Pockets of Darkness (23 page)

One more, you Aldî-nîfaeti fecker!
One more push, one more kick. One more run up the thousand five hundred and seventy-six steps, the lower third taken two at a time.

One more!

Free!

The binding she’d felt was gone, and there was a sensation of air moving around her. The scales were gone and Bridget thought she was peering through a dense fog. But after what seemed like several minutes, things cleared. The bowl she was delving and that she now looked out through sat high on a rough wooden shelf in what appeared to be a potter’s shop. Bright light streamed in through a doorway, letting her see every bit of the one-room building. The walls were wattle and daub, the roof tightly packed reeds. There was a fireplace filled with logs, but no ashes and no odors to indicate it had been used in a while.

The image was so intense that Bridget could feel the breeze playing across her. She spiraled out from the bowl, seeing pottery everywhere … on shelves, a table, large pieces on the floor against the hearth and set against the walls, on the windowsills. Jars with matching lids that might be intended for honey or butter, narrow ones for oil and wine. Pitchers, vases. The vases were extraordinary; some had pointed feet made to resemble animal claws, some were on stands or set on rectangular wood frames, a few were flat-bottomed. A couple of the containers were sealed with clay, and there were dishes of all sizes.

A pottery wheel sat under the largest window, a tall woman worked diligently at it, her hands so smooth Bridget guessed her to be a mere teenager. She hummed a haunting tune, perhaps the one Bridget had heard while she wrestled with the demon. Clay tools were arrayed on a bench next to the potter, including a variety of wedge-shaped reeds, some with dried clay on their tips. Bridget realized those were what the potter used to engrave words and pictures into the bowls.

Bridget hadn’t known the art of making pottery on a wheel stretched back so many centuries; primitive man wasn’t so primitive, after all.

“Join me,” the potter said. “There is no one else here, no one else to see you.” She continued to work the clay.

The potter’s eyes were closed, but she turned her face toward the shelf Bridget’s delved bowl sat on. One side of her face looked young and smooth, but the other was a mass of ugly scars that made the skin look wet, and on that side, no hair grew.

“Come join me,” she repeated. “You are not Aldî-nîfaeti, and I have no fear of ghosts. There is no need for you to hide on my shelf. There is no need for you to fear me.”

***

Thirty One

She can see me? Not possible.

Bridget’s gift of psychometry was a one-way street. She could look into the past through an object she held and concentrated on, but
just
look and listen and mentally translate the language of the speakers. The object, the bowl in this case, was a window that she could see and hear through. She wasn’t truly there.

Right this very moment Bridget was in Adiella’s pit off the winter-cold subway tunnel, her back against a graffiti-covered wall, and the ancient bowl nesting in her hands. She was looking into that bowl’s past, to a land that was now called Iraq or Iran; geography and politics were not precise in her mind.

A one-way window.

It was not possible for anyone on the other side of time to look back at her. Such a person was millennia dead, and the place … Sumer … no longer existed. The building, the potter, dust, memories of the earth tramped on by soldiers and buried by centuries.

“Of course I can see you,” the potter continued, her eyes were closed. She turned her head back to the bowl she was shaping. “And I welcome you to my shop. Come visit with me.” She reached an arm to her side and indicated the bench next to her. There was an empty space amid the clay tools. “Come. Come, little ghost.”

Not possible.

Or was it? Bridget was more than six thousand miles away and more than six millennia disconnected from ancient Sumer.

“Come sit with Hilimaz.”

Hilimaz … that was the name the demon in the bowl mentioned.

“I’ll not entreat you again, little ghost. Come sit with me or be on your way.”

Bridget nudged her senses toward the bench and imagined herself sitting on the rough wood.

“Ah, that is better. Who are you, little ghost?” The potter put the finishing touches on her bowl, fashioning a lip around it, and sluicing water up to make it smooth.

“Bridget.” Bridget had thought the word, but it came out as clearly as if she’d spoken it. “My name is Bridget O’Shea.”

“Pretty. Does Bridget mean anything?” The potter understood her, so the translation apparently went both ways.

