She Walks in Shadows (34 page)

Rock shattering ocean, making frothy white splash, muddying blue and green into a great angry stew.

Old days meant visitors, choices, power. Old days gone with one crash, stars passing uncertainly.

That night, they had all performed a children’s version of Romeo and Juliet, the opera. After the performance, the cast and choir had gone out for drinks, in the local city. They had stayed up at that bar with the mirrors on every wall and the harpoons for decoration. Hector had tried to pull one of the harpoons off the wall and chase everyone around with it; Circe had laughed, since the harpoon was superglued to the wall, a glass of cucumber and gin in her hands. She had sat on a wobbly barstool, rocking back and forth, cackling like a young hen.

No one had anticipated the chunk of rock crashing through the roof. They had heard the wood splintering, and the thud as something large and grey collided with Circe’s thigh. Her glass shattered against the floor as she fell and her fingers brushed the rock, hot to the touch.

Later, the paramedics said at worst, she had suffered a huge bruise, but no major injuries. Some newspapers took her photo and the morning papers had stories on “the blessing of God.”

Circe limped that week and had needed a cane. She kept singing, because singing helped deal with the pain and the tingling within her fingers. People marveled that she attended all her classes and kept performing. Hector had drifted away, his dark eyes always gazing at her swollen leg.

Later, she started researching astronomy and even visited an observatory up north. The scientists there had taught her how they measured asteroids, even helped her find one sharing her name: 34-Circe.

“We think it’s gotten smaller,” one of the scientists said. “Infrared will have to confirm it, but it looks like it suffered a minor impact and loss some of its mass.”

Circe turned and smiled at the scientist. The tingling in her fingers became pleasant now.

“Do you think it could’ve been the same asteroid that hit me in the thigh?”

“Highly improbable,” the scientist said. “The odds that an asteroid with your name from the main belt got minor fragmentation, and the odds of that little chunk of rock drifting for dozens of light years only to crash on Earth and into that particular bar, are highly improbable.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Circe had responded. “Math was never my best subject. And a rock one foot long is ‘little’?”

“We measure in meters and yes. Asteroids are usually measured in kilometers.”

Circe had accepted that, even though the aching in her thigh wouldn’t. That bruise had only faded in recent years. Sometimes, it changed colors, depending on her mood.

Accept the rainbow, taste every color, power great, once meant for goddesses. Know your true form, the formless demands of life and eternity.

Stir herbs, stir angry, stir love. Brew potions, stroke others’ flesh, embrace in years lost.

Back in the practice room on a Friday; Circe had spent her days strolling in the park, calling her daughter just to hear Melody’s voice. Melody lived in New York now, studying liberal arts, and she liked her independence. Circe knew that her daughter had cut off her long hair, settling for a curly crew cut.

Circe showed her ID to the security guard Toby, a smiling young man with beard stubble and dark skin like hers. He escorted her to one of the largest rooms, with a wall-sized mirror and a black piano. Toby brought her a music stand and asked if she wanted water. So different from the first security guard.

Pleasant persimmon orange. Light-green bobbing in a soft, gray wind ....

Her fingers remained still as she prepared herself and started warming up. She was even able to press keys on the piano, to go into the simple chords. Her throat lent its power well to the occasion:

“Thy hand, Belinda, darkness shades me,

On thy bosom let me rest,”

Toby strolled around the corridors, listening to her and to the regular orchestra students —
just like Ulysses, righteous mud-brown armor minty-green swirled together to fight unraveling pink
— but Circe ignored him and the thoughts in her head:

“More I would, but Death invades me;

Death is now a welcome guest.”

Except Death wasn’t welcome in Circe’s home. She hadn’t welcomed it the day she and Melody had gotten into a nasty fight, the only night Melody had stayed up past midnight to work on a high school project due the next morning.
Trouble is olive green rotting in orange autumn
—

“When I am laid, am laid in earth, may my wrongs create

No trouble, no trouble in, in thy breast.”

Her fingers had twitched terribly, but by then, Circe knew what could happen and so, she held back and screamed, instead. Melody screamed at her to go to bed, and Circe did, holding in all the rage and frustration that Melody was acting stupid. When her fingers wanted to lash out with sting-angry, Circe used a mirror.

