covencraft 04 - dry spells (33 page)

What are you doing?
She heard the question in her head and couldn’t tell if it was from herself or from Lily. To be honest, Jade didn’t know what she was doing, only that…

It’s not as though there’s a trick to facing the Gorgon. Is there.
Seth’s words rattled in her head, like a rock in an undercarriage - persistent and sharp.

Was there a trick?

“How quaint. Tell me, mortal child, do
you
think you can face the Gorgon?”

She was amused. Like Jade was some small child performing a trick for her. Singing
I’m a Little Tea Pot
off-key with clumsy dance movements. Jade was possibly cute, but only in her ineptitude. Looking down at the marble, where Medusa’s shape would be, Jade could see something. Shifting. Writhing. Swirling. Medusa’s hair. Snakes devouring and rolling over each another. She could hear them as well. The slippery, shifting sound of scales against scales, slick skin against slick skin, with a low-key rattle resonating underneath it.

“I don’t know,” Jade admitted. Lily’s presence hovered near her mind, more of a distraction than a help. Jade was tempted to swat at it, at Lily, but she could never be so careless with Lily’s presence. She needed to think. Could she face Medusa?

Seth had been trying to teach her something, tell her something, hadn’t he? He told Medusa he wasn’t helping Jade but he kind of did help. In his own weird ‘Seth-way.’ Semi-warning her about Matthew when he wanted her heart. Teasing Jade about Dex when he arrived at the Coven. Taunting her about Lily’s reappearance before Jade knew it would happen. But what was Seth trying to tell her this time? What, out of all the things Seth had said, was important?

“Is Medusa’s hair really made of snakes?”

“You’re like a dog with a bone. One of those small yappy ones.”

“You can hardly expect me not to ask. I’m supposed to get this thing from her and not turn to stone. I kind of want to know what to expect.”

“Medusa. Medusa is just what you’d expect her to be.”

“So, like snakes for hair? Green skin? Dark eyes?”

“She is what you expect her to be.”

What did Jade expect?

“Do you think us akin in someway?” Medusa asked. Her voice came from beside Jade now, too close. Far too close. Jade stepped sideways, away from her and then, feeling the Gorgon following her, Jade stepped into the nothing-space where there was no wall behind her back. Nothing to her sides. She was afraid to reach her hands out, lest she come in contact with the Gorgon and find out why she gave off no body heat. Maybe she was serpentine all over. Cold, scaly skin. Nothing at all like Bruce’s soft, supple hide.

Medusa’s steps on the marble were whisper soft. She circled Jade. Jade had the fleeting memory of watching Shark Week and seeing a shark swim lazily in circles. Teasing its prey? Trying to scare it?

“I don’t know,” Jade said again.

“Are you curious? To see the monster? To see the face, the visage, that’s so horrid it turns men to stone?”

Jade
was
curious. That was the kicker. She watched the moving shadow of Medusa from underneath the blindfold. Her eyes were drawn to the strange moving shapes that would be the serpents in her hair. She could hear the hissing, rattling sound of them. How were they alive? How did they spring from Medusa’s head? What did Medusa look like? What kind of face did she have? Did people really turn to stone? Was it a metaphor? Or did people’s skin change from organic to inorganic - from soft and supple to hard and heavy? What did the eyes of a creature who could do that look like?

“I admit, I feel a certain kinship with you, Jade, daughter of Hecate. I see into your heart. You and I share a moment.”

Jade exhaled sharply at the proclamation. First Lily, then Seth, now Medusa. Was there no one who didn’t know her secrets? Did she wear them emblazoned on her face, her sleeve, her heart? And if so, did everyone else ignore it?

“You remember his name. A name you cannot forget. A name you will always remember.”

You don’t see something that reminds you of your trauma and then lay waste and destruction down as quickly and easily as you would a blanket on a bed. You don’t hurt the people closest to you and take pleasure in their pain - glad to see someone hurting as much as you had.

