Fairge Anma - pilot episode - conclusion
Fairge Anma
Part Four of four
For the LondonBard
Disclaimers:
Douglas Monaghan, Craig Stevenson and Justine McManus are all characters in the show Sea of Souls. Hogwarts and the denizens of the wizarding world are part of the HarryPotter-verse - however, Harry will be only a minor character in this - MY interest is in the failed hero, Severus Snape.
Sara Farris is original. She's annoying and she wouldn't shut up in my head because she wanted this to be DONE. Hopefully, once I write this, it will be.
This is not the end of the story, it's just the end of that particular investigation, well, that is, it's the resolution to the problem that they are investigating. Since Sea of Souls is a tv show, I seem to be writing it in 'episodes'. So this would be the end of episode one.
Beannachd leibh, ---Caitrin a Masaitiusadh
Fairge Anma
Craig and Dr. Monaghan both returned while Justine and I were at breakfast. Craig was inclined to somewhat sarcastic - a poor effort, in my opinion, but the doctor was quiet... thoughtful. They joined us at the table.
"So, did anything happen at the hospital last night?" Justine finally asked him after winning a round of insult one-up with Craig.
"Not ... conclusively. There was a temperature drop in the boy's room and his mother swears that the woman returned." For a moment, he looked at me, rather too speculatively for my tastes. I pretended not to notice. Their food arrived then, breaking into the moment, and he tucked in.
"So!" Craig interjected into the silence, "Sara, you take the clearing tonight and Justine the hospital and ..."
"No!" Dr. Monaghan interrupted in a voice that brooked no argument. "Sara is here only as a technician. She isn't trained in parapsychology and she isn't ..." He didn't say it, but I could fill in the blank. I wasn't one of them.
"But she's an anthropologist, majoring in folklore. That's close enough," Craig argued. "I had thought including her, that would make four of us to share the duties."
"Then you thought wrong," Monaghan replied flatly. "I won't have you taking advantage of her. Or the situation," he added, somewhat ambiguously. I didn't know what he meant, so I disregarded the comment.
"I don't mind," I said, earning myself one of his incredibly sweet smiles.
"I know you don't, Sara, but there are standards."
"But all I'd have to do is watch the monitors, right. I can do that well as Craig."
"Well now there ..." Craig demurred, likely stung by the thought that I was denigrating his discipline. I wasn't ... not intentionally, that is, but he was almost as prickly about his standing as ... well, another. That stray thought made me look at him, really look at him. I had never noticed it before, but he did remind me of ...
A long time ago in a distant country, and besides, the wench is dead, I told myself firmly.
"What was that Sara?" Justine asked, worse luck. I must have muttered louder than I thought.
"Nothing." I pushed my chair away from the table, and stood up, tossing my napkin down beside the plate. "Well, today, I'm going to find out what I can about that particular spot in the forest. From the accounts we have, it had a bad reputation before this recent flare-up, I want to find out the origin of it." I looked at Dr. Monaghan, perhaps rather too pointedly. "If that suits you, sir?"
"I think that's a fine idea Sara. You might want to talk to the traveling community too, while you're at it. That clearing where we set up the tent used to be a well-visited site, but from the look of it, it's been neglected of late. Longer than a month." I nodded agreement. I had wanted to talk to them anyway. Well, want was perhaps too strong a word. I felt obliged to talk to them.
Justine pushed herself away as well, looking somewhat reluctant. "I'll go along with you, Sara," she offered, not giving me any choice in accepting.
"I think you'd be better used at the hospital," Dr. Monaghan replied, earning my gratitude. I was coming to appreciate Justine better, but I didn't want her tagging along behind me. I wasn't sure what I would find, or how I would find it. I still had some hopes of maybe finding a local witch or wizard.
By the end of the day, though, I knew that if there had ever been a classically, i.e. non-muggle, witch in the area, they'd cleared out long before. On the plus side, I did have some back-ground on that piece of property. It had always been forest, never planted, never built on, but bandits had used it as a hide-out from way back. Some local lordship had cleared it out - in a typically bloody fashion, taking inspiration from the exploits of the Impaler as a method of execution.