“Mean? I don’t—”

“Your name, little ghost. Does it have a significance?” The potter removed her foot from the pedal and the wheel slowed and then stopped. She appeared to scrutinize the bowl, and then turned to face the bench. Her eyes were still closed. “Your name, does it mean anything? Mine, Hilimaz, means beauty, though I am not. I was, though, years ago, and always in my mother’s eyes I was lovely.” She stood and walked to a nearby barrel, dipped her hands in and sloshed them around. She wiped her hands on a rough-spun cloth, hung up her apron, and returned to her stool. “But my mother died before she saw me like this. So always in her view I am beautiful. Your name, little ghost?”

“Bridget is Irish, inspired by St. Brigid of Kildare. She was a nun, and she founded the Convent Cill-Dara, the Church of the Oak it came to be called. She also founded an art school, and the students were proficient in metalwork and illumination. My mother taught me all of that when I was very small. The name Bridget means strong-willed and virtuous. I am the former, but certainly not the latter. And I am nothing like the nun I was named for.” A pause: “How is it that you can—”

“See you?” Hilimaz smiled. Half of her teeth—those on the side of her scars—were broken. She opened her eyes; they were milky white. She was totally blind. “I see with my mind, Bridget the strong-willed. And I listen with my heart.”

Hilimaz smoothed at her robe and closed her eyes again. It seemed to Bridget like she was waiting. A silence eased around them. It was almost unnerving. Bridget expected to hear sounds beyond the potter’s shop—people moving in the community that certainly must stretch beyond the doorway. Or the people in Adiella’s pit talking or slapping down playing cards, the distant rumble of a subway train. But there was nothing, not even trees rustling in the breeze that continued to wash into the shop. Not even Otter’s voice.

“I’m from very far away,” Bridget said. “A land you wouldn’t know of. I came here—I came here—”

“—because you need Hilimaz’s help.” The potter’s smile turned sad. “So an Aldî-nîfaeti troubles you.”

“How did you know—”

“—people come to me to rid their homes of Aldî-nîfaeti. And to sometimes trade for my wares. But Bridget the strong-willed ghost would not need my pottery, and so you need my help with a demon. But tell me, how can a demon vex a ghost?”

“I’m not a ghost. Not exactly.” Bridget regaled the blind potter with a tale of New York City, her psychometry ability, the ancient pot she delved to get here. She finished with her tale of the buckle and her personal demon, as well as explaining about letting the pair of demons loose in the museum.

“A curious thing you are, little ghost. I think I like you, but I do not think I would like your New York City.”

“It is rather noisy,” Bridget said. “Hilimaz, I know you can catch them, the demons. The pot I delved. It has a demon in it.”

“That pot? That one contains Ku-Ninsunu.”

“Yeah, that’s the fecker’s name. I had a hell of a time getting past her and—”

“—into my shop.”

“Yes.”

“And so you have come to Hilimaz to learn how to catch the Aldî-nîfaeti that you released in New York City.”

“Yes,” Bridget said. “Essentially yes.” To learn a spell that she could get Adiella to cast into a bowl. So she could catch the demons she let loose and maybe save some small part of her soul. And hopefully find a way to be free of her own demon.

“Tonight I go to the place of Enmebaragisi, little ghost. He and his wife have been troubled by a persistent Aldî-nîfaeti. I will catch the creature and add it to those on my shelf.”

“Catch it in a bowl like you snared Ku-Ninsunu?”

The potter nodded. “You may come with me and watch. I am very good at capturing the Aldî-nîfaeti. I will teach you, Bridget the strong-willed. Then you will be very good at capturing the Aldî-nîfaeti too.” The potter rose and reached her hands toward the bench and selected a reed tool, flicking the dried clay away from the end, and then turning back to her wet bowl. “Watch me now, little ghost, this is part of the learning.”

“You are engraving a spell.”

Another nod. “Each spell is different and yet the same. You must have the name of the Aldî-nîfaeti, and that must be woven into the words. Names are power. In all ages names have been powerful. Saying the name calls it to the bowl. The Aldî-nîfaeti cannot resist. I say it now as I write it, and I will repeat it at the place of Enmebaragisi. You must invoke names of gods, too, as that righteous touch makes the clay stronger. Now watch and listen.”

Though the potter was blind, her marks were precise and even. She started at the center of the bowl, where she drew a stick figure, then etched characters in a spiral away from it. “I Hilimaz call Pua-tuma-sin, Aldî-nîfaeti of the house of Enmebaragisi. I take her by the scruff of her twin necks and her many horns. I poke out her dark and evil eyes that she may no longer look upon the family of Enmebaragisi. Sahtiel help me in this catching. Aid me that I might grab Pua-tuma-sin by her thick necks and her many horns and say ‘remove the curses and the pain from the hearts of those you have raged against.’”

