They left the room by the curtain-way.
Aspen repeated it to herself. Through the curtain. Normal. We all walk through curtains. That beige curtain was silky, like everything else was. It had an inverted, hollow triangle sigil on the inside. And on the outside, a properly oriented one. Aspen pointed at them.
"What do these markings mean?"
Raine stopped walking. Quinn glanced back. "The Inner one keeps secrets, the outer one doesn't."
Aspen cocked her head. "Secrets from what?"
"The spirits. Tells them we don't want them poking anywhere."
A small muscle feathered in Aspen's jaw. "What even really are these spirits?"
Quinn didn't answer immediately, brushing her chin with her thumb. Raine spoke up, voice low. "We can't see them, but they listen to us. They are the reason we're still living now, we owe everything to them."
Talk about reverence. What are you? Cult members? Oh but then again, she got her name from them. "So they're just like… invisible protector people?"
Quinn smirked and started to walk again. "Spot on, probably not people though. Far too great for that."
Aspen kept pace as they slogged down a slender wood hallway. Mushrooms and moss littered the walls. Gross. Can I really live here? No, why am I even thinking of living here? Like I'm settling in.
That's impossible.
"So how come they don't just ignore your request when you ask them not to listen? Are they nice—wait," Aspen's eyes widened, "when High Priestess made this necklace, she brought up a spirit!"
Quinn nodded as she walked. "Spirit of Charity. Yep."
"Why does that spirit even like her…?" Aspen froze. The hallway opened up to a great room.
The ceiling spread out like a mongolian ribcage, as if hollowed out by generations and softened by fungal saliva. Cyan shrooms webbed across the walls, ceiling, and floor. The ceiling was high, too high. It would take at least five of her to touch the top. Foreign alcoves more grown than carved held things like mats, baskets of dried blue lichen, and shelves cut into heartwood to cradle jars.
The question about the spirit died on her lips. She wrapped her arms around her midsection, squeezing tight. A shiver, sudden, raked down her spine. It wasn't the temperature—the air was humid and warm.
It was the geometry.
I'm really inside… a massive tree. A stomach. How?
How could a tree ever grow this big? And we're just... living in it? What are we really?
Her eyes traced the arching ribs of the ceiling. The necklace thumped a steady rhythm against her throat, forcing her to breathe. Her skin was too tight for her body. She rubbed her arms and remembered she had new hands. And new skin. A new tongue.
Her spine ached, her shoulders were too thin. Why am I feeling this now? I thought the necklace was getting used to me before, is it not strong enough?
No, what am I saying? It's obvious. The emotions—my emotions are getting worse. Is... it all accumulating? So much so that the necklace can't handle, it seems.
Raine shot to Aspen's side. She didn't touch her, but her hands fluttered inches from her cheeks, hovering like moths around a flame. "You are… trembling," she whispered. Her dark eyes were wide, scanning Aspen's face. "What's scaring you?"
Quinn stopped a few paces ahead. The dry half-smile she'd worn moments ago vanished. She didn't look at Aspen's face; she looked at the necklace.
The opal was pulsing rapidly.
"Girl," Quinn's gravelly voice dropping to a rumble. "Breath. You're scratching the skin off."
What?
Aspen looked down at her hands. One was itching the other. Neither asked for her permission.
Is my real body dead?
The itching sped up. Frantic. Skin scraping skin. I didn't even get to say goodbye. To Jamie. To Mom. Her nails dug deeper. Blood welled under them. A familiar red, like her hands were trying to remember something—
Raine's fingers locked over hers, suffocating the rhythm before she could dig any deeper.
"Please…"
Quinn interrupted, grabbing her wrist and pulling her to a table in the great room. "Sit down somewhere, girl."
Aspen landed hard in a gray wood chair. It was warm. "I-I—"
Quinn put a finger to her lips. "Don't speak. Just eat."
Eat? What do you mean eat?
Quinn disappeared into one of the alcoves and returned with a shallow bowl. She returned quickly and set it in front of Aspen without ceremony. Inside was that blue jelly, translucent and trembling like it was still alive.
Aspen stared at it. The necklace pulsed, slower now but insistent.
Come on, we can't be serious.
Food? Now? I'm having a mental breakdown or something and you want me to eat?
Should I really eat this? I'm not even hungry. Just… maybe a little scared. No, not a little. Very scared.
She dipped her finger into the jelly, just an inch. It was… warm. Tingly. Thicker than she expected, clinging to her skin like amber.
Goop. Literal goop. This isn't gonna taste like blueberry.
She looked up at Quinn and Raine. Raine leaned forward, her hands clasped tight enough to whiten the knuckles. Quinn stood further back, motionless, eyes tracking the blue droplet with a clinical focus.
Damn it. She brought it to her mouth.
It didn't taste like blueberry.
It tasted, bizarrely, of the sweet matcha mochi she'd ordered a few months ago, which arrived dented and a little mushed. So even this reminds me of home. But this was blander, a ghost of a mistake. It left an electric tingle in her tongue, like the nutrients were being absorbed directly through her gums.
Her mouth puckered, twisted, and stretched in ways she didn't know it could. "It… make… eeugh—my mouth tingle."
Raine sat with her hands folded in her lap, a soft hint of relief on her face. Quinn smirked, wings folded tight against her back.
Aspen swallowed and the jelly settled cold in her gut. "Okay," her voice came out steadier than she felt. "Let's just… I don't know what was going on. I'm fine now though." The pair squinted at her. "I need to know what's happening. What is the Omen?"