As for the travelers ... I didn't actually ... When I got down to it, I couldn't. I ... I knew what I had to do. In the darkness of the soul, I knew, but I thought that it wouldn't matter much in the long run if I put it off another day. Instead, I met with Craig, who was in a somewhat better mood for sleeping most of the day, and we took the van out to the clearing. Everything was as he'd left it, so we spent some time checking things over, making sure the generator was primed and ready and re-positioning the video and sensor feeds. A couple of times, I felt sure that we were being watched ourselves, and once, I thought I heard someone calling to me.
I left Craig there with the sun getting low in the sky and took the van back to the inn. Dr. Monaghan was waiting for me, well, for the van, actually, but it comes to the same thing. I drove him to the hospital, giving him a synopsis of the history of the blighted spot in the forest and I stayed there while he went in to relieve Justine. Then it was back to the inn again.
I want to go on record as saying that I fully and absolutely intended to see them the very next day. I want to make that perfectly clear. As I've said before, I knew what I had to do. I just didn't want to do it immediately.
I didn't get a choice in the matter.
They were waiting for us in the public room of the inn. Waiting for me, but Justine wasn't about to go off anywhere when she saw them. The woman, the boy's mother, stood when we entered the building, and with great dignity, she walked towards us.
"You. It was you the mulani last night and the night before. I saw you. I saw what you did, what you attempted."
Swallowing hard, I shook my head, flicking my eyes once toward Justine. The woman's accent was heavy, difficult to understand. I took a chance, and responded to her charge in Rom.
"It isn't what you think. I didn't mean to hurt him. He ... He is all right, isn't he?" I glanced uneasily over at Justine. Surely she or the prof... or Dr. Monaghan would have said something if the boy had taken a turn for the worse.
She slapped me! No, not Justine, the woman. She just out of the blue slapped me. Before I could react, the other woman in the group was there, taking the mother's arms and turning her away, her eyes fixed on mine.
"No, he is not 'all right'. He is cursed. This you know. You are drabami." Well, actually, she said a lot more than that. That was what I understood. I drew in breath to answer, then stopped as I remembered the meaning of the word she used. Drabami. Healer. Not drabardi, which just meant witch.
Justine took my arm and pulled on it to get my attention. "Sara, what are you saying to them? Do you think you should be making them angry?"
"I ... She doesn't believe that it wasn't me," I answered, saying the first thing off the top of my head without really thinking about it. She said something in reply, but I wasn't paying any attention. I was using the distraction she'd provided me to actually look at each of the lot of them.
There were five of them, all told. The boy's parents and three others, close relatives from the familiar resemblance. All of the men had over-long straight, dead-black hair with a slightly greasy shine to it and noses that an eagle would be proud to possess. I knew there wasn't the slightest chance that I would refuse to help.
I saw something else. Hope. Hope and cold determination.
They knew. They knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I could in fact cure the boy, and they had no intention of leaving without either me or the assurance that I would do all that I could to help. I ended at the woman speaking to me, and I knew she was the source of the certainty. The tribal drabaripe for certain sure, she had cast the future and found me healing the boy. That was how the father had happened to find us our first night here. And if she was the real thing, that could explain just why I was dream-walking that night in the first place.
"That daemon within would rather see him dead than free," the drabaripe said. Perhaps it was offered as an apology. I don't have much experience with them, the one I most needed to offer on my own behalf would never be accepted. I nodded agreement.
"Sara?"
"She doesn't know what you are?" the woman said over Justine's incipient protest. I shrugged, neither denying nor confirming.
"What do you expect?" I asked instead, switching to English. The mother broke free from her man, falling at my feet, holding on to my ankles.
"You can save my son." I winced, reaching down to pull her back up. Justine was watching, I knew she was taking mental notes on everything.
"As you say, the ... spirit possessing him will not let him go willingly. It tried to kill him once, it may try to kill him again." Justine's eyes widened at this, pretty much tantamount to a confession in her eyes that I thought I could do something about it.
