Ming-Yue Song
The room swirled with herbal-infused mist, hushed ancient words, and dances of those long since lost. The women wove their desires through the fog, their thoughts in union and harmony with one another, following Ming-Yue’s lead through the natural order. Each one a piece of a lyric, one of the pieces of music they wove together delicately. The flare of deep whites, echoing lost life, depths of death continuing to haunt the circle. They were not enough; the portal had been wrenched open by outsiders. Nobodies without a clue about true magic. But it worked.
The circle was forced to call for help, the lost side that had run from them. Ming-Yue hated having to go to these lengths. There was no choice, she had to get her missing sister. The white magic spun wildly before it smoothed out into behaving itself, burning below Ming-Yue’s hand and sent into the primordial bells of their kind. The signal flares to call forth all those of the coven, the ancient summoning for those of the blood. They needed them all: the young, the old, the lost, and the traitors. The bells began to flare and send the tones through the magical bind that held them together. They would hear them and understand the call to come home. The need was so great that the bells tolled for them all.
The message was fairly straightforward once the message was repeated thrice. It ended. The spell broke from Ming-Yue’s fingers, returning to the ether. Several of the women collapsed on the floor, weary from the magic. None more tired than Ming-Yue, she had to remain firm against all the tides of exhaustion currently battering her. She touched each circle, thanking them for their tireless effort to call for each sister and lost soul and action in the calling to help them back to the comforts below. The staff at the manor had prepared the bedding, food, and other accommodations. Two of the handmaidens of the circle, not yet apprentices, took her elbows to guide Ming-Yue toward the main suite—the head chamber reserved for the leader of their coven.
The room had been cleansed and warded against all ill spirits and spells. The eucalyptus scent greeted the trio. Ming-Yue waved the pair of handmaidens off once she entered her sanctuary. They bowed deeply, leaving her. Once the door closed, she leaned against the door, closing her eyes to sigh.
It worked. The ancient calling of the bell tolling across the globe worked. She staggered to the low-profile bed with cream-colored bamboo sheets. Ming-Yue was urged to change from formal ceremonial clothing, but her low energy kept her on the bed. Sleep tugged through her body, waiting for her until her old cell phone on the nightstand began to ring. The one she kept charged especially for this call.
She sat up, tugging her clothing back into place, and tossed her long hair back. She took a long breath to answer the call from her twin. The traitor has been missing for years. She escaped somewhere in the world and left without a word before being anointed into a final circle along with herself.
“Xiao Hong,” Ming-Yue answered in steady words.
“Did you have to ring the bells just to get my attention, sister?” Xiao Hong replied in harsh English they had to learn to live in America. So far from Taiwan, after they were chased from their homeland.
“If you hadn’t turned traitor and abandoned the circle, I wouldn’t have gone to such desperate lengths to gain your attention,” she replied in Chinese. She shifted the conversation back to a comfortable language that flowed as easily as water in the creek.
“What could be so important to ring those damned bells?” Xiao Hong asked. “I have a life; I was working when they left.”
“The portal is open.”
The dead air between the phone line crackled with the magic flare from her sister’s fear, even across the space between them.
“How?” Xiao Hong asked in Chinese, finally ending the silence.
“Foolish idiots were playing with magic from the internet you find so useful. ‘Information should be shared,’ you said. ‘Nothing could happen’. And now the portal locks have been shattered, and the beasts are loose. The Gods of old shall be set free upon this unsuspecting world of unbelievers to feast upon,” Ming-Yue’s tirade rose in her voice along the way. She stood on her mattress, ranting into the phone, summoning the wind in her rage. Everything was rattling throughout the room. Nothing was safe from the hurricane wind storming through the small space, her safe refuge in the small eye.
“Stop whatever you are doing, or we will be cut off, you spoilt child,” Xiao Hong shouted back. “Your temper tantrums won’t get anyone anywhere, for fuck’s sake. I can hear your storm rage from here. Act like the adults we are. If you want me to come help, shut it down.”
Ming-Yue glared at the metal and plastic phone that dared contain her sister’s voice telling her what to do. The urge to fling it in the storm was only held back by the needs of the people waiting for her to lead them into safety, and she held her arm.
“Fine. Come home from whatever hole you slunk into, little rainbow.” The storm slowed as quickly as it had begun.
“I’ll come back as soon as I can. But,” her sister paused, “only after I have your word I will be safe, and I can leave once this is finished.”
“You dare give conditions with these high of stakes?”
“With you in charge, I wouldn’t dare set foot in that town without some conditions.”
“No one would dare harm you.”
“You would.”
Ming-Yue sighed into the phone. “You honestly still nurse your grudges after all this time?”
“You tried to drown me,” Xiao Hong gritted out.
“Do you wish to go down the line of hostilities we perpetuated against each other, little rainbow? I also have such waves of anger against you, with you and your mind games.”
“I was a child, not in full control…”
“As was I. Now come home so we can finish this.”
“Fine,” Xiao Hong ended the call with a click.
Ming-Yue finally fell onto the bed, exhaustion winning as she did against her sister.