Ifeelguilt.
It makes me feel even guiltier now, having such good results when it’s all Billy’s ever wanted, and yet I’m still keeping a secret, hiding my protection from him. And I don’t trust the doctor, I know he’s only agreed not to say anything about it because it suits him in some way to do so. But the second it doesn’t, the moment he wants to use it against me, or to hurt Billy, he’ll open his lips and let his tongue flap.
And I can’t be here then.
Can I?
I feel sick, my stomach heavy, feeling overfull, overstuffed, even though I decided not to eat today. Having waited days that felt like weeks for this day to come, I feel like everything isbalancing on a knife’s edge. The blade ready to slice me up, cut me open and make me bleed.
I don’t know what’s waiting for me down in this place we’re going to, but I know it won’t be good.
These stairs alone are like descending our way down into yet another layer of hell. An endless darkness beneath us as we take spiralling stairs, no hand rail, one after the other, another and then another. It echoes, this downward tunnel, every step reverberating back to us, every breath recorded in the damp stone walls, the only thing guiding us is Dolly and the oversized candelabra she carries in her other hand.
The nine candles drip steady streams of red wax onto her hand, singeing her fingers, sticking little red puddles to her skin, drying before the next drip joins the one before it, piling up. She doesn’t seem bothered by it, doesn’t react, even as droplets run down the inside of her wrist, stain her dress, she doesn’t divert her gaze from directly ahead, staring into the dark unblinking, never needing to look down to find the next step like I do.
In the silence, it’s what I focus on, putting one foot in front of the other, trying to ignore the way the steps are slippery, even beneath my bare feet, like there’s moss or algae or a combination of both growing in the crevices and cracks between each uneven stone. As though whoever put these stairs in wanted anyone travelling down them to plummet their way to the bottom, their death feeding whatever gods and demons lurk here.
Dolly stops me when we finally reach the bottom, and it’s frightening how scarily similar this place is to the one in Italy. Only, I know we’re deeper, having descended for so much longer, minutes, whereas the stairway in Italy was only a few long seconds.
Sconces light the too-wide tunnel, a wide open mouth we willingly begin to walk down. My steps are wooden, following beside Dolly, our dresses ‘shooshing’ together, our hands stilllinked, hers much cooler than my clammy one. The passageway narrows the further we walk, taking twists and turns with Dolly deciding which option to take us down without hesitation.
It greets me like icy fingertips to warm cheeks, the humming of a chant, something low and throaty and deep. It makes my heart curl in on itself, my spine stiffen, my muscles tightening, all of my insides feeling too hollow and too heavy all rolled into one. But my feet don’t stop, my heart still beats, my lungs still inflate, and my eyes still only zone in on one familiar Pair.
Billy stands in the centre of the room, shirtless, nothing but low-rise black jeans on his lower half, the button and zip hanging open, his feet bare, hands loose at his sides. A circle of black-robed figures, too many to count, hoods hiding their faces, surround him, filling the room. An altar at his back, steps leading up to it, tall gold free-standing candelabras placed either side of it, the same red candles as Dolly’s in each of them, what looks like years’ worth of wax built up on each of the shiny gold arms, stacks like waxy stalagmites climbing up from the floor beneath.
Dolly leads me right through the crowd, at least four people deep where they part to allow us past.
The chanting vibrates my bones like a sermon screaming through hollow skulls, the words all too familiar from before.
“Cruor et ossum. Cruor et ossum. Cruor et ossum.”
Blood and bone.
Their rhythmic stomping rolls through me like a wave, making my head light and floaty.
Still, I keep my focus on Billy, his eyes having also never left mine.
He’s animated, in this moment, the way he stands tall, his shoulders back, his posture strong and threatening. His expression stern, hard, unyielding. He looks like a general prepared for battle, his focus on one goal and one goal only.
To conquer.
Dolly leads me into the centre of the circle where a huge ancient looking wooden wheel is propped up on some sort of stand, angled slightly backwards as though it's an art easel for display. We pass by it, Dolly placing my hand inside Billy’s before stepping away, and at our touch, the chanting stops.
The silence is eerie, only my heartbeat pounding inside my head, blood rushing in my ears like the hiss of a serpent coiled around the altar.
“There is no mercy for what brings us here today.” It’s Gore’s voice, loud and assertive. “Before the altar of Father Black, you stand not as lovers, but as supplicants. You have come seeking union, but union is not given. It is earned. It issurvived.” The way he emphasises that last word makes everything I thought I already knew feel more real as the congregation hums lowly in agreement.
Gore turns towards Dolly as she reapproaches, candelabra no longer in hand, instead, a glass box sits in her open palms, hands held out in offering. She looks numb, her movements robotic, as though she’s only participating in this because she has to.
She’s gone again just as quickly when Gore turns back to us, our sides onto him, our hands still held between us closest to him.
“This is the Box of Fatum.”
There’s a rumbling then, excitement thrumming through the crowd like whispered prayers turning into teeth, biting and gnawing at the silence before the trial begins.
It makes me want to run.
I really feel it now.
