Against her better judgement, Bea had enrolled me in a Baja hippy school when I was ten, just before we came here. The Aquarius Centre for Enlightened Learning was one of those expensive new age peace-and-love-to-all establishments in Mexico where meditation and an organic paleo diet were the solution to life’s irritations – as long as you weren’t a resident of the slums, of course.
The very first day, the dreadlocked guru in his tie-dyes and bare feet sat in our circle cross-legged, a perfect image of the stereotype. He gave a metaphorical talk on the preciousness of the journey, in opposition to a blind dash for the destination. My arm shot into the air, having ample practice at travels both literal and allegorical, even at that age.
“Winsome?” He murmured my name as though a soothing chant.
“What if you’re stuck in a traffic jam surrounded by road-ragers?”
“An opportunity for contemplation. We must not buy into the aggravation of others.” My fingers reached for the roof immediately. “Please.” He wafted a gesture to show I didn’t need to raise mine. “That bourgeois custom is not necessary here.” A pierced eyebrow arched in inquiry.
“What if the ice-cream in the shopping you’ve brought is melting all over the seat and your toddler is bawling and stinking up the car with her dirty nappy?”
“Unpleasantness can be countered with silent reflection on life’s challenges and the virtue of overcoming.”
“What if the truck on your tail bumps you into the car in front and it’s a Mercedes and will cost a month’s rent and you’ll be chucked out on the street because you couldn’t afford insurance?”
On it went, until I wore him down. By the end of five days, River-Leaf or Potpourri or whatever he was called politely requested Aunt Bea find me a new school. Apparently, my negative energy misaligned his chakras and the hypocrite hadn’t yet applied the ‘virtue of overcoming’ lesson to himself.
I wondered what sage advice he’d impart at this point, while I yearned for that speedy destination with every molecule of my being. It was weird to think of him now. I’d been right then as now, and oddly wise for a youngster. Some rides sucked to the point where the end couldn’t come soon enough. Raphaela, so vague about defeating my enemies, was outrageously accurate when it came to the struggle born of the Ritual. Of course, she’d failed to predict its cataclysmic magnitude.
The instant my foot touched the wooden pattern-work of the temple hallway, the history of the trees forming the floor flooded my brain. I knew in acute detail the circuitous route they had taken to reach this point, their delivery by ship and the months Bea, Fortescue and Mrs Paget required to lay them. I recalled the name of the boat and the length of the journey. I caught a brief glimpse of the insects that produced the shellac covering their surface and could immediately name the place they came from.
I saw in reverse chronology, as the master carpenter, a member of the Order, meticulously carved the jigsaw symbols over decades, many centuries ago. I could tell the ginger colour of his hair and his wispy beard, taste the sawdust, smell the lacquer. And further back to the majestic trees that once were, the forest in which they originated, and further still to the seedlings fluttering on the breeze before they took root. The wealth and the intricacy of this knowledge overwhelmed, but it was not all.
Simultaneously, I inherited not just the Keepers’ skills, but the Keepers themselves. The ghosts of four dead women invaded my skull with shattering impact: their every thought, emotion and lifetimes of experience and incident filled me, a sensory blitz to unravel my sanity. Lost in a deluge of babbling voices and flickering images, I was no longer sure which perceptions or memories were my own. There was no clarity or insight, as my brain battled to cope. If this was my life to be, I would drown in it.
I reeled and collapsed to the ground, curling into a ball and rocking with the exertion of staving off madness. And that’s where they found me scant minutes later, although to me an eternity: lying in a limp bundle beneath the temple doors, whimpering pathetically.
“Winsome!”
Bea arrived first, skidding to her knees. She reached for me. On her touch, her endless life flashed my mind. The tedium, the questioning of her purpose, the anguish of losing her husband and the raw ache that never ceased. It was more than I could bear. I yowled like a fox in a steel trap. She jerked from me with a hurt expression, as I cringed against a pillar, its unyielding coldness free of recollection.
