Hekate's Passage: A Story of Sex and Rock'n'roll, Part 1, Vol. 1 (15 page)

Then I gasp, remembering last night. Was it that I saw? Jim prying information out of Melisa with his touch? And her telling him everything he wanted to know? This really makes me wonder. Melisa IS jealous and if she told him that then he must have been really convincing. I get even more curious how he will convince her to share, ‘cause I know she won’t do it easily. But Jim keeps on whispering to the other two guys. I approach and manage to catch some short fragments of their silent conversation. I think Jim mentions a blindfold... I almost gasp, what does he want to do? Use it on us or on Melisa? I get a bit confused but at the same time excited. I keep on observing them and notice that Colin seems quite eager about Jim’s idea. Tony plays mysterious but after Colin agrees I overhear him saying, ”yes, we could try.”

I cannot stand such strong emotions: almost jumping up for joy even though I feel not too fantastic; we really drank quite some yesterday night and I do feel the consequences of the overindulgence of wine. And I suppose Colin does as well. For a moment I wonder if
this will be true or is it just the result of Colin still being under the spell of a hangover? Evaluating all the possibilities, I smile at him in a feline way. We all get out of Colin’s bedroom and wait at the landing for Eleyne. She joins as after a minute, ready though with visible signs of a hangover. We are just about to head for Jim’s bedroom to face whatever Jim and the others have in mind for Melisa and us, when we hear some loud, hysterical screams from downstairs. This makes us change our plans and we come down to find a confused cook, totally scared by something.

“The woman drives us crazy,” says Tony, “accusing us of every devilish charge she can find.” But we never have seen her this way before.

We stand in expectation in front the woman. Her face is contorted with strain. She may be 50 or older, not much taller than me but thicker, resembling an old English matron. Her short brown hair is disheveled by her nervous hands; her blue uniform is partially spotted with water or something.

The woman keeps on screaming, wringing her hands and messing her hair even more, invoking God, the Virgin Mary and all the possible saints, accusing some disappearing girl and everybody else of witchery and the devil’s tricks. She’s really loud and it looks like she has awakened Ted and Babette as they turn up in the living room, too, looking surprised at the state the cook is in.

“But what has happened, ma’m?” I come near her and hold one of her trembling hands while Eleyne hands her something alcoholic.

“The girl, the American girl, damn that creature...” The woman looks at us with desperate eyes, “and it is my word, I believe in Almighty God and He will punish her for executing such witchery…”

Jim gasps and swears.

“
What about Melisa? Where is she? She’s supposed to be down here in the kitchen...”
He looks really concerned, decides to go out for a moment, we hear him calling her name, then comes back.
“She’s not there, she’s not replying. When I awoke today, she was staying in bed, too tired and too lazy to go down. She may be kidding with us and is hiding upstairs. Let me check the bedroom.”

“Wait,” Colin stops him. “Let’s hear her out,” he points at the cook.

“But, tell us,” I continue while she is sipping another glass of ‘medicine,’ “why do you say there’s a witch’s trick?”

The woman wheezes, cries a little and pulls out a handkerchief from her pocket to dry her tears.

“That is a devil’s work. You have performed witchery here, I know it. I found this!” She says with dignity, opening her fist and showing a little gray, rounded stone with a hole pierced in the middle. Just like a ring but thicker.

“What the hell is this? Can you tell me that? You are the expert. I saw that thing on her finger, but I did not know where it was from or what it was,” Jim exclaims taking the piece, then looks at it closer and hands it to me.

Everybody is tense waiting for a reply.

“It is an antique amulet, a prehistoric object dedicated to protect the user, generally was used by Priestesses to invoke the Goddess during Full Moon Rites…”

“Full Moon rites…” The woman spits the words. “Evil rites, and now the girl's gone.”

“Where did you get this object, ma’m?” I ask softly, trying to stop her muttering. Her mind is bubbling with strange ideas…

“
It fell down to the floor when she vanished,” she seems to be sure of that.

“What?” Jim exclaims. “Vanished? You must be kidding us. Melisa!”

