Chapter Text
There is something about divination that has always felt more intimate to me than all other magics. Where every other spell is a prayer, a shout into the void where you can only ever hope for a yes or a no, divination is a conversation. Now I lay on the floor of my study, drawing circles into the floorboards with chalk. Quiet whispers rise almost unbidden from my lips, habitual as breathing, imploring my goddess to listen and to speak to me in turn. On the other side of the mahogany door I hear the sounds of laughter, of cheers and warmth and whimsy.
I have always felt like a vine climbing over my friends bodies. Clinging to them in a desperate way, but never quite belonging to their ecosystem. One day I could be cut down and wither away, and though they might mourn my loss, they would be free of the weight on their shoulders.
My attention flickers rapidly at a voice whispering back to me, and the weight of something beside me, though there was no hope of seeing it. It felt both like another woman pressed up against me, and like a beast bearing down upon me. The gods are human, and they are not, and somewhere in between and far removed from the concept all at once. I reach my hand out, feel something graze gently across it. It is strange, to hold the attention of something divine, peering down at me with thousands of eyes.
“I do not wish to take up too much of your time, Countess.”
A gust of wind sweeps my locks to the side. Suddenly I feel a heaviness upon my back, as though the goddess herself has been draped across me in an imitation of rest. Others could only hope to speak the language of the divine as I do, but I hear it. A comfort, a do not fret, a no harm done, and i am here i am here i am here.
I roll over, once and twice, until I am back on my stomach a foot away. There I continue to draw circles upon the wood, though my hand is no longer only my own. Something pulls my hands up and down, until there are suns and stars and planets littering the floorboards. I chuckle, though it comes out more like a sigh. The Countess has always been more curious than other gods, never teetering this way or that between good and evil, only ever caring for learning, for consuming knowledge until she grows warm and sated upon it. Ever since I was little I have played alongside her, have opened myself as a vessel for this goddess’ whims.
Out in the living room something comes crashing down, glass breaking and scattering across the floor. I feel the weight lift off me as the Countess raises its head to peek.
“We’re celebrating another engagement,” I explain softly.
And so the weight spreads out across me again, tucking itself beneath my necks and filling all of the nooks and crannies between my limbs. A curious, divine huff, a question, and you? why are you here? not there?
A burning inquisition into the habits of human beings. The gods did not create humanity, rather the opposite, and so they could never quite understand, never quite grasp the fickleness of the human condition. I tilt my head upwards, until I am staring at the billowing, sheer curtains of my room. My little space carved out in Isra’s house. Our house, I suppose.
“I would not want to spoil the evening.”
how so? how so? how so?
“Parties never suited me, they make my skin itch,” I reply in a husky whisper. “They are for those who plan to be there the day after next. I never quite know where I’ll be. It is not fair to bury your roots in the soil of others, when you know you will only dishevel it with departure.”
A thoughtful silence, heavy and interested. I sigh again, and it devolves into a yawn, an attempt to push some air back into my lungs from the weight on my chest. Then I lift my head, pondering. My eyes narrow with my own curiosity. She and I have always been a pair.
“Do the gods ever struggle with the interpersonal?”
????, in a nervous shuffle of wind and light.
“Have you ever felt as though you will never fit in? An actor from a different stage? Everyone else knows their lines, and you just… stumble upon yours.”
Finally, after another bout of quiet inquisitiveness, I feel something shift, rather hurriedly, drape itself differently, the hint of warm kisses upon my eyelids. The Countess, always enamored with people-things, with all the cheers and tears of human society, she now blankets me in her best imitation of comfort. It is not often I am reminded that I am a divine favorite, but I feel it now. Tender, warm, and no replacement for human connection.
Through all these motions I hear the do not fret, do not fret, pretty little thing. A hurried so good, so perfect, filled with love and light, when they die i will save you, bring you home.
My eyes almost shut, relieved to know there is a place for me once… I blink. Blink again.
“What?” I sit up further, now. “When they die?”
oh yes yes they fall and tumble like dominoes, down down down but not you, you are dear, you will rise and remain.
The weight upon me shifts anxiously, fearful of my response to what is meant to be a kindness. I know it is bad manners to question the holy, but this must be a fortune by another name, the goddess of time spilling the future like water. I can’t afford to miss it.
“When? When do they die? All at once, or—”
oh yes it shan’t be long now the roots took hold and now they grow, grow, and they will rot and twist until they evict you all and settle in the earth.
“And what…” I swallow, trying to clear a lump in my throat that I have not felt in ages. “What will you do about it?”
A silence. Distressed.
the helix say we do not meddle, not in this, that you must cut the arm to save the body and that this is, really he said, it is inevitable because the arm is sick it is so so sick
“What do you mean, sick?”