Over her shoulder, Fortescue and Mrs Paget appeared more anxious than I’d ever seen them. Daniel thrust through the group and stooped to collect me before anyone could intervene. The unfiltered agony of loss and desolation he tolerated every day slaughtered any slim bond to reason. I shrieked and twisted in his arms, his face distraught.
“This is not normal. I will fetch Enoch.” Mrs Paget broke their stunned silence.
Somewhere deep within, a kernel of my old self battled to hold on. I had an important job to do. How could I achieve anything in this state?
“Stop touching her. Put her down!” Smithy strode into their midst, his voice all I could hear. I lunged for him, pulling myself with fading reserves into his strong embrace. And sudden silence. The Keepers vanished and my mind cleared. Smithy grappled with me as I slapped and fought to return to the temple.
“It’ll be alright, Bear. We’ll find a way to fix it.”
He pinned my arms, earnest eyes searching mine. But though he tried to hide it, I detected doubt. The rest ringed me, their faces a mixture of horror and pity. This was not empowerment. There was no elation at my newfound abilities. Hell, there wasn’t even any dignity.
Raphaela’s words taunted. “The only one standing in the Crone’s way, Winsome, is you.”
Well, it appeared that without Smithy’s help standing might be a tad optimistic! I was fairly certain past Keepers possessed the capacity to walk unaided, but I was too petrified to release him and face the psychic assault once more. Would it fade? And what advantage could possibly come from knowing the minute histories of everything and everybody I touched?
I refused to get in the elevator, my claustrophobia accentuated by the possibility of contact in close quarters. Smithy carried me up four flights to the kitchen. He stayed firm and silent, when the others arrived and attempted to coax me out of his arms.
“You can do it, Winnie. You’ve got to try,” Bea pleaded.
Daniel remained apart, mystified and worried in equal measure. My impotence came to the fore. Smithy would find maintaining daily habits a challenge, let alone anything more demanding, while wearing me as a scarf. And I was the only one still in a flimsy ceremonial gown. Fortescue lingered nearby, holding my clothes, possibly just as bothered by the lack of modesty. Dressing in my state of dependence demanded I embrace my inner exhibitionist and I wasn’t sure I had one.
“Okay, Smithy,” I bellowed through the yammer. “You can put me down.”
“No need to scream at me, Bear. I’m right here.”
I scowled at him. “You try and talk over this racket.”
I gingerly placed my toes on the floor, my fingernails digging crescents into Smith’s shoulders as he lowered me. I nearly went missing in the woolshed warehouse of old. Echoes of the shearers’ pasts swirled foggily, men tramping in and out of what was once their bunk room. I’d submerge in this world without Smithy. He seemed to provide a fence against the worst of it. He gently hustled me to a chair, keeping his hold, and I endeavoured to ignore its journey from forest to factory when I sat.
“Enoch!” Bea snapped, her manners slipping under the pressure.
He solidified in the chair next to mine. I wondered what would happen if I permitted my frustrations scope and walloped him one.
He smiled. “You can try, if you wish, Winsome. But you would find only air.”
“What is the meaning of this?” Bea demanded.
“Perhaps it is a consequence of changing the Ritual, or the evolution of Winsome’s abilities, or a combination of the two.” Enoch didn’t seem particularly perturbed.
“And what are we to do about it?” Even my mental tour through bygone days did not mask Bea’s combative tone. “Winsome has endured enough! With all due courtesy, I insist you remedy this without delay.”
“I cannot.”
“You cannot or you will not, Enoch the Everlasting Watcher? Or does it suffice that others suffer in your stead? If we must travel to Lafayette, directly into the jaws of ruin, how is Winsome to function? She is incapable of protecting herself in this state. Forget shielding the rest of us.”
I’d never heard Bea speak so discourteously to anyone, let alone Enoch. In my peripheral vision, he hung his head.
“Please believe, Beatrice, I do what I can. You have inherited the folly of celestial interference. I will not repeat that error. Do not ask it of me.”
“What?” I stared at Smithy, who seemed just as confused. What did he mean by ‘folly of celestial interference’?
