The Western Gate

Complete and Full content of ‘Anna Manners’ (Aka ~ Why Love Spells Don’t Work)

Foreword to the WordPress ‘edition’.
This Following story was created from an article I had published in an
underground Occult magazine, the article was entitled- Why Love Spells Do Not Work. 
The book that became Anna Manners didn’t really fulfill the objective I had envisaged from the article…. 
There is enough in the text for someone to work out the keys, the need for pure empathy, the structure of each ritual to coincide with natural law, the requisite to ensure every ritual is performed with renewed vigour and is not rehearsed like a mediocre act repeated again and again. That the truth, “Spells only work the first time” was commented on within the story, this in essence is true because repetition and the absence of excitement and fear that was first gained from the ‘first time’ is the root cause of failure in ritual. If you were a God,would you present yourself before a congregation of bored churchgoers who sat there yawning listening to Mr.Monotone preaching the same missive over and over again, or wander into a congregation, up on their feet, dancing, singing wildly and celebrating? You be the judge.
                Further to this forward, many years later, Netflix released the Addams family spinoff Wednesday. The similarity between Anna and her friend Christine and the contrasting styles of Wednesday Addams and Enid Sinclair would give good cause to a certain lawsuit of plagiarism. Of course Wednesday Addams has been around for a long time, and Anna Manners is based on a ‘Gothic type’ but you’ll see what I mean by the contrasting styles of themboth, this was deliberate to entertain the idea that things that are black and white sit perfectly well and in equilibrium with a riot of colours.

Again, I make apologies for any formatting errors, copying and pasting this into WordPress strange edito does wonky things, Originally formatted for PDF, it just doesnt paste well here, no idea why and have better things to do than tweak html code etc. 

Anna Manners
(Why Love Spells Do Not work)

Chapter One

Thursday April 08th 2010
A laced net curtain pulled slightly to oneside, a face at the window viewed the world below. Sometimes the face would blow upon the window pane and draw a keyhole, or an eye upon that misty glass. Always however, the person would remove themselves from the sight of anybody whose eyes happened to glance upwards to the bedroom window.The face at the window, the stranger, the watcher, the weirdo, was Anna Bonnamasso. The days and months and years watching the world below, that was her childhood, never engaging, just, watching, just there.
A life that avoided sunlight gave her a marble skin complexion.The subsequent erosion of vitamin d gave her continual seasonal affected deficiency,so the scientists would have us believe.
Sunlight or not, one thing was sure, Anna Bonnamasso was a miserable wretch of a child.
In the first years at school she was known as, ‘Glum.’ Alienating herself from everybody she was nervous when approached or spoken to. She became rigid when confronted, spoke softly, sometimes stammered, was over polite so as not to cause offense. At senior school because of her overbearing politeness, she became known as, ‘Anna Manners’ which in her mind was somewhat of an improvement from ‘Glum’.
Her school reports said, ‘she was a polite and quiet student, but needed to interact with her peers.’
Need.
Want.
She didn’t want friends, let alone felt she needed them.
The unwritten rules of social interaction, following the mob mentality. the ‘others’.
Everybody outside of her world were, the ‘others.’
She watched people, drew people, wrote about them.
She listened and gave no sign whether that mind of hers mocked them or was jealous of them. Her face for the most part, frozen into an emotionless stare.
A walking death mask.
She inherited from her Sicilian born mother classic Italian looks, long black hair and deep belladonna pupils that sat mysteriously and not alike her Sicilian mother within shocking blue eyes, but her skin… betraying the Mediterranean golden colour and was ‘vampire’ white.
They, the others, said she was “a Goth”.
At the time she never knew what that meant.
She found it all a little contrived. She did however come across a band she liked who were described perhaps as gothic, more doom? Doom, glum. , her first teenage idol, Peter Steele, the lead singer of a broody band called, Type O Negative.
Hard rock should be played loudly, for Anna however, she would play them just in audible range, barely a whisper, listening to Peter Steele’s voice singing in an erotic deep baritone voice with hidden menace.
She would often sit for hours looking vacantly at herself in the mirror, and behind, reflected in the mirror above the bed, a huge poster of Peter would look down upon her. Looking at her from under his fringe with sinister eyes.
Staring at the mirror she would watch her face morph into creatures, the tears from unblinking eyes creating wisps and veils over her vision. The watery visions crafting hideous faces, but she stared, unblinking and unaffected. Sometimes she would look in the mirror, below the fringe of her hair, with, sinister eyes.
The mirror, or the window. A silvery watery vision of the world.
She preferred the light of candles, the soft sounds of music, nothing too harsh, polite.
Candles flickering created dancing shadows upon the wall, they became her hidden friends. They would craft fluttering spectre’s that danced wildly about her room.
Anna wanted nothing….really, the world offered her no temptation…as such, well…there was one thing….
Over the years watching the world unfold beneath her, she saw the evolution of the boy who lived two doors away, his name was Robin Ermine.
She watched him like a fairy godmother, riding a bike for the first time, playing marbles on the kerbside, mastering the tricks and style of the skateboard…likewise on the B.M.X. Bike. She watched him hunched over a handheld gaming console feeling his frustration at the games annoyance, feeling his jubilation as he beat the boss to enter the next level. She would jump for joy as he punched a fist in the air at the celebration. She never knew what he was playing, just mimicked the elation, and she felt his highs and lows as if they were reflections of her own.
The window and the mirror.
At times she viewed him as a brother, sometimes a son, sometimes when she saw him ordering his friends about, she saw him as a father.
However, since Anna became 13 or maybe 14 she viewed him differently.
Everything changed.
He was the opposite to her, extrovert, he had many friends, he was the sporty type, good at cricket, rugby, football, running, he was confident, always with a smile, in fact Anna and Robin were worlds apart. She could no longer copy his emotions as if he were her twin, but she still felt a bond, a different bond.
When Robin wasn’t outside his house where Anna could spy upon his moves, she would write dark moody poetry, or draw line art drawings inspired by the evening shadows and the sound of Type-O-Negative and by thoughts of, Robin.
The themes, all revolved around a growing desire.
She put down her pen and observed the newly created picture before her.
Robin Ermine.
She secretly called him Robin Willbemine.
Picking up the pen she wrote underneath the sketch the title she had conceived,
“Wants unbecoming are the breeders of obsession.”
In the background Type-O-Negative, as usual, were playing, Peter Steele echoing the muddled cravings in her mind as the chorus sang, “loving you is like loving the dead”.
With no friends to introduce her, or allies to place her on a pedestal for Robin to acknowledge, with no confidence to approach him Anna knew there was little hope of them ever being together, and yes, that’s what she wanted.
But, how could that goal be achieved?
She had thought and questioned for months and found hope in perhaps one avenue to pursue. One means to attain her goal. To realize and appease the ever growing pain of separation.
She wanted Robin, and she would have Robin.
Robin Willbemine.
She would as it transpired devote her energies and efforts in order to manifest
that ‘want’ by means of witchcraft.
She was now 16, and these last couple of years of this rising desire were peaking.
She would put a spell on him, to love her.. Want her. To want her more than life itself.
_______________
Chapter 2
Anna walked towards the high street hunched over somewhat and now and then looked over her shoulder.
The stooped manner, of Anna Manners, came from years sitting upon a chair staring at herself or staring out of the window and, during those times the shadows that danced around her projected by the flickering candles caused paranoia.
Unseen dancing figures, just out of eyesight, so she would look quickly over her shoulder to check, to reassure herself that the movement from the corner of her eye were just shadows.
So on she walked in her stooped way and, every now and then, habitually, looking over her shoulder from under the waving fringe that almost covered her eyes.
Dr Faustus Old Curio was a small shop on the corner of the street. It sold all manner of new age paraphernalia and regalia. It also, at the musty annex to the side of the main shop floor sold rare and second hand books and other obscure items. The owner, Landcombe was known, in the town as a witch, or a seer, or a crank, depending on your viewpoint.
She passed through the shop with its garish candles and pseudo-Buddhist gifts and trinkets, cheap resin statutes and tacky plastic Egyptian replicas and shuffled into the murky side building.
Anna loved this shop, well this annex at least.

The floorboards creaked with every step.
The sound of a neglected and ancient board
whispers in a moan to the trespassers,
buckles with a groan from its slumber,
the sound of ancient doorways opening,
the slow drawn cry of wisdom lost……

Anna looked over her shoulder, as she always does.
The proprietor of the shop watched Anna walk across to the second-hand section, and as Anna looked back, the proprietor with squinting suspicious eyes followed.
She had seen Anna many times, often browsing the antiquarian books, leafing through them, always looking this way and that. Suspicious, nervous and withdrawn.
“May I help you dear?” She asked.
Anna looked from below her fringe, the teased parting of curtains, then spoke politely and softly, ” I am interested, in spells”.
The proprietor, Miss Lancombe, was used to young girls interested in Wicca, witchcraft and spells, she called them, the ‘Buffy generation’, or the ‘Harry Potter lot’.
She wasn’t however used to such an upfront question such as this. The Buffy generation tended to skirt around their curiosity, somewhat embarrassed.
The young girl before her, introvert, painfully shy but, unashamedly asking for…….
Miss. Lancombe suggested she try the main area of the shop with its glossy coloured books, fancy contrived covers with authors called Ravenwolf or Silverlight or some high priestess of something or other. The sort of books the Buffy and Potter lot would buy. Easy, accessible.
“I like, I am interested in old books. Old Rare books” said Anna avoiding eye contact with Lancombe.
Lancombe with eyebrows raised responded, “these books can be quite expensive…”
Anna, unusually, perhaps impolitely, and again boldly, interrupted, “I have sufficient funds”.
Lancombe smiled at her though Anna only saw the questioning squint in the book keepers eyes.
Miss Lancombe sighed waving her hands about the dusty annex, “well, good hunting then, you will find many grimoires and such like here.”
Anna was left to investigate the shelves as Lancombe shuffled back. Now and then looking over her shoulder at the crow like waif devouring herself over the books.
Fiction-rare, historical studies-religious, …esoteric…. , pre-20th occult grimoires.
Most of the books were battered, cracked spines and flaky embossed titles.
Each book she carefully opened emanated a musky scent, Anna inhaled each aroma, Anna understood smells…….
One such book emitted such a powerful odour it caused Anna to sway, somewhat stumbling, she stepped back quickly to adjust the dizziness, the floorboards behind groaned at the stumble.

….If the floorboards that I tread whose sounds
an ache of submission heard
Were images to hold,
Old books would from the mist arise….