He’s ready to run out to search for her, but Colin and Tony stop him and persuade him to listen to the rest of cook’s story. They look confused, though. The cook continues.

“She was standing near the fridge, asking me if there is any juice or fruit available to make some juice, she just came down from upstairs and looked thirsty… and was fiddling with this thing in her hands, using it as a ring, I think…then she tells me: ‘Did you hear that sound?’ And she looked at me with fearful eyes. I was beginning to answer her that I didn’t hear anything. Then I did hear something like a ringing, so I turned my head to the window to see if there was something outside in the garden; the sound came from that zone and when I glanced back at her, she was slowly disappearing, like getting transparent…Oh Jesus… I almost fainted...”
The woman breaks down again and pulls frantically at her short hair.

“You are to blame! You and your evil ways. I saw the thing fall down on the kitchen’s floor after she totally vanished and I picked it up; I don´t know why, it was as if something stronger than me commanded me to do it…”

Eleyne asks me. “That stone, is it a Fertility Goddess symbol?”

I look at her and we exchange glances. I say.

“Not exactly. It’s dedicated to Hekate, the Triple Goddess, she manages time, the underworld and the crossroads and veils of the worlds. Does anybody know if we are under Full Moon influence?” I ask, glancing at the stunned faces around me, but then Colin exclaims.

“Why should we believe this? The woman may have drunk too much and Melisa is near the house, just walking…”

“I never drink,” the cook seems to be getting mad at Collin, “I don´t touch your bottles, never.”

The men don’t seem to be convinced with that affirmation, especially Jim, who looks doubtful. As if he thought everything she said was a raving of a drunk mind and Melisa was still somewhere in the house. They agree with us to start a little quest for her with some optimistic hope.

Dressed as we could we start our search. For two hours, we are checking every spot of the house and the garden. The men go to the stone circle, patrolling the road and the small village, asking everybody about Melisa but the search is in vain.

When they return back to the house, we feel disappointed and obviously Jim looks upset and depressed. We sit down and finally Babette finds a calendar with the moon phases.

“We are on the second night of Full Moon a day after the Summer Solstice,” she recites. “Does it mean something to you, Yasmin?”

“It means that the ring could have worked its magic… and took Melisa away…”

“But…” Tony protests, “it is not logical… No, nothing is logical… here.”

“Where is she now?” Jim asks eagerly.

“Don´t know…but we are well-aspected so she must be safe, maybe she’s back in the future.”

“Well-aspected?” Ted inquires. “What is that?”

“We are under a good influence, the forces won´t hurt us,” I reply.

“Bullshit,” the cook breaks in. She is still there, praying and lighting some candles on the kitchen table. “To begin with, you don´t know nothing of all this. The site is damned, the people are afraid of it, the thing you brought from there is damned. You have to restore it back to the stone circle or something evil is going to happen to us …all of us.” She looks sinister while murmuring the last words.

“I have the little stone with me and it seems a wise idea, maybe we could find our way back home, but not now,” I say.

“All I hope is that she is fine now,” Jim murmurs depressed. “What do you think, Yasmin?”

“I feel she is OK now,” I smile at Jim, at the same time Eleyne is showing her sympathy for his pain with a nice grin.

“
And who is Hekate?” Babette asks intrigued.

“Well,” I reply,” it is an Eastern Goddess, Queen of the Night and of Witchery; she is the lady of every witch, her protectress. She is unseen. Nobody can see her, but it is supposed she has three heads, two of them doglike. She walks alone during the night and dogs bark announcing her presence, you must retire if she is near. Dogs are sacrificed to her, but she also loves dogs and uses them to guide the souls of the humans to the underworld. She is powerful, she can heal or kill; Hekate´s energy should be dealt with great caution, especially during these days. She is the Old One, the Crone of all of the Disney’s tales. It is good that we are now in Full Moon, otherwise the power of Hecate is greater and darker…and more dangerous. During these days, it is benevolent.”

“
But is she real?” asks Babette, “her aspect and habits do not please me too much…”

“I don´t believe she is a real person, but a kind of energy dwelling in the depths of the universe and in the depths of the human soul,” I reply.

“How poetic...” Jim murmurs.