…
Suddenly I am dragged bodily across the floorboards, by a goddess so desperate to tell secrets but so unable. I yelp, and I hear the sound of feet shuffling toward the study with concern. Isra, then. I say something, I can scarcely recall it once it leaves my lips, something about a scare and I am fine, as fine as can be. I hear him sit back down, eased by a soothing voice at his side. Part of me wants him to not relent, to push, to care for me in a violent way, rather than the way that he does. Gentle, quiet, flawless.
I come to a halt by a mirror, covered with a sheet in the back of the room. An heirloom of some kind, that I was meant to make use of but never did. It does not take a genius to realize I am meant to uncover it. So I do, with the flurry of a hand, and then I am immediately pushed toward it. Into it. As though it is nothing, as though mirrors are nothing but a figment of the imagination. The sound I make is undignified, it is definitely the last drop in the glass of worry that Isra can take, but I do not have time to concern myself with his trying to break the door down.
For I am somewhere else, now, I tumble upon an identical floor on the other side. A study like mine, identical in all ways except for a drab discoloration of the walls and floors, and weeds growing in the corners. I clutch the nearby desk to stand back up, dust my skirt off and push my hair back. Already my head aches with a strange pressure, as though I am miles above the sea. As I walk cautiously through the room, I try the door out into the hallway. It does not budge, and a gust of wind caresses my shoulders.
if it is locked in there it will be locked in here but not for long
Not for long… As I move my hand off the handle, I spy a glimpse of something in the mirror I just came through. Isra, bursting through the doorway in search of someone who is no longer there. And as he does, the door in front of me flies open, too, the reflection chasing the real thing. Something clicks in my head. A mirror image. Different, but still the same in most ways. I suppose the world of mirrors cannot cause, only be affected. Something worthy of note, then. I turn away, disappearing down the hall before Isra closes the door again.
The hallway is nearly identical, too, though here I see more growths along the walls. Sickly green moss, crawling up in bunches here and there. I touch it, and it comes off with my fingers, sticky and slick. I have never been good with plants, it has always been Ridley’s forte, not mine, and I am sure he is busy fussing over Isra in the real world, now. I can’t very well dash back to stick my head through and ask for help. No, this is being shown to me alone. Through a mirror in the hall I see our friends making their way to my study in brisk, frightened paces. One of my closest friends, my future sister-in-law trails after them all, and I know the look on her face. A defense against the horrors, lingering in the back to control her emotions. I have always admired that ceramic front she puts on.
I move into the living room, where gray, hazy light streams in through the windows. Herbs hang from the rafters above the kitchen, and there are scratches on the living room table that I know are present in the other world, too. It all looks the same, it’s all familiar and true, but it does not smell like spices and flowers and home. Instead it tastes of dust and death. There’s a sickly tint of decay, and she peeks out of a window to see if this is merely the state of their house.
Not at all. Outside there are odd, sickly reeds growing from the cracks in the cobblestones, sticky vines coming down from the roofs. Toward the end of the street she sees something crawling past the buildings. It is large, hunching, and it seems to huff like living is a chore, but then it suddenly seemed to turn. Toward me. Our eyes meet across the square, and now it bares a mouth with far too many teeth, as though they have been stuck in by a child who does not yet grasp the meaning of enough. It sees me, and I see it, and then I duck as it gives chase toward the house. It crashes against the facade with a sickly crack, clawing and scratching in the universal language of wanting to be let in. It drools and howls, mouth opening wide, and now I see that the inside of its mouth is also tinted a sick green, as though mold is growing on its inside, climbing its way out. At my side, I feel the wind murmur desperately:
see see it is wrong and rotting your world is dying slowly
I frown, and I turn toward nothing at all, forgetting my companion is far less than tangible. “For how long? Why?”
since our greatest mistakes came to cash in a debt that cannot be paid i cannot say more they will not allow it i am sorry
“Then why did you tell me,” I query, because I would never rise to such an unbecoming height as to assume I have a grasp upon a god, and that this was an inevitable outcome. No, the Countess is the goddess of all that has come and gone, and not once has she been the slave to human nature. There are strings being pulled here, I can feel them burrowed in my skin.
i know you, the dust from the room laps against my skin. you mean so well you want to help you always do and maybe you could if i lead you the right way you could save them or at least you could try someone could try
“How?” I ask, because she does know me, and I will try. Gods know I will try.
this has to be done right little oracle we follow the ways so ask your question and offer a trade give something of yours for something of mine
Before I can even tell I am doing it, my hand reaches for the knife in my belt and I raise it, to the very roots of my ponytail. It comes off in one fell swoop, and I am holding it out to nothingness. It is no longer a matter of thinking, only of doing.
