Chapter 13 - Abigail
Abigail stopped talking abruptly, the telling of the story leaving her empty somehow. She looked up at Ethedra above her well. Ethedra nodded slightly, hands clasped in front of her, and said, “Go on then.”
Abigail harumphed. “That was two hundred years ago. I’ve lived more without my essence than with it, but I reconnect every day, and even when I’m confused, I get shit done.”
Ethedra nodded. “That’s fine.”
Abigail lifted her chin, then and turned to the tools on the altar, muttering about how she always got shit done.
She pulled one bowl of water and salt close to her, then bent forward over it, using her fingers to feel for her recent memories at the back of her head, urging them into the skin and tissues, until she found a tiny protuberance with her fingers.
She pulled it out—it didn’t hurt, but it felt weird as shit, and the memories flitted through her mind like a picture show as she did it.
She found the end she wanted like a film reel, right before she’d “washed her cask” that morning.
She held it tight with her nails, then snipped it cleanly with sharp scissors.
…
Abigail went slack, a memory thread and scissors in her hands.
…
She perked up and stared at the memory thread, seeing visions of what it contained swirling around its edges—her, doing something with Mina.
Last thing she remembered was waking up and getting dressed…
and now she was in the Templum? What time was it?
When had she seen Mina? She looked all around, and her eyes landed on Ethedra, who motioned for her to turn around and mimed dropping something into something else.
Abigail turned and found water in a bowl.
She dropped the memory thread in it, and bent over the bowl, watching the memory as it dove, then came to the surface of the water and images played like a movie.
The realizations hit her hard and fast as the ‘movie’ progressed at a sped-up pace.
Paisley taken by Khain! Mina’s pissed! Frannie called the vod! Abigail had to meet with the vodvod Crew Arcoal!? He would know what she was! Oh! Oh! Oh!
Abigail clutched her chest with shaking hands, holding back a cry, gathering her will, soothing her spirit, in order to have the strength to do what needed to be done. She would not be caught panicking by the demon. She wrapped her arms around herself and breathed deeply, until she was calmer.
“You’re to make a copy first,” Ethedra said, “then you’re to form the memory into something without foxen or Khain in it, then put it back in. Then you’re going to remove your essence and I’m supposed to send you to ‘You Need It’.”
Abigail nodded, curling her fingers over the bowl, twisting the memory thread this way and that with her fingers, checking for what could be changed. Memories were fluid and could normally be molded in any direction.
“Good plan, good plan,” she muttered. She focused her will, muttered binding spells to the water and the bowl, making the copy first. When it was done, she lifted the thread from the water, then pushed the bowl to the back of the altar.
She stepped over to the second bowl and plunged the memory thread into the water, snipping and molding it, doing her work quickly.
She was good at changing memories, and she did it often, though almost never on herself.
She sculpted and shaped, making everything smooth and common and acceptable.
“Finished,” she said, her eyes on the bowl. “Finished and complete.”
She turned, slowly, trying to keep the plan in her head. She reached for her cask and it wasn’t there! She turned to stare accusingly at Ethedra, but a coat rack caught her eye. It was her cask clipped to her modified coat rack.
Abigail moved close to it, turning her back to it, unbuttoning her jacket.
Number Six appeared from nowhere, coming around the altar to put a hand on her hip.
“Need help?” he rasped, pressing his front against her back, taking her jacket for her and kissing her neck softly, tickling her skin with his stubble.
“Hi Sixy,” Ethedra called.
“Where the hell did you come from? And where the hell have you been?” Abigail snapped.
“Right ’ere, Missus,” Number Six said softly, kissing her neck again.
“Good. I need you.”
“Me, too, Sixy!” Ethedra called, waving her hand.
Abigail shook her head, unbuttoning her shirt. “She doesn’t need you, but I want you to keep an eye on her.”
“Go back to Orion?” Number Six rasped, his eyes on her chest as it was revealed more and more with each button.
Abigail let her shirt fall open and her mark was revealed, raw, bloody, and weeping, slicing through her breasts and one nipple. Ethedra gasped but Number Six just kept smiling. It didn’t bother him one bit, which was one reason Abigail kept him around.