Her husband, well, the man who had awakened us all far too early that morning, answered as he put his arms around her and pulled her closer to him, further from me. "It would be better for him to be dead than to remain like this, damned in a half-life between."
Justine had had enough. She physically pulled me away from them and off to one side.
"What are you saying?" she hissed. "You can't cure that boy."
"They think I can," I answered unhappily.
"Why?"
"The other woman, not the boy's mother, she's ... well, she's the tribal priestess... a fortune-teller." Justine snorted and I hurried on before she could say anything. "She's forecast that we can drive the demon out, exorcise him. I think ... I think all we have to do is be there, sort of for luck because ... because they think that we can do it."
"Why you?"
A valid question. And me without a valid answer. I looked over at them. Damned if I do. What the hell, I was damned no matter what I did, unforgiven. I had been a fool to think ...
"Because we're experts," I said, finding inspiration from somewhere. "They heard that we study this sort of thing."
"But why YOU?" she repeated.
"I don't KNOW!" I answered, finally meeting her eyes and letting her see the anger flare. That was one thing he'd taught me and taught me well, anger could hide a multitude of sins. And fears. "But you've seen that child. If he was yours, wouldn't you grasp at any straw to save him?"
"Douglas isn't going to like this." No, he wouldn't. As I mentioned before, he didn't like any kind of inexplicable phenomenon, especially if he wasn't included in on it. "Why didn't they talk to him about it?"
I looked over at them.
"They're Rom, Justine. Traditional gypsies," I said softly. "To them, women do magic, not men. Maybe if you'd been alone when you met with the parents, or if they could have gotten to you alone, they would have tried to ... to convince you. After all, it's got to be you they want. You're the one with the training, after all. You're the one with the connection to that place."
"And the boy's illness happened while they were camped in that clearing. You may be right, but ... an exorcism? I don't think ..."
"Look at them. Do you think we've really got a choice in this?"
Finally she nodded. If I had dared to hold my breath while she hesitated, I would have asphixated right then and there.
"You're right," she agreed. "And I'd do the same for Billy, if it were me. Okay, I'll do whatever it is that they're wanting. Douglas probably won't mind so long as he gets to record it."
We walked over to the group. Catching the eye of the mother, I nodded. Her face broke into a wide smile of relief and the group of them surrounded us and took us out again.
They drove us, ... not to the antiseptic and modern sanitorium where we'd left Dr. Monaghan, but to a private home. I gave Justine a puzzled look which she returned with a shake of her head and a shrug, looking just as bewildered as I felt. Inside, though, I was feel a great weight off my shoulders. Bad enough that this was happening in front of Justine, but to do magic on tape with Dr. Monaghan looking on, that would have brought the Ministry of Magic crashing down on my head and no question about it. I wasn't much worried about Justine. She had secrets of her own and reasons to hide them. Especially from Dr. Monaghan.
We were led in to a mostly empty room with a bare floor and directed to stand out of the way in a corner. The other woman who had been at the inn knelt down and began to draw on the floor in coloured chalk. While she was working, others brought the child in and arranged a soft pallet in the middle of the cleared area. As she prepared the circles of healing and protection, the priestess chanted, quietly, to herself, almost inaudible. I caught enough to know that it wasn't any language I knew.
Before she closed the circle, she gestured to ... well, to me, I suppose, but Justine stepped forward eagerly enough and the woman positioned her in one place in the circle and closed her off, then placed me in another, gesturing for me to kneel down. When I did, I noticed a flaw in the design. In terms of power, the boy and I were in the central circle together. I settled myself as comfortably as possible and waited, looking around with an expression of wide-eyed, excited interest; because I knew it would have been out of character for me, as a grad student, to NOT do so.
The priestess frowned at me. She turned and gave Justine a similar look. And then she spoke, in Rom.
"Have you no respect? Close your eyes before the gods."
"Well, so much for an eye-witness account," I said, trying for a tone of disappointment.