She scanned the array of books….
The Dragon Rouge-a medieval grimoire to summon, command the devil…..
The black pullet, the sixth and seventh book of Moses, all of these she carefully flicked through, in some were brief side rituals to procure the love of one so ‘fancied.’ She mentally made notes in her mind of some of the suggestions.
Gypsy lore and Indonesian incantations….restless.
Anna stopped and looked to the flakey paintwork on the ceiling above.
She would often imagine omens or meanings from unfamiliar objects or unique sounds,creatively finding hidden meaning in the abstract before her. Finding omens in shadows and obscure shapes.
Unfinished work. Neglected.
She followed the pattern of flakey paintwork across to an area where, for the most part the paintwork was intact, below it a display cabinet.
She found upon the cabinet an amateur magazine, hastily constructed, A4 folded and homemade-Elsewise Magazine – the magazine for the rebel occultist.
Within its brief but concise articles she came across a ritual that was taken from a book referenced as The Tentigo Mandatum.~The rituals of binding lovers to thy will.
With head still devouring the contents she walked towards Lancombe.
“Excuse me, do you have a book called Tentigo Mandatum?”
There was silence, and only when Anna lifted her head still hypnotized by the article did Lancombe answer.
“My girl,” she answered with authority, “it is not the degree you should study? A pretty girl like you…”
Anna buried her head back into the article, she didn’t want an opinion, no condescending and… and flattery? she just wanted a yes or no.
Though Lancombe continued with her patronizing mutterings that Anna ignored she walked Anna back across the room into the annexed treasure house.
Lancombe unlocked the glass doors of the very same display cabinet beneath the unbroken paintwork and removed a scarlet red book that for all intent and purpose looked to have been rescued from a crescendo of calamities.
Lancombe stood with the book, murmuring, Anna oblivious to Landcombe’s protestations stared at the battered book Lancombe clutched to her chest for dear life, and with greedy eyes felt the surge of impolite emotions, want, greed, anger…..
Lancombe eventually said the words, “and its £85”
Lancombe was about to put the book back into the locked cabinet but Anna nodded, that was fine, with a few concerned unintelligible remarks from Lancombe they walked back to the checkout.
Anna produced two fifty pound notes, Lancombe stared accusingly before inspecting the rarely handled notes, double checking them, then checking them again under ultra violet light, before holding them up ceremoniously to the light, Anna interrupted her scrutiny and said, again impolitely with a hint of boldness,

“and you can give me this magazine…..for free.”
Anna left the shop and this time, somewhat, scurried home whilst muttering as a mantra,
” Robin Willbemine….”
The imaginary cloud that followed the ‘glum’ of old departed that day.
The light of optimism shone for Anna as she hurried back home. She looked behind her and at the shadow upon the ground, “keep up” she cussed, “stop dawdling”.
She was a strange creature hurrying along the streets that day, from a distance she looked like an old person, still stooped, and a mind that looked to be elsewhere, except, unusually, she walked briskly, clutching to her chest…something.
“Keep up”, she said again to the shadow looking over her shoulder.
_______________

Chapter 3

For more than a moment she sat at her desk, the mirror in front … a young girl, head bowed in silent contemplation.
Just sat there!

To an invisible observer perhaps she was sulking, maybe asleep with her eyes open.
Abruptly she snapped upright and beheld in front of her a desk full of perfume bottles, creams and tubs, clutter, all at once plunging both arms to the centre of the table she swept everything to either side, the whole array of condiments tumbling from the tsunami.
In one swift moment everything that was upon the table was discarded to the floor, worthless memories.
The desk clear, but only briefly.
The book now upon the empty table, and with a gentle sigh and excited expectation she carefully opened the fragile embossed cover, gently flattening the opening page, a fragile frontispiece that emitted an odour of old wood varnish and leathery smoke.
Tentigo Mandatum.
From the original grimoire as delivered by Carus ut Prognatus.
The philosophy and doctrine of loves binding and procurement, the art and craft
of the cunning.
With eyes shut, Anne drew an inwards breath to digest this new path in her life. As her eyes opened she faced her image staring back in the mirror which now showed a young girl with a feint but noticeable incline of a smile.
Behind her, in the mirror, Peter Steele gazed down accusingly.
Her eyes refocused to her own image, the smile subtle, enigmatic.
She needed ambience.
Music, light and her other passion, smell.
She reasoned that smell was a neglected sense, she too was an outcast. She was overlooked. As people view the world with sounds and sight, Anna imagined the world according to the stray and outcast dogs she often observed from her window. She watched and studied their twitching noses and wondered.
A world crafted by smell.
That first event into a different perception of the world was years ago.
Her own family dog escaped the house one day and she had watched from her bedroom window, as the speeding car catapulted the screaming pet into the air.
Robin was outside that day, crouching by his front gate with a handful of soldiers.
Anna wondered if the dog would sniff him, and Anna wondered if somehow, she could relive the dogs experience stroking him afterwards? Somehow drawing the scent and the experiences from the dog.
Anna left that front door open.
Anna kept secrets and guilt.

She now locked the bedroom door with the huge cast iron latch she had salvaged from a skip at a boot sale, doors must be locked. It was a lesson she had learnt …..
She placed two candles, each either side of the book.
At the head of the book she placed an tealight oil burner and opened the drawer below the table to reveal rows and rows of phials and small jars, all labelled by hand, some with peculiar names, all hand made.
For years this had been her hobby, which then turned into a very profitable enterprise.
The more she trained her nose the more acute her sense became.
She could differentiate trees and flowers just by by smell. She could with eyes closed smell a rose and tell its probable colour, she could smell fear, and anger, she could smell who had recently been in a room. Or who was coming.
From the drawer she removed one small phial labelled “receptive”.
The oil dripped each precious drop by drop into the burner, the tealight candle lit.

Wisdom is the seat upon which the mind of God as we could understand it resides.
Wisdom is objective, it is not swayed by argument nor fancy but delivered, non
negotiable.
The mind reads “wisdom” and ego tries to continually question, the
heart reads wisdom and 
understands fully….

Anna sighed, contemplated, behind her the shadow began to dance as the candles
flickered, the barely audible sound of Type-O-Negative permeated the silence,
growling guitars and deep haunting vocals.

We are taught in the modern age to follow the sun, and with it the seasons
and days, for the wise, for those of us upon this path, the cunning, it is the
moon that we follow.
Here is the first task, recognise the current phase of the moon, upon awakening
know the tide of the moon, it should be ingrained within the conscious, just
as you would awake and think, today is Tuesday instead, think, e.g. Today is
three days until full moon.
All works of renewal, all works of creation begin upon the new moon. All works
to diminish, to destroy, begin upon the full.

Anna knew this, she was a herbalist, it was a pursuit in parallel with her perfumery, the closest she had really got to matters of the occult or anything otherworldly esoteric was the gardeners almanac. The books in the old Curio shop had all manner of herbal and aromatherapy studies. Sometimes she browsed vacantly at the other subjects with a passing interest.
Knowledge, hidden knowledge.
Secrets.
The incense began to subtlety charge the room, it’s carefully prepared concoction designed to make the mind receptive to new ideas;-
Rosemary and citrus fruits, Lavender and Lemongrass.
The fresh canvas.

The sun and its motions govern the seasons, likewise, works of creation begin
appropriately with the spring and those to negate in autumn. When nature starts,
we start, when the moon starts, so too.
Of general consensus, that which is of nature is mirrored by the cunning within
their works, for we act as conduits, mirroring and reflecting that which occurs.
We emulate the dance.

Mirrors.
Shadows.
Anna looked behind her, Peter looking directly at her, whilst her own shadow flicked to the right in reflection of her head turning. Back she stared into the mirror, reflections.
The music resonated within her mind, the lyrics of Type-O’ song- ‘love you to death’… The beast inside of me, is gonna get you….
She thought of Robin. She would get him.
In her mind she visualized a door opening, and Robin running, running towards her.
_______________

Chapter 4
Friday April 9th 2010
She was surrounded by dancing figures dressed in loose clothing, hoods that draped over their faces.
Anna awoke, the room rich with spent incense.
Sunlight clawed its way through a slight break in the curtains.
A front-door shutting in the street outside.
Anna looked to the clock…….
She had always woken ten minutes before that door would open and then slam.
Like clockwork.
She rushed to the window and gently pulled across the curtain, outside Robin had left the house for his morning jog.
She had missed him.
She never missed him.
When things didn’t go right for Anna, her mind flooded with anxiety. When routines are disrupted, when order is scrambled, when expectations are not realized…….she eased the turmoil by clenching her fists tightly so the fingers bit deep into the palm, until she felt the pain, it eased the chaos in her mind.
She regained control.
Sometimes she would hold her breath until near collapsing.
It was her way to confront the failure, by punishing herself, she demanded perfection.
Perfumes, each drop, exact, carefully measured, precise….
She felt the resistance of the flesh and just before the nails finally breached the skin she released.
She reached down into the drawer of fragrances, the apothecary of emotions.
The bottle was labelled ‘calm’. She wafted the small phial under her nose, lavender and ylang ylang, a hint of rose and mandarin.
Calm.
An hour later she was back at the window, waiting, waiting…
…. Robin back from the jog. Watching. Analysing, imagining behind beside.
40 minutes later, he leaves for school, she hurriedly leaves the house.
She kept her distance, she mimicked his footsteps walking to the same beat, but did so, as silently as possible. Copying.
Now and then Robin would turn his head to see, as usual down the road, Anna ‘what’s-her-name’ behind.
He once said hello to her but she looked downwards quickly to hide the rising heat, the blushing face, ignored him and said nothing.
Robin hated rude people, he never said hello again. She was a bit weird anyway, never came into the street to play when they were growing up.
He remembered the day her pet dog was killed, he saw her staring vacantly at the window, she never moved once whilst the little dog screamed, the car driver panicking, and Anna’s mother frantic…not once did she come down to help.
Weird.
Anna what’s-her-name was weird.
Robin’s mother said it was because they were foreign, she said the little waif was probably destined for an arranged marriage.
Anna’s mother was from Sicily, her father Portuguese. Foreign? Anna always felt foreign, different, outcast, the smell of nettles in the meadow…..
—
The school gates were flanked by the twins Karen and Tracey Slingshot…their real surname was Slingsby but everybody called them Slingshot. They always stood there smoking and sharing a cigarette. Defiant.
They both watched Robin pass them.
“Know what sis” said Tracey, the ‘uglier’ of the twins, they weren’t identical, far from it, Tracey was affectionately known as ‘Face-ache’ with a face that was rotund and scarred by blemishes. Nobody would dare call her Face-ache to her face, her pock marked, ravaged, cruel face.
Karen was quite pretty. Some said Tracey was the daughter of their father, a brute of a man and Karen’s father was the handsome ice cream man who parked his van outside the school at lunch time. She did look a bit like him.
” What’s that you’s saying sis?” Replied Karen
Tracey nodded her head towards Robin, “I would, ya know, he’s fit ‘n that, bit boring but def’ worth him slip one up?”
Karen watched as Robin headed towards the entrance, she passed her sister the remains of the cigarette and with it added, “you’re a fucking slag.”
“Wha’ bout you then…” Tracey spoke to Anna who was scurrying pass them.
“Oi Manners, I’s fucking talking to you.”
Anna stopped, her heartbeat began to beat, she looked towards the two sisters and said in as meek and as polite as she could, “I do not have any money..”
“Don’t want yer fuckin money Manners, just wanna know if you’d let that Robin Ermine give you one.”
Both the sisters roared with laughter, so too the sycophantic hangers-on who now joined the baiting.
Anna quickly headed towards the entrance, ignoring the catcalls, and the mockery for the sanctuary of the corridors within.
In her haste, with her heartbeat pounding the door seemed so far away, and the more she panicked, the more the distance between her and sanctuary seemed to grow, the distance between her and the sisters, shorter.
The twins and their flock howled and cackled after her but Anna was too quick, too nimble. In a wayward way, with short deft looks over her shoulder the introverted ‘weirdo’ merged with the crowd, with one more glance behind her.
Anna wasn’t bullied per-se at school, she was just a lost face in the crowd.
Anna would hide at break times in the library. In lessons she would sit away from the class, she kept herself to herself.
Most people like Robin, called her “what’s-her-name,” most called her, Manners, or Anna Manners, some who were also at her previous school still called her ‘Glum’
—
Saturday April 10th 2010

Keep one day as a Sabbath, it is not to comply with dogmatic rules borne from
the legions of suppressing religion, it is a day when from sunrise to sunset,
the self reflects, the self learns, the self plans. In nature we, the cunning
emulate and seven are the days of the week, as seven are the notes in a chromatic
scale, the seventh finished, rested before the new cycle begins….