Bridget remembered that particular sentence from delving the bowl at the museum: “Remove the curses and pain from the hearts of those you have raged against.” There were other similarities to the spells, but that part was word-for-word. Distracted, she’d missed some of what the potter had said.

“—I adjure you in the name of Ruphael and Sathietl and in the name of Prael the great. Bother no more Enmebaragisi and his wife Shag-ana. Descendants of Ekur must be teased no longer, teased nevermore, cursed no more, Aldî-nîfaeti-vexed no more. I am Hilimaz the binder and the cleanser. I turn away all things fetid and foul. I protect Enmebaragisi, descendant of Ekur, and I protect the wife of Enmebaragisi, Shag-ana and her coming child. I bind. I bind in clay and powerful words. I heal and annul. With these words I catch I bind. Weapon of clay, mother wet-earth, in the names of angels Sariel and Barakiel—”

Ruphael, Sathietl, and Prael, they’d been mentioned in her previous delving. Ruphael, Sathietl, Prael the great, and she thought Barakiel, too. Bridget committed all those to memory.

“—I, Hilimaz, shackle the Aldî-nîfaeti named Pua-tuma-sin. In so doing I free the hearts of Enmebarasis and Shag-ana and her coming child. I ease the troubles of the descendants of Ekur. I, Hilimaz, protect this house from all vileness. Bind and seal and capture forevermore the Aldî-nîfaeti named Pua-tuma-sin.” The potter rubbed the wet clay off her engraving tool.

“You said you were going to catch this demon tonight. But the bowl won’t be dry by then.”

“Dry enough,” Hilimaz tutted. “Wet or dry, if I handle it with care it will work well. I do not want Shag-ana and Enmebaragisi to endure their Aldî-nîfaeti even one more day. Shag-ana is big with child, and I fear Pua-tuma-sin waits for its birth. Aldî-nîfaeti are known for eating the young.”

“And killing in general,” Bridget muttered.

“Come, little ghost, I will show my city.”

Bridget thought of Otter sleeping and wanting to return to him. All she needed was the spell. “But I haven’t time for this. I want to watch you catch the demon. That’s very important. I need to listen to the spell again. But that’s all I have time for.” And repeat it to Adiella so she can write it all down. “I want to watch the spell work, and then I need to be on my way. I have demons to catch in my city.”

“You will see my city first. It is not yet time to go to the home of Shag-ana and Enmebaragisi.” The potter poked out her bottom lip and shook her head. “Bridget the strong-willed, it will take more than one catching for you to understand and learn. You will see my city and learn my spells, and that will require time.”

“I don’t have time,” Bridget argued. She thought about Otter stretched out on the cot in the witch’s pit. She had to be over and done with this and to find a way to keep him safe. “I need to catch two demons and banish one back to the hell it came from.”

The potter rose and stepped to the doorway. “You will see my city first, on this I insist.”

Bridget felt compelled to follow, like she was a fish tugged on a line.

“You have no choice in the matter, Bridget the strong-willed. You gave me your name, and so I have power over you. I will make you my apprentice, for there are not enough witches in this world who can capture demons. And you are no competition to me here.”

“I’m not a witch—”

“Yes you are.”

No! Bridget railed against that notion. “I am a psychometrist.”

“I do not understand that word—”

“Psychometry, object reading,” Bridget explained. “It is a form of ESP … extra-sensory perception … that allows me to learn the history of an object I hold. The object, your bowl in this case, has an energy, and that energy transfers and translates its past and experiences.”

“So it is you who does not understand. That is being a witch,” the potter continued. “You will make an apt student.” She reached to the back of her robe and tugged a hood up and over her head. Only her chin showed. “Come, little ghost.” She stepped through the doorway and beckoned with her hand.

Bridget followed, but she wasn’t sure it was of her own volition.

“I will teach you my craft and then you can catch your own Aldî-nîfaeti,” Hilimaz said. “As for banishing? I cannot do that. I catch them only.”

“But I need—”

“You need to learn. You gave me your name, and so you will be mine for a time. Until I judge that you are ready.”

“I have your name, too,” Bridget said.

“Ah, but Bridget, ghosts have no power over me, even the strong-willed witches among them.”

***