A creature made from many, inexplicable.
I held out my hand, low and non-threatening. Hesitating at the last minute because the thing might bite.
The creature balked, danced on delicate feet.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“Something lost,” Effa whispered back. “What never existed.”
The mystery caught my breath, a thrall of the impossible. Of imagination, twisted and poignantly brought to life. And as the bone thing jolted, stilt-like, scrabbling backward into the shadows… a song echoed inside me, sounding like a lament. A grieving.
Then a voice scraped from the shadows with the papery rasp of someone who had not spoken in a long time. “How did you get in here?”
Effa stepped closer to my side. Her shudder became mine as I asked, “Are you the sorceress known as Pelonie?”
“And if I be?”
“We have a special pass. From the Queen of the Forest.” I paused, then added, “Your jailer.”
A hiss slid from the darkness. “I know who she be.”
“You’re a seer. Do you also know why we’re here?”
“No.” The sorceress lied; I heard it in her voice. Recognized it in her posture as she emerged from the shadows to stand in the cave light, a bluish bioluminescence that bounced from wall to wall.
For an instant, she was the sacred Three in reverse: crone, mother, virgin. Each face morphed in and out. First was a woman stooped with age, her hair thin and gray. Then the mother, and after her, it was the young girl, wearing a gossamer white gown. Her long hair was the palest blonde, held back from her face by a headband of pearls and jewels, a woven web that grazed her forehead like an upside-down crown. Blue eyes glowed with an inner light above cheeks that were plump and perfect. Her pouty mouth was that of a child’s, innocent and full, and yet the cunning of a sorceress hid beneath the faint half-smile of knowing.
A snowy owl perched on her shoulder. At least, the head and wings belonged to an owl. The furry body resembled a cat; the tail coiling around the witch’s arm was reptilian. Another creature with many mingled parts. An unholy merger by a witch with limited resources or an unsound mind.
“Are you an assassin?” Pelonie asked with the young girl’s voice. Eerie, like the voices of the Gemini Witches.
“Did you see my past? Look into your scrying bowl and see me in that witch cave?”
A small shrug. “And if I did?”
“Even if you didn’t,” I challenged. “Know that the two witches you saw were your spiritual descendants. Members of your coven. And the woman who destroyed them is a monster you created.”
“If that is so, what am I expected to feel?”
“Guilt, if it’s possible. Their curse comes from you.”
A flutter from the owl perched on the young girl’s shoulder as she said, “I cursed no witch.”
“You misused the gift you’d been given.”
“There is nothing to be done.”
The young Pelonie turned away. I followed her through the shadows. Effa and Caerwen followed me.
After a moment, the owl lifted from Pelonie’s shoulder, flew silently away with its odd cat body trailing like captured prey.
As we entered a larger cavern, the light changed, coming from the torches and flames burning in bronze bowls. Grotesque shadows wavered over dark niches in the walls. Crude furniture decorated the space. A table cluttered with odd objects. Chairs and a fireplace with a cooking pot suspended from an iron hook.
Then the witch turned, and I stared at the mother, not the girl. Tall, slender, her hair was now a rich brunette, pulled back from her temples by twenty woven braids. Her eyes were dark, her skin darker, her ethnicity a blend of exotic culture and mysterious grace. She might have come from Africa, or the ancient lands of Mesopotamia. Wandered through deserts, or worn veils and secreted herself behind lattice screens. Her scent was that of the roses of Ta’if, the Black Iris of Jordan, with traces of Oud wood and frankincense.
“You are here for revenge?” the mother asked.
“Aine believes you deceived both the kings and the queens.”
