Tomorrows Child (9 page)

Phoenix handed
her a small, dark red bottle. She opened it and smelt the contents.
Tahinah did the same; then they looked at each other and nodded.
One, two, three! Thick red liquid dripped into the wax, which
spluttered and sizzled as if resisting the invasion. Tahinah
stirred the mix with the copper spoon until the colours swirled,
blended, and changed from golden to deep blood red.

The two women
stood facing each other, holding the pot. They poured the wax onto
a cold stone slab. The wax began to thicken and the surface grew
dull. They stood, repeating the words, “One heart, one mind,” and
scooped the wax with their fingers, forming it into a misshapen
figure. It was as if one hand moulded the wax, not two, and
certainly not the hands of two different women. I understood the
words and realised that my grandmother and her friend stood as one…
one heart, one mind.

Phoenix handed
Tahinah a long black cord. She wound the cord around the wax,
chanting as she intoned, “Bind this spirit, bind this blood,
essence of the wounded beast, Bound by spirit, bound by blood”. She
passed it to Libby and they continued together, “Bound by spirit,
bound by blood, trapped in time.” With steady hands, they both
reached for a knife and plunged it into the wax figure.

“So be it, it
is done.” They sat with their eyes closed and hummed a tuneless
song.

We waited.
Phoenix stepped back, and I felt his warmth as he put his arm
around my shoulder and pulled me close. Time stood still and we
waited. I could barely breathe, for fear that I would break the
spell.

Navarre was
sitting up now and it seemed the bleeding had slowed, but his face
was pale and his eyes dark and filled with pain.

“It’s okay, she
is safe for now,” Tahinah sighed and looked at Ruben, his eyes
brimming with tears that glistened in the light of the moon.

Libby stood and
spoke in a distant, hollow voice, “The beast is bound, it is time
to rescue the child,” she looked only at the men. “Take the old
logging road, the creature was fast, too fast… About a mile past
the second bridge, there’s a dead tree that glows in the night. You
haven’t seen it this way before, it’s been struck by lightning and
its heart still burns. Turn there, left or right, I can’t say for
sure, but listen, you should hear the beast. It lies in pain, but
it’s not dead. It is bound, its spirit trapped, but only while the
moon is in the sky. Jalani is not far, near the beast, near the
river. Go now! Go!”

Libby turned
and spoke directly to Phoenix. “Phoenix, you bring me the heart, if
the beast has one. We need to know what creature can carry a child
and not be slowed by the burden. That beast knew Psyche, what beast
could know her? What beast would choose her from a group of people?
Go now, but please, you only have ‘til dawn. If you haven’t reached
Jalani by then, it will be too late.”

The men were no
longer listening; they were on foot and running down the narrow
drive. I watched them leave. I watched Phoenix leave. He carried
the knife that Libby had driven into the lump of wax. Ruben and
Seth carried guns, Lachlan also had a knife, while Luke carried
both. Navarre held his bow and a quiver full of arrows slung over
his shoulder. I watched as they all disappeared from sight.

Libby turned to
the other women who were clutching babies in their arms. “Go home
everyone. You are safe now. No one will die tonight,” Libby reached
out and held Trinity’s hand. “We’ll know if they’ve succeeded by
dawn. Come back then, but take your babies home and be thankful
that your child was not the one taken tonight.”

Libby took
Tahinah’s hand and they walked silently toward the house. I
followed. I’d received no orders, but that didn’t mean I was
staying put, out in the darkness beside the fire. Ruben, Phoenix
and Navarre were with the hunting party, as they should be. Raven
stood in the doorway.

“Are you okay,
Mum?” Tahinah nodded, “Good. Then I’m going to bed,” but she paused
and her voice softened as she added, “you can wake me when they get
back.”

Tahinah said
nothing to her daughter. She turned to the stove and poured water
into a large, cast iron kettle. The wood stove was alight and the
hot coals waited, ready to oblige. The water boiled in minutes and
the kettle whistled, disrupting the thick silence that had cocooned
the three of us. We were all consumed by thoughts that led to
places we wished never to visit.

