Secondhand Sorcery

In the back of the car, Nadia dreamed without sleeping, her exhausted mind too persistently troubled to rest, too dull to understand. One idea after another ran rioting through her head uninvited, leaving behind only muddled memories of images she couldn’t be troubled to understand.

For most of an hour she had been pulled between raw hateful anger and a yearning to destroy herself for the good of others, until she was wrung completely dry, and still they pulled her through the motions of pretending to feel. Then came the long, terrible scream, when it felt like everyone was shouting inside her head at once and she was sure it would be torn apart. When it was done, she fell into unconscious apathy.

Into that final exhaustion a fresh story intruded, a story about the glories of battle. Her conscious mind was too far spent to feel it, but the images ran through her mind uncontested and barely noted; she saw them as a fish might see a stone skipping across its pond. An irrelevance. When they were replaced, abruptly, with the tired story about the tree and the old lady, she only shifted in place, as though she were lying with a stone in the small of her back. She didn’t wake up, or struggle when she was picked up and carried.

All the same, she was newly aware of a rough place in the center of her mind, a place where somebody had lived, once, and wasn’t there anymore. For a little while it had lain vacant and fallow, undisturbed, and the wound left by her leaving had healed over almost completely. But there was still a scab, a little rough spot, and the flesh beneath remembered, well enough to be angry when provoked. The teasing and the tugging—the feel of a thorn flitting over smooth fabric, daring to go lower until it caught at a thread, hooked, and tore. The scab broke off, and woke the raw wound beneath. Nadia did not have the power to put it in better words. But she felt it.

Under the wound was nothing but habit, and an empty shape or form where something used to be. A depression in an old mattress where a body once lay, and had shaped the whole mattress to it. The emptiness felt about inside her, unrecognized but unhappy, until it found something, the last remains of what it had lost: the sneering face of a disdainful woman in a cafe. She dreamed, and the dream disturbed her, though she could not have said why.

It was at that exact moment of useless recognition that one more outrage came to visit, a new story to live by and suffer through. She did not want it, and would have rejected it if she’d had the strength, but she did not, and at a fatal moment the idea of resurrection came along and caught at her old wound. The wound tore raggedly open, and the universe with it, and time stopped, or else by some sudden and inexplicable burst of courtesy released her.

The sneering woman disappeared, and the cafe as well. Nadia stood in her old church, facing a man in a black cassock with a red beard. What do you want from me? she asked him, but got answers neither of them could believe in. He was nothing more than a great parrot in man’s shape.

So she turned and walked away, like her sister wanted—but turned back at a sharp word, and saw that the man had grown older, with a grey beard and a big nose. What was he doing in a church? She asked him the same question, and got a prompt answer: obedience. Nothing more, nothing less. Only submission would save her.

But she could not live that way, she explained. It would kill her. What do you want from me? The man answered in the form of a blond woman with glasses, and explained that she was free to die in this way or that, or the other way if she liked, and that she ought to consider herself fortunate, being gifted so many different ways to die when the ordinary common girl was trapped in only one single mode of suffering.

That is no answer at all. What do you really want from me? Too late; the woman was black now, and had a different and kinder smile. All she wanted was for Nadia to sit there, and let her handle everything. She was just a child, after all, and not responsible for what happened.

But I am not a child anymore, Nadia told her. I can’t go back to that. So, what do you want from me?

All too conveniently, the woman was gone, and a much younger girl answered for her: no point in messing with all that. It’s all bullshit anyway. Walk away, sister, and leave it all behind.

There is nowhere else to go. The world is on fire. What do you really want from me?

A boy, stout and timid: make yourself small, like a bug or a mouse. Hide, and shrink, and be nothing, and you can go anywhere and nobody will notice. Then you can go anywhere you want.

And how did that work for you? I think death would be better. No more joking. What do you want from me?

Another boy, young, blond and beautiful with a mouth full of dirty words: you’re right. Being a human is too hard. It’s much more fun, when the monsters rule the world, to simply live like a beast, until you are a beast, and can’t remember how to change back.

That did not even deserve a considered answer, and Nadia knew he would not last to argue, so she only answered No. Time was pressing on her now, held back for too long. She did not have forever to talk like this. Nobody got that. She needed to find an answer, a real one. What do you want from me?

Another old man, with a tan face and a tidy beard. War, he told her. She was called to war, and war was asked of her, and she could give no less. That was the truth of service. Anything less was cowardice.

I have been at war for so long already, and made everything worse. How much longer? What do you want from me?

Repentance, said a young man with glasses and long sideburns. If she suffered, it was to prove her repentance sincere. That the Law led her through fire and anguish did not excuse her from obedience to it. It was written, written and complete.

But I don’t think I believe in the Law anymore. So what do you want from me?

A third old man, with a grey mustache and a somber look. He had an answer, but it was full of tiresomely long words, and most of them were lies. She hated him on sight, and refused to listen, until at the end of his obnoxious tale he spoke a single word: resurrection.

She did not believe in resurrection anymore. She had hoped too long for something to come along and save her from the misery of her life. Hoping hurt. But if this man was going to come and bother her with it now, when she was tired past tired and sick in her heart, then she would give it to him, stronger and faster than he had ever expected.