Hugo raged into the kitchen. “Daniel. You will never believe what that ignoramus-beyond-imagining, Hudson, did. We must intercede before it’s too late and bring Smith’s friends to the safety of the warehouse.”
The ensuing hour passed in a blur. I paid little notice to what went on around me, my concentration thoroughly devoted to blocking the flood whenever Smithy accidentally let go. I maintained my foetal, shivering position on the couch, developing a migraine so intense, splotches of fluorescence obliterated sight and a dentist’s drill whined in my skull.
Unfortunately, Bea had opted for plush real leather, and I copped an unwelcome insight into the short, brutal existence of cows from the meadow to the tannery. If I ever managed to get up, I’d adopt a vegan philosophy. Smithy was forced to sit at my feet to maintain contact like an old pet hound. Worry at the time trickling through the hourglass was ever present, occasionally displaced by exploding imagery. I’d groan and contort until the fit passed.
“Here you are, Vegas. Allayver. This lightens mental burden and the second is somnamber, which is a sleeping draught. It is all I can think of to do.”
Bea placed two capfuls on his palm, then backed away leery of accidentally brushing against me. I’d offended her, to add to my escalating crimes.
“Mm, vanilla and honey. Take a sip, Bear.”
Quivering with effort, I took what he offered and knocked it back. The second was the dark purple of an eggplant and tasted of aniseed, wafting me into broken dreams.
I slipped through a sea of grain, plump and yellow in the ripening sun. Red velvet flashed with the swirling of my mink-trimmed cape, excessive in the warmth of the day, but I would fix that. My fingertips caressed the fronds, a rustle stirring in my wake. A gale whipped up, seemingly from nowhere, and the heavens darkened. Roiling clouds bruised the sky, alive with spiked lightning, and thunder pealed as if to crack the world. I walked on untroubled by the deluge, a riotous hiss at my back.
I paused, before me a ramshackle village of huts about a stone well, wooden shutters slamming against the oncoming tempest. This place was ancient and run-down. A mother dragged her tiny daughter in an embroidered floral pinafore across the square, their coarse skirts plastering their legs, the girl’s frightened face fixed on the warring sky.
My hands snapped into fists and hail stabbed the earth, the mother and daughter bloodied as they fled the icy onslaught, the little girl’s screams joining the tumult. I experienced a pang of regret as they made their flimsy abode, the woman crossing herself in terror. Never mind, there were many options for death during this wretched age. I brushed my palms forward, already bored by what came next. A wave of vermin swept from the crop to overrun the town.
In the coming weeks every last one of them succumbed to the Black Plague, dropping where they staggered, putrid clots of liquefied tissue and scraps of skin their gravestones, the fields turning fallow. A ragged pinafore of flowers wreathed the sunken corpse of a child in the square. Despite the glorious desecration, I remained unmoved when I returned to survey my creation. Ever, I mourned my lost lover, hatred for any who had what I wanted a festering ulcer to eat all humanity.
Until him.
I came to with a snarl, my hands fastened about Smithy’s neck in a choke hold. We were bare centimetres apart, so close his breath kissed my cheek. His eyes were wide with shock and distress as Bea, Fortescue and Hugo prised me from him. I flailed backwards with an agonised cry to wedge myself in the cushions, staring wildly about. Smith sat on the floor, breathing heavily, his demeanour so miserable my heart broke into a million pieces.
“Oh, God,” I gasped. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Vegas, please forgive me.”
Hud, Andie and Bickles rowed behind my guardians, their faces combined in alarm. Before Smithy could clear his throat or look at me, the Keepers swarmed back to consciousness. Isadore’s torment dominated. When she could no longer endure as her family perished around her, she eventually tried to join them. Isadore threw herself and the diary into the inferno of her blazing shack, bathed in flames but not consumed by them.
“I burn! Why can I not die?” I screamed her despair. My skin fizzled and I choked on the familiar stink of charred flesh.
“Grab her, quickly. Keep her still.”
In the here and now, Hugo brought his entire weight to bear, securing my limbs in iron bands. Fortescue loomed, a filled syringe suspended. I felt a prick in my upper arm and sunk into merciful blackness.