I had
questions, so many questions, but I had no idea where to start. I
wanted to know what happened, how it happened, how they knew Jalani
would be okay, how could they be sure? I wanted to know why Libby
had ordered her friends to do her bidding like she was… what? Their
leader?

“Shall I make
sourdough?” Libby asked.

“Yes, that’d be
good. The men will be hungry when they return.” Tahinah answered.
Libby pulled a large bowl from a shelf and began scooping large
quantities of flour from a bin beneath the bench. She worked as if
the kitchen were her own. Tahinah placed a huge pot of coffee in
the centre of the table and three cups. Normally, I didn’t drink
coffee; it just kept me awake and made my mind race, but that’s
exactly what I needed right now.

“So… what the
hell was that?” I needed answers, but both women looked at me as if
they were confused by my question. “That thing? What was it anyway?
I didn’t think there were any dangerous animals here.”

Libby spoke
first “There aren’t.” She looked at Tahinah, “We don’t know what it
was… we can guess, but we really don’t know.”

“Psyche, it’s
likely that it’s not… from our world. It’s something else… from
somewhere else. We’ll have a better idea when the men return. If
Phoenix is successful… then we’ll know… for sure.” Tahinah looked
for Libby’s approval before she continued. “It could simply be a
mutant dog, but there are two other possibilities that I can think
of. Either it’s a beast from another place and time or it is a
demon created by dark energy. There are many names for the first…
but hellhound is most often used. Legend says these hellhounds are
trapped behind the veil. Their very presence could mean the veil
really is beginning to erode. The other explanation is that they
were created by someone, a person who can use their darkest
thoughts to manifest a beast and command the form to do their
bidding.”

“Either way,
it’s not good. If Phoenix returns with a heart, then it was a beast
from the other side of the veil. The fact that it appeared to be
looking for you may just be a coincidence and nothing more.”

“Of course, we
may be wrong,” Libby interjected. She was pounding away at a lump
of dough. The sticky mass was lucky not to be alive, I thought.

“You’re
serious! This is possible?” I exclaimed incredulously. It was all a
bit much, but even though I wanted to deny that magick existed, I
couldn’t ignore the fact that this creature had walked in and
kidnapped Jalani. More than ever, I longed to have my old life
back.

“What was that
thing you did? With the wax and the footprints and the hair? And
what was that red liquid?” It was hard to remember everything that
happened, but I had to know. I wanted to know, no, I needed to
know.

“We used a
binding spell. Everything has energy, a spiritual energy that
remains behind after it leaves. Even when you’re no longer here,
your energy lingers a little and floats around. If you’re in a
room, the energy will eventually float out the doors or windows.
Sometimes it even gets trapped in the corners. We took the energy
the beast left behind in his footprints. It’s the easiest way to
capture someone’s energy. Most of the time, however, it’s very hard
to do, even for those of us who can see it. The denser the energy,
the easier it is to capture.” Libby paused in her explanation and
Tahinah continued.

“The wax was
just a medium to hold the spell together. We could have used
anything, resin or gum would also have worked, but they’re slower.
The hair and saliva were an advantage, like adding spice to a cake.
We could’ve managed without it but since it was there…”

“What about the
oil?” The bottle sat on the table so I unscrewed the cap and
smelled the thick, pungent liquid. “That is anointing oil,
frankincense, betony and dragon’s blood, not from a real dragon, of
course. It’s an ancient resin that binds the magick. For our
purposes, it represented the blood of the beast and the spirit of
the animal. The body of the animal and the blood are combined as
one, thus allowing us to bind it. Without the wax, we would have
had nothing.”

“So wrapping
the cord was the actual binding?” I was beginning to understand, it
was almost logical, I guess. “But plunging the knife in? That was
fairly brutal!”

“Yes, perhaps,
but we couldn’t take any chances. It has my baby. There is no way
we killed it, but it should be injured… which is enough,” Tahina
answered.

“Do you think
they will find her?” I hesitated… I couldn’t finish, so I poured
more coffee.

Tahinah looked
at me with concern but not despair, “Of course we expect Jalani
will be okay! Libby, have you not told her?” Libby shook her head.
“Shame on you, Libby! How are you going to teach this girl
anything, if the truth isn’t your first lesson?” I was shocked. I
thought everyone listened to Libby. Now, perhaps, I was seeing
another version of the truth.