There is a silence followed by a stirring of us all of us. We are feeling too tense to keep sitting there. I share a look with Eleyne, her feelings are written all over her face. I feel the same kind of mixed emotions. On one hand nobody’s possessiveness blocks our path to Jim now, but on the other hand I feel a bit guilty about teasing Melisa about him. And I see that Eleyne also has this furtive look about her. However, our emotions can’t have anything in common with Melisa’s disappearance. This ring she had, is an ancient artifact, and from all I have learned about such objects they do have powers even
long years after being charged with energy, some call it mind energy or Psy force, an energy that belongs to the immaterial world.
If the cook is telling the truth, it must have been the ring that made her vanish. What’s more we are just a day after the Summer Solstice, and this is a magical date, indeed.

I notice the guys are exchanging looks as well; Colin is looking at Tony seriously, then they both look at their depressed friend, who still just sits there with his head down. Some kind of understanding passes between the two. Tony nods his head looking at Colin. Is it what I think it is? Has Melisa’s disappearance strengthened their decision to share us with their band mate? After all, when all the three of them were talking about it in Colin’s bedroom, Tony didn’t really look so 100 percent eager. Now it seems he has changed his mind.

They are starting to stir, to get organized for the day. As they say, the show must go on. The men discuss something in low voices among them. Jim is still devastated by the strange occurrence we have lived: could all this be true? If Melissa has disappeared, where is she now? We only can guess and the restlessness is painted on Jim’s face, but we cannot stay perplexed forever and we hear Tony’s soft voice.

“There are a lot of things to be done,” Tony remarks. “Time to buy some clothes for you, go to the supermarket, buy wine, food…”

However, I feel not very inclined to go shopping. My mind is fixed on the enigma and I try to remember all I have read and heard about those amulets. I see Colin coming downstairs with my Blackberry and my iPod, which are working!

“These things work, men. Take a look, they are really funny!” he exclaims and the others gather around him in seconds.

I join him, to make sure that he won´t catch any glimpse of my Blackberry wallpaper and fortunately, the pictures have gotten deleted by themselves…as has happened many times before. Oh God, I won´t let him see the future, I don´t know what would happen if he saw it.

Eleyne’s Story:

The cook’s story, together with her religious hysteria, plus an afternoon of futile searching for Melisa, Yasmin’s revelations about Hekate and the morning hangover don’t add to our mood. Everybody’s edgy and nervous but Colin manages to ease the tension – it turns out that Yasmin’s mobile phone and ipod are working. This gets all the guys curious enough to gather around him, even to get their minds off the sad incident. We join them, too, to show them how these things work. Yasmin seems relieved for some reason. The guys seem to get excited about the possibilities the equipment may provide. They just keep on playing with the phone and ipod and a thought strikes me.

“Yasmin, you don’t have any music in your ipod that they shouldn’t hear?”

She looks at me and I see she’s thinking fast, then she says diplomatically.

“
I just have the 1986 album. The other music there is from earlier albums. Guys,” she tries to get their attention, “have you already finished writing the material for the next album or not?”

They just look at her and smile.

“Why are you asking?” Clearly they didn’t really hear our little exchange…

“Yasmin wants to say, that she has your next album on the ipod. If you didn’t finish writing it yet, it may not be the best idea for you to listen to it now.”

They just look at each other and when Yasmin approaches them to take the ipod from them and delete the Turbulence album from there, Colin raises his hand and refuses to give it back to her. She tries but he’s taller than her.

“Come on Colin, you really shouldn’t look in the future like that,” she tries again.

He looks at her innocently.
“
I won’t look, I promise…”

“You promise?” I ask, “what about the others? Tony, Jim, Ted…” I urge them. “You guys, promise too.”

They look at each other uncomfortably, apparently they were going to use this loophole…

“Ok,” they give up one by one. “We promise we won’t listen to it.”

Then Babette joins in the conversation.

“Guys, I’m hungry. I don’t believe you are not starving either. I don’t even know what the time is, but I bet it’s quite late and we didn’t really eat anything today. I’m going to the kitchen, that cook of yours must have prepared some food. We need coffee and tea, too’