Chapter Six
Monica
I opened my eyes and groaned. Every muscle, every nerve – everything in my body was aching so badly that I felt like I’d fallen down a ravine. It was dark, and my eyes weren’t adjusting.
It took me a minute to realize I was in the woods behind my house. Frowning, I rubbed my eyes and sat up. ‘What the hell?’ I wondered, looking around. ‘Did I fall asleep out here? Where’s Elizabeth?’
There was something sticking into my thigh. With a grunt, I rolled over on the grass and wrapped my fingers around the blade of the knife. It was the same knife I’d found with Elizabeth earlier. And I’d recognized it almost instantly.
It was an athame.
A witch’s knife.
I’d seen pictures of athames and other ritualistic items in the books of witchcraft that I’d been collecting over the years. This one was no different; if anything, it looked like an antique. The handle was etched with runes, and the blade was notched thrice, as if to signify how the athame had been used.
When I touched the handle, I yelped and jerked my hand back. The hard surface was burning hot, and my fingers showed black scorch marks. Something deep inside was compelling me to take the knife. I knew that, for some reason, I couldn’t leave it behind.
Gritting my teeth, I pulled my light jacket off and wrapped the fabric around the handle of the athame. This time, it didn’t burn when I touched it. I got to my feet nervously and looked around. I was further in the woods than I’d ever been; they were oddly dense and thick, not like I’d remembered. When Elizabeth and I were kids, we used to play back here, pretending to be soldiers or elves. The woods had seemed so dark and scary then.
Not like now. Now they seemed familiar and cozy, despite the velvet blackness overhead. I shivered as I started to walk. My limbs ached so badly that it was an effort to place one foot in front of the other. And when I looked up, I couldn’t see the sky through the branches and leaves.
I wished I could stop being so cold. My stomach felt like an empty tube of toothpaste – wrinkled and empty. I had heartburn blazing up and down my esophagus like a trail of fire, and my head was thumping. My sinuses were filled with liquid concrete, and my hands were cold, shaky, and clammy.
I had to admit that I was filled with fear and anxiety as I pushed through the trees, looking for the familiar clearing that signaled I was close to home. To my dismay, the trees grew thicker and denser with each step I took.
I gasped and stopped dead in my tracks when I heard a rustling and crackling behind me. Spinning around, I clutched the athame to my chest. ‘Right,’ I thought sarcastically. ‘Like I could defend myself with this stupid knife. I can’t even hold the damn thing without burning myself.’ In my haste, the jacket slipped from my grasp, and my fingers curled around the bare handle of the knife.
This time, it didn’t burn. If anything, it felt cold and smooth. I gasped again and held the knife closer to my face. The blade was glowing in the dark of the woods, and I swallowed.
The rustling and crackling sounds grew louder. I turned on my heel and broke into a run, sprinting blindly into the forest. Fear pumped through my veins like liquid fire, and my heart beat frantically in my chest as I pushed my way through trees and branches and fallen limbs. Leaves and twigs whipped at my face as I ran faster and faster. After only a few moments, my legs were aching and my chest was heaving painfully, but I knew I couldn’t stop; whatever was chasing me would kill me.
No matter how fast I ran, the sounds behind me kept growing louder and louder. My palms began to sweat, but the athame was still clutched firmly in my right hand, almost as if glued to my skin. I tried to summon confidence, but nothing could stop the powerful waves of fear that kept washing over me. Stumbling over a tree limb, I skidded to a stop and darted to the side, sprinting in another direction.
The woods kept going forever. As I ran, my hope of finding home began to slowly fade. There was something different, something sinister about these woods. The air was thick and palpable with magic and haunting, and I shuddered as I kept running into the void of black.
The crackling and snapping sounds grew louder until the sound of my own breathing was drowned out. I sucked in gusts of air and forced my legs to keep pumping past the point of exhaustion until I thought I’d have a heart attack and die right there.
When a hand clamped down on my shoulder, I screamed. I stopped in my tracks, whirled around, and gasped at the man standing behind me. He was old. He was also tall – over six feet – with long, white hair, wizened skin, and the brightest blue eyes I’d ever seen. They glowed in the dark, just like the blade of the athame I clutched tightly in my fist.
“Leave me alone!” I screamed. “I’ll kill you!” I brandished the knife in front of me, waving the ancient blade in the air.
The man threw his head back and laughed. “You’ll do no such thing,” he growled in a low baritone. “You think of hurting a man with his own knife!”
I gasped in shock and tried to throw the athame behind me in the woods, but no matter how I tried, I couldn’t uncurl my fingers from the handle. My fist was locked, and I cried out in pain as I tried to pry my fingers off the smooth, cool surface.
“Enough,” the man growled. He grabbed my arm and yanked me closer. I tried to resist, but he was so strong; I knew I wouldn’t be able to fend him off. I tried waving my arm and moving the knife through the air, but suddenly my body was completely still.