In the castle tower they stood, surrounded by old books, and Caesar loomed over her in his gaudy clothes, a demon at his back. And he said to her: Is it true, child, that you do not serve my gods, or worship the golden image that I have set up? Now, if you are ready, when you hear the sound of my music, to fall down and worship the image that I have made, well and good. But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace. And who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands?

But Nadia answered back: Caesar, I have no reason to answer you in this matter. My God is able to rescue me. But if He will not

if He will not

if He will not

if He will not

if He will not

Caesar answered her back, but she could not hear him over the music, and did not care to listen. The music came from the walls and the floor and shook the dust from the books he could not be troubled, in his vanity, to take down and read. He did not listen to the song, but she did, and she heard its words: for we have not obeyed Your commandments, which You have decreed that it might go well with us. So all that You have brought upon us, and all that You have done to us, You have done in true judgment. You have given us into the hands of an unjust king, the most wicked in all the world. Now we cannot open our mouths; shame and disgrace have fallen on us. For Your name’s sake do not give us up forever, and do not break Your covenant, for we have become lower than any nation.

The song was very loud now, though Caesar did not notice, even though she was singing it herself, as loud as she could, to drown him out. Still he brayed on, like an old jackass, and Nadia thought to herself, without ceasing her song: It is time for the Lord to act. The law has been broken.

The room shook with the song, and all the books fell off the shelves, and trembled where they lay. From the corner of her eye Nadia saw the image of a woman with long hair, for just an instant, but she was gone even as Nadia turned to look, and Nadia could not see her more closely or tell what she looked like. Then she was on the other side of the room—and gone. Faster and faster she moved, here and there, until she was not really moving but only shifting or shaking. Vibrating, maybe, to the music, like a bell. And it was her song.

The music rose to a crescendo, unbearably loud, and shifted in pitch abruptly, so that Nadia could hear at the same time every part of the chorus, the sopranos impossibly high and the basses unfathomably low and every part between clear and distinct. And Chansonne appeared, firm and true, behind the back of Caesar. Her hand was held high above him, ready to strike, but he did not see or heed her until the song reached its very greatest pitch, and fell silent. At that at last silence Caesar started to turn, too late, and the hand fell. At the first touch he was broken into pieces and unmade, and the whole world, strained to its limit by the power of her song, broke apart with him.

And Nadia woke.

Chansonne sang in the sky above her. It was wordless now, but Nadia understood every bit of it. She had sung a bit of it before, and written it down in a letter not so long ago. Who are these people, who eat my people as a man eats bread? Do they not fear God? They shall know such fear as has never been. If He will not … then the task falls to me.

Chansonne’s hair was long and bright, twisting in thick sinuous tendrils in the air, and shone with shifting colors, brown, red, and yellow. The flesh beneath was translucent, but rosy, and full of vigor; the space around her seemed to glow, the air traced with a nearly invisible circular frame of rotating floral shapes in lines of subtle gold. She sang with arms outstretched, unconscious of her nudity—though her hair managed to cover her, more often than not.

Two foes rose to challenge her: a black dragon with many heads, and a silver knight riding a jet of fire. Even through her weariness, Nadia could remember very well what the dragon would do; the silver man was a mystery. But the dragon—he had attacked them twice already. If he expected mercy from her, he was mistaken.

The dragon convulsed, and a streak of red fire came shrieking through the air to strike Chansonne. He did not know who he was dealing with; he would learn better soon. The lady raised her voice, and the rock flew through empty space as she multiplied herself about the heavens as she had in the dream, resonating among the clouds. Just as the rock was beginning to droop down towards the earth, the song stopped, and Chansonne appeared atop of it to strike with immeasurable force.

Chansonne’s touch went beyond ordinary brute impact; the movement of her hand was enough to trouble the very sky. Her corona flared, its delicate floral shapes momentarily brighter than the sun, and a perfect sphere of violently expanding air broke the meteor into dust with a sound like the end of the world. The praise of God is in her mouth, and a two-edged sword in her hand. To execute the judgment written against them; this is the honor for all His faithful.

The dragon threw another stone. This time, Chansonne did not wait to let it pass her, but sang herself into place at the edge of her halo to meet it with a sharp and piercing rebuke. The detonation threw the dust of his failure back at him at twice its former speed, and the dragon went tumbling backwards in shame. Let those who hate Him flee from before His face.

The silver man held his place, only observing. Either he could not hurt her outside his own place, or he did not dare to try. Three high notes trembled in the air, swiftly followed by three rolls of thunder. The metal man was too far away to take damage; the potency of Chansonne’s wrath was reduced to mere turbulence by the time it reached him. Still, he dipped in the air, struggling to keep his balance—

“Nadia.” A hand on her shoulder, shaking her.

She opened her eyes, and realized they had been closed as she did. It took an effort to open them. The world below was dim and grey, and she was tired; she wanted to go back up to the clouds. But Keisha was there, looking concerned. “There” being … a car with leather seats. She didn’t recognize it. There were other people in it too, but she didn’t feel like taking the time to look at them. Her eyes weren’t focusing very well for some reason. “What? What do you want?” What do you want from me?

“Nadia, you’ve been screaming this whole time. I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but are you okay? Is all this hurting you?”

“I’m fine! Stop distracting me. Oh, what now?” A fresh nuisance had come along to trouble her. A third enemy—she could feel him digging into her halo. No, not him. Her. The flower lady, with the glass, sprouting up half a kilometer down the road. Fine. If they wanted to play three-on-one, she would break them all.