Young Writers Society

The Ritual

Asenath exhaled loudly as she heard the creak of the scissors. The snap of the blades hitting each other as they removed her long black locks from her head. The strands of hair fell in clumps onto the wooden floor. She forced her eyes closed so she wouldn’t see the reflection of herself in the mirror. She didn’t want to see the one facet of herself she considered beautiful being cut away from her. A few moments later as she felt her head become lighter and the cool evening breeze stream from the open window and caress the nape of her neck, she was motioned to stand. Her soft hazel eyes drifted open as she took in the sight of her new image. Her hair was shorn so close to her scalp that it mimicked the many boys that populated the village. She’d lost weight and paled considerably upon learning her fate of being the next vessel for Goddess. Asenath fisted her hands at her sides; swallowing at the ethereal beauty the white robes of this custom gave her.

It was time, time for her to turn away from her previous self and become the new embodiment of their guardian deity. Stepping forward, her eyes adjusted from dim light of the candlelit room to the encompassing darkness of the outdoors. The moon had no glow that night; the storm clouds had covered its luminosity. Hardly any stars managed to peek through and watch the odd spectacle around her.

The women that had helped her dress walked out behind her with two cotton bags, filled with her hair and placed them on the two stacks of firewood outside the circle of river stones she was to lie in. Priest nodded at them both and they returned the gesture, keeping their gaze cast to the floor, they moved inside the clock tower, where they would emerge from another nine years from now.

The Condemned as the clan called them. Those who after years of living and thriving never gave birth to a child or was claimed for a ritual by Goddess. Goddess saw these beings unfit and they could only aid those who were going to participate in the ritual, people like her.

Asenath swallowed as she turned towards the sole man dressed in black. His hands were gloved and no part of his skin was visible except for his face. He had a very jovial face during his sermons but now he looked grave and serious. His blue eyes were icy as they stared Asenath down. She shifted nervously from foot to foot as the chestnut haired man looked her over. With a sniff, he motioned for her to lie down in the oval of river rock.

“Go my child. It’s almost time for Goddess to arrive.”

Asenath nodded, she hadn’t been allowed to utter a word in the past nine days, a way to cleanse her body free of any opinions and thoughts she may have had. This ritual meant for her to have her entire sense of self and person be devoured for Goddess to move inside.

She obeyed and stared up at the gloomy sky. Priest lit the bonfires aflame with a single candle and joined the large triangle of her clan around her. They all carried a single candle, all of them lit. They were all dressed in the same robes as she, but they were all blindfolded with a yard of black silk. She let her eyes close as she remembered when she was chosen for this task.

“It has been decided. The woman who will become Goddess’s next vessel is Asenath.”

The entirety of the clan stood and looked at her. As she walked down the aisle of their church, she felt awkward and embarrassed as all she passed fell to their knees in submission and prayer. Almost as if Goddess was already harbored inside her flesh and justly made her as holy as she.

She smiled weakly up at Priest and he smiled broadly in return. She knelt down before him as he spread the sacred water over her forehead, trailing his fingertips down the slope over her nose and lingering over the flesh of her lips. Removing his hand, she rose and looked up at him.

“In two weeks time, you shall be the vessel for Goddess as she chooses those who will accompany her on her voyage to Nirvana this year. This is a great honor for you and your family. You should be proud child.”

She was, she was so proud that Goddess felt her worthy enough to thrive inside her small mortal body. It made her heart skip and she felt as if she’d done something right for once. Something correct and moral before the eyes of Priest and her flesh and blood.

“ I am Priest. I am.”

Her heart skipped again as the young man gave her another smile. She flushed as he motioned for her to return to her seat. He then announced that all could rise and that this meeting of the clan was over. Their next meeting...

Was tonight. Tonight was a most sacred and holy event. Goddess would choose to live among them for the total of an hour. An hour was oh so short and mortal. But it was the choice of their deity.