Today Anna read the Tentigo Mandatum.
Now and then she returned to making perfumes that she sold on eBay, Etsy, Amazon, Gumtree. Each purchase carefully entered into her ledger. All costs down to a penny. At the end of each page, pure profit.
She made one adjustment, (outgoings)-£85 ( Tentigo-book)…
It is easier to accept the routines in our nature, the path once trodden unveils
aversions to which we cannot surrender, but must surpass. The cunning upon the
path tread unknown steps, impassable avenues at first sight but with every step,
victory.
She closed the book, she thought back to her panic, running almost from the twins, every step heavy, the path to safety never ending, but end it must.
_______________
Chapter 5
Sunday April 11th 2010
…….Of general consensus, that which is of nature is mirrored by the cunning
within their works, for we act as conduits mirroring and reflecting that which
occurs. We emulate the dance.
All ritual then must encompass the laws as seen in nature, for this is wisdom.
As she sat within her room and continued to study the book she remembered the first thoughts that morning as she awoke.
Three days until New moon, and that was the date she would begin her ritual.
The new moon, new, starts, beginnings.
The moon~ attuning herself to its motion.
“Robin Willbemine” she spoke softly to the poster of Peter Steele in the mirror.
The pages of the open book already began to absorb the aroma of incense she had been burning.
The phial now chosen was labelled, ‘Arcane.’ Old resinous odours, the smell of discarded libraries.
It was distinct from the smell of the school library where during break-times Anna sat, glossy, cellulose, a hint of plastic and cheap soft woods.
Anna could disassemble an odour.
Even as she followed Robin to school she could analyze the distinct smell from thirty yards. The shower gel- citrus lemon, a medicated soap, a tone of linseed and eucalyptus possibly from a muscle rub following his morning jog. An undertone of sweat, fabric conditioner….a ghastly synthetic mockery of fresh cotton.
The world revealed to one who understands smell reveals history and desire.
Scent revealing intent.
Tomorrow night Anna’s parents were due to meet aunt Julie and uncle Derek.
They would be out until midnight. Anna would have time to plan and rehearse the ritual that she had glimpsed browsing through the grimoire.
It also gave her time to indulge in another of her secrets, another deviant misdemeanour. An act borne from years of secretly watching the world, just like the haunting face of the rock star upon the wall silently observing.
Within the loft space of her house there was a crawl hole, she slid through this directly over Mrs.Arnold’s, who lived next door, across she would gently crawl until she reached the opposing loft walls, past which through another hole she was directly above Robin Ermines house. There was a small spy hole above his room, but it was too small really to see anything.
It was no different to watching the world discreetly from the bedroom window she reasoned, though from an observer this was a deviant and disturbing act.
Anna didn’t think so. She felt omnipotent, invisible, hidden but with the power of knowledge.
Secrets.
Watching the world from the window, she saw others acting how they wished the world to view them, on their own, however, their true face came to the fore, quirks and anomalies, the real face hidden behind the mirror when they were being viewed by unseen eyes. People act differently on their own, when no-one is watching. Their real self..
High on adrenaline and excitement she would hang there above his room until the smell emanating throughout the loft became too intense.
Her nose was sensitive, the attic had its odour of decay, neglect.
When the senses of smell are finely tuned the body recognize the smells of aversion as warnings…get out, leave, run.
That Anna stayed though the senses couldn’t bear the overwhelming sense of neglect heightened her adrenaline, the excitement. It was her mind fighting itself, and this released all manner of stimulant in her bodily chemistry.
In those moments she was close to Robin.
She looked forward to her parents outings, which now she was older were more frequent, and, they tended to stay out longer.
When she first discovered this voyeuristic avenue she became so desperate for her parents to go out she often wished one of them would die, so the survivor would eventually date, and go out on new dates…more frequently……And leave her to……well, she didn’t want one of them to die, but it was so annoying having to wait all the time.
She returned to the book.

Habenti- the craft of a sympathetic attraction.
The image reflecting the person so intended should be crafted with organic
matter and by this, wax is the preferred medium, and beeswax the better. It
should be imbued with essence of the subject. This by means of hair or nails
or fluids. It should be christened where possible appropriate to the subject’s
birthday, or at the New moon. It should initially be placed away from the self
and each day until the full moon, moved closer until, at the conclusion when
the moon is full, the doll is finally joined with the operative,
It should be anointed with oil to bind and to draw close, attraction oil. Of
the same material as the habenti create a candle likewise anointed with the
same oil. This should be divided with a score from a clean and exorcised knife
or by means of small needles down its length. Thus, If there are 12 days until
a full moon then a candle should be marked 12 times, or 12 needles placed at
equal distance thereof.
Each night the candle is lit, the habenti moved closer, and when the score mark
is reached, or the needle falls the candle should be snuffed, never blown…..

Anna, without reading the carefully described formulae for attraction oil withdrew from her apothecary a phial, labelled,
“Attractive- magnetic~draw to me. “
Base oil-grapeseed 90%
Patchouli – 5%
Jasmine – 3%
Ginger- 1%
Rose of 10%dilution-1%
It was one of her best sellers in her little enterprise though up until now
she had dismissed its charm. She didn’t question the motives of the buyers so much, just supplied their needs and wants.
She placed the small perfume phial on the left of the book and also from the bottom drawer withdrew a small box, within it, beads of white beeswax and a mould in which to craft a candle. Organic matter.

The colour of the habenti and the candle should be scarlet red. The colour
of passion.

Anna reached nonchalantly and even smugly into the top drawer, she withdrew a packet of red powder labelled, dragons blood, she opened the fiery red powder and gently sniffed the odour within…She would make slight adjustments to her attraction odour to compensate for the ‘Dragons blood’ resinous undertone.

The following ritual should then be performed directing one’s vision to the
flaming candle……..

Anna shut the book, excited, almost excited as the time she first discovered the passageway to Robin’s house within the loft….
Tomorrow she would rehearse, and tomorrow she would venture above, to be near, near…
In the background Type-O-Negative were playing, “am I good enough, for you….am I good enough for you……”
She looked into the mirror until tears filled unblinking eyes and watched her face wither and shimmer through the watery veil. The shadows behind her pirouetted over the picture of Peter Steele.
…am I….Good enough…….
_______________
Chapter 6
Christine Livermore was an ‘odd ball sort’ who also attended Anna’s school.
Like Anna she had no friends, except the toy Dragon she coveted since childhood.
She never took the Dragon to school, if ‘they’ found her in possession of that Dragon, ‘they’d’ rip it to pieces in front of her, and laugh too.
Unlike Anna, she was often bullied, Her permed hair often pulled, those tight knitted ringlets often the subject of much sarcasm at her expense, “pube head”, her clothes often soiled from many ‘push overs’ or tumbles following being deliberately barged into.
She made herself a target, wearing clothes that much younger girls would wear.
Much younger.
“Going to a party” they’d say to her, “jelly and custard?”
The teachers didn’t seem to help either, they often tried to explain to her that she was, “bringing it upon herself.”
Dressing the way she did.
Talking the way she did.
Being the way she is.
Being who she is, being her.
Being.
Like Anna she had just turned 16 and was in the final term, with exams looming.
She never knew her real father, her stepfather was a kind and loving man, he shielded her from her violent dipsomaniac of a mother, until he could take no more and left. This was when she was eight years old. All she had from those days was the Dragon he gave her on her fourth birthday, and it was the only thing in life she loved.
When he left, her world stopped, perhaps she dressed as an eight year old as some sort of trauma when the only kindness in her life left. She dressed the way she dressed when her world stopped. When the Kindness departed.
The kindness of her stepfather was transferred to the toy Dragon, she projected her step father into it. Interacting with it as if the stepfather was there. It would take years before her mother went into a recovery and detox program, and before that time the dragon was her saviour.
A talisman is an object that is charged by the user, it represents all that
the user wills into it.
Over years of cuddling and crying and bleeding and speaking, Christine would not have seen the Dragon become ‘charged’, she never recognized that over the years when she spoke, all her woes and worries, created a transference. An emphatic union.
Of course, Christine knew that when the Dragon spoke back to her it was her voice, her mind.
If she had stopped to think for a moment she would have questioned how, even in her voice, with her lips moving, the Dragon offered her solutions and guidance..that hitherto Christine would not have thought. Randomness.

Wisdom is the seat upon which the mind of God as we could understand it resides…..
…… In chaos, all is permissible.

She lay upon her bed cuddling the purple Dragon. More tears soaked into itsfabric. More cheap and childish perfume rubbed into its skin.
Christine wasn’t into perfumes or fragrance really, all she had was cheap rose scented soap. And, that’s what the Dragon smelled like. Years of imbedded cheap rose scented soap.. And salty tears.
She was lonely and poured her heart out.
Earlier in the day she had sought refuge in the library after a group of girls threatened to take off her ‘silly clothes’ in front of the boys. That would
have been bad enough when she was seven or eight, but she was sixteen, and the tormentors were a mob of girls much younger…..
In the library she saw Anna Bonnamasso, she asked Anna if she’d like a friend, she always wanted to approach Anna before, often seeing her, also alone.
Anna looked up and said slowly..” I don’t want friends”
Christine shuffled off to another table and wished her Dragon was there, occasionally looking over to Anna, hoping she’d take pity. All Anna seemed to do was be hypnotized by some old book she was reading.
Christine spent most of her time running. Weaving in a crowd, first out when school ended, first in when school begun.
She looked at her wrist, the “Chinese burn” still visible from the other day. She could forgive, perhaps, the person who administered the pain, after all as everybody in authority said, it was Christine’s fault, Christine bought all this upon herself. Christine couldn’t cope with the crowd who did nothing however, while watching, and laughing.
Apart from ‘pubehead’, she was also known as ‘pisspants.’ In her old school they, the Slingsby sisters had dug their hands into her neck so hard she urinated.
The sisters were suspended for a fortnight and vowed despite being the perpetrators to get her back? Luckily since then they had left her alone, but would always be on the outskirts of any crowd tormenting her.
She didn’t hate them, she didn’t hate anybody.
She loved her Dragon.

