Myrtle Snow burning at the stake isn't the only thing that Cordelia sees when Fiona's hand brushes her shoulder. Let me help, honey. It comes in flashes, scalding waves that burn bright for half a second before everything goes back to black again.
"Was it difficult, getting pregnant with me?" she asks Fiona. They're in the drawing room, and the afternoon light gives everything a soft, golden glow. "No," Fiona answers without a moment's hesitation. The implications hang heavy in the air: "No. Getting pregnant with you was too easy, if anything. You were an accident."
Fiona pours both of them a triple and motions for Cordelia to sit. She downs her drink, waits for Cordelia to do the same. "There's something we could try, maybe," Fiona starts, as Cordelia sets her empty glass down. "But you're not going to like it."
"Blood magic is wrong, Fiona," Cordelia says, after a beat. "Even if it did work, that child would be cursed. I couldn't live with that. I couldn't ask Hank to live with that," Fiona purses her lips. I told you you weren't going to like it.
Cordelia leaves without another word. They don't talk for two months after that. Part of that is due to Fiona leaving for Switzerland the next morning. She leaves no note, just a booking number on a piece of scrap paper. Cordelia and Hank dutifully try again, and again. Cordelia still bleeds with every new moon.
Fiona sneaked in during the night, Cordelia thinks. That pair of Louboutin pumps wasn't by the front door last night. Fiona steps aside to let Cordelia into her bedroom. She must have slept in her clothes from the night before, the younger woman reflects. It's too early for that dress. "What would that entail, exactly?" Cordelia asks, looking away. "What would what entail, Delia?" Cordelia hates that the master bedroom is still her mother's. The light is so much nicer in here than in her own room.
"Transference," Fiona says simply. Cordelia swallows, hard. With an appropriate sacrifice, it would theoretically be possible to transfer properties from one person to the next, powers. And if anybody could do it, it's the Supreme. "When?" she asks, and her voice is hoarse.
The air is thick with the scent of cut lilies, piled high on every surface in the greenhouse. Cordelia poured a circle of fine, dark green sand, nine feet across. She lays down a goblet in the center of it, a knife next to the goblet. Her hand shakes as she lights the candles around the room. "The blood is the sacrifice, Delia," Fiona had explained. Cordelia had flinched at the pet name. "The milk is the vessel. The nightshade is the catalyst."
"Are you ready, Delia?" Fiona asks. Cordelia pours the milk into the goblet, crushes the berries into a black paste and stir it into the milk. Three turns, counter-clockwise. They kneel across from each other inside the circle. Fiona picks up the knife, slices clean down into her palm. The blood drips into the milk, swirls it to a sickening shade of pink. Cordelia feels Fiona's power rippling the air around them. She picks up the knife.
They murmur their incantation over the goblet, and they both drink deeply, and they wait. Other than mildly nauseated from the cocktail, Cordelia feels no different than she did before. "It's not working," she starts. "This was a horrible idea. I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up," Cordelia stands. Fiona's eyes widen. "Delia, don't-" is all she has time to murmur before Cordelia steps out of the circle. That's when it crashes over them.
All the candles blow out, and suddenly it's cold, very cold, and dark. Cordelia turns her head to glance over at her mother, and there Fiona is, bright and warm. Like she has sucked all the light out of the room, Cordelia thinks, all the warmth. All the life. Fiona reaches for Cordelia's arm, and her fingertips sear into Cordelia's skin.
Cordelia feels herself floating out of her body. She watches her eyes bleed to black. Suddenly it's clawing its way out of her, a need she cannot fight. She leans into her mother's touch, relishes in the feel of Fiona's warm body against her frozen one. From her vantage point up somewhere near the ceiling, she watches her hands fumbling at the neckline of Fiona's dress, crudely exposing her breasts. Cordelia's mind recoils in horror, unable to communicate with her body, to stop her mouth from latching onto a nipple. There's no milk there; there hasn't been in years.
She tries to pull herself back to her body. Fiona's eyes are glazed over and absent, something hot and sticky is oozing its way down Cordelia's throat. "Mommy," she hears her own voice mumbling. "I'm here, baby," Fiona slurs from a hundred million miles away. Cordelia briefly wonders if Fiona is also up onto the ceiling with her. "I'm here, Delia."
Cordelia wonders where they went wrong. Stepping outside the protective circle was a big mistake, she knows, but was the sacrifice this atrocity all along? Had Fiona known this would happen? Her body is mouthing at her mother's cunt the next time she comes to, the hem of Fiona's dress hiked up around her waist and her expensive underwear carelessly torn away. Nothing exists but that heat any more, and Cordelia wants to crawl back inside Fiona's womb and stay there forever. It's warm there, safe. She feels her fingers prying Fiona open, digging into her, pulling herself back in. "I'm here, baby."
"We'll drink absinthe before, to get in touch with the divine" Fiona had explained when she had walked into the greenhouse, carrying a jug of milk. "The ritual varies according to the witches performing it. We'll know what to do when the time comes."
Fiona's body spasms and Cordelia drinks down her orgasm. The power rushes through her, raw, unbridled. A hot wave from her mouth to her core out to the tips of her fingers, the tips of her toes. She wonders, briefly, if this is the power Fiona feels all the time, and for a spike of jealousy to course through her, before everything turns black and she passes out.
Fiona suddenly rushes back down into her body, and she shoves Cordelia away from between her legs. There's blood everywhere, though Fiona can't quite tell where it came from. A shriek escapes her throat and her eyes well up with salt. Fiona retched pinkish carnage, and wonders if she is hallucinating when she sees a black snake slithering away on the floor.
Fiona grabs Cordelia's chin, sickened at how slick her daughter's face is. She slaps her, hard. Cordelia gasps awake, and the black has almosr bled out of her eyes. "What-," Cordelia starts, before Fiona hits her again. Fiona's eye bore into her own. "You will go back to sleep," Fiona sobs, "and when you wake up you will not remember this." Cordelia blinks sleepily. "Yes, Mommy," she slurs, before everything goes dark again.
Cordelia recoils away when Fiona touches her hair a few days later, flinches when her mother's lips and tongue curl around a soft Delia. She doesn't think about it much, what with all the commotion. "We tried alternative methods, but..." Cordelia hears herself telling her doctor, months later, in the office with the purple walls and the soft white light. "They didn't take."
Cordelia jerks away from Fiona. "Why didn't you tell me?" Fiona's face falls, her eyes widen. "What?" she asks, alarmed. "What did you see?"