It was a hell of a time the previous day in the immediate aftermath of the attack. Áine had met up with her grandmother who was in near hysterics when she couldn’t find her. She almost felt guilty, considering Teta’s PTSD, but it really was a no-win situation Áine was put in. She was up the rest of the night reassuring Teta that the Riots weren’t going to start again and that everything is safe.
Áine, after coming back home from the meeting, peers into the back of the store. She sees her grandmother mumbling while grinding and mixing various herbs for the custom orders to be picked up the next day, and climbs up the stairs to her room. Taking the Brooch from out of her pocket, Áine activates the transformation before turning to look in her mirror.
The first thing Áine sees is that her hair turned to a fiery red with orange undertones, curled in ringlets at the end. It complements well with her eyes that have become a shade comparable to molten gold. Her ruby red dress is strapless with a pleated skirt and split up her left leg to show off the golden garter tied with a red ribbon.
The dress is cinched with a golden belt studded with red tetrahedrons and the Brooch acting as the buckle. Her arms are covered with sheer red sleeves held up with gold cuffs on her wrists and upper arms, decorated with a reptilian scale pattern, and she’s sporting gold knee-high gladiator sandals. Her choker is made of rose-gold with the same reptilian design with an ankh pendant and her earrings are red tetrahedrons.
Áine twists this way and that, twirling to let her skirt flare up and her hair trail behind her. Having helped Teta in the apothecary since she was young and spending her free time in the kitchen, she’s never really had the opportunity to wear such a lovely dress before. She giggles while striking a pose like a model on the runway she’d seen on TV.
“Teta! Are you home?!”
Áine shocks out of her admiration and hurriedly removes the Brooch to deactivate her transformation. She takes a deep breath to calm her racing heart. “Yeah! I’m here!”
“Come down and help me out!”
She quickly walks down the stairs to see her grandmother continuing her rushing around to simmer various concoctions. When she strains her ears, Áine can hear Teta muttering expletives about stupid people who don’t know how to read or how to tell their mouths from their—
“What do you need?”
“Just grind those.” Asim points to a pile of different herbs and the mortar. “And make sure that you don’t mix up the herbs for fertility and abortion.”
Áine nearly rolls her eyes. She’s been helping Teta out for nearly a decade by this point. She wouldn’t make such an amateurish mistake. She takes the pestle and spoons the herbs into the mortar before mixing them together.
As she pours the mixture onto a paper envelope, Áine asks, “Are you sure you don’t want an apprentice? We keep getting applications, and I’m going to be moving out after graduation.”
“Yes, when you run off to Paris to study more about baking like your mother did. Oh, how I wish I could pass this shop down to a family member. But it’s just us two. And I’d rather not have some kid who will only be here for a few hours a day and distracted the entire time.”
Áine sighs and passes over willow extract as Asim rubs her hands together. “I wish you would stop being so stubborn about this. Your health isn’t going to get any better. How will this attitude help when you go to Duat?”
“Being stubborn is exactly why you’re even alive today.” Áine sighs again and actually does roll her eyes as she takes back the bottle. “I’ll have you know that when the Egyptian Riots started, I had to run away from bombings and shoot insurrectionists when they came to take me hostage. And when I finally got to the hospital I was working at, I met your grandfather who’d just came in with a blown up foot and on the edge of death. If I hadn’t been stubborn with keeping him alive, I never would have had your mother and you wouldn’t have been born.”
’How many times have I heard it this year? Twenty? Yeah, she’s right, but I could probably recite this by heart by now.’
Áine, with a newly wiped mortar and pestle, starts mixing different herbs and letting Teta continue ranting and raving about different examples of how her stubbornness had saved her more times than one. And how Áine is also just as stubborn and bullheaded and how her own daughter was exactly the same.
‘Looks like stubbornness is a genetic trait,’ Áine thinks and vows to never tell Teta about being an Apostle. It’s more headache than it’s worth.
As she pulls the fully carded and washed wool through the flyer of her spinning wheel, Elen thinks how perfect the timing was to open the package from her mother. She pushes down on the treadle and the fibers twist into thread before wrapping around the bobbin.
Elen remembers back when she was a child. When she wasn’t at school, practicing her singing or gymnastics, or playing with Danny, she’d hide in the room with her mother’s spinning wheel and loom to watch her mother. Watch as her deft fingers turn the fluffy wool from her flock into thread and dye it in a rainbow of colors. It was almost like magic to see her mother weave the thread into rugs and tapestries to be sold at local stores or fairs.
“Every person is a weaver,” her mother says to Magdelene. “Throughout their lives, from the very beginning, they have all the materials they need to weave their tapestry. Though some parts may be frayed, the weft having skipped some of the warps, and the images may not be complete, whatever they have at the end, they will have a beautiful tapestry to reflect the life they lived.”
Magdelene absently twists some leftover raw wool between her fingers. At only eight-years-old, she’s not entirely sure she understands but imagines what kind of tapestry she’d have already. It would definitely include the carousel, the farm animals, and the forest around the town. Magdelene doesn’t want her brother or sister in it, but the dogs and her goat, yes.
‘I wonder what kind of tapestry Mama has.’
Elen stops the drive wheel and leans back in her seat. Mindless work always makes her feel calmer and helps her to decompress.
‘I should take my meds this time to get a full night’s sleep.’ She puts away the distaff before taking off the now full bobbin to put it in the basket next to her loom. ‘I haven’t taken it in a while. Are they even still good? I’ll check and get more just in case.’