“Psyche, your
grandmother is a medium. She can speak to the dead, she sees
spirits and talks to them. Her guides tell her things and answer
questions. Usually when someone dies, they come to their family
first, especially children. Libby couldn’t see Jalani's spirit, so
we know for sure she is still alive.” Tahinah looked at Libby with
curious eyes.

“She is fine.
You know I will tell you…” Libby was beating another loaf into
submission.

“I know, I just
thought I’d check.”

“Now, Libby has
another gift, a gift we both share. We can see things happening in
the future. Everything is changing so fast now. Most of the time, I
can only see little scenes into the future. Not very helpful
usually, but tonight we saw exactly where the creature was bound
and where Jalani was.”

“Do you see
everything?” I asked.

“No, of course
not,” Libby paused and put the dough aside. “The visions used to be
quite helpful. These days we only see a short distance into the
future. Tonight, it was quite helpful; but often, it’s no help at
all.”

“I don’t see
into the future and I do just fine.”

“You know,
Psyche, that every Darnell ever born had the gift, not just to see
the future but other gifts, as well.” Libby stood in the kitchen,
covered in flour, waiting for me to reply. I just shrugged.

“I don’t know.
You’re the gifted one, you tell me.”

Libby went back
to kneading her bread. I poured more coffee.

“Do you think
Phoenix will be able to kill that thing?”

“I see no
reason why it would be a problem.” Libby spoke to me but looked at
Tahinah. There seemed to be an unspoken communication passing
between the two. I knew they still kept secrets and wondered what
other things they concealed from me.

“Psyche, there
is something else.” Libby hesitated “The beast, did it look into
your eyes? I mean, really look? Like it was trying to see who you
were? Did you think it was looking at you?”

I remembered
the way it looked, the way it stood facing me, staring at me… In a
way, its look was exactly the same as I’d seen from Libby and
Phoenix sometimes. “Well it seemed to. Its eyes drew me in and felt
as if it were looking right through me or knew me or something. But
that’s just weird and creepy, right?”

“Maybe, but we
need to be careful. It may have just picked your scent up in the
forest or it may have been sent to find you.” Tahinah broke this
piece of news to me and the idea crept into my soul and slithered
up my spine. I rubbed my arms to tame the goose bumps.

“But I am a
nobody.” It was true, I wasn’t special and no one even knew me. I
wasn’t even gifted. But the suggestion that a wild animal was
hunting me was quite unnerving.

“We need to
wait until Phoenix comes back, to be sure. Maybe I’m wrong, but
just in case, we need to be cautious.” Libby was obviously
concerned. “There aren’t many beasts that can pick up a
four-year-old child. Despite how many people were there, the beast
wasn’t afraid at all. Most wild animals would never run into a
group of people and certainly never so close to a fire. There are
only so many options, and none of them are too encouraging.”

The women
turned their heads towards the door, “They’re back,” both voices
sang in unison. The yard was brightly lit, still and quiet, yet I
couldn’t see anyone. Slowly, however, shadows appeared and the
rescue party came into view. One-by-one, the men entered the yard;
but there was no sign of Jalani or Phoenix. Once again, fear
tightened across my chest. I held my breath and waited.

Ruben walked
out of the shadows carrying a sleeping child in his arms. “She’s
fine,” he whispered. “I’ll go and put her into bed.” Tahinah
followed Ruben and they disappeared into the house.

I looked for
Phoenix and Navarre; but didn’t see them in the faces who stood
near the door. Panic pulsed through me. It came so rapidly, I
thought I would scream or pass out or… And then they appeared at
the edge of the driveway. Relief washed over me like a wave and I
ran down the stairs toward the two shadowy figures. I suddenly
stopped. What was I doing? I was extremely happy to see them, but
beyond that, what was I doing? I wasn’t about to leap into their
arms.

Neither noticed
my distress. They were smiling.

“Hey, Psyche,
wait ‘til you see what we’ve got. It’s the coolest and the grossest
thing you have ever seen,” said Navarre. He buzzed with excitement,
the adrenalin still had him on a high.