"What? What's wrong? Are you being kicked out?"
"No. We have to close our eyes. As a sign of respect."
"Oh. Well, that's not so unexpected," Justine replied. "Many cultures ..."
"Quiet!"
"She said ..."
"I got it," Justine said with quiet dignity. I closed my eyes, thankful to the woman and let my breathing deepen. The chanting got louder, there was a scent of fire and an acrid smoke tickled my nose, filled my mouth. I slid past the scent, past the sound, deeper into myself until, finally, without opening my eyes, I looked around and stood up, leaving my body behind.
I stumbled a little, aside from accidents like last night, it had been six years since I did this as a regular thing. If he had known how often I walked beside him...
The boy was there. His form was ... a continuum. The infant he had been, the child he was, the man he would become, the elder he would be. The priestess was circling him in her ceremony, distracting me briefly by the beauty of her being, but the boy was important. When I looked down at him again, I knew that the woman's ritual was working. Once again, as I had seen the night before in my dream, I saw again the overlay of another form, another being, another continuum of existance, a draw on the spirit, the magic of the child.
It was a face like a death mask, skin pulled tight over bone. A face like the one in my sketch book, like the one in my dream-walk. It wasn't firmly fixed in place, so there was hope.
The other's eyes opened. He looked at me. He saw ... I don't know but those fleshless lip pulled tight in a death rictus smile.
:It's about time!:
I'd heard that particular mental voice before, hard and sharp as metal and as cold as winter, during the dream-walk. It chilled my soul.
:Not one of mine but the servant of a servant. How wise of him. How ruthless. Come closer thrall.:
I didn't answer him. I couldn't. I walked over toward him, like a bird mesmerized by a serpent's gaze. I wasn't sure I could pull free, but I knew for the sake of what I had to do that I couldn't.
Slowly, I knelt down beside him.
:Homage isn't necessary at this moment. Just listen and obey.:
I had no intention of doing either. Once more, the third time, I held out the hand of my spirit and held it to the child's forehead, the seat of his being. I felt the calling hooked deep within him, like the roots of a dandelion. Too deep. I felt a sudden doubt that I could pull in free without undue damage.
Then I felt it. It was coming loose of it's own. The thing holding the boy was letting him go. I should have been happier, perhaps, except I knew full well why. The predator was going for a more toothsome prey. Me.
The ectoplasmic bonds surged upward, the death-mask slipped free. I was ready. I wasn't sure if I'd ever be ready but ... I misjudged the moment and it fell back again.
:Fool. Thrice damned fool. If you do that again, I will ensure that you suffer untold agonies. Now do what it is you were sent to do!:
The mental voice sounded out of breath. At that, I felt a sudden flare of disbelief, of hope. There might be a chance...
Once again, the ghastly overlay rose up, seeking to free itself from the clay of the boy. With the hands of my spirit, I reached and pulled and ...
I don't remember what happened next. I won't remember it. It tried to latch onto me, onto my spirit form, onto my body. I could feel the link back to that blighted spot in the forest. Perhaps, perhaps I had made myself too much into a muggle for it to settle. Or perhaps it's long confinement had weakened it enough for me to inflict my will upon it.
It fought. I saw things, horrible things. I saw ... Okay, I remember most of what I saw, but that doesn't mean I want to so I won't. But I saw enough to know that just sending it back to the place it had been haunting, was still haunting, wasn't enough.
This wasn't a follower seeking to make himself master. This was the real deal. The unnamed abomination that had made such a nuisance of himself years ago. Which meant that cleaning it out was a job for an expert, not a rusty, out of training once-upon-a-time witch.
And that meant I'd have to break part of that promise I'd made to myself to get word to someone in authority, someone who would know the expert who could manage it. Someone ...
Oh, who am I kidding? By the time that thing was back in its forest prison, I knew what I was going to do. I was going to write to Albus Dumbledore myself and warn him. Somehow, I wasn't sure that he'd believe me, but I had to make the effort. Come what may.