_______________

Chapter 7

Monday April 12th 2010
Two hours before her parents were due to leave Anna was pacing up and down the room.
If her aunt and uncle cancelled…..Anna pulled at her hair to ease the thought.
Time dragged, forever, she was too irritated to read her book, too ‘elsewhere’ to begin work on the ‘habenti’ and candle.
She looked out of the window, Robin would return from football practice. She hoped it would be later, when it coincided with Anna’s parents being out, maybe, maybe she could see him….
….The familiar figure of Robin came into view, for a moment Anna cursed that he had come home earlier, but she watched like a ghost behind a net curtain shroud his every step.
Robin felt exhilarated following after-school football practice, some fine runs and deft goals. He reached his house and said good evening to Mrs.Arnold from next door.
Mrs.Arnold often stood at the gateway looking down the street. It was two years ago that her husband of sixty years went to get some groceries and never returned, no-one had seen him since.
Every day since, for most of the day, Mrs.Arnold would be checking the road for his return.
Within her house ….jumping with excitement at each knock of the door, ring of the telephone or often you would see her curtains open wide with the sad Mrs.Arnold staring vacantly to the world.
Robin looked up and for a moment saw another curtain….flicker, it was Anna Whatshername’s house. He often saw movement from that window, when he was growing up people always said they felt as though they were being watched. Every time he saw that window he heard a dog scream. He superimposed an image of Anna staring vacantly as she had the day that pet dog ran out….
Robin looked back to Mrs Arnold and asked how she was.
Mrs.Arnold replied with a feint mutter about maybe tomorrow and Robin being a ‘good lad’ before she shuffled slowly inside.
Robin ran quickly inside his house, upon the stairs and in long strides flew up to his room.
Anna was crouched upon the floor. For a moment she was sure Robin had seen her. He had looked upwards and for a split second it was as if their eyes had met.
She bit cheerfully upon a clenched fist and then her mother called,” we’re leaving Anna will you be all right?”
“When?” Asked Anna now racing to the bedroom door in hope.
“Now,” came the reply.
Anna’s heart raced, adrenaline and ecstasy. She could smell it rise as the brain released the endorphins.
For the next few minutes Anna rocked, waiting, waiting… The door shut, Anna raced to the window to see her parents enter the cab outside and within seconds the loft hatch was pulled down, the extendible ladder rattling as it rocked downwards making an unfortunate racket like a mountain of saucepans falling from the kitchen sink.
She flew up the extendable stairs and her old toy lion stared at her as she entered the dark and dusty attic.
It bobbed and weaved as she poked her head above the loft hatch. The old discarded toy looked at her disapproving. She turned its smiling face away from the scene, it rolled, arighted itself and watched as Anna crawled along the joists.
On hands and knees she scurried across that well worn joist, now bare from loft insulation, over to Mrs.Arnold’s wall, through the little hole she squeezed and faster, faster she crawled.
“Ernie…is that you?”
In her haste Anna was making too much noise, she must have aroused Mrs.Arnold.
“Ernie, I’ve got your dinner, it’s been getting cold.”
For a second the ethics and moral questions spiralled within her mind. Onwards, silently now she moved to where some dividing blocks were removed at Robin’s house.
In haste she must have crawled along the wrong joist. The wall in front was sealed. She looked over and around, already knowing, the wall had been repaired, the bricks were cemented.
The hole, gone!
Anna’s fingers clawed upon the brick, clawing, scraping as tears bled from her raging face.
Nails began to bend, nails began to break. She wanted to scream aloud a curse.
The cement was malleable but to hard to gouge.
“Ernie, shall I dish up now? Ernie?…”
Anna’s breathing was frantic, short breathes of panic and anger.
“Oh Ernie, where are you, Ernie??”
She began to hear sobs from below and crawled back to her house, anger rising evermore.
She reached the loft hatch and with bursting rage twisted and ripped the head from the little lion that greeted her. Her hands clawed and shaking, her teeth snarling, her mind afire. She pulled apart the little beast, it’s stuffing guts merging with broken insulation rockwool. It’s head now devoid of matter, flattened, the face still smiling but with disapproving looks it watched Anna descend the steps cursing, cursing, and as the hatch slammed, the little toy lion was back in darkness, alone and torn to bits.
—
Christine Livermore sat up sharply. Her Dragon seemed to call her.
“What is it?” The sixteen year old asked as a three year old would ask its dolly.
“Who’s been killed?” She asked the Dragon cushioning the purple toy
with gentle cuddles.
“Which lion?” She asked.
—
Anna’s parents returned home just after midnight, clearly inebriated, they were surprised to see Anna still awake, why was she standing there at the top of the stairs, ragged, haggard, menacing, staring. Her parents looked at each other and burst into laughter before looking back up at Anna, now gone.
That night Anna heard them making love. They always did after a drunken night out. Only after a drunken night out.
With each groan, Anna spat a curse, with each copulating motion Anna expelled three short bursts of air. With the final orgasmic cry of surrender Anna clenched her fists and through teeth spat a continuous spurt of vehemence.
She rehearsed no ritual. Sleep did not come, Anna lay awake, sometimes talking to the poster of Peter Steele.
Restless, eyes heavy and anger and having no respite sat by the table and opened the book…..

When a ritual commences synchronicity occurs, obstacles seem to arise that
were previously absent. At times just as the path seems to be complete, or as the path is about
to commence, a major hurdle or incident is thrust upon those that walk the path
of the cunning.
Fear not, for the path is being watched, the cunning person’s steps have been
acknowledged, the ancient deity that is known as a trickster awakens. We seek
to bend fate by our will, destiny to our desire and by this we dabble in chaos
until the myriad forms merge as one path. The trickster retains the realm of chaos and thus, the merging forms become disentangled, this is not a sign of defeat, but a sign the cunning are on the threshold of awakening. Acknowledge obstacles with laughter and we acknowledge the entity as the trickster who guards the path, and when we acknowledge the work of its
nature, the trickster willingly lets us pass. We tread the realm of chaos where,
previous we had only digested order.

Why had someone, repaired the hole in Robin’s house so close to the ritual?
Anna read the page again…She stared back into the mirror, her face no longer distraught but calm, in an instant she would sleep. She had faced her fears, that the expected didn’t happen, order confused, but, she was progressing.
      As her eyes sunk into a deep respite so too the candle blinked and extinguished, for a moment it flickered upon the wall a shadow of a slender man, who arched above Anna’s bed where she lay, crouching over her accusingly.
A cool draught blew into the room and caressed Anna’s lips before fanning the pages of the open book, like dominoes the pages turned and fell, until the draught subsided.
A page lay open for all that dwelt in shadows to read;-

An object built by transference, retains that instilled quality. Within the
great sacrifice of the ancients, the ‘Great’ Agnihotra sacrifice is a sacrifice of “a horse by fire.”
The significance is this.
That which carries the traveller, their heart and soul and mind, loved over
the years is, within an instant destroyed, consumed by a raging fire, or smashed
within an instant, this act releases at once the whole charge of transference,
the whole quality imbued is released. That which had been coveted, thus becomes
a separate animate entity.

The shadow sunk upwards into the ceiling and mourned over a shredded toy, the object of affection created by years of love and destroyed in seconds of hate.
—
Across the town, a toy Dragon was squeezed that bit tighter, misty dew seeped from its eyes.
_______________

Chapter 8

Tuesday April 13th 2010

Tomorrow would be new moon.
That was Anna’s first thought on awakening.

The second was to reflect on the way in which she broke down, lost control following the drama, or lack of it, last night. The compulsion unappeased. Like an addict unable to get their fix. Lost control.

…..this exercise as paramount importance, the prelude to the path. The analysis of the self in determining one’s character. To accept the self as a vehicle for emotion, and how, those emotions determine and shape our personality. All these traits are subjective.

The emotions are arising, the emotions are decaying, emotions are impermanent. Still and unattached the wise see emotions as response to the sensory world, to the wants and reactions to circumstances, chemical interactions in the physical body, judgemental upon the external and based on previous experience. The taming of the senses become the psychopathic traits of the cunning.

Unbound from failure or victory, all things to the cunning pass. All things that would otherwise cause the self to fret, to worry, to anger….. pass….The road that once was ordered becomes treacherous, the weary traveller becomes the walker in unfamiliar fromtiers, where, there be dragons….

Anna thought of the repaired wall in the attic, was this a sign, a test.

Synchronicity…obstacles occur.

If Anna could recognize the futility of emotions…Then the obsession with….Robin……

….No….She would have him. Robin Willbemine.

She thought more upon the book, the rituals, the background, the philosophy, how would she procure items of his body in order to make the habenti? She had thought to wait until Robin’s house was free and enter into his home, his bedroom, via the hatch leading from their respective attics, his linen basket….

…that avenue was now blocked, literally, suddenly and just at the time when most it was needed.

Obstacles will arise that were previously not there, views that were clear, suddenly on venturing the path, become opaque. This is not a sign of failure but a sign that one has truly crossed the threshold. Chaos seeks to maintain……

She lay on the bed thinking more.

A door outside slammed…Robin and his morning jog, Anna did not fly to the window, did not curse that she had missed this habitual spectacle. Fate would be hers and she would take the reins of chaos, become unpredictable, for the cunning and also only for the fool, the world and its path are of their making.

She heard his quickening steps, heard him running into the distance, and still and unmoving she smiled.

Her eyes dilated with pleasure, a habit broken, no longer the slave to another, the slave to life and its repetition, but emerging as the master… and tomorrow she would begin the path. The ritual.

Strange things happened to Anna that day, she didn’t wait for Robin to walk to school, she went to school before him. She said good morning to Mrs. Arnold at the gateway, Anna never usually acknowledged anybody.

It took Mrs. Arnold somewhat by surprise that the little shy girl from next door finally spoke to her. She wondered if the little girl was talking to her out of sympathy… all girls at school to Mrs. Arnold were little.

“Good morning little girl,” she replied, “I think I can see Ernie? “

Anna did not reply to this, for an instant, in a state of empowerment she was going to tell Mrs. Arnold that her dear husband had gone, and that she shouldn’t keep making him dinner.

But.

Anna walked on, she felt alive and powerful as she walked the short distance, freed from the chains of order and routine. Just around the corner to the school she realized…for the first time she had not looked behind her.

So she looked.
Not out of habit. More out of humour.

All that followed her was her shadow that seemed to waver across the road somewhat independently.
And.
Far behind, perhaps for the first time ever she saw behind her Robin.

“That’s right Robin Willbemine,” she spoke, “you follow me now.”

Robin walked briskly, ahead he saw a young girl, walking confidently, he then noticed it was in fact Anna Whatshername. As he drew closer he saw the scarf she was wearing float as if caught by the wind in the air.

The shadow upon the floor looked as though the scarf was in fact a long arm, with slender boney fingers reaching out for him. Clawing at him to prod him teasingly.

For a moment Robin stopped to observe, but the wind had placated, the scarf subsided, rested back upon her neck and shoulders.

—

Karen and Tracey were at the gates. Tracey squinted her eyes at Anna, waiting for a reaction, Anna looked her, squarely into those piggy beady eyes.

Tracey felt transfixed as Anna’s eyes seemed to dilate into deep pools that clawed at something inside of her, and like vertigo on top of a high building, Tracey drifted.

“Wha’ fuck wid’ you,” her sister Karen snapped.

Tracey focused back onto Anna who had gone, her sister protesting about her turn, on the cigarette.

“C’mon you been hogging that ciggie f’ages”

—

Throughout the day Anna felt alive, she felt as if someone were with her, protecting her.
Watching her.

