I clenched my jaw as heat engulfed the room, scorching in its presence. The hairs on my arms raised as if everything within me was ready to rise up and fight. My hand twitched automatically as it hovered over my gun. But what good would a gun do?
Corinne was glowing, crouched before the shower, whispering indecipherable words over her candles. And her fucking candles were dancing to whatever she was whispering to them, the flames seemed to ebb and sway to the sound of her voice. It was eerie, but I couldn’t move. I found that I could not look away - even for a second.
Even in her ridiculous pyjamas, she was mesmerizing. Or perhaps it was simply the Magick, but I had a feeling that it was Corinne. Corinne who came from money, who smiled, and parlayed in polite company, was calling forth… something. Would it help us eliminate Sergei? I didn’t know, but this shit was real. Whispers sounded back to her, echoing and reverberating through the bathroom until the entire chamber was echoing with voices. She didn’t seem to notice - too enthralled with the flame. Her hair had slid out of it’s neat chignon, pieces falling in her face. It was much longer than you would have expected it to be - considering the way she seemed to always have it pinned back. My hand flexed in response as I envisioned wrapping her blonde locks around my knuckles, pulling her head back to expose her neck.
In the midst of all the voices and warmth, she placed a flat mirror on the shower floor, her reflection glowing. My stomach hollowed out as fear crept up along my spine. This wasn’t normal - wasn’t natural. Everything about this situation made me want to turn tail and flee. Which was fucking bullshit. I have never fled from anything in my life, and I wasn’t about to start now.
She placed the last two of her carved up candles straight onto the mirror and began lathering them with olive oil. She pulled out a small bag of origanum - a herb I would recognize anywhere - a herb that seemed to never lose the ability to invoke memories of my mother’s tomato soup, her seating me at the table, pushing a white linen napkin against my chest.
My legs swung to-and-fro on the raised platformed chair that had been carefully nudged forward towards the table. My placemat depicted a rooster in an idyllic farmyard setting, whilst everyone else had images of other farmyard animals, but mama gave me the rooster. I liked the way it stood proudly - the way its colours seemed to shift and change depending on the light.
Mama’s lips kissed the top of my head as she moved around the table and I sighed happily. She made my favourite - the acidic smell of tomatoes wafted towards the table and I stilled my hands in my lap - I needed to show them that I was big enough to go with papa and the men, so I would show mama that I was ready by not fidgeting. She always moaned when I fidgeted at the table - but today I wouldn’t do it. I would sit carefully, and prove that I was big enough - seven was definitely old enough. Grandpa Arlo told me that he was five when he went out with the men.
I stuck my lip out in defiance.
I shook myself from the memory, pulling its talons from my skin one-by-one, until the memory was no longer a living, breathing, entity that held me in its vice. It still throbbed, but at least I could breathe. I wasn’t frozen in time as a seven year old, forced to watch the horror before me unfold.
Memories, I found, could not be categorized so simply. Anything could trigger them - a scent, a sound, a song, a thought. It could be a living hell if one wasn’t careful.
Corinne pinched some black pepper between her thumb and her forefinger, rubbing it up and down along the column type candles until she was seemingly satisfied. My throat constricted, and even if I wanted to make a quip about her actions, I couldn’t, refusing to allow even the sliver of that emotion out. I blamed the fucking Magick. I blamed the origanum for inducing a memory - a memory that I had kept locked up so tightly that I hadn’t thought about it in years.
Corinne did not belong in my world. She had no business being here in my bathroom, evoking fuck knows what. Because I couldn’t deny it any longer - or even frame her as a fraud - her Magick was a living, breathing entity with its own life force. It was hard to even look at her without feeling the tendrils of it reach out towards me, and fuck if that shit didn’t make me jumpy. I would take a nine mil to my head any day over having to deal with this shit because her Magick, and Magick in general, was an unknown. Arlo had always been a believer - had always followed the old ways, and I guess as tensions heightened within our business, the old ways became less important - pushed out by shiny guns and new drugs.
Her voice hitched as she lit the remaining two candles, running interlaying circles around each candle, the salt bleeding over the edge of the mirror and onto the shower floor. The small shards of salt glistened beneath the candlelight. Corinne stopped chanting, her whispers dying down gradually. She slid herself fully onto the bathroom floor, closed her eyes, and began humming softly.
It was strange. She didn’t have a great humming voice, but on some level, it was still soothing, and I found myself taking in the odd girl that we had welcomed into our home. Her image spoke one language, whilst her truth spoke another. I had a feeling that few people in her every-day world knew her truth - took the time to get to know who she truly was. I got it. The vapidness and bullshit of this life. But it was hard to be completely vapid when your life wasn’t guaranteed on any given day - when your form of protection was a gun because all hell could break loose in the slip of a breath. Was that why she played with Magick? To feel alive? To feel something more than just the vapid nature of those people?
It was difficult to imagine her on the arm of some politician or businessman, especially when she sat here huddled in winter pyjamas, glowing as if she were the dawn itself. Her humming slowed, dying down, vibrato by vibrato, until she sat there in the silence.
“Thank you,” she whispered into the silence, and I felt the warmth creep backwards, leaving Corinne to her Magick. Whatever she had summoned had finally departed.
When she opened her eyes and finally looked at me, she seemed to be lost in a haze, swimming to the surface of this world and the present moment. She blinked, and fuck if it her tousled hair, parted lips, and sleepy look didn’t make my cock stand to attention.
“What the fuck did you invite into my home?” I ground out, my heart pumping faster with fear that I wasn’t accustomed to.
It wasn’t that I never felt fear, it was that I always knew how to disable a threat - and that gave me strength, courage, even. But this? This bullshit right here I couldn’t handle.
Her face shuttered at my demanding tone, some sliver of my conscience awoke in her presence, but I didn’t give a fuck. I needed answers. I bent down and lifted her to her feet, hoisting her up by her forearm.
She was shaking. Shivering really, and she looked like a fucking doe in the headlights. Great, Bambi probably needed some warm milk or some bullshit. I had to fight the urge to shift out of my jacket and offer it to her, everything about this girl had me wanting to somehow protect her - coddle her even, and what a ludicrous fucking notion that was when she was the one here casting protection spells for us. She seemed confused - unsteady on her feet even, and I found myself guiding her back into her room.
“Do you want some tea? Or warm milk or something?” My voice sounded strained, even to my ears.
And what do you know? I offered her hot milk like the moron I am.
She blinked once more, disoriented, as if she were coming down from a high. Fuck - did she practice like this by herself? That couldn’t be safe. How the hell did her Club allow her to practice alone? Did all Witches experience this level of disorientation while working?
I shook myself from those thoughts - it wasn't my problem - she wasn't my problem.
Finally, she dipped her head in compliance.
"Well, which one do you want?"
"Milk, please," her voice sounded ethereal.
It wasn't the practiced eloquent tone I had become accustomed to, this tone - this Corinne - was almost waif-like.
"Follow me," I grunted, hoping that once I released her, she would remain upright. Thankfully, she stumbled after me on shaky legs, surprisingly, she did not falter.