End of Fairge Anma
The Introduction of Sara Farris
Part Four of four
For the LondonBard
Disclaimers:
Douglas Monaghan, Craig Stevenson and Justine McManus are all characters in the show Sea of Souls. Hogwarts and the denizens of the wizarding world are part of the HarryPotter-verse - however, Harry will be only a minor character in this - MY interest is in the failed hero, Severus Snape.
Sara Farris is original. She's annoying and she wouldn't shut up in my head because she wanted this to be DONE. Hopefully, once I write this, it will be.
This is not the end of the story, it's just the end of that particular investigation, well, that is, it's the resolution to the problem that they are investigating. Since Sea of Souls is a tv show, I seem to be writing it in 'episodes'. So this would be the end of episode one.
Beannachd leibh, ---Caitrin a Masaitiusadh
Fairge Anma
Craig and Dr. Monaghan both returned while Justine and I were at breakfast. Craig was inclined to somewhat sarcastic - a poor effort, in my opinion, but the doctor was quiet... thoughtful. They joined us at the table.
"So, did anything happen at the hospital last night?" Justine finally asked him after winning a round of insult one-up with Craig.
"Not ... conclusively. There was a temperature drop in the boy's room and his mother swears that the woman returned." For a moment, he looked at me, rather too speculatively for my tastes. I pretended not to notice. Their food arrived then, breaking into the moment, and he tucked in.
"So!" Craig interjected into the silence, "Sara, you take the clearing tonight and Justine the hospital and ..."
"No!" Dr. Monaghan interrupted in a voice that brooked no argument. "Sara is here only as a technician. She isn't trained in parapsychology and she isn't ..." He didn't say it, but I could fill in the blank. I wasn't one of them.
"But she's an anthropologist, majoring in folklore. That's close enough," Craig argued. "I had thought including her, that would make four of us to share the duties."
"Then you thought wrong," Monaghan replied flatly. "I won't have you taking advantage of her. Or the situation," he added, somewhat ambiguously. I didn't know what he meant, so I disregarded the comment.
"I don't mind," I said, earning myself one of his incredibly sweet smiles.
"I know you don't, Sara, but there are standards."
"But all I'd have to do is watch the monitors, right. I can do that well as Craig."
"Well now there ..." Craig demurred, likely stung by the thought that I was denigrating his discipline. I wasn't ... not intentionally, that is, but he was almost as prickly about his standing as ... well, another. That stray thought made me look at him, really look at him. I had never noticed it before, but he did remind me of ...
A long time ago in a distant country, and besides, the wench is dead, I told myself firmly.
"What was that Sara?" Justine asked, worse luck. I must have muttered louder than I thought.
"Nothing." I pushed my chair away from the table, and stood up, tossing my napkin down beside the plate. "Well, today, I'm going to find out what I can about that particular spot in the forest. From the accounts we have, it had a bad reputation before this recent flare-up, I want to find out the origin of it." I looked at Dr. Monaghan, perhaps rather too pointedly. "If that suits you, sir?"
"I think that's a fine idea Sara. You might want to talk to the traveling community too, while you're at it. That clearing where we set up the tent used to be a well-visited site, but from the look of it, it's been neglected of late. Longer than a month." I nodded agreement. I had wanted to talk to them anyway. Well, want was perhaps too strong a word. I felt obliged to talk to them.
Justine pushed herself away as well, looking somewhat reluctant. "I'll go along with you, Sara," she offered, not giving me any choice in accepting.
"I think you'd be better used at the hospital," Dr. Monaghan replied, earning my gratitude. I was coming to appreciate Justine better, but I didn't want her tagging along behind me. I wasn't sure what I would find, or how I would find it. I still had some hopes of maybe finding a local witch or wizard.
By the end of the day, though, I knew that if there had ever been a classically, i.e. non-muggle, witch in the area, they'd cleared out long before. On the plus side, I did have some back-ground on that piece of property. It had always been forest, never planted, never built on, but bandits had used it as a hide-out from way back. Some local lordship had cleared it out - in a typically bloody fashion, taking inspiration from the exploits of the Impaler as a method of execution.