There was a point in the math’s lesson where she looked inwards again, and despite this confidence bursting through her, she felt, for just a moment as though no one had acknowledged her, the new her.

Someone did acknowledge her.

Alike a dancing shadow, Christine Livermore now followed Anna. Just as Anna had crept and scurried and followed the footsteps of Robin, now Christine did the same to Anna.

Watching her from the corner of a building, subtlety checking her in the library whilst hiding behind bookshelves. Sitting behind her at classroom.

Anna hadn’t noticed Christine Livermore at the end of her road that morning, waiting for her to go to school. Christine walked behind, and on the opposite side of the road. All Anna saw was Robin that morning. All Anna acknowledged, was Robin and Anna’s own shadow.

But she did not see the shadow that was really alive? The shadow that followed that was Christine

Livermore.

Anna’s very own shadow weaved around her that deflected Anna’s attention from the girl that tailed her.

Christine, like Robin saw that shadow, she saw its motion, she saw that supernatural way it defied the body that conjured it. The shadow didn’t walk like Anna, though it emanated from her, as she walked, it danced.

—

At the end of school Anna first posted bottles of perfumes she had made and sold via the Internet and then walked back to the old Curio shop.

She required, as the Tentigo Mandatum explained a personal journal, to record every aspect of ritual, every incident, moon times, times of ritual, dreams.

Lancombe greeted her somewhat as Anna checked a number of elaborate notepads.

“How are you getting on with the book” asked Lancombe walking over to greet her.

She removed her glasses awaiting Anna’s answer.

Anna saw this body language.

“I haven’t really started reading it yet” she lied.

Miss Lancombe looked at the blank journals and back at Anna. Anna looked somewhere in the distance. Miss Lancombe saw this body language.

“The edition you have is the grimoire complete, but, it doesn’t explain its origins, nor the author?”

Anna stopped her study of the blank journals.

She looked back at Lancombe waiting for her to expand but said nothing.

Was she implying that she had been cheated? like a ghost behind a net curtain shroud jilted at the altar.

“Don’t get me wrong dear, it is the best version, unabridged, but you should study, as a matter of course the background to these old books…”

The proprietor gave her a sympathetic smile.

Anna sighed, perhaps there was another book she wanted her to purchase. Anna saw this as mercenary, and wouldn’t purchase her guide, and anyway, she would research on Internet.

Anna picked a large black leather bound journal with yellowed parchment paper.

Tomorrow, her ritual would begin, the first seven days to create and prepare and initialize the ritual until the quarter moon and then…’attack’ until the full.

In 14 days, Robin Will be mine. 14. Like February 14^th, Valentines day.

For lady’s day is the first of February,

Count fourteen to the hearts Valentine
And when the day first February moon is new
Pon Valentine’s the will of thine be true.

Anna left the shop ignoring the watchful eyes of Lancombe.

Soon after, Christine Livermore entered the very same shop.

Chapter 9

Wednesday April 14th 2010
Anna prepared a small jar of ink. A deep scarlet, to which she added dragons blood and then with the help of a pricking needle, some of her own blood.
Date one.
Unable to create habenti with organic subject matter familiar to RW.
Habenti, created from white beeswax, coloured with ink and extra dragons blood.
Perfumed with odours often and distinct to RW.
Lemongrass.
Eucalyptus
Peppermint
Vetiver
Grapefruit
Oilbase of linseed, dilute to grapeseed.
Of remaining wax, created candle of 9″, scored 14 times. Each score perforated with needle.
Each needle perforated score, where is etched a heart, within each heart initials
RE.
“Come to me” oil coated upon outside of candle, from base to top.
To perform opening ritual, sunset @ 19:56
Until first needle falls.
The habenti placed upon the table, by the book, and by the candle.
She closed the book and placed down the pen.
She waited for the sun to dip.
Type-O-Negative, as ever playing in the background a mournful solemn love refrain.
—
The sun dissolved into the horizon, the clouds and sky illuminated by a salmon hue. The clouds appearing as mystical islands in a world that for a moment sat adjacent to earth.
Nature herself, and all its fauna fell silent.
_______________

Chapter 10

The iron lock upon Anna’s bedroom door with intention and drama ceremoniously lowered, the door sealed. The temple sealed.
The candle lit.
As the world outside began to rest, shadows danced in her room, a celebration.
Morphing to life by the flame.
Anna’s heartbeat pounded with excitement and fear. She dis-robed and stood within her room naked.

Emotions give rise to atmosphere, and from that atmosphere the unseen gives
birth respectively. Fear is that which is unseen. And fear is the greatest employ
to the cunning. Power is granted through the journey of fear. In ritual, the
necessity to experience fear is to the spiritual world, a beckoning. Fear is
to the unseen food upon which to feed, a cloak in which to hide.

Anna’s heartbeat became a frantic war beat. For a moment she felt the ensuing panic, she reflected briefly to the other night when she had lost control…She breathed,breathe, breath.

...for in breath we are a cog to the symbiotic machinery, the love between fauna and flora.
We feed flora as we breathe outwards, and are fed as we breathe inwards. The red of the fauna complimenting the green of the flora, each breathe a passionate kiss. And. Between the breathe, for a moment we are still. In this point we are equal, we have merged.

Anna felt calm with a subtle underlying sense of fear.
Hours of study had consumed the ritual to memory but she still looked upon the open book as if it were itself the high priest animate within the rite.
In her hand she held a black handled dagger, an old war trophy from her grandfather.
In German etching along its blade the words, “my heart is true”.
It was an object that fascinated her, along its blade small indents and scarring from acts of “unspeakable atrocities” her grandfather had vividly explained.
She faced east, the point where the sun rises, where all things awake, and the ceremony likewise is born. Born upon a new moon, creation.
Emulate that which occurs in nature.
She held high the dagger and drew within the air a five pointed star, the figure of a human. Towards its centre she thrust the dagger, constraining the drawn entity she had illuminated in the dim room by her will, by the power of her thrust. The dream figure before her, borne from mind eyes, projected onto the waking world.
“Thou art before me, as the Herald of the sun, alive now be, guardian of
the east.”
It didn’t seem like her voice that spoke those words, they were ordered, abrupt and forceful, no hint of weakness or fear.
She looked upon the space, the motion of the silver blade had burnt an image into the ether as a lamp is etched upon closed eyes.
She breathed towards the star, each breath animating the image, each breath giving life.
There was somebody else in the room.
Fear gives rise to paranoia, the ancient sense of survival. The senses awaken, the ears listen further. The eyes sharper. The skin receptive to every change in the atmosphere, and Anna, standing vulnerable and naked felt subtle movement around her.
She wanted to look behind her, but she didn’t, she needed to look over her shoulder, but she didn’t.

The east the beginning, the start.

She saw the figure before her materialize in her minds eye as a baby, then a child and then a young woman. Innocent and fresh, full of hope and wonder, virgin and unblemished.
It was her imagination but just as a child covets a toy until it becomes alive, so the image before her materialised.
The guardian of the east.
Anna looked upon the imaginary maiden, acknowledging her with respect, a slight nod though to anyone watching could have been an accusing glance, from under her brow her eyes looking outwards with hidden menace.
With the infamous dagger pointing downwards she circled and turned until facing south.
Again she drew a star, again she stabbed at its centre.
“Thou art before me, as the sun, alive, be”
Exhaling, ‘the ruach’ of Anna Manners, the star figure became a baby, a child, a virgin and this time progressed to a mother.
With eyes closed Anna saw the height of summer, flowers and gardens in full bloom, the earth alive, she imagined the scent of summer, her mind perfecting and recreating those aromas. Scent and memory, equilibrium.
Around towards the west she turned, continuing the circle, the star here, animating beyond the mother to an old lady, bent and withered, the sight of autumn, leaves falling, the world remembering.
“before me, at you, who understands life by experience.. The witness and
the judge.”
She stumbled at her words, forgetting the correct charge she had meant to say, it didn’t matter, before her she experienced the view as if the sun has set,as if life were being remembered.
Anna stood for a moment before drawing the circle around again towards the north, the star drawn, she stabbed at the centre.
Then, here, she now knelt, with dagger in both hands drawn closely to her chest.
” Thou art above me. Hidden and unknown, from the realm of the darkness and the shadows, awaken ye, into this rite. That pof which I have no understanding grant me the wisdom that belongs to all things and to itself, I give myself to be a channel that the light form the darkness is illuminated”
Anna looked into the darkness before her, dancing flames, her vision penetrated beyond, even beyond the walls of her house, beyond the town, beyond, far beyond to the abyss of the night, from a portal of pitch a shadow flickered.
Slowly Anna arose and the dagger now completed the circle, standing again at the east.
She stepped dead centre into the circle and raised the dagger aloft, “all that is above.”
She lowered pointing towards the floor, “and all that is beneath”
With the dagger in her right hand she pointed to the south, “and the path of light..”
With the dagger now in her left hand, pointing north, ” and the path of shadows”
Again she she clutched with both hands the dagger to her chest, “are but fourfold, as I stand upon the crossroads.”
Again she pointed towards the birth of the rising sun, “my life before” and to the South, ” my life at present” and then behind ,”my life to be”
And with both arms outstretched whilst facing east but head arched leftwardsto acknowledge the north, “by me, my destiny, fate unknown, by Will, soshall this be.”
She crossed her arms, “till death consumes”
She prayed,”I shall not mourn.”
The arms raised high as if to celebrate,” I will be that I will be.”
She stood there now, the arms lowering slightly, she stood there in a crucified posture.
Around her she felt an energy, a root had grown beneath her, reaching outwards, a spiralling web, she stood in the aftermath of catastrophe or victory, she knew only that the familiar had shifted.
Silence, stillness, and four entities at each corner, watching. Watching the young naked girl.
Shadows behind, crawling reaching, feeling the boundary of the circle, trapped within, dancing wildly.
Anna fixated her eyes now upon the candle, its odour permeating the air.
Rose.
She could smell roses.
Come to me oil?
Had she used pure rose oil or dilute?
For a moment Anna questioned, then snapped back to the ritual. To the visions and the drama.
She pointed her dagger at the first needle pricked into the candle, wax dripping slowly over its silver.
“Robin Ermine will be mine” she declared.
Again she threw her arms aloft and spoke, “from the darkness, manifest to life this desire into being.
From the north, bring forth into the light, give birth oh east, make be, oh
south, till death oh west.”
She thrust her dagger towards the candle one more.
“Robin Ermine, will be mine”
—
Anna stepped forward, for a moment a shadow behind her stopped dancing, snapped still, hoping to free itself from the circle, she took the wax doll, anointing it with water.
“I,” she said, “baptize thee, in the name of that which is, that which was, and that which shall be, Robin Ermine.”
She then paraded the habenti to the quarters.
She offered it to each of the entities she had animated there.
She kissed the doll gently, breathed into it a sif giving life and then, in a square of fine silk wrapped it.
Around this she wrapped twine, knotting, tangling, twisting rope, binding.
She held aloft the effigy, “mine”she said, “mine”.
—
Summer breeze, sang the lyrics in the background, makes me feel…..blowing winter Jasmine through my mind…….
—
But, roses, she could smell roses in the air.
She knelt before the candle and watched the wax flow, closer to the needle
marker. It was almost slow motion, time itself seemed to turn as oil in water, the needle lower, lowered, then fell.
Anna arose and snuffed the candle with the top of the dagger.
The room was in darkness, the moon was black.
In silence Anna knelt, the small flecks of light that slowly filled the room from the street light began to merge. Photons combining like billions of stars in the galaxy, Anna’s eyes adjusted to the darkness.
She now aimed a remote control at the music deck and played different music.
Peter Steele frowned from the poster above her bed.
Chanting, barely audible a hymn that seemed to merge to the speckled light, and the molecules of aroma.
Buddhist monks droned “Aum”.
And, rising from the constant monotone hum, a prayer repeating, Aum mane padme aum.
The jewel is in the lotus.
She sat and meditated in the darkness, the sorrowful hymn, her want undelivered.