“Good,” the man said. He closed his eyes and whispered a brief incantation under his breath. There was a large tree behind him, and the trunk began to glow with golden light. As I watched, a golden portal appeared on the bark of the tree. The man whispered something, tossed his head, then grabbed me and pulled me into the trunk of the massive oak.
The next thing I knew, I was falling. The weight was gone from my limbs, and I felt myself floating down, down, down through endless time and space. The man was gone – everything was gone. I was in a black void, drifting endlessly. There was no ground, no ceiling, no walls – nothing.
It was like being in space.
As I floated through the dark air, the panic began to seep from my veins. I could feel it being replaced with something warm and fuzzy, and it reminded me of being on hydrocodone after having my wisdom teeth taken out. I closed my eyes and sighed. The aching in my chest was starting to fade, and the burning in my legs from running so fast had already subsided.
‘This isn’t bad,’ I thought dreamily. ‘Maybe this is just a nightmare. Maybe I’m about to wake up.’ A huge yawn tore its way through my body, and I curled up, wrapping my arms around my knees and holding them to my chest. ‘Yeah, I must be asleep…that’s okay, I can sleep more,’ I decided. ‘Nothing is going to hurt me. I imagined everything. Elizabeth always says I’m too paranoid…yeah…that’s it…’
I fell asleep, soothed by the rocking motion of the infinite black space.
--
A drumming, rhythmic sound was piping around my brain like a giant subwoofer. My head ached. When I tried to rub my temples, I realized I couldn’t move my hands.
My eyes shot open. I gave a start in surprise. I was sitting on the floor in the middle of a giant circle of people. Men and women dressed in black robes were swaying around me with their arms held high in the air. They were ignoring me, chanting in unison. The sound of chanting and murmured song thrummed through the air, a giant engine of human vocal energy.
When I tried to move my lips to speak, I found that every motion, every movement was a struggle. Tears filled my eyes as the chanting grew louder and louder. A spicy, herbal smell filled my nose, and I looked around as columns of grey and blue smoke filled the room.
Suddenly, the chanting stopped. The old man who’d grabbed me stepped into the middle of the circle, holding his arms up high. The other men and women bowed their heads and closed their eyes. Somehow, the silence was even eerier than the chanting had been. The man trained his eyes on me and stepped closer. I tried to wriggle away as the other men and women parted in waves, murmuring in low, sinister tones.
The old man knelt down and picked me up with surprising ease. He hauled me into a standing position, then dipped his head in a slight bow. Chills ran down my spine as I realized I was now the focal point of everyone in the room. ‘What am I doing here? What do these people want with me?’ The thought kept racing through my mind, and I was powerless to stop it.
Some feeling was returning to my fingers and toes, and I could feel that I was coming off something powerful; it was like waking up from strong anesthesia. Still, I couldn’t do more than wriggle in the man’s grip. He held a bundle of fabric high in the air before whispering an unintelligible word and pushing the fabric over my head.
“I command you to be still,” the old man growled. Instantly, I froze. He yanked the fabric over my head, moving my limbs with a practiced ease that made me realize he’d performed this ritual before. The old man yanked the fabric out to its full length. I realized it was a bright red robe, made of some kind of rough, homespun material.
The men and women cried out in unison, a loud, guttural groan. The old man stepped back, bowed again, and then turned his attention to the crowd. When he spoke, it was an ancient-sounding and whispery language I’d never heard before. Whatever he was saying excited the men and women, and I saw their eyes blaze with fervent excitement. They rushed toward me. One of the men grabbed me by both arms and held me firmly in place, turning me around to face the crowd.
A hush came over the room once again. An old woman with long, white hair and skin as brown and wrinkled as a walnut stepped into the room. She was walking so smoothly that she almost seemed to be gliding over the floors. Unlike the other men and women, she was clad in all white, giving her the appearance of glowing in the dark. She held her hands in front of her, and her eyelids were half-closed.
The woman nodded at the old man. She moved toward me, moaning softly under her breath. Soon, she was so close that she could have kissed me. I was powerless to move as the woman raised her arm in the air and made a broad, sweeping gesture over my face. She closed her eyes and rolled her head around dramatically.
The man holding me made no sign of releasing me. The woman with the long, white hair lifted a brush to my face and started making small motions over my skin. It tickled, and I had the sudden urge to laugh. The room was silent and tense as the woman painted symbols on my skin.
“Henrik,” the woman hissed, “she is here. We can begin.”
The old man nodded. He seemed both excited and pleased. He made a sweeping gesture, and the crowd of men and women erupted into ecstatic applause.
‘What’s going to happen to me?’ I wondered in a dazed panic. ‘What are they going to do?’
The woman stared deeply into my eyes. “You will sleep now,” she said. “Sleep, vessel. Sleep.”
My mind, my thoughts – everything swirling around in my brain – began to slowly slip away, and I felt myself passing out.