“Tell me,” I implore, and at once the hair catches fire, going up in flames and fading into ash. The Countess consumes it with vigor, because pieces of oneself are a rarity indeed, something that can always return but never in the same shape. Now I feel the breeze on my neck not from divine intervention, but from how closely I cropped it to my head. I wait as she departs for a moment. Outside, something is still clawing and biting at the foundation of the house, but I know by now it cannot make dents in a shape that will hold. Not here. A few books dislodge from their shelves as the goddess returns, and I cannot help but note that I have seen that happen before, in the real world. Was that what it was, every time? Something greater than mortal, shifting through the world of mirrors? Like a billowing gust, the Countess calls out to me.
it is too strong to hold back it will climb out and infect your world it will poison you and death will follow but it is not the deaths of many we fear no it is the death of one, only one, that tips the scales if you could save him you could save them all
Now the disjointed, stuttering speech is getting to me, but you cannot criticize the ways in which gods grant you miracles. Always, I have been the type to hate small talk, when people stop mid sentence to ponder the words. I have never had such liberties, my mind has always run too far ahead of my mouth. Not intelligently, no, quick like a hummingbird, hitting walls where others would have come to a rest.
And it is just like the Countess to wish her little playthings well, to hold us tightly to her chest when other gods only wish to suck amusem*nt from us. It was how I came to fall in love with divination. A magic filled with warmth, care, with the goddess’ love, if only in the same way a child loves a frog they found in a pond.
I lean against the windowsill, the rhythmic banging of the door vibrating through the wood, and I beckon the Countess closer. To envelop me again. And so she does, pressing down upon me like the loveliest of anvils.
the beginning of the end comes much later than you think, slowly and surely, it is not a gunshot but a knife wound
“And who dies, to set it all in motion?”
you could do it i think stick spokes in the wheels of fate and help them all
“I could, but not if you do not tell me how.”
The Countess is stalling, I can tell, the closest to sputtering a god can ever get. I would never dare think I’d ever see the divine brought to their knees by something as pure as empathy. Finally, as the curtains settle and the world goes quiet, she says it.
ridley welsh is destined to die.
Oh, there it was. The other shoe, dropped to the floor. On the other side, she hears Ridley grab her fianceé by the shoulders and implore him to get it the hell together. Ridley has always been a whirlwind of good intentions and bad style choices. I had met him fresh into adulthood, two stars drifting aimlessly, coming together to form a constellation. He is testament to the fact that one person is all you need to make a family. He had taken the rest of us and pulled us by the lapels of their shirts because Ridley does not ever deign you worthy of being left alone. More often than not he annoys the life out of me, if only because he is like the ocean and I a particularly fragile cliff, and he will always push and pull until I crumble into his arms on late nights, begging him for forgiveness. Forgiveness that I do not love the way the rest of them do, and that they always have to simply trust me. He is, I realize now, the best friend I have ever made, and he is destined to die. To take the world with him, when he does.
Well, that makes the choice rather simple.
Immediately I rise, and the goddess departs in a soft breeze. I can tell I have run out of fortunes for the foreseeable future, until I earn them back. Fair enough. I need something more reliable for this, anyway, not a prediction but a reaction, something to put into play whenever I need, to save him from something I cannot see coming. My eyes move to the shelves, filled with books on Isra’s illusory spells, tomes of healing for Soraye. Healing is not enough. Smoke and mirrors are not enough. Ridley keeps some of his botanicals here, too, but I doubt these growths are anything common.
What I need is not a what at all, I realize. It is a who.
Someone a little volatile, someone who would gladly take up the role as Ridley’s keeper. Someone as desperate to save him as I, or perhaps a little more.
Muffled voices still echo from the study, so I make my way to the bath, climbing up onto the sink and through the mirror on the other side. I promptly trip my foot on the edge of the frame, unceremoniously tumbling to the tiled floor in a flurry of limbs and a desperate little ack! Soraye is there in front of me before I can pick my dignity off the floor. Of course she is. I sit up, rubbing my lower back. This floor is murder on the body. Why does anyone decide to make the wettest room of the house entirely of tile? Soraye is helping me up before I get my bearings, and I hear the sound of our friends approaching from the hall.
The first I see is Isra, and I see now that he is pallid and shaky with fear. At once I go to him, push his braids away from his eyes and kiss his cheek.
“I will explain as soon as I can.”
And he sighs, because he knows me. Soon is rather far away. His arms wrap around me, and I can feel him shiver. I want to tell him it will be okay, that I am sorry in ways that he can never imagine, and that I will make it all up to him.
In other words, I want to lie to him. If only to grant him a shred of relief. I do not have the heart to do it, so I hug him tight, instead.
Behind him, I see Ridley breathe a grateful sigh, and lean upon his lover with a groan of effort, as though he has been running for miles. The lover in question pays him little mind, eyes boring into me. Brows curved. Wolfe has always been that way, and in that we have always been kindred spirits. Drifting at the edges of our circle, eyes alert and awake. And this is why I will need him. Will need that passion, will need that clever gleam in his eyes. I take a deep breath, pulling away from Isra. There is a thread of fate here, and I need to grasp it.
“Wolfe, we must speak.”
And I can see it in his eyes, right then and there, that he is fit for the job.