And who were they to question the actions of their guardian?

-

Priest fell back as the large clock tower in the center of the entire ritual chimed. Its large bells boomed and rumbled with the first strike of nine. Nine o’ clock had arrived.

The first bell chimed and all of the flames blew out of existence including the two large bonfires at Asenath’s head and feet. All was dark and all was silent, except the thudding of her heart that raged in her breast and echoed loudly in her ears.

The second bell chimed and the mass of black smoke wavered and curled around Asenath’s still form before rushing forward, forcing itself into her body through her mouth and nose. She coughed and spluttered, her eyes blurred with tears. She felt her body shake and tremble, her lungs burned and she realized she could no longer breathe.

The third bell rang...and all was silent.

Her entire body ached, burned and throbbed with pain. She coughed and wiped her eyes as she weakly rose to her knees. She was surrounded by black, not even the forms of her fellow clansmen were visible to her eyes. Where was she exactly?

Her vision cleared and the image of a young girl appeared. She had long black hair and a soft expression as she cradled a large ceramic bowl on her lap. Dipping her hands in, she tilted her head back and drank the silver liquid from her cupped palms.

It was then Asenath realized that this person was she. A complete copy of who she was before the ritual had began. Before her hair was cut and her body clothed in virginal white robes despite her absence of her physical purity.

Fourth bell...and Asenath lurched forward clutching at her chest. It felt as if a hand was squeezing and digging its nails into her heart. She cried out hoarsely, her voice weak and rusty from lack of use.

“Why...?” She whispered weakly as tears once again blurred her vision.

Her doppelganger smiled sweetly and a voice that wasn’t her own echoed from her lips.

“For one...I’m rather sadistic.” She laughed and tossed her hair back, licking the remaining silver liquid from her palms.

The fifth bell echoed and she licked her lips.

“Two...I need you to feed.”

Asenath stared and her eyes widened. “...Feed?!”

“Yes you foolish mortal, feed. It’s part of “Priest” and my contract.”

“Contract?”

“Yes! Honestly, must you humans insist on answering with questions when shocked?”

Asenath felt another rhetorical question bubble up within her but she forced her mouth closed and opted to glare at Goddess.

“Oh, angry are you? I must’ve not drained your entire self yet. Very tasty really, your kind always is.”

The seventh bell chimed and she stood, languidly moving towards the shocked and immobile form of Asenath.

“Now, it’s almost time.” She licked her lips free of the silver stain and stood before her target. She cupped Asenath’s pale face with her hands and rested her forehead against her own.

“Let me in...” She whispered softly and the young girl screwed her eyes shut. Her mouth opened into a frantic scream of panic. “NO!”

Eighth bell...

“In...” Her voice curled coyly around Asenath as she tried in vain to break free from the hold Goddess had upon her.

The ninth bell rang and Asenath felt her eyes open. Sitting up, she caught sight of Priest smirking as she rose. She gasped at her reflection in his wire rimmed spectacles; her once hazel eyes had turned to a ghostly milk white and her mouth curved into a twisted grin. She watched in horror as the man she thought to be honorable and upstanding fall to one knee and brush his lips against her knuckles.

“Goddess.”

“Priest.”

-

Asenath had never felt so helpless and disgusted in her life. Goddess trailed a hand down the young man’s face as he then lifted her other hand and kissed her knuckles again. Standing, he offered her his arm and she took it gracefully. Both their gazes roamed the numerous blindfolded followers around them. Hers a calculating white and his a cold blue, both unyielding and echoing with the selfish desires that Asenath had long been taught by Priest himself were evil. He was nothing but a loathsome hypocrite and she despised him.

Yet, she still held a reverence and love for him. A reverence for his believed noble stature, a love she’d nursed from a fanciful crush that in her own eyes, she still knew was one. But she couldn’t help but feel betrayed by the man that had cast down sin in all his sermons yet was committing them himself.