As for the travelers ... I didn't actually ... When I got down to it, I couldn't. I ... I knew what I had to do. In the darkness of the soul, I knew, but I thought that it wouldn't matter much in the long run if I put it off another day. Instead, I met with Craig, who was in a somewhat better mood for sleeping most of the day, and we took the van out to the clearing. Everything was as he'd left it, so we spent some time checking things over, making sure the generator was primed and ready and re-positioning the video and sensor feeds. A couple of times, I felt sure that we were being watched ourselves, and once, I thought I heard someone calling to me.
I left Craig there with the sun getting low in the sky and took the van back to the inn. Dr. Monaghan was waiting for me, well, for the van, actually, but it comes to the same thing. I drove him to the hospital, giving him a synopsis of the history of the blighted spot in the forest and I stayed there while he went in to relieve Justine. Then it was back to the inn again.
I want to go on record as saying that I fully and absolutely intended to see them the very next day. I want to make that perfectly clear. As I've said before, I knew what I had to do. I just didn't want to do it immediately.
I didn't get a choice in the matter.
They were waiting for us in the public room of the inn. Waiting for me, but Justine wasn't about to go off anywhere when she saw them. The woman, the boy's mother, stood when we entered the building, and with great dignity, she walked towards us.
"You. It was you the mulani last night and the night before. I saw you. I saw what you did, what you attempted."
Swallowing hard, I shook my head, flicking my eyes once toward Justine. The woman's accent was heavy, difficult to understand. I took a chance, and responded to her charge in Rom.
"It isn't what you think. I didn't mean to hurt him. He ... He is all right, isn't he?" I glanced uneasily over at Justine. Surely she or the prof... or Dr. Monaghan would have said something if the boy had taken a turn for the worse.
She slapped me! No, not Justine, the woman. She just out of the blue slapped me. Before I could react, the other woman in the group was there, taking the mother's arms and turning her away, her eyes fixed on mine.
"No, he is not 'all right'. He is cursed. This you know. You are drabami." Well, actually, she said a lot more than that. That was what I understood. I drew in breath to answer, then stopped as I remembered the meaning of the word she used. Drabami. Healer. Not drabardi, which just meant witch.
Justine took my arm and pulled on it to get my attention. "Sara, what are you saying to them? Do you think you should be making them angry?"
"I ... She doesn't believe that it wasn't me," I answered, saying the first thing off the top of my head without really thinking about it. She said something in reply, but I wasn't paying any attention. I was using the distraction she'd provided me to actually look at each of the lot of them.
There were five of them, all told. The boy's parents and three others, close relatives from the familiar resemblance. All of the men had over-long straight, dead-black hair with a slightly greasy shine to it and noses that an eagle would be proud to possess. I knew there wasn't the slightest chance that I would refuse to help.
I saw something else. Hope. Hope and cold determination.
They knew. They knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I could in fact cure the boy, and they had no intention of leaving without either me or the assurance that I would do all that I could to help. I ended at the woman speaking to me, and I knew she was the source of the certainty. The tribal drabaripe for certain sure, she had cast the future and found me healing the boy. That was how the father had happened to find us our first night here. And if she was the real thing, that could explain just why I was dream-walking that night in the first place.
"That daemon within would rather see him dead than free," the drabaripe said. Perhaps it was offered as an apology. I don't have much experience with them, the one I most needed to offer on my own behalf would never be accepted. I nodded agreement.
"Sara?"
"She doesn't know what you are?" the woman said over Justine's incipient protest. I shrugged, neither denying nor confirming.
"What do you expect?" I asked instead, switching to English. The mother broke free from her man, falling at my feet, holding on to my ankles.
"You can save my son." I winced, reaching down to pull her back up. Justine was watching, I knew she was taking mental notes on everything.
"As you say, the ... spirit possessing him will not let him go willingly. It tried to kill him once, it may try to kill him again." Justine's eyes widened at this, pretty much tantamount to a confession in her eyes that I thought I could do something about it.
