The Scum of the Earth
Fermented fruit drink slid down her throat like a silk ribbon. If she accidentally inhaled the pungent odor she'd cough and sputter, but she wasn't drunk enough yet to accidentally breath in the fumes. It was more moonshine than wine, the kind of turpentine that could strip paint off a protectron. Avata had been brewing it for awhile, before the food rationing, first in a still and then in a mason jar. Julia drank it like water. The taste was good. It tasted like oblivion.
When she walked into a room everyone stopped what they were doing and greeted her. When she walked through Ouroboros people would kiss her hand and give her gifts. Her wrists were adorned in bands of precious metals, studded with beads and gems. The fingers on her right hand had a ring each, mostly pewter but on her ring finger she wore three engagement rings with a diamond each. Fine silk ribbons she wove into her hair, of all different colors, yellow and blue and green and purple all shiny and smooth. She even started wearing cosmetic horn-rimmed glasses like the Glass Men used to. She figured if she covered herself with enough shiny baubles and trinkets, no-one would be able to tell what a wretch she was, and if she drank and smoked enough, she could forget she was the Scum of the Earth, which was why she never stopped drinking or smoking. It wasn't especially hard for the High Priestess of Hecate to stay loaded 24/7. Hecate had a personal stash of bufo and sheesha that was enough to keep a single person intoxicated for the rest of their life. Since there was no more Hecate, Julia helped herself.
She avoided the Daughters for as long as she could. It was the most she could do. For two weeks she kept herself to Atia's apartment. She re-read books she'd read a hundred times before, and discovered fresh and not-so-fresh bottles of liquor she'd stashed away when she was blacked-out in months and years past, little gifts to herself from before she was a shell, little reminders of the life she'd once lived. She found much absolution in playing with Julius, being there when he was done with school and putting him to bed every night, but two weeks was all it took to drive her to the temple, restless and hungry like an animal. She had to be where the action was, no matter how devoted she was to removing herself from it. Sneaking into the temple was easier than she thought it would be, even with what was almost certainly a .2 blood alcohol level. Somewhere in the back of her mind was the nagging insistence that Hecate's temple shouldn't be so vulnerable, although she did know more of it than most, but mostly she was happy to slip into Hecate's chambers unobserved.
She half expected to find the goddess waiting for her, enveloped in a thick cloud of smoke and smiling an infuriating I know something you don't smile. For an instant the past months felt like a horrible nightmare, something she could wake up from. Instead, Hecate's room was empty, more empty than Julia had ever seen it. It smelled like incense and sheesha and her, just a faint whiff of rotting flowers and motherhood under everything else. Her chambers were outfitted such that she'd never need to leave them, as she hadn't, for years at a time. Julia quickly made herself comfortable. As far as she was concerned, the goddess's chamber was her inheritance, her rightful claim.
It only took two days with Hecate's hookah for company to nearly drive her insane. Nightmares of Hecate and Heart and most of all Dark Mother, the woman the goddess was long ago, tormented her. And when the nightmares weren't enough, they invaded her waking hours. The smoke of Hecate's hookah made people. When Julia was two hours into a bufo binge they'd appear out of the darkness. Heart's headless body would lunge at her, arms blindly groping. Hecate would apparate, face twisted in rage, and she'd scream, over and over, curses and scorn and disapproval, deaf to Julia's plaintive pleas. When she thought the worst was over, somehow the smoke would twist and become even worse. She saw herself, but younger, face contorted much like Hecate's in mindless rage. Harpy emerged, small and vulnerable, and smoke-Julia gunned him down. Over and over, she'd tear him apart with her sub-machine gun, but at some point Harpy twisted and metamorphosed into Dark Mother. That wasn't the worst. She fled from the room in terror when the scene changed again, and instead of gunning down Harpy or Dark Mother she was executing Atia as she begged for mercy.
The priestesses welcomed her back with open arms. They greeted their greatest enemy like she could bring the dead back to life, like there was no-one on Earth they'd rather see. In their loving embrace Julia felt like slime, and she almost threw up, but none of them noticed. At Yvana's suggestion, they suspended their work for the day and headed to the discotheque as one, dragging Julia along with them.
The lights and music made her feel dizzy, although that might've been the bufo, and she desperately searched for an opportunity to break away and return to her waking nightmares, but as soon as she found an opportunity to escape the priestesses she ran right into Avata.
"Jules!" once again Julia couldn't escape the embrace of an admirer. Finally, she did vomit, all over Avata's shoes. Avata just laughed, "Ha! We need to get you another drink!"
The bigger woman ushered her over to the bar, then slid behind the counter and gave Julia her first taste of her moonshine. When the blueish-black liquid touched Julia's lips she was hooked. Here, finally, was something strong enough and sweet enough to drown her demons.
"I call it 'Avata's Vinegar,'" she smiled at Julia's enthusiastic swallows.
"It tastes a lot better than vinegar," Julia sputtered and flashed her own million-dollar smile back. When she took another swig she accidentally inhaled the fumes and coughed Vinegar out her nose. Avata laughed again. They caught up over the bar's Formica counter. Julia pressed Avata about what she'd been up to, what the team was up to, how was Bella's leadership, was she doing okay, did they ever figure out a way to preserve those plums nobody was eating? Avata was happy to answer all of her questions, but eventually she had to ask some of her own.
"So, what exactly did you do while you were gone?" Only someone she knew could cut her so deeply. Only someone she was close to could ask her that question and expect an answer.
"I got clean," she took another swig of Vinegar, "It was the absolute worst."
"It sounds horrible," Avata said, and they both laughed.
Avata didn't ask her any more questions. The two of them spent the rest of the night hiking to a scenic spot on the outskirts of the valley. They talked about nothing of importance, bullshit and gossip and goofy thought exercises. When Julia brought up the prisoner's dilemma they had a boisterous argument about Avata's insistence that she'd never, under any circumstances, accuse another of a crime she wasn't sure they'd committed. Even without subtext Julia wanted to tear down Avata's idealism, but she held out, even in the face of Julia's most convincing arguments.
"I could tell you were gone," Avata said unprompted. They sat on plastic lawn chairs she'd dragged up the hill to her special spot, drinking Avata's Vinegar and staring at the majesty of the milky way. Silence followed.
"I missed you," Julia said, after carefully choosing her words and drinking another deep swallow, "I missed everybody."
"Why did you leave?"
"Because the Goddess willed it," Julia said. She miserably swallowed more moonshine. She wanted to vomit again, but it wasn't physical, it was more like she wanted to vomit up her soul. Maybe if she could purge herself of it she'd never feel guilty or broken again.
"... Well, whatever the Goddess had you do, if you didn't like it," Avata said, "Then it was wrong."
They sat in silence for another couple minutes. Without saying a word, Julia rose from her chair, then collapsed in Avata's, and cuddled up next to her. They fell asleep that way. A few days later, Avata and all the rest of Julia's old squad had to leave on a routine scouting mission. Even though everyone treated her like royalty, Julia never felt more alone. She drank a gallon of moonshine a day, and covered herself in more finery.