As yet.
—
Below the street lamp outside, a subtle scent of roses. Christine Livermore looked up at the bedroom, the flickering light of candle had expired.
She clutched her toy Dragon to her heart.
She felt sorrow, but didn’t know why, she felt fear, but didn’t understand, and as a light drizzle began to cast its windswept spray she walked home, away from the light of the lampost and into the shadows.
_______________

Chapter 11
Thursday April 15th 2010
She awoke trapped.
Above her a sheet, a drape, a coffin shroud.
Paralysed she could not move, her eyes open, the shroud covering her slowly came to view.
The smell of trapped incenses but the overwhelming scent of cellulose, print,paper, glossy paper, poster.
The poster of Peter Steele lay perfectly upon her.
At first she drew a sharp intake of breathe as her eyes met those of Steele, penetrating heavily into her,
Slow, deep and hard as the Type-O-Negative album of the same name.
Slipping out of bed Anna looked at the poster, laying flat now. She looked over at the items from last night’s ritual.
As she reached up the walls to refix the poster, something didn’t feel right.
She stood back and looked upon Peter Steele, sullen, accusation. Silent. Gone.
A shimmer of cold ice slithered up her spine, she clung her arms around herself.
She felt trapped in a vault, a mausoleum.
Silence.
Death.
She felt tears well up inside her but couldn’t place the reason.
The ritual. The path, the venture unknown.
She opened the Tentigo.
A picture of the tarot card- death printed in a colour plate stared back.

Symbolism is a tool for the focus of will, emulation of the natural laws of
philosophy, in symbolic gesture we re-enact drama of nature.
Death-as shown- in this tarot card is not the finale. Death is the New, the beginning. It is numbered thirteen, for thirteen is like one. The thirteenth note is the same as the first but an octave higher. It is the evolution, the next spiral. The end of one cycle, the ultimate change for which there must be initial sacrifices either symbolic or fundamental.
The laws of nature are balance. Death is the scales upon which the self are judged. That which is taken is equalled by that which is forfeit. That desired is appeased by equal love lost.

Anna looked back at Peter Steele.
Coincidences….synchronicity…..Coincidences…..
The sound of peeling, and the poster, folding, crossing, submitting to gravity fell from the wall in slow motion as a crumpled shroud upon the bed.
She ran to her laptop and fired the battered machine into action.
…….
Peter Steele singer with Gothic Rock band…. Type O Negative has been confirmed as dead……….heart failure….dead….last night…..dead….Peter Steele……dead…..dead.
There were no tears but an emptiness, a cavern that seemed once to have been filled, once filled by a soul …Now a vacuum.
She knelt, in her mind she heard the Buddhist prayer, the hymn of suffering,
the mantra of want and desire, the cause of suffering.
Suffering.
With the focus of love to one, it is removed from another, with fate determined to be by one path, a bridge must be devoured.
The music in the background played, Type-O-Negative, it filled the silent mournful depression of Anna’s room…It was, as the Tentigo would say, coincidence and synchronicity…..And the lyrics sang…
“….I can’t believe I died last night……”
_______________
Chapter 12
Lancombe turned the shops open sign to closed.
She walked to the back of the shop and gave Anna the cup of herbal tea. Anna sat upon the settee reserved for customers who wished to spend hours researching,
browsing and usually not buying anything.
Anna raised the cup to her mouth.
She could smell the hint of chamomile, an undertone of Valerian and Vervain.
“…And you’re not at school today?”
Anna shook her head.
Lancombe explained the authorities wouldn’t look to kindly at a book shop allowing truants to congregate in her shop. She looked back to to the closed sign, to emphasize the point.
“I’m sorry,” spoke Anna,”I won’t take any time I just wanted to know, you said, about the history of that book”
She hid her worry, the same way she hid her emotions of fear when two ugly sisters pestered and mocked her.
Lancombe took her hand and gave it a little squeeze.
“Now then, I’m sure you are not here just to skip school nor because of interest in a book, what has happened?”
The tea in the cup swirled and run over the brim of the cup as Anna protested, “no, no, it’s very interesting……”
She looked to her left, Lancombe saw the body language. Anna saw Lancombe observing her shifty eyes.
“And the book is so interesting you had to…bunk off school” behind the raising eyebrows that questioned. Lancombe hid the subtle hint of a smile.
“The Tentigo Mandatum.”
Lancombe sighed, and took a breathe.
It was easy for her to relay stories, years of self confession in A.A. meetings, years of analysis. Over the years she began to relay wisdom, thoughts she so wished somebody had impressed upon her. And. If she sounded pompous, so be it, let the listeners decide. Silence is the enemy.
“Hundreds of years ago the witch trials began in earnest across Britain,
and indeed Europe.
From this age many old grimoires were produced, many from those in positions of authority, the clergy. Many used as proof that witchcraft existed. Thousands were burned, most innocent. Most women, especially women of influence, midwives, herbalists….”
Lancombe looked at Anna. Anna shifted nervously at this remark.
“I make perfumes and, study herbs”
Lancombe smiled, she knew this. She had served Anna before, books on aromas,herbs……
“Herbalism, midwifery, old ways, old wives tales. These are the arts,the old paths, the ways of the moon.
We, women are of the moon my love, the sun, fixed, that is the way of man. This is the old path. Women sought knowledge and hid themselves, it is the old story.
The creators, the sustainers, and therefore by creating, the promise of destruction, the bringers of death.”
Lancombe stood and stretched, “just as white society erased black history,so too, man delineated women’s history.
The reverse is true, the opposite the reflection of the light, the devil is
God”
This last sentence Anna recognised from the Mandatum, spoken verbatim.
“Most, perhaps all of the old grimoires from that period were, disinformation,created by charlatans and ordained by the church. Works of fiction so ludicrous anyone who came by them would soon lose interest in…in the path.
You can smear any movement or thought by the sanction of written knowledge.
In many religions, Hindu and perhaps our old path, it is the spoken that mattered, the spoken and experience.
The Hindus called the written knowledge sruti and the spoken smriti, or is it the other way round, sruti, smriti? mmmm.”
For a moment Lancombe stopped her lesson, a lesson that sounded rehearsed, but she ignored the doubt, “The spoken is always the most important, for the pupil can question and argue.
Plato, Buddhism, they all have roots in the spoken.
To consign this knowledge to the written, it becomes sealed. But nature is dynamic and moving, and the true path is one of emulation, the philosophy of nature.
Therefore wisdom is constantly evolving.”
Anna looked at Lancombe, “you’ve read the Tentigo? You’re quoting it?”
For the first time that morning, indeed, for one of those rare times Anna smiled.
A brief smile.
“So who, and why? Who wrote that book and why?”
“The Tentigo Mandatum was not for the populace, not for the followers who would practice its craft like sheep. The many grimoires made by the church and crafted by snippets of knowledge gained from tortured souls were distractions, follies.
The spoken wisdom could never really be formatted.
Today, the offshoots of the grimoires and pseudo Masonic creations gave rise to..What people call witchcraft and Wicca, but these are man-made. The real wisdom, at heart, lies in the hereditary path. The Tentigo is that. It is the hereditary wisdom, wrote down at the time when the burnings across Europe were happening. It was not drawn under torture, not under guidance from the church but just from a simple person,who, collected as best as they could the wisdom handed from generations.”
Anna sipped the tea and like Lancombe replied reciting the Tentigo verbatim,“but, it is a ritual for…The procurement of one’s desires?”
“What is desire? What is love.
Desire is to be separate, love is to be as one.
Union in all things is love. The Tentigo is clever. It creates ritual to procure desire, but it’s philosophy is to achieve wisdom. It’s real message is not for ways to achieve, but to understand. There is an old lore that states when you are given the keys to unlock the door, with wisdom, you choose to leave the door shut”
Lancombe walked towards a shelf where incenses and oils were displayed.
“You create perfumes?”
“Yes,” said Anna.
“Smell is one of our least developed, yet oldest senses. Animals smell fear, they can tell where others have been. If we suddenly said..oh so and so had been here people would say we are psychic.
Today, people, in what they call the craft are into magic circles, candle magic…which certainly has its place, but the old path was concerned with Herbalism, and with the paths of the moon.”
Anna became confused, “but the book is all about rituals, with circles and magic.”
Lancombe stopped, “read it again, and again, continue with what you set out to do, I guess you started on the new moon last night?”
Anna sheepishly nodded.
“The first new moon around the spring equinox. Auspicious. The first new moon at ladies day around February was considered the time to begin the great path, the equinox however, is equal, by rights.”

Anna thought of last night, and her beloved Peter Steele. She desperately wantedto know, if…could it be that…..
“There is a passage that explains, what is wanted is appeased likewise?
Will….is it possible that something could…for..in pursuit..”
Anna desperately wanted to tell her, about the death of… about coinciding with… it was conclusion and denial, not wanting to draw parallels.
Lancombe interrupted, “all things become coincidence, but will is fixed….”
Anna thought. For a moment she wondered whether this was all folly, …coincidence…Robin
Willbemine.
“On the path, sometimes it seems events happen because they coincide with your work, but more that events happen in tandem and synchronicity. It is not your will that creates this but natural order.”
“If…if…I had not began something would those events still happen…happened?”
“Nothing is greater, I think the book states….a well knownquote from an old philosopher, as above so below?”
“Yes”, said Anna.
” People over centuries, particularly occultists and the religious interpret that we have the potential to be as above. They see distinction in above, they create God’s as separate from themselves.
The quote is, as above so is below, and as below so is above. The emphasis is on the IS.
That is the most important word. As above so IS below and vice versa.”
Anna rose and looked at Lancombe, confused, admiration of the woman before her who had unwittingly become a teacher, but still clinging to confusion Anna rippled the pond in her mind that the picture would not be clear.
Landcombe looked back the girl, older than her years gave her credit, She saw not in her an apprentice, or a seeker, but one who was wayfaring upon her own destiny. Landcombe respected all that walked the path.