“Why Priest? Why would you betray us?” Her voice broke and splintered as she fell to her knees in the encompassing darkness of her own prison inside herself. Goddess had control of the situation now. Control of her, Priest, her body, her family and everyone she ever spoke to or lived beside. All was lost and there was nothing that Asenath could do. Nothing but shudder at the prospect of the next sixty minutes.

Sixty minutes of torturous darkness that echoed her fears and loathing of the truth that she’d been given. The truth that the pure faith she’d believed in, the faith that the Clan of Howling Stars adored and nurtured, was nothing but selfish lies and deceit.

She felt herself nod and Priest took a step back. She surveyed the persons around her with a cool stare. Asenath screamed as she felt her hand lift upward and brush the forehead of one elderly woman with her fingertips.

The woman fell to her knees in a submissive stance and prayed all the useless words she’d been taught since birth. Goddess turned and exacted the same movement to another seven people. Eight were now on their knees, praying and shaking at the prospect that they’d been chosen to accompany Goddess on her journey to Nirvana.

Asenath swallowed the bile in her throat. Nirvana was as real as the love Priest felt for all of them. Nirvana was nothing but a charade to make people accept the prospect of an early death. A death that should have never happened. A death that was now chosen for the last member of the doomed group of nine.

Her little brother, Scuite. He fell to his knees and she saw both her mother and father tense. Her heart broke; they were to lose both their children this night. To this...monster that had control of her body.

Asenath screamed and sobbed at Goddess in wracked breaths. She stood shakily and hollered, wept, and clawed at the darkness around her. She felt her lungs burn, her throat dry out with lack of water, her body tremble and she felt her nails crack and peel. Blood oozed from her fingertips as she dug her hands into the black mass around her. Every curse and foul title she could think of fell from her lips. Finally, she could no longer fight the impending exhaustion of her emotional fit and she felt her muscles tremble and lose their strength. She fell into a rumpled heap on the ground.

Goddess nodded towards Priest and moved across the grass inside the clock tower. The Condemned were sitting on the floor, all in prayer. None of women raised their eyes to look at her. Asenath was glad of this, if they had, she didn’t think she could stand it. They knew what was going on. It was apparent in their dead eyes, their sluggish movements and the way they always had an emotionless expression. They knew that their clan’s beliefs were false and useless. Nirvana didn’t exist, Goddess was not benevolent, and Priest certainly wasn’t.

“I can’t kill Scuite...I can’t.” She whimpered as she buried her face in her hands.

“Of course you can, because I shall be the one to do it.”

Asenath cowered and shut her eyes, covered her ears and hummed a nonsensical tune. She tried desperately to remove Goddess’s maniacal laughter from her mind, but to no avail. She chuckled as she watched all but her selected nine leave the field. They were commanded by Goddess to close the curtains, lock the doors, shut their eyes and pray. Ignore the sounds from outside; if you looked out, you were to become one of the Condemned.

Asenath understood why they were condemned; rather then kill them for knowing the truth. They cut their tongues out; letting them stew in the fact that they knew the truth and even if they were to write it to someone, who would believe them? Who would believe the words of the Condemned against the sacred words of Priest or Goddess?

Speaking of which...Priest walked in and watched Goddess turn around. She smiled and placed her hand on the side of his smooth face. Her eyes met his and she pressed her lips against his own in a chaste kiss. No emotions or love were in this display, only a promise.

A promise that this cycle of death would never end because both were in far too deep.

“Priest...hand me my dagger.”

The young man obliged and handed her the weapon she asked for. It was long and thin, but the image belied its true danger. It was double edged and sharpened for this exact purpose, to destroy those who were kneeling outside in the cold, preparing for their death. Death at the hands of their “guardian” deity.

Goddess turned and walked out. Asenath could only watch in terror and disgust as her own hand tilted the elderly woman’s head upward. Her lips had long ceased whispering her noble prayers for her soul. A smile slid over her features, as if accepting this death as peaceful and merciful.