Quinn scoffed. "Totally fine." Raine nodded with her.
Aspen frowned. "Okay, kind of fine. But... something is literally coming in six days, am I wrong for wanting to be rational?"
Quinn and Raine exchanged a glance. Raine looked back to a curtain that seemed to open to the outside. I almost… don't want to know what's out there. The curtain had the same inverted triangle. The spirits can't listen here.
Raine leaned in. Aspen held back the urge to lean back. "The omen is a man," Raine whispered. "But refer to him as 'It' when speaking aloud or outside."
"What? Why?"
"Because it is better for the commonfolk to not know. And if they don't know, then that is what the spirits will assume."
"Wait wait wait, huh? Why is it better?"
Quinn sighed, joining the conversation. "The spirits see through the people, little sprout. They feel what the people feel. If the people believe a scary cloudy thing is coming, and that they can slow it by dancing and singing, then the spirits will too."
Aspen's mouth hung wide open. "S-So, wait, so the spirits just… will they power the people's dancing and singing then?"
The pair nodded.
"And they see through us? But not with those curtains? What if the wind moves the curtain?"
"Ambient wind is ignored. It can move them all it wants but it has no importance to the spirits." Quinn picked at her ear.
"So it's just ignored? This is strange. Why don't you just tell the people that some weak thing is coming then? Instead of a vague threat."
Raine frowned, holding her head with her hand. "The spirits aren't all-powerful. And they may be able to slow the path of what comes, but they can't directly harm or weaken it."
Oh. So they only have like a passive effect. Like a debuff? Well, to it's... path? Do they make obstacles for it? God, I'm really thinking in game terms. "But High Priestess said it would come in six days." A jolt shot through her spine. "Wait, am I allowed to say that?"
Quinn waved her off. "It's fine, that much is the consensus."
Aspen shot up. "Wait, so what's your plan then? What are you going to do while slowing it down?" Why am I even being told all this? Memory jog? Or do they trust me now? Maybe I have charisma.
Raine reached out to touch her hand, but froze before making contact. "...We have rituals set for each day. One for each member of the council. We had Fool's yesterday."
Aspen stroked her chin. Fool? Do these rituals power up the members? And I'm a council member, so I must be throwing a wrench in that. "I guess that's why High Priestess was so stressed." And this…
I'm brought here when an Omen is coming and I'm in the body of a council member who was supposed to participate in a ritual.
This council member was also good friends with Raine, and it's making her sad.
Is this a joke from God? I-I mean this is just too consistent, no, there's no way. Come on.
That sent a jolt down her legs. She swallowed those thoughts, they sat heavy in her stomach. "Then what am I supposed to do? I don't know any ritual stuff."
Quinn chuckled. "Who knows? There's a plan… we just don't actually know if it'll work. If it doesn't, guess we're dead."
"Quinn!" Raine's voice cracked like a whip. Aspen stared at the old woman with wide eyes.
"We've already chosen to be honest with the girl, this is the situation. High Priestess has gone to plan out what to do, nobody really knows." She shrugged. "Well, maybe besides Hierophant. What're we gonna do?"
Aspen's fingers tapped against the table. The necklace's pulse hastened. "You guys have brought him up alot, but who is Hierophant?"
Quinn sat a little straighter. "He's the one who divines things. After all, he's closest to the Spirit of Grace."
Aspen brought her fist down—hard. The sudden violence rattled the bowls. "And what? What is the Spirit of Grace? I don't fucking know enough! And you're here acting like we're all gonna fucking die!"
Oh fuck. Sorry. That was... sudden.
Raine flinched, the old woman didn't. She simply tilted her head to the left, then the right. A dry crack echoed from her vertebrae. "Okay, you aren't wrong. I should've considered your position here. There's a lot to explain though."
Raine stared at Aspen, a drop of sweat pooling between her tight brows.
Aspen sighed, long and ragged. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that, didn't even expect it really. Can… you just tell me what I can do? I don't know ritual stuff but maybe I could learn it in time for mine? When is my ritual?"
Raine spoke. "Five days from now. You are the final one."
"Why don't you guys just do all the rituals in one day?"
Quinn waved her to sit. "They require different things. Takes time. Plus, spreading them out shows importance and respect. Makes it ceremonial, the spirits love that."
Aspen chose to stand. All this talk about these spirits… god, so weird. They're manipulating the spirits but also worshipping them?
And there's multiple ones. It seems some have certain powers. Charity helped High Priestess make this necklace.
Grace seems to have to do with divining stuff.
"Hold on. So what is my spiri—"
The curtain leading to the outside whipped aside.
High Priestess returned.
Instantly, the air tasted of a bakery on fire. Molten caramel and smoke. Burnt sugar. Aspen's nose wrinkled. I smelled this before, the moment I first woke up here. The smell she thought had to do with Jamie.
Does it mean something? It was a sticky smell that clung to the inside of her nostrils. The wires in her head sparked, trying to twist the sense into a name. But the scent wouldn't resolve. It twisted deeper, dragging her down until she got a scene.
An image.
A young man, around sixteen or seventeen, with hair like midnight ink streaming down his face. Many gray things were littered on the ground.
Who is that? What am I seeing? Then the perspective flipped. She could see the floor by his side.
There was a body's lower half.
And its feet lay stiff, carcasses behind a bone-white dress.
The dress she'd woken in the first time.