“Yes.” The word escaped Jade’s lips. She felt a resounding ping of Lily’s consciousness in her brain, a demand to be let in. In all their moments together, Jade had never thought to deny Lily anything. She did now. This wasn’t Lily’s moment. She hadn’t spent time with Seth, in the Dearth. She hadn’t listened to him talk about Medusa. Most importantly, Jade had a sense that perhaps she felt a certain kinship with Medusa in return. Part of her wanted to know - was this her future? A sliver of what she could become?

“It still pains you to think of him. Of the moment.” A sight hissing sound accompanied Medusa’s words along with a slick shifting sound. Snakes turning over one another. Jade nodded, knowing Medusa was watching her for a reaction.

“If you had to choose, right now, between
him
and me, which one of us is more the monster?”

Jade swallowed, hearing the rhetorical tone in Medusa’s question, but knowing the answer nonetheless.
Him, always him
. Medusa’s words were a finely-honed instrument that found the most tender part of Jade’s brain and poked. Trying to find the right amount of pressure to push through the soft flesh and sink deep into the tissue.

“Tell me, mortal child, if you had known such power as mine existed, if you had known such a demand was possible, that you could insist an immortal goddess change you into a monster, that you could own a power so great those who looked upon you would turn to stone, stone that could be crushed beneath your foot like an annoying gnat that flew too close to your face, would you not have asked for, demanded the same? In that moment? That eternity of shock, shame and pain that lasted only minutes to the world, but stretched out endlessly before you? That moment that lingers, even now, even though you deny its existence and turn your mind away from it time and time again. Wouldn’t you have demanded retribution for such a moment if you thought it were possible?”

Jade’s stomach was threatening to make itself known, purging whatever it could find in any of her internal organs - bile, water, blood - ready to spill it all forth in response to Medusa’s question.
What would she have done?
She didn’t want to remember that night. She didn’t want to sift through it in her brain and recall any sensation, any thought. If she’d had the power she had now, even a fraction of it, what would she have done? Set the room on fire? Set him on fire? Destroy the room, the apartment, the building? No matter who else was in it?

“Wouldn’t you ask for that power, even now, if it were available?”

Medusa’s words were a sibilant siren song in her ear. Would she ask for that kind of power? Could she have that power now? Was it too late? Would she break free of the Dearth and find
him
, the man who hurt her - the man whose name she couldn’t think, couldn’t say. Would she turn him to stone only so she could crush him under her heel, leaving nothing but dust behind? She could imagine it so easily in her mind. She could make
him
feel surprise and pain, just like she had felt. She could make
him
afraid, make him tremble before her and then grind him into powder, never to be thought of again.

Her answer was poised on every cell in her body. Every bit of her wanted to say ‘yes.’

“And then what?” Jade surprised herself by the question.

Jade heard Medusa pause. No more soft foot falls. No shifting of fabric. It sounded as though even the snakes writhing around her head paused at Jade’s words.

“What do you mean?”

Jade didn’t know. She hadn’t known she would say the words until they were out of her mouth. “After I’m powerful, after he’s dust,” Jade swallowed. “Then what?”

“Then nothing. Then everything. Then you do what you want.”

“I do what I want now.”

“Do you, mortal child? Using your tiny witchcraft, your green-stick powers. Do you have all the things you want? All the things you deserve?”

Jade thought she had the things she wanted. She had a job. A place to live and to sleep where she mostly felt safe. She had a place she could walk around barefoot and sing out loud. She had clothes she liked and a car that was reliable. She had friends; friends separate from Lily. Callie, Henri. She had family; Josef, and the things he could tell her about her past. She had Bruce. And maybe, maybe, she might even have Paris. He was the leader of the Coven and he seemed to enjoy spending time with her. She may not know if she was ready for more yet or if he even wanted more, but at the moment she had the possibility of him. Fragile and beautiful like the multicolor surface of a delicate soap balloon drifting in the sun.

“Aren’t you tired of being in that moment?” Medusa went on. “Don’t you want more than to exist in that instance of surprise and pain? Don’t you want to be something other than that moment?”

“But I am,” Jade replied. Her voice was soft, but steady. “I’m more than that moment.” She couldn’t imagine that she was still stuck there, in that apartment, in those clothes, torn and ripped, wondering inanely if it were possible to fix the broken strap on her sandal. It had been the only thing she could focus on then. That broken sandal with its shiny red strap. She loved those shoes and they’d been ruined. “I’m more than that moment,” she repeated, more to hear herself say the words than to say them to Medusa. Jade exhaled. Her skin broke out in gooseflesh.
I am more than that moment,
she thought again to herself. Holy God, she was more than that moment! And she hadn’t known it until now.