Her husband, well, the man who had awakened us all far too early that morning, answered as he put his arms around her and pulled her closer to him, further from me. "It would be better for him to be dead than to remain like this, damned in a half-life between."
Justine had had enough. She physically pulled me away from them and off to one side.
"What are you saying?" she hissed. "You can't cure that boy."
"They think I can," I answered unhappily.
"Why?"
"The other woman, not the boy's mother, she's ... well, she's the tribal priestess... a fortune-teller." Justine snorted and I hurried on before she could say anything. "She's forecast that we can drive the demon out, exorcise him. I think ... I think all we have to do is be there, sort of for luck because ... because they think that we can do it."
"Why you?"
A valid question. And me without a valid answer. I looked over at them. Damned if I do. What the hell, I was damned no matter what I did, unforgiven. I had been a fool to think ...
"Because we're experts," I said, finding inspiration from somewhere. "They heard that we study this sort of thing."
"But why YOU?" she repeated.
"I don't KNOW!" I answered, finally meeting her eyes and letting her see the anger flare. That was one thing he'd taught me and taught me well, anger could hide a multitude of sins. And fears. "But you've seen that child. If he was yours, wouldn't you grasp at any straw to save him?"
"Douglas isn't going to like this." No, he wouldn't. As I mentioned before, he didn't like any kind of inexplicable phenomenon, especially if he wasn't included in on it. "Why didn't they talk to him about it?"
I looked over at them.
"They're Rom, Justine. Traditional gypsies," I said softly. "To them, women do magic, not men. Maybe if you'd been alone when you met with the parents, or if they could have gotten to you alone, they would have tried to ... to convince you. After all, it's got to be you they want. You're the one with the training, after all. You're the one with the connection to that place."
"And the boy's illness happened while they were camped in that clearing. You may be right, but ... an exorcism? I don't think ..."
"Look at them. Do you think we've really got a choice in this?"
Finally she nodded. If I had dared to hold my breath while she hesitated, I would have asphixated right then and there.
"You're right," she agreed. "And I'd do the same for Billy, if it were me. Okay, I'll do whatever it is that they're wanting. Douglas probably won't mind so long as he gets to record it."
We walked over to the group. Catching the eye of the mother, I nodded. Her face broke into a wide smile of relief and the group of them surrounded us and took us out again.
They drove us, ... not to the antiseptic and modern sanitorium where we'd left Dr. Monaghan, but to a private home. I gave Justine a puzzled look which she returned with a shake of her head and a shrug, looking just as bewildered as I felt. Inside, though, I was feel a great weight off my shoulders. Bad enough that this was happening in front of Justine, but to do magic on tape with Dr. Monaghan looking on, that would have brought the Ministry of Magic crashing down on my head and no question about it. I wasn't much worried about Justine. She had secrets of her own and reasons to hide them. Especially from Dr. Monaghan.
We were led in to a mostly empty room with a bare floor and directed to stand out of the way in a corner. The other woman who had been at the inn knelt down and began to draw on the floor in coloured chalk. While she was working, others brought the child in and arranged a soft pallet in the middle of the cleared area. As she prepared the circles of healing and protection, the priestess chanted, quietly, to herself, almost inaudible. I caught enough to know that it wasn't any language I knew.
Before she closed the circle, she gestured to ... well, to me, I suppose, but Justine stepped forward eagerly enough and the woman positioned her in one place in the circle and closed her off, then placed me in another, gesturing for me to kneel down. When I did, I noticed a flaw in the design. In terms of power, the boy and I were in the central circle together. I settled myself as comfortably as possible and waited, looking around with an expression of wide-eyed, excited interest; because I knew it would have been out of character for me, as a grad student, to NOT do so.
The priestess frowned at me. She turned and gave Justine a similar look. And then she spoke, in Rom.
"Have you no respect? Close your eyes before the gods."
"Well, so much for an eye-witness account," I said, trying for a tone of disappointment.
