Of Gaea (12 page)

“
You’re
being silly.” Ari chuckled then shivered. Since she hadn’t been
paying attention to their surroundings she wasn’t entirely sure
where they were. She looked around and saw nothing out of sorts. It
looked like a normal street but there was something she felt uneasy
about it. “Where are we?”

“
A bit
off Main Street. Something wrong?” Nasya’s voice made it sound as
though she was hoping for Ari to answer yes.

“
Cold
chill.” Ari muttered.

“
It’s
eighty degrees out here, Ari. Tell me what you feel.”

“
You’re acting weird, Nasya.
Where is Sasha,
anyway? Why didn’t he come with us?” Ari twisted to look at Nasya
but her companion was paying her no mind. Nasya’s eyes carefully
scanned the streets looking ready to ward off anyone who
approaches. Ari turned and faced forward again. Her anxiety was
growing but she wasn’t ready to tell Nasya that.

“
Sasha
is sleeping. His fear and anxiety over you and the relief that you
are okay has drained him. I’m not acting weird in the least. I’m
trying to help without actually coming right out and saying
anything.”

“Why?”

“
Duh.”
Nasya slowed her pace. “Ghita is already angry.
Imagine if I actually broke one of her silly rules. I’m not bound
by them so I have more freedom than the men do but I still know the
limits. She cannot bind me. In reality it’s me she fears, though I
can’t fathom why. It’s also why I’ve never let her see me. Or
haven’t you noticed that, either? I am never around when Ghita is
and there’s good reason for that.”

“
I don’t
understand.” Ari yanked on the ends of her hair. If she had the use
of her legs she would have been tapping her foot in nervousness.
“You’re confusing.”

“
You
will understand in time. Humor me. What do you feel?” Nasya stopped
the wheelchair and turned Ari to face the street.

People walked passed unbothered by their pause.
The cars moved
along like normal but the animals were acting strange. Ari saw a
cat stare and hiss and slink away. A dog crossed the street quickly
with its tail between its legs. The animals felt whatever it was
that made Ari uneasy. As she looked around, none of the people
seemed to notice.

“
There’s something wrong.”
Ari murmured as a
slight panic set in. “I feel uneasy but no one else notices it. The
animals do.”

“
Just
uneasy?” Nasya whispered in Ari’s ear. “Or is there something
else?”

Ari
closed her eyes and breathed in slowly. “Anxiety. I want to leave.
Can we leave, please? I feel like if we stay here too long I’m
going to vomit.”

Nasya
turned the wheelchair around so Ari could see the shop windows
behind them. The first thing Ari saw was a misshapen, decapitated
creature that looked like it had been half eaten. Even as Ari
cringed her eyes found the vials of unmarked liquids that looked
like blood and other bodily fluids. There were bones in various
states of decay. At the top of the window in fluid script it read
“Madame Erelah’s Voodoo Shop”.

“
In most
instances,” Nasya said quietly, “you will be able to tell the
difference between good and evil very easily.”

The shop
door swung open and Ari gagged at the horrendous stench that
flooded the air. A stench no one else reacted to. It was so strong
she very nearly threw up.

“
I
thought that was you out here.” The person that exited the shop
door turned to the girls.

Ugly would have been a kind word to use.
Her shop window was
not as gruesome as she was. The skirt might have - at one point in
time - been a bohemian skirt with layers, or a grass skirt that
grew moldy. Ari couldn’t see a shirt through the dreadlocks and the
necklaces adorning the woman and she didn’t want to examine for
origin.

“
I’m
sorry. You must have me mistaken for someone else.” Ari tugged on
Nasya’s arm. “Where is that shop again?”

“
No,
no.” The strange woman stepped closer.

Ari’s eyes partially rolled up into her head and she felt
like she was suffocating.
When Nasya laid a hand on Ari’s shoulder; it all
was wiped away. Not even the anxiety remained with Nasya’s hand on
her shoulder.

“
A Child
of Gaea is not hard to see. Especially if you know how to look.”
She cackled a broken sound. “I am Madame Erelah.”

Ari
tried to force a smile that she knew looked anything but sincere.
“It’s a pleasure.”

“
Of
course.” Madame Erelah held out a hand and manners dictated Ari
shake.

Gingerly, Ari placed her hand in Erelah’s outstretched one
and instantly regretted it.
The pain blossomed from everywhere and Ari
screamed in agony as she tried to yank her hand away. Erelah didn’t
let go. Ari was burning and breaking all at once. She slowly sank
under the pain, and then, it was gone.

Ari looked around crazily but no one noticed.
Except for the
animals that had disappeared everything moved about as if she
hadn’t just screamed her head off. Ari looked to Nasya.

Nasya’s free hand was on Erelah’s wrist.
It looked like she
was holding on lightly but Erelah’s face was contorted in pain.
“You do not force your opinions on Gaea’s children. Surely you know
better than that.”

“
It was
a warning. Of what is to come but as an apology I tell you freely,”
Erelah released Ari’s hand and pulled away from Nasya. “Your string
is bound to another and to untangle them someone’s must be cut.
Should you live fully then the other will die. As is, you are both
crippled. Be content with your lot. You should have died, make no
mistake of that and if you do not, someone dies for you.” She
turned away and meandered back into her store.

