Chapter 7: Devotional
Soundtrack for chapter 7:
Arcana: "Dark Age of Reason"
Depeche Mode: "Waiting for the Night"
Sarah cleaned her room as if the devil were poking her with his pitchfork. She also cleaned as though she were Cinderella sans singing mice, with the fervent hope that if she worked hard enough, she might be allowed to go to the ball. Both analogies had the merit of truth.
She worked without magic, sensing it was worth more to do so; she worked in anger, inarticulate and unstrung curse-words huffing on her breath. She washed out a blue vase that had held half-a-dozen live roses a month before and used it to contain the glitter he'd left behind, sweeping it out from between the floorboards with the rather inadequate hand-broom and pouring it in with a funnel made of paper. Some of it stuck to her sweaty face and body, and her sweeping disturbed pristine dust-kitties the size of tribbles, which also stuck to her. The glitter had revealed some nasty sticky spots on the floor, but she would have to take care of that later. She stood as high as she could reach on the ends of her bedstead, her desk, and her wardrobe, and brought down all the grey cobwebs that nestled in the corners. She dusted everything else with a slightly damp washrag, even to the deepest corners of the bookcase. And then she cleaned out the fridge, removing the offending soda and old food, and scrubbing the inside with her cache of vinegar, which smelled as foul as her mood.
She had just gathered up her dirty bedclothes and two weeks' worth of dirty laundry into portable bundles and wondering if the washers downstairs would be free or if she ought to haul them off-campus to the laundromat, when her phone rang.
"Hello?" Sarah said impatiently.
It was Nan, who spoke without preamble. "Polly's left. He's gone to Portsmouth," she said with venom, as if New Hampshire were a species of Hell. In Sarah's opinion, it was. "He's gone to identify his parents."
"They're dead?" Sarah asked, shaken. She sat on a pile of dirty bedclothes with a bump.
"No. They're alive. At his house."
Sarah sighed in relief. "Why does he need to identify them, then?"
"They've been gone for three years, remember. The caretaker saw intruders, so she called the police. So the police are there waiting for Polly to make a positive I.D. But it's them, Sarah. Polly wanted me to tell you, otherwise I'd have gone with him. I'm going over on the first train that'll take me."
"Okay," Sarah said. "But why didn't they just tell the police what they wanted them to believe? They're both witches. Why this rigamarole? Not that I blame Polly for wanting to see them."
"They can't talk."
"What do you mean, they can't talk?" Sarah felt a headache beginning where her brow furrowed. "Can't, or won't?"
"Does it really matter?" Nan asked. "Polly thinks they've been stripped of their magic. Like your mother was. And I have a pretty good idea of who he can thank for that if it's true."
"My mother is lucky to be alive," Sarah said coldly. "They should be too."
Nan didn't answer. The silence hung between them on the line long enough to be uncomfortable.
"What?" Sarah asked, wishing Nan would make it quick. She'd said what Sarah needed to know; anything else was a waste of her time. She had a lot of work to do, and time, as Jareth was fond of saying, was short. She looked over at the box on the mantle of the plastered-up fireplace, wondering if it would be safe if left alone, or if she should tote it with her.
"You're unbelievable," Nan said.
"What have I done?" Sarah said, outraged.
"Think about it, Sarah. If Polly's parents are alive, then what about my mum? What about my two sisters? What about all the other members of the coven that the Elf put in the box? Are they alive too? Have you considered them?" Nan's voice rose in an hysterical burble. "What about saving them?"
"None of us thought anyone survived until this morning. You didn't!"
"Because I thought Jareth was full of shit, that's why!" Nan screeched. "You have to let me talk to Jareth. You have to let me figure out if there's something he'll trade for them."
"You aren't talking to him," Sarah said, feeling the fires of jealousy burn inside her. "He's got me doing cartwheels just to have a conversation with him. I don't want to think about what he'd ask of you. You can't handle him. The answer is no."
"Polly said you'd be like this," Nan said sourly. "Well, I'm going. Maybe his parents can write a note or something, catch us up on what happened. I told him I was going to invite you to come, too, but he said you wouldn't. Just promise me one thing, Sarah. Promise you'll find out what you can from Jareth. Find out if he knows if they're still alive, at least. Magic or not, this is my fucking family. You and Jareth don't have the right to play these kinds of games with people's lives."
"I have every right," Sarah said. "It's my life and my soul I'm risking, just to talk to him. And he's risking his freedom to talk to me. But since it matters so much to you, I'll ask. I'll do everything I can. I promise. Was there anything else?"
Nan cursed her out. "There's something really wrong with you, Sarah. There's something wrong. It's like there's something evil inside you, and it's just getting stronger every time you speak his name. Just don't forget my family."