Asenath gagged and proceeded to vomit as the blade in her right hand was slit across the woman’s throat in one smooth stroke. No hesitation, no effort to stop. Her gaze focused on the large gap in the woman’s neck as blood pooled and flowed from the injury. The life giving liquid fell from her open mouth as she slumped to the floor.

Without even having the decency to clean her blade, Goddess moved on to the next victim. And the next, and the next. Until the only person left was number nine.

A little boy of only nine summers with large hazel eyes and black hair, his complexion was tan with a few freckles spread across his cheekbones. He was trembling and whispering his prayers brokenly as he heard his fellow kinsmen fall down dead around him. The smell of their blood permeated the air and filled his young lungs, causing his stomach to turn and twist in nausea.

Asenath tried to raise her hand to calm him; the stains of his tears were clear through his blindfold as the clouds above opted to let the moon’s light free from their hold. But Goddess wouldn’t relinquish her hold on Asenath’s body. Instead, she bent forward and placed a kiss on the crown of the child’s head.

“Do not fear little one, you shall join your dear elder sister in Nirvana soon.” These words calmed Scuite, his breathing steadied and his shoulders relaxed from their tense position. Just in time for the fatal cut across his flesh. He fell to the ground and Asenath screamed.

“YOU BASTARD! YOU HEARTLESS MONSTER!” Her mouth opened to slur Goddess more but her grief overpowered her and gut-wrenching sobs echoed from her slender form instead.

She felt herself dry heave, as she tasted the metallic mix of blood. Her own brother’s blood as the pale pink tongue of her own body licked the weapon clean of any trace of murder.

“Bastard...” She whispered weakly, no longer having the strength to stand.

“Hm, ironic isn’t it? I am referred to as a female deity. You try to insult me with a term meant for males. Yet, I have no gender. Nice try pet. You are merely a puppet and I own the strings.”

Goddess glanced upward at the clock and sighed.

“The night is almost through. Let us pay a visit to Priest shall we?”

-

Goddess and Priest watched from the confines of his house as the entire clan piled the nine bodies on top of a pile of wood. Those who died in the ritual were burned in a mass public cremation.

No one wore blindfolds. Some wept, some prayed, others stood emotionless as they set their loved ones aflame. Priest turned to Goddess and narrowed his eyes.

“They have completed the task of burning them. Their souls shall be in the smoke and you will be full until your next visit. Now pay up.”

“Of course my dear Priest. What sort of deity would I be if I did not stand by my word?” The irony of her words was not lost and she chuckled at Priest’s cool stare.

By now, the third bell of ten o clock had struck and echoed over their heads. Asenath soon found herself in a heap on the ground. The smoke that had first entered her body slid through an open window and joined the plumes of smoke that rose from the cremation below.

Still, she could not move her body and her bloodshot eyes stared up at Priest in utter frustration and loathing.

“Hm, you hate me now do you?” He knelt before her and ran a hand through her shorn hair. She glared and would have spit in his face if her body would obey her commands. “Funny really, considering the looks you gave me during the meetings.”

She glared harder and Priest laughed. “I suppose I’ll tell you why I made a contract with it.” He stood and moved her body into a nearby tub. Asenath stared up at him with mounting dread as he toyed with the same blade used to murder the nine that burned below.

“I want to live forever.” He lifted his arm and slit Asenath’s throat with a clean flourish as the last bell of ten boomed over the village. “I do that through the vessel’s body.”

As the last remnants of the nine’s bodies burned, he was enjoying his own private bonfire. He raised a clear glass towards the burning body of Asenath in his own private crematorium, masquerading as a fireplace. He swirled the liquid in his wine glass for a moment before tilting his head back and taking a sip of the red contents inside. He felt his youth return to him with vigor.

Priest smiled, his teeth stained with the blood of the woman burning before him.

“Amen.”

FIN