“When I am laid, am laid in earth, may my wrongs create

No trouble, no trouble in, in thy breast.”

The next evening, when Circe went out to lunch with a friend in the afternoon, the friend had noticed that her face was starting to freeze in odd places and her movements were becoming sluggish. By evening, Circe had ended up in the hospital, in Intensive Care.

“Remember me, remember me, but ah!

Forget my fate.”

Late at night, rubbing her eyes and yawning, Melody came into the room. She had thought her mother was asleep and sat beside her.

“I didn’t start earlier because you were talking about not wanting to live anymore, with no husband and a dead-end job as a professor with thankless students,” Melody had spoken to what she thought was a corpse. “How could I focus on myself if I was worried about you swallowing pills or slitting your wrists?”

“Remember me, but ah!

Forget my fate.”

As Circe recovered, Melody had started distancing herself, while helping her mother with household chores. She paid for her college application fees and relied on guidance counselors to choose good schools, far from Circe. It was as if she had built a fortress so that schoolwork mattered more than family, so that Melody could please Circe without either of them worrying about each other.

“Remember me, remember me, but ah!

Forget my fate.”

Circe looked at herself in the mirror; she had lost weight since her stroke and the kind dimples that always appeared when she thought of Melody. She was wearing dark pants, so that you couldn’t see the scar from where the asteroid had hit her.

Where did I go wrong?
She asked herself.
How could I get angry at her for getting angry about what I was saying? Why would I want to hurt my own daughter? I love her.

She continued singing, repeating the verses. Colors appeared in her head, wistful violet regret, gentle pale-orange, peach-pink longing.

Goddesses don’t love their children
, another voice said in her head.
They only protect them from death.

I’m not a goddess
, Circe told the voice that she knew belonged to whatever controlled her fingers.

You are now. You could be, if you wanted. You could have men like Toby fawning over you all the time. You could have servants carry you from house to house.

And then what? I’d start destroying everyone that crossed me, until they fought back and destroyed me, and what would I do?
Circe reasoned. She stopped singing to think.
You came from an asteroid.

You can’t fight me forever. One day, I’ll take over. One day, they’ll writhe.

“Not on my watch,” Circe said aloud. She aimed her fingers at the mirror. This one was larger than the small one she had used that night she had gotten angry; it would certainly kill her.

You’re bluffing.

“And if I’m not?”

Silence.

“Thank you,” Circe said. “One day, maybe I’ll let you go to a stronger body. But do nothing with mine, okay?”

More silence.

She took a deep breath and resumed her practice. The lyrics echoed against the walls.

SHUB-NIGGURATH’S WITNESSES

Valerie Valdes

SISTER HONORIA AND
I walked into the cul de sac, our skirts sweeping the asphalt, the clopping of our feet like castanets. I had a good feeling that today, my sisters and I would bring the Word to receptive ears. I fanned myself with one hand while the other held my black umbrella to shade me from the morning sun.

There were enough of us that each pair could approach a separate house at the same time. Ours had a dirty white automobile in front, and a bougainvillea that was all dry thorns. I saw a crack in the blinds, a pair of fingers. We stepped onto the porch and Sister Honoria rang the bell.

At first, there was no answer. People often pretended not to hear us, or that they were not home. A shadow fell over the peephole, so I knew we were being watched. We waited.

The door opened, revealing a young woman wearing a pinstripe suit and a nametag that read, “YOURLADIES BENITEZ” in block print. “Sorry,
señoras
,” she said with a fake smile. “I’m leaving for work.”

I smiled back at her. “We understand. But surely, you can spare a moment for the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young?”

“I don’t have ....” Her dark-red lip curled. “The what?”

“Shub-Niggurath, the Black ” I was politely interrupted by Sister Honoria’s cough. I had gone off-script in my enthusiasm. “Are there mysteries in your life that do not have satisfying answers?”

“Well, I mean —”

I held up a pamphlet, the cover of which showed a young woman very like Yourladies, her chin cupped pensively in her hand, question marks floating around her head. Underneath were bulleted questions, which I gestured to as I spoke.

“Have you ever felt that no benevolent god watches over you?”

Her brown eyes narrowed. “Sometimes.”