"I won't," Sarah said, tired of the conversation. "Have fun in Portsmouth. Tell Polly I said hello, and that you're both welcome for all that I've done for you today."
The receiver cracked loud enough to ring her ears as Nan slammed the phone down.
Sarah sighed. Slowly, she got to her feet. She might as well take the laundry to the laundromat; there were other things she'd need to purchase that could only be bought off-campus anyway. She looked over at the box on the mantle, and slipped it into her coat pocket. The phone rang again as she went out the door, laundry bundled on her back and her purse cutting into her shoulder. Sarah knew it was Nan, calling again probably to have the last word a second time. Well, she would save herself the aggravation. She let the phone ring and ring, and thought only of the weight of the world in her pocket.
Although she didn't want to, she thought about that conversation as she did her shopping and her laundry, tootling her little car around the city's laundromat, grocery store, department store and Goodwill in the increasingly low visibility.
Is there something wrong with me? Sarah wondered, watching the sheets go round and round in the washer, as she saw herself handing over her slim cash reserves at one place after another, to purchase a new nightgown, a bouquet of fresh roses, fruit, cheese, chocolate. a bronze-plated ashtray on sale for 99 cents in a jumble with other decorative metallic bric-a-brac. Should I just have taken what I wanted from him? Why am I wooing? I don't even know what the rules are anymore. Are we playing a new game? Am I going to lose, as he promised?
Is there something wrong with me? she asked herself, as she rolled up the sisal rug and took it into the late afternoon to shake out and beat clean, as she set it aside in the hall so that she might scrub the room on her hands and knees, with painstaking care and pain. When she wondered why she wasn't bothered, she looked to the heart-shaped box sitting on the mantle. It seemed to provide answers. Even enclosed, it drew her eye, made her feel reassured, made her desire Jareth's presence all the more. The phone rang periodically in the afternoon, urgently, until Sarah switched the ringer off.
"There is something wrong with me," Sarah said out loud, mopping up the last of the dirty water with her next-to-last towel. "I'm bewitched."
"A year and a day and a week, poison be love when you speak." That had been her mother's parting curse to her daughter. Well, a year and a day and a week had long gone by, without talking to Jareth. Had Linda's curse missed, or was it come to fruition? Were they going to destroy one another?
She wanted him so badly. She ached in the shower under the torrential downpour of the water, belly empty and angry, raging for food and for sex, her skin burning where she touched herself. From the tip of her head to the toes on her feet, she wanted him. There was no rationalizing it. It was primal. It was in the pitch of his voice, and the memory of how his skin had felt, and the taste of him in her mouth when he had kissed her. She wanted him. She would make him want her, too. Damn her mother. Damn the consequences.
On the sink, in view of the open shower stall, the amulet sat in its box and waited. And when she combed her hair with the sandalwood comb, and paired her nails, and perfumed her body under her arms and the cup of her thighs, she waited too. She waited for the night to come, and made her final preparations. There was too much hunger to wait for a better time.
Fire, he had said. Or blood, to summon him. Whatever curse might be working in her head or her heart or her sex, she still wasn't stupid enough to offer a demon her blood. The last time she had done so, Jareth had killed people. Innocent people. He had become a pillar of white fire that devoured conscience and consciousness. Whatever it was about him that made him humane got lost in an offering of blood. So she would use fire, and perhaps this time his heart would be warm towards her.
Opening the window, stretching her hands out to the dark of the night, she lit the bronze offering-bowl. It lit with a blue flame; the vodka might have been cheap, but it burned nicely. It burned hot under the hand that held it. She passed his heart through the flames three times, feeling the hair on her knuckles sizzle and char as she did, and then left it to burn there.
"Jareth," she called him, stroking the feather across her lips, down her throat. All was dark and still in her room but for the blue flames in the bronze ashtray. Desire, hunger, flung out on an open window to him. "Jareth, if it please you, come to me," she murmured. "I ask nothing more than your presence. Show me pity, and come."
And so it was, when he came to her call, that she was grateful.
"This will do," he said, putting his hands out to the bowl and taking it from her. "This will do quite well, Sarah." And though her hands were burned, she felt his touch as a more intense heat, one that soothed. His eyes became her world entire. "Now. I have come, and I will stay until this flame burns out. Shall we begin again?"
"Yes," she said. Yes, oh yes. Yes.
"Good," he smiled at her, and she thought she might live and die for that smile. She remembered there were questions to ask him, important questions, but for now he was here, and as he lifted the bowl in one hand it became a lamp upon a stand, and the space around them, private and enclosed, was the stuff of glamour and vast potential.
"Sarah," he murmured, and the darkness washed over the world.