“
I want to go home.”
Ari’s voice quaked and between
the sickness that still hadn’t fully receded and the impact of
Erelah’s words; she needed to cry.

There was no way she was going to kill someone else so she
could walk again.
No way. No matter what the creepy voodoo lady
said.

A
ri didn’t speak
to Ghita
when she got home. She didn’t even know where to look for
her if she wanted to. The house was silent and even though the car
was in the driveway there was little inkling that Ghita was
home.

She
closed herself in her room, climbed onto the bed and curled
up.
The tears wouldn’t
come. There were too many thoughts swirling erratically through her
head.

Who were
the Daughters of Gaea; the Children of Gaea or whatever?
It was the second time someone
had referenced her as such and she still didn’t know what it meant.
Why did Lyris and Erelah reference them? Was that somehow important
to what was going on?

Nasya
had mentioned it briefly when she spoke about the Kirin. The Kirin
that Ari knew without a doubt she had seen on her front porch last
night. Nothing made sense anymore.

She
closed her eyes and saw Lyris’s enraged face.
Ari reached above her for the sachet from
Elias and her hand grasped empty air. She jerked her head up and
sure enough the sachet was gone. Ari scooted up the bed and looked
between the bed and the wall to see if the strings had somehow
snapped and it fell. But it was truly gone.

Ari sat
up and carefully scanned the room.
Ghita had never gone through her things before,
but as angry as she had been earlier Ari didn’t put it past her to
do it now. Especially after the fight they had about “pagan
trash”.

Her
notebooks were in her chair where she had left them.
Ari picked them up and tucked
them next to her on her bed. She could handle little things
disappearing. The notebooks were another matter
entirely.

Everything else looked in place at a quick glance.
As she scanned back over her
room a second time everything seemed soldierly aligned. The bottles
sat in tight straight lines on the dresser. The mirror over it was
no longer slightly crooked. The perfection was out of place. All
her things were accounted for but the slight disorder that was
natural to her was gone. On the dresser, a white envelope tied with
a blue ribbon was propped against a jewelry box Ari never used.
Deliberately propped up so she’d see it from anywhere in the
room.

It took
a moment of shifting and muscle straining to get back into the
wheelchair to cross the room to grab the envelope.
Another few moments to cross
back to her bed and resituated herself under the blankets. Ari
safely secured the notebooks under her butt as she sat half
reclined against the pillows. It was awkward at first; she shifted
several times to get the spines from poking soft flesh. Just
because she couldn’t move her lower extremities did not mean she
could not feel them.

The
ribbon looked old and shiny in the places where it bent.
It left her to believe this
wasn’t the first time it had been carefully untied. The corners of
the envelope were no longer crisp and up close it wasn’t as white
as she had originally thought. The ribbon had left a light faded
blue stain on the paper.

When she
opened it a dozen or so old photographs were revealed.
The first photograph pulled out
was of a man and a woman standing together holding a baby. The
woman had to be Lyris which would make the man in the picture her
father. Ari studied the image of her father.

She had
his hair. It was the first detail that jumped out at her. His was a
deeper mahogany and waved ever so slightly. He wore it long and in
the picture it was longer than hers and in a ponytail at the nape
of his neck.

His eyes
were vivid blue; much like Sasha’s.
While Sasha’s were faded winter sky blue, her
fathers were vibrant blue topaz. She had their shape
too.

He had a
handsome face, marred by a few day old beard.
The baby looked tiny in his well-toned
arms. He looked ridiculously happy. Ari flipped it over hoping for
a date or inscription. Anything to give a hint as to when this had
occurred.

The love of my life, and our precious child.
June
25
^th

The date
was four days after Ari’s birthday.
She couldn’t tell whose handwriting it was;
whether it was Lyris’s or Eryx there was no way of knowing. It made
her sad on some level that she couldn’t even distinguish the
handwriting of her parents. She wondered if Sasha felt that way
sometimes about his parents.

The next
few photos were the same.
She was being held by either Lyris or Eryx and they were
radiantly happy. Even in the photos where they just sat and leaned
into each other with a baby across their laps their joy was
obvious. They smiled or laughed in every picture.

There
were photos of Lyris pregnant. She looked so young and yet
fearless. Sometimes she was by herself and sometimes with Eryx.
Ari’s favorite was one of Lyris staring out a window with both
hands protectively around her belly. Her smile was soft, loving. As
if she already loved the unborn child more than anything else in
the world. Ari’s second favorite was Eryx on his knees kissing
Lyris’s belly as her hands rested on the back of his head. It made
Ari smile even as a tear trickled down her cheek.

Their
wedding photos were at the bottom of the stack.
Lyris couldn’t have been any older than
sixteen. The pastel green dress was simple and her hair was left
down with a crown of flowers holding the veil in place. Even so
young there was something about her that radiated strength and
confidence. Something that Ari wished she had. Maybe it was love,
real love that created that strength.

There
were people in the wedding photos she didn’t know yet could guess
at from the interaction in the pictures.
The woman kissing Lyris’s cheek and crying could
be her grandmother; the woman with an arm around the old woman in
another picture could be her sister, the great aunt mentioned by
Nasya. Ghita was in a few pictures in a sunny yellow dress and even
more interesting was Kleisthenes standing beside or very near Ghita
in some.