“You can’t be,” Medusa argued. “Not as you are. Not as you exist here, now. A mortal thing. A bauble. Easily crushed. Easily destroyed.”

Underneath the blindfold, Jade closed her eyes. She could no longer see the slit of light that peeked its way through the crack between her cheeks and the soft fabric. She felt on the precipice of something; something more than what she’d known before. She wasn’t easily destroyed. She wasn’t a broken thing, a damaged thing. She’d been hurt. She still hurt. There was never any going back. She’d always known that. But while she’d been staring at the past and seeing the way barred to change, she hadn’t realized there was still a path forward.

“That’s not who I am,” Jade said. “That’s not what I am. I am not easily destroyed.”

Jade felt the resonance of her own words. She could be that thing, that person not easily destroyed. It didn’t mean she didn’t have wounds. It didn’t mean she didn’t have scars. But she would not be brought down by them.

“Is that what you think?” Medusa asked, her amusement at Jade’s words evident. “Then tell me, Jade, Josefina of the witches. Are you prepared to face me? Do you think you can stare down the Gorgon?”

She is what you expect her to be.
Seth’s words still rang in Jade’s mind, setting off sympathetic vibrations.

Jade felt the truth of her answer before she voiced it. “Yes.”

A laugh escaped Medusa’s lips - disdainful and arrogant. “Very well, child. Maybe I won’t keep you after you turn to stone. Maybe I’ll break you to pieces and use the dust to repave the garden pathways. Show it off as an example of hubris and naiveté. Just another mortal that dared cross the Gorgon’s path.” Medusa sighed. “What a waste.”

The blindfold was pulled from Jade and she kept her eyes shut - afraid to look.
She is what you expect her to be.

Lily’s voice inside her head was like a tuning fork at the wrong frequency. Jarring. Sharp.
I’m here! Make the connection. I can help you.
Jade could feel her presence circling the edge of her brain - a tiger pacing the outside of a cage instead of the inside - waiting to be let in, poised to help. Jade didn’t think it would work. If she connected with Lily, if she saw through Lily’s eyes - it wouldn’t help defeat the Gorgon.

Seth had been trying to help Jade. In his painful, cruel, and strange way, he’d always thought of himself as trying to help Jade. Coming to her when she first arrived at the Coven and warning her. Visiting her again when Dex arrived. Showing up in her pantry and making noises about Lily before Jade knew what he meant. She didn’t think Seth was altruistic by any means, but he honestly believed he was helping when he arrived.

She is what you expect her to be
. Seth’s voice echoed in her brain. The question was: What did Jade expect Medusa to be?

Lily was trying to push her way into Jade’s brain, her words layering overtop of Jade’s thoughts.
You can look through my eyes to see her, but not see her. I can’t force it from my end. You have to be the one to make the connection.

Jade turned her mind away from Lily, feeling the sharp edge of panic and anxiety as she did, feeling Lily’s protest. Like weak, grabby tendrils of seaweed pulling at her ankles as she drifted on the water. Lily’s emotions tugged at Jade - there, but not substantial. Jade felt a stirring panic in her own chest. She didn’t think she’d ever denied Lily anything until now.

She is what you expect her to be.

Jade expected a monster, she guessed. A woman with snakes for hair. A woman that turned mortals to stone. A soulless creature that didn’t care.

And yet…

She was both more and less than that. She was a woman. A woman who’d been hurt. A woman alone in a temple, praying to her goddess. Surprised by something - a man, a creature - someone who wanted something and would take it at any cost. A woman facing someone more powerful than she was. A woman feeling strong hands hold her down, feeling her vocal chords lock up. A woman feeling a moment stretched out into an eternity - thinking of times she’d heard people say a person can survive anything, can do anything for one, two, five, ten minutes and thinking,
No. No, I can’t. Not this. I can’t do this for a moment longer. I can’t survive this for a second longer
.