“Only for an hour.” She flicked her eyes to Ethedra. “I want you to keep an eye on her and tell me everything she says to the vod.”
Number Six nodded.
“First, you’re to go with me to ‘You Need It’ as a mink. We’ve got to meet with a vodvod.”
“Minked up,” he said, nodding, his expression stony. “Won’t be no fights that way.”
Abigail shook her head and pulled her left arm out of her shirt.
“No fights, that’s right.”
She moved under the coatrack, pressing the mouth of the fox to her renqua scar, then whistled—a short trill—and her essence left her, plunging through her renqua scar into the mouth of her cask.
Empty. She felt empty and sad and small and alone.
Abigail shook her head and looked around, confused, but not really.
She’d been here before, she knew who this woman was—Ethedra from another world.
She knew she met with this woman often when she had her essence, but almost never without it.
It all had to do with her BIG BAD SECRET that she wasn’t supposed to think about, but that she carried with her everywhere.
She shoved it to the back of her mind and waited for instructions from… someone.
This was just how her life was—full of secrets upon secrets that she could not unravel if she tried, so she kept moving.
Number Six moved close. She looked at him, and he took her hand, then ran his fingers down her bare shoulder softly. He pulled her shirt close around her and said, “Button ‘em, we’re going,” in a voice much softer than his usual chainsaw rasp.
Abigail nodded, feeling rough affection for him. She buttoned up, looking around, ready for anything.
Six pointed her to the memory bowl. She peeked in at the memory, frowning. Six motioned to it and said, “Put it in.”
Abigail, nodded. She trusted Number Six fully. She fished the end of the memory out of the water, then stuck it to the back of her head, working with her fingers until it melded with what was already there.
Abigail gasped. She grabbed Number Six. “Someone took Paisley? Who?”
Six only shook his head, his face and voice solemn.
“I really have to meet with a vodvod?”
Six nodded.
“Why? Why are the vodvod involved? Was it…?”
Abigail stopped talking with a jolt. Her secrets upon secrets were dangerous and she needed to watch her fucking mouth. She could meet with the vodvod. She had no choice.
Number Six watched her closely, then nodded and said, “I’ll be wit’ you, Missus.”
He helped her put her jacket back on, then moved away a few steps.
He bent, unzipped his boots, and kicked them off, then hoisted himself up onto the altar like a gymnast. He turned around and winked at her, then shifted into a mink, getting smaller, his features drawing in and going pointy, his body shrinking and changing shape, until a small mink ran out of the clothing.
He scurried up her arm and laid down, settling himself across her shoulders.
“Yesss,” Abigail murmured, feeling deep comfort at his presence, knowing this was her magic that let Number Six turn into the mink pelt, but not knowing how it was done—at that moment, she was a literal split personality with only a dim sense of her other half.
The mink stilled, then deflated, until it looked like a dead pelt.
Abigail stroked his tiny head, murmuring to him. He was a good husband.
“Your cask,” Ethedra said, pointing to it, making a ‘gimme’ motion with her hands.
Abigail unclipped it from the coat rack, probing its belly, which was her habit. It felt full of all of her secrets and valuable things. Good, good. She clutched it and stared at the well and Ethedra, sensing the plane between worlds, and not sure how to surpass it.
“Drop it in,” Ethedra said, pointing below her feet.
Abagail nodded. Of course. She dropped her cask into the well, and it fell into Ethedra’s open hands.
“Now go,” Ethedra said. “Number Six will protect you.”
Abigail turned around, feeling small and confused and determined not to show it.
She could get by. She always did. The stairs beckoned and she went to them, plodding up.
At the top, she found Number Twelve, her twelfth husband.
He held a hand with only two fingers and a thumb on it out to her. She ignored it and pushed past him.
He ran to keep up with her, saying, “Six said I gotta drive you somewhere.”
“Yes, to my store.”
“Roger wilco.” He led her over rocks and around trees into some bushes where a black SUV waited. He bundled her into the back seat and drove her down the bluff toward town.
Abigail looked out the window and whispered ‘thank you’ to Number Six. She stroked him gently, then kissed him on his tiny head.
He was a good husband—hands down her best husband.