She breathes in. Breathes out. She should apologize to Mystia the next time she sees her. Mystia may have started it, but Elen shouldn’t have escalated the argument. And Fredrick definitely didn’t deserve to get his head bitten off when he was just trying to play peacekeeper.
After standing up and stretching, Elen goes to her kitchen and looks into the refrigerator to find the sheep milk and feta her family also sent over now thawed. ’I can make some macaroni and cheese with these. I should go get some other kinds of cheese and ham. This’ll be good for lunch on Monday too.’
With that, Elen shoulders her purse and walks out of her apartment once again.
‘Saturday shopping is always pandemonium,’ Elen thinks as she trudges down the street, feeling as if her soul is leaving her body. ‘At least I was able to get the ingredients.’
She turns the corner and spies an ice cream store, considering for a few seconds whether she should get a cone for the walk home. The line isn’t terribly long and the heat is still terrible—
Her hands fly to her head. It feels as if it’s being split open from the inside and Elen holds her skull tightly in an attempt to alleviate the sudden pain. Her stomach churns, making her feel like she’s about to vomit and her vision turns black.
Elen’s not sure if her eyes are open or not. She sees a shadowy outline of a man standing in front of her. The man approaches her, brings her into his arms, and begins stroking her hair as if it’s long again.
“Miss! Are you okay?”
Her vision turns black again before light hits her closed eyelids. When she pries her eyes open, Elen shuts them again to shield them from the sun right over her head. People hovering over her be damned.
“Are you feeling nauseous?” one person asks as he presses his fingers to her wrist. “Does your head hurt?”
“Yes,” she croaks, “and yes.”
The man at her head lifts Elen to her feet and leads her to one of the shaded tables in front of the ice cream stall. “I’m a doctor,” says the man. “Keep your head down between your knees. I’ll check to make sure you didn’t hurt yourself.” Elen complies and leans forward as the man takes off her headband and feels under her hair. “Do you know where you are?”
“On Gerbera Road, Terra. It’s May 29th.”
“Good. Do you drink or do recreational drugs?”
“Not really. I sometimes drink with dinner, but I haven’t in a while.”
“Do you have any medical conditions that can cause you to pass out? Or have you had a head injury?”
Elen pauses. Yes, she has been injured, but her magick has been healing her. As for passing out… “I haven’t passed out in the past couple years. I’ve been taking my medication for that.”
“Okay.” The doctor gives Elen a bottle of water which she gratefully takes and drinks from. He takes out his phone to turn on the flashlight, keeping a finger on her chin and shining it into Elen’s eyes. Whatever he finds, it must be a good thing and he gives her a smile. “I can’t make a definitive diagnosis, but I recommend that you go to the hospital to get yourself checked out. Do you need someone to come get you?”
“No,” Elen shakes her head. “My house is close by, so I can get there on my own.”
The doctor gives Elen a concerned look, but hands her a card. “If you still feel unwell, call the hospital and make an appointment. I’ll see you.”
Elen takes the card with a thanks and the doctor leaves. When the world stops spinning, she looks around and, yes, her purse and bag of groceries are hanging on the seat she’s in. Good. She won’t have to go back and get new ones, but she should really get home soon so that the cheese doesn’t get spoiled. Elen’s heart starts thrumming in her chest at such a speed that she feels like it might explode. She breathes in. Breathes out. Her heart rate slows somewhat after maybe two minutes.
What she saw though… Elen leans her head in her hand, closes her eyes and sees it again. The shadowy figure she can’t quite make out. The feeling of her long hair and a long dress. The way the figure holds her in his arms. It’s so familiar. Tender. Intimate. Elen nearly feels like crying. The last time she’d been given such affection was years ago.
Her chest is still hurting though. Much more than it should with a racing heart. Elen places a hand over it to feel an intense burning sensation.
‘I know that I get sunburned easily, but unless I’m a vampire I couldn’t have gotten burned after just a couple minutes in direct sunlight.’
She opens her eyes and sees that it’s not a sunburn, but her Mark glowing and Elen frantically looks around to find whoever might be the cause of this reaction. It can’t be any of the little kids jumping for chocolate sauce, or the old couple at the next table. Elen looks back and forth until, at last, she spies a small figure with the hood of their short sleeve hoodie up and rummaging through their bag. Her Mark grows hotter and she stands in an attempt to follow the person but nearly collapses again from the woozy feeling.
‘Shit! This just had to happen now!’
Elen falls back in the seat and looks up to see a double of the figure running off. She swigs her water again while just registering that something falls from the figure’s bag as they turn a corner. Once she finally feels well enough that she has her land legs again, Elen stands to walk over to where the figure was and pick up the paper they’d dropped.
Elen’s Mark grows hotter and brighter seeing the drawing. It’s of the flag of Mexico, riddled with bullet holes and flanked with bloodied swords and guns that are engraved with the Common Fatherland Party emblem.
Even with her very limited knowledge of drawings and paintings, it’s a haunting art piece. One filled with the pain and desperation of the artist. Whoever they are, they must have been directly affected by the Common Fatherland Party’s actions. Elen leans against the side of the building. That Party in Africa is the reason why Danny is fighting in the war. And its actions within Mexico’s borders is one of the most heinous examples of human rights deprivations seen in the past two hundred years.
‘Humans are already doing their level best to kill themselves without this shit. Don’t tell me we’re in the Biblical End Times?’ Elen lets out a rueful smile and chuckle. ‘If those New Church of the Enlightened zealots ever heard of this, they’d probably try to preach about it and bring me back into their fold.’
She looks back to the picture. The signature on the back of the sheet says “Māra Jennifer Dzib” and “Third-year Liberty Middle School”.
‘Ah, crap.’
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