I can’t taste it,” she deflected.
“You can feel hot and cold, can’t you?”
Within a month, her mother was no longer driving her to school. In six, Tanya was standing against the wall in their kitchen, listening as piece by piece of her 25 years were carried past, landing with thuds and rattles and grunts in the bed of Mel’s van.