The music from her headphones seemed distant as she walked back home, the brooding guitars in all their gothic majesty were like epitaphs.
Tears be blessed
The sight has shed
The salt to cleanse the soul
Sorrow for the stagnant
Alone, to be unfed
Only tears for the shallow flow,
The queen, no blame, keeps walking.
—
Lancombe turned the sign back to open and watched the young girl walk into the distant.
In her eyes Lancombe saw a young girl, treading water, in deep, but in her mind she felt history bend within the young girls footsteps.
The door bell rang as Lancombe walked away from the door, turning, she saw another young girl, standing there with expectant eyes, dressed in various shades of neon light, ribbons and bows and floral chintz.
_______________

Chapter 13

Even as we tread those first steps upon the path we meet a stream, shall we jump or concede, these obstacles will instantly appear.
Anna thought, continue?
She read the Tentigo again, all day.
Much of it was philosophy, Lancombe was right, behind the facade of the ritual there was hair splitting wisdom. Most of it she had brushed past or nonchalantly speed read, now she began to dissect each sentence, to pause and reflect on the words she had read.
Peter Steele, the poster creased, looked back at her, the world felt different in his passing.
Coinciding with her first ritual.
Coincidences occur.
The study of the natural properties of the floral kingdom are pre-requisite, the appreciation of the symbiotic relationship inherent in nature. The way certain colours compliment each other are the same as how scents and odours from the floral combine.
Anna looked at her collection of essential oils, she understood this, she already knew this.

As sound is made of frequencies, so is colour and so, though undefined and beyond the confines of research, smell.
The habenti, should not only reflect the subject in appearance but smell, this is sympathy and empathy in unison. The creation of a facsimile.

“Voodoo” the word had crossed Anna’s mind many times when she created the doll, she disregarded it, the excitement and even deviancy, creating momentum.
And… she wanted Robin. She still wanted him. Deeply. No obstacle or hurdle would stop the progression.

Unto the gods the ancients performed a sacrifice. Of these the most significant was named the ‘agni-hotra’ this the ritual of the ‘fire horse’.
That which is loved, that which has carried the cunning is utterly consumed by fire and reduced to universal base- carbon, thus, that all energy from its being, exhausted.

With the passing of Peter Steele, is this symbolically the agni hotra?

Into the earth and mingled with the sacrificial embers the habenti is buried, between the dark moon and the full, slowly that empathetic and sympathetic idol is resurrected into being, drawing nearer to the self, reflecting what will happen in reality, as the moon turns full, reflecting the sun, the habenti and the self are together, and this will be reflected in the manifest.

The neighbours would have wondered why the young shy girl was folding gently a poster of a much loved rock idol, an idol who had carried Anna through her years of confusion, who had given her strength, carried her.
Into a large glass beaker the paper was placed, saturated with perfumers alcohol and, set alight.
The neighbours would have wondered why the young shy girl was removing from the front garden of Robin Ermine’s house some dirt….

…of base needs, the very ground or earth the subject passes, walks or stands most upon.

She mixed the ashes of her beloved poster with the soil.
Opening the cupboard she removed the habenti from its box, filling the casket with the soil, covering the habenti.
“Alive thou art, now buried be, in darkness, nearer to me, closer be,together, only together will you be free.”
She moved the habenti, that bit closer to her bedroom, into the next cupboard.
That bit closer, closer to her, Robin becoming closer.

—
“Great catch Robin, run, run!!”
With the rugby ball clenched to his chest Robin began the sprint towards the posts, he looked around and was clear, but from nowhere, from his blindside, Danny Manning came flying upon him, he collapsed to the ground and quickly a mob was forming around him, and then, on top of him.
His face in the dirt, panic. He’d been tackled and fallen many times, as he lay there, mouth open with the soil pressed against his mouth, he panicked, he couldn’t breath, he couldn’t move.
He felt the players around him, fall on top off him, the wild skirmish for the ball.
Still not moving he felt the players, one by one relent.
He could hear the referee calling for a scrum down, still unable to move. He couldn’t move.
The fear of paralysis.
“Don’t touch him,” yelled the teacher with urgency in his voice, “Robin,
Robin, can you hear me? Robin can you move?”
He felt trapped, suffocated, alone.
“Quickly, call an ambulance,” cried the teacher….
“It’s OK sir…”replied Robin now kneeling, “I must have been winded…I’m OK…..”
He breathed, no injury, no pain, just confused.
Buried.
He felt for a moment as if he had been there before, deja-vu. Trapped, buried, alone. Soil upon his mouth.
—
The habenti concealed in cold earth…awaiting light, the rebirth.
Trapped, buried, alone.
_______________
Chapter 14

Robin lay upon his bed, he was thinking about the strange paralysis earlier on the rugby field when a quick buzzing noise vibrated at the back of his head.
For a moment he was in shock, and then he heard another noise, though within his mind it was clear, as if the noise were in his room. It was a short clang, a shallow bell type ring, like two pieces of iron struck together.
—
Anna closed the lock upon the door. The short clang would have aroused her parents downstairs perhaps, but they were more concerned with the unfolding drama of a TV soap programme to wander upstairs to investigate.
The fear was rising as Anna stripped naked, the expectation.
She lit the oil burner and watched her room slowly descend into darkness as the sun dipped the horizon.

Keep the child fire burning.

At first glance when Anna read that title she assumed the following pages wouldbe the subject of nefarious child sacrifices, it was nothing of the sort….

Within this book last the dark secrets of the arcane and mysterious arts, heed
ye well the foolish curious…..
Were we naive when we read that what we held in our shaking hands were secrets
that could never be revealed? Knowledge to achieve everything we ever desired?
The excitement was akin to the prelude before the first sexual experience, the
first kiss, the first footsteps before that drunken night inauguration.
The wonderment and anticipation exist in many experiences, applied to those
formative steps into the occult we find excitement as we walk the threshold
of the taboo. Unveiling treasures. Beautiful things.
These feelings are fundamental in our rebirth.
They are the feelings of the initiate. Many interpret this as a sign that forever
they would be bound upon the path. This excitement, the Christmas effect. The
child within arises. We approach hitherto unknown lands with wide eyes. Our
preconditioning obliterated as we rebel against the trends.
We leave at the porchway our old identity, the adult moulded by years of subjective
beliefs. In that instant as we walk those steps to our new formation, we feel
free.
This feeling, the child awakening at a new dawn.
We should not recognise this quality as an illusion, this Christmas syndrome,
in fact it should be embraced.
The excitement and ignition of spirit for new initiates has always been known
to rekindle an otherwise stagnating collective, known to the outsiders as a
coven.
The new initiate is the cook restirring the broth, where prior, it was neglected,
separating, becoming stale. The initiate brings with them new ideas, New enquiry,
New impetus.
Look at the Christian church and observe the priest, in monotone voice drearily
reciting his sermon as the congregation do all they can to stop themselves from
falling asleep. This is the same as an old established ‘coven,’ that closes
itself off.
An initiate brings forth that child mind, questioning, full of eagerness and
anticipation.
An hermetic order with closed doors becomes claustrophobic, it needs to continually
question, accuse, adjust, to restore the fading embers.
The danger in ritual is repetition, ritual becomes ordered and rehearsed. Rites
proceed almost at an inconvenience. We lose that initial quality that we felt
when we first embarked on the path.

Anna stopped and reflected, ordered, repetition. Most of her panic attacks
occurred when the predicted went awry. When the expected did not materialize.
The Tentigo embraced change.

There is a great truth;- spells only work the first time.
The next time we try to establish the same rite, it is merely a repeat, but
all that has changed is our attitude. When first performing a new rite there
is that excitement again, that “Christmas” effect. When we re-enact
the same rite, the spirit is no longer full of butterflies, but methodical,
and rehearsed.
All ritual must be approached with great wonderment and celebration. You can
dance rigidly and perfectly as each step requires, or let go, and become the
dance. Which is magical?
The performance of a rite is not the cunning performing carefully rehearsed
and oft repeated formulae, but a manifestation of intent, we emulate that which
is required in full spirit of its outcome. We become the dance.
The Christmas effect is the fire that lights the child within, all things being
eternal, the child is merely the awakening of nature, the onset of spring, the
waxing moon.
Fear and excitement are oxygen for the watchers upon the path, they are the
perfumed scent which brings forth the merging natures of conscience, above to
below, separate to within……And ultimately harmony and perfection result.

Anna felt the same excitement, the same fear. She stood and watched the bodies reaction to fear as if her consciousness was separate from her body, she felt the heart race, the adrenaline pulsing faster with each increasing heartbeat, deeper, her breathe quickening, her ears listening, and her eyes… seemingly observing patterns behind the visible, trying to find the root of fear in the unseen that watched her.
_______________
Chapter 15

She watched the last rays of the sun disperse, leaning forward, the candle lit, a shadow behind her sprung into life.
With dagger raised she drew the five pointed stars, and turned to each quarter.
Spring, summer, autumn, winter.
Virgin, mother, crone….. the ‘dark.’
Past, present, future, death.
She faced east now, addressing the temple.
Above me, below me…..
Now she stared upon the candle flickering, the scent of ‘come to me’ oil permeating the air.
She saw the candle, as flesh, the flame-the soul, the needle -the will.
Behind her the shadow mocked, danced, and each hand sought to caress Anna,
tempting and teasing.
Anna closed her eyes.
Breathing inwards she could see the image of the flame, burnt into perception.
Flickering, the soul of Robin Willbemine. Breathing in, the flame became her heart, her mind, her body,…… herself, and, with each breath the flame in her minds eye filled all the areas she directed the light to within her body.
The flame became her, his soul now hers, and as she thought of Robin, she thought, and became Robin.
She stood there now as Robin Ermine. His soul within her, possessed her.

Be not as, BE.

“I” she said with fixed intent, “am Robin Ermine.”
Each breathe that passed was Robin’s, each sensation belonged to Robin. Anna was not there, Robin was there, she saw through the eyes of Robin, and also the aroma of a perfume heavily accented with rose oil.
“I Robin Ermine,” she said, “am in love with her…”
In her mind eye as if looking outwards she pictured Anna Bonnamasso.
“I am in love, hopelessly”
Anna felt muscular, she felt the fitness of Robin Ermine consume her, she felt his whole being.
“I must have her” she commanded.
“I Robin Ermine, must have her, I will have her.”
Anna opened her eyes quickly, the candle dancing, weaving, the mirror reflected her, for a moment she saw Robin Ermine standing naked in the mirror, before her eyes adjusted and she saw herself again.
She closed her eyes and begun the transformation again…
“I am Robin Ermine…”
—
Robin lay upon his bed, tired. His mind repeating the events upon the playing field. Nothing hurt, no bruises…just an overwhelming feeling of exhaustion.
He could feel himself slipping into sleep, feeling motion, dizziness and the distinct smell of roses. He latched on to the smell, it made him comfortable,wanting…wanting.
_______________

Chapter 16
Friday April 16th 2010
The moon was three days waxing.
Friday.
Freya’s day, the old goddess of love.
The Tentigo dismissed somewhat the philosophy of the days, suffice to say one day should be kept clear in seven.
However, Friday was an archetype, recognised as the end of the week, the day of love.
She had to make excuses at school for her absenteeism, ‘women’s concerns’ spoken to a male teacher, usually deflected any ensuing argument.
Again, Anna walked to school without waiting to follow Willbemine.
Again, however, Robin woke unusually later than usual. Running towards school he stopped….he noticed up ahead, Anna….whatshername.
Behind him, across the road he saw another figure, walking in a usual strange, shuffled manner, it was Christine Livermore.
Christine Livermore, he’d seen her before, dressed in junior school clothing, hair in ringlets.
Something about her…….
He couldn’t fathom it and began to carry his steps, so that Christine walked ahead of him on the other side of the road.
He watched her. He noticed her looking over and across to Whatshername, when Anna stopped momentarily, so Christine stopped, so Robin stopped.
He walked over to the other side of the road and now walked directly behind Christine slowly.
Within the breeze he caught her scent…..roses.
They say, it is blind, he never saw it coming, but for the first time, he had an interest in girls, and as the smell seemed to draw him in, a comfortable scent, that made him feel home, he knew there and then, he had fallen in love, with Christine Livermore.

_______________
Chapter 17
All things they say come in threes.
Action, equal and opposite reaction.
Three is the number for the O.C.D.
Drop something twice you must surely drop it again, because then…. it will be three.
Anna understood this, beginning, middle, end.
As the sun began to ebb, this would be her third ritual…
She moved the habenti that bit closer to her bedroom, shuffling it along the kitchen cupboard, whispering promises of release at its surrender, but only when love emerges… conquers all.
Transference of the ideal.

In ritual, though inherent within ourselves failure is never the option, we
hand the rite to others, the angels and guardians, the watchers and messengers.
Failure never occurs to the cunning. The rites that fail, are the fault and
weakness of those we send to deliver the ritual through.
Upon the third day we thus employ these methods……

Anna had felt, from the moment she embarked upon this quest in control.
She had crafted the habenti, already feeling that Willbemine was in her grasp.
The Tentigo, now suggested an invocation…to an entity…to assist.
She read over and over about the use of what the religious call angels, what others call, demons.
This was a manifestation given the power to obtain the cunning ‘s demand.
Old notes researched, the Internet fired up.
The entity should be equal with the intent. It should reside, synonymous with the intent and fixed within the mind of all observed. Seek therefore the archetype of the story that represents the design, seek and conjure.
She browsed, made notes of Gods and Goddesses of love, figures in history, art, works of legend, fiction and history.
Anael, Aphrodite, Hagith, the names were endless.
The iron lock clanged shut. Somewhere, two doors away a youthful man was alerted by a sharp ringing sound within his head.

Keep the child fire burning.

Anna spent a moment, exciting herself within, anticipating. Allowing the fruition of fear. The ritual must not become stale and repetitive, it must always befresh and new, exiting.
The circle drawn, the boundary of her temple.
The circle thus drawn represents eternity and finity. It is a border fixed
and measured by an eternal symbol, pi. Within the simplest design, inherent is the idea of both chaos and completion. The circle emulates infinity and finity, chaos and order.
She called forth the watchers at each quarter, the visualisation stronger and more lucid.
The candle danced serenading the shadows.
Anna looked into the mirror, behind she saw the blank space once occupied by Peter Steele.
Around it she saw her shadow, posturing moves, calling forth the idea of spring, the beginning, the virgin. Around she drew and cast.
As she knelt upon the northern quarter, she looked deep into a darkness, a cave where beyond the wise Lord, Orpheus, or Hades, the old hermit wizard Merlin, or the adversary Lucifer. She perceived from the abyss motion, movement drawing forward. Crawling.
Into the darkness she peered and her eyes broke through a distant corridor where a shadow formed….
Fear rose, excitement.
The response within was instant. Adrenaline and endorphins, the senses of fight or flight.
Anna became empowered and by the great alchemy within her body.
Progress with fear, acknowledge, accept and surrender and, continue the path.
Embrace fear.
With the shadow crawling like an animal towards, most would run, ,most would stop.
But our dweller upon the threshold fears not, Fear acts , acknowledged and allowed to rise but is disregarded by the practitioner.
She turned, aware that behind her the amorphous creature she had willed into being was getting ever closer, heightening fear……..
To the east again now she looked upon the candle.
Her mind momentarily on the shadow approaching, to look leftwards, to look over her shoulder as she had done so many times, but she resisted.
Look behind you Anna.
Behind you.
She refused, surrendered, accepted and continued dismissive of the threat….
Dagger raised she called.
She sang in a whisper.
“You, you and your life.
Shall I be, I will be thy wife.
I raise this knife calling,
Innana come now
Come witness this rite.
Innanna, bring him swiftly to my side.
You hear these words.
Innanna.
You know we,me and he and we, are three.
Set us not free.
These bonds, surely they entangle he,
Without me, he shall not be free.
Innanna bring him swiftly to my side.”
Over she repeated this song, improvising and rhyming. Singing to an ancient Sumerian Goddess, the goddess of the love, as the evening star of Venus, and also the goddess of war as the morning star of Venus.
The candle aflame, the shadows freed from the reflection of Anna’s movement danced of their own accord.
The needle fell, a subtle high pitched ring.
—
Somewhere two doors away, Robin Ermine, looked around him. A light ringing sound….ever since he fell upon the rugby field.
—
Anna extinguished the candle flame with the dagger tip, and in a fleeting moment before the room was plunged into darkness she beheld in the vacant space, Peter Steele staring at her.
But the poster was gone….
And the shadow crawling behind her …
—
He lay upon his bed, gently rubbing the temple of his head, kneading around his skull to locate the source that triggered the ringing.
For the last hour he had felt nauseous, somewhat out of place like the feeling of vertigo. Inner tugging.
The feeling had died a few moments ago and he lay continually checking his head for signs of bruising.
Nothing materialised.
Closing his eyes he pictured Christine Livermore. Innocent Christine. He felt protective towards her, he felt attracted. He could smell the rose perfume.
Robin had a plan, once, to excel at school and then university, perhaps with extra curricular sports.
Girls were off limits, not that he didn’t like them, he just he wanted to organize his life.
Christine? What would they say at school. The others, Robin Ermine, the sporty academic and the oddball girl.
He felt aroused, he felt a yearning and the warmth within rose to a burning passion.
He moved his hands down downwards, in his mind he could picture Christine, and in his mind she wanted him.
—
Christine was at the table, studying for her history mock exams the following week.
Her mother was ready to serve dinner, a usual blend of pseudo vegan fayre with the odd, ‘cheat.’
Perhaps some grated cheese, or scrambled egg within whole grain rice.
When her mother and her stepfather divorced her mother literally fell to pieces, but after attending A.A. meetings she turned her whole life around. She sought solace in spirituality, she stopped drinking.
Though Christine shared her biological fathers name, he never figured in her life. A drunken fling, the father committed to help bring up the ‘child’, but the marriage was short lived.
Mother had remarried a kind and patient man, her stepfather, but years of mothers lies and abuse caused him to abandon the home and the family he had adopted.
It had been a long hard struggle for Christine’s mother but she created a business on the proceeds of an inheritance from her parents. It was a trigger, the passing of those who in life had loved her, now gone, she had no excuses and had to create something from their legacy,something to last, a foundation on which to build her new life.
Christine had become the dominant figure. The complete opposite to the Christine at school. At home she only slipped into the sweet naive personae when she clutched her Dragon.
The Dragon sat in the armchair and now and then Christine would look over to it, smile, and return to her work.
Dagon, she called him when young, and Dagon she called him now.
_______________
Chapter 18
Saturday April 17th 2010
Keep one day as a Sabbath, it is not to comply with….
She lay upon her bed. The blank space once home to the poster above her. The
moon, it’s crescent now visible, a scythe within the heavens. The more she registered the phase of the moon, the more she felt a part of nature evolving, it’s waxing light, reflecting the growing ritual.
Saturday so named after the ancient God Saturn, the holder too of the scythe,
death, the beginning. Never the end.
Energy transfers from one state to another in perpetuity.
Today, Anna would return to the bookshop. She had dreamt last night of meeting an ancient, a lady, at first she looked perhaps like her perception of Mary
Magdalene. She spoke some strange truncated words. 
She recognised one word.
Innanna. And, Anna.
As above so below, that beyond IS that within.
Anna Inanna.
She needed a Sumerian lexicon to fully absorb who she called to.
Seek out the first, seek out the original concept, follow the stream to thesource.

—
“Have you a boyfriend?”
Anna stared back at her mother with contempt, unmoving.
“You is different my Anna ‘s.”
Anna squinted.
Her father reading the paper looked up, looked at Anna and then to her mother,and laughed. He sat there as he always did on Saturday in his vest. Saturday equals vestday.
“Why?” Questioned Anna sneering.
“You is different my Anna ‘s, colour in cheeks, happier.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to reply, “that’s because I am dabbling in witchcraft, I stand naked calling upon an ancient goddess to compel Robin Ermine from two doors away to love me.”
The very thought caused, for a moment, a question within Anna’s mind.
Saturday…The respite, a time for reflection.
Analyze thyself, picture this day how you have reacted, picture this day youractions.
“I’m just doing well selling my perfumes….” Anna replied to her parents now eager for an answer.
“Smellies…” father spoke.
“This is good my Anna ‘s, it is good to see you smile more, pretty whenyou smile, no?”
“No,”said Anna.
—
“Good morning Anna,” spoke Lancombe.
Anna smiled back.
Smile.
“Are we OK today?, No concerns?”
The girl Lancombe was serving looked over. In her hand she held a book, witchcraft
for beginners which she handed over to Lancombe.
Anna looked about the garish front of the shop, the cheap painted artefacts,in the air, that smell again, roses.
She looked back at Lancombe who was still awaiting Anna’s reply.
“I am looking for a Sumerian lexicon.”
Lancombe dropped the cheap and tacky book she was about to sell.
—
As they entered the backroom, Anna stopped dead. On the chair facing her sat Christine Livermore. She sat there dressed in a fluorescent chequered dress with wide pleats. Daft ribbons were tied into her hair of varying colours, some in bows,some whose knots had clearly fallen apart, and some just knotted into hair haphazardly hanging like streaky dreadlocks.
“Say hello Christine,” said Lancombe, “do you know Anna, I think she goes to your school.”
“She doesn’t want friends…” replied Christine, gone the small squeaky voice, instead she answered menacingly.
“Christine, I’m sure that’s not true.”
Lancombe looked at Anna who returned a blank nonchalant glare.
Lancombe stopped for a moment, finger to mouth, “Christine,” she said,“Sumerian, is that in your history project?”
Christine looked…. at her mother, and then to Anna, “Sumerian?”
She asked.
Anna could smell the roses, overwhelming, synthetic, there was also something
about Christine that wasn’t right, different.
“I’m interested in..” Anna began,
“You didn’t choose history as a chosen subject, or you would have been
in my class?” Christine interrupted.
Anna frowned, the once-pitiful girl seated in a chequered dress stood up and walked towards a shelf reaching downwards, “Na Zahee” she said giving the book to Anna.
“Pardon?”Anna questioned.
“For you…Anna”
Lancombe laughed somewhat, “yes, Anna, my daughter has a thing for old
languages, Sumerian, Hebrew, Egyptian..”
“Your daughter?”
Christine gave a little smile watching Anna’s reaction.
“Anna, sit with Christine a little, while I sort out some things, she’ll help, won’t you Christine?”
Christine gave no reply as Anna walked to the chair next to her and sat down.
Lancombe hurried off and left the two girls, sat there like two dolls, that never spoke to each other.
Eventually, Christine did speak, this time in that squeaky pathetic voice, “are you into witch poo stuff?”
Anna turned, showing Christine contempt