"What? What's wrong? Are you being kicked out?"
"No. We have to close our eyes. As a sign of respect."
"Oh. Well, that's not so unexpected," Justine replied. "Many cultures ..."
"Quiet!"
"She said ..."
"I got it," Justine said with quiet dignity. I closed my eyes, thankful to the woman and let my breathing deepen. The chanting got louder, there was a scent of fire and an acrid smoke tickled my nose, filled my mouth. I slid past the scent, past the sound, deeper into myself until, finally, without opening my eyes, I looked around and stood up, leaving my body behind.
I stumbled a little, aside from accidents like last night, it had been six years since I did this as a regular thing. If he had known how often I walked beside him...
The boy was there. His form was ... a continuum. The infant he had been, the child he was, the man he would become, the elder he would be. The priestess was circling him in her ceremony, distracting me briefly by the beauty of her being, but the boy was important. When I looked down at him again, I knew that the woman's ritual was working. Once again, as I had seen the night before in my dream, I saw again the overlay of another form, another being, another continuum of existance, a draw on the spirit, the magic of the child.
It was a face like a death mask, skin pulled tight over bone. A face like the one in my sketch book, like the one in my dream-walk. It wasn't firmly fixed in place, so there was hope.
The other's eyes opened. He looked at me. He saw ... I don't know but those fleshless lip pulled tight in a death rictus smile.
:It's about time!:
I'd heard that particular mental voice before, hard and sharp as metal and as cold as winter, during the dream-walk. It chilled my soul.
:Not one of mine but the servant of a servant. How wise of him. How ruthless. Come closer thrall.:
I didn't answer him. I couldn't. I walked over toward him, like a bird mesmerized by a serpent's gaze. I wasn't sure I could pull free, but I knew for the sake of what I had to do that I couldn't.
Slowly, I knelt down beside him.
:Homage isn't necessary at this moment. Just listen and obey.:
I had no intention of doing either. Once more, the third time, I held out the hand of my spirit and held it to the child's forehead, the seat of his being. I felt the calling hooked deep within him, like the roots of a dandelion. Too deep. I felt a sudden doubt that I could pull in free without undue damage.
Then I felt it. It was coming loose of it's own. The thing holding the boy was letting him go. I should have been happier, perhaps, except I knew full well why. The predator was going for a more toothsome prey. Me.
The ectoplasmic bonds surged upward, the death-mask slipped free. I was ready. I wasn't sure if I'd ever be ready but ... I misjudged the moment and it fell back again.
:Fool. Thrice damned fool. If you do that again, I will ensure that you suffer untold agonies. Now do what it is you were sent to do!:
The mental voice sounded out of breath. At that, I felt a sudden flare of disbelief, of hope. There might be a chance...
Once again, the ghastly overlay rose up, seeking to free itself from the clay of the boy. With the hands of my spirit, I reached and pulled and ...
I don't remember what happened next. I won't remember it. It tried to latch onto me, onto my spirit form, onto my body. I could feel the link back to that blighted spot in the forest. Perhaps, perhaps I had made myself too much into a muggle for it to settle. Or perhaps it's long confinement had weakened it enough for me to inflict my will upon it.
It fought. I saw things, horrible things. I saw ... Okay, I remember most of what I saw, but that doesn't mean I want to so I won't. But I saw enough to know that just sending it back to the place it had been haunting, was still haunting, wasn't enough.
This wasn't a follower seeking to make himself master. This was the real deal. The unnamed abomination that had made such a nuisance of himself years ago. Which meant that cleaning it out was a job for an expert, not a rusty, out of training once-upon-a-time witch.
And that meant I'd have to break part of that promise I'd made to myself to get word to someone in authority, someone who would know the expert who could manage it. Someone ...
Oh, who am I kidding? By the time that thing was back in its forest prison, I knew what I was going to do. I was going to write to Albus Dumbledore myself and warn him. Somehow, I wasn't sure that he'd believe me, but I had to make the effort. Come what may.
End of Fairge Anma
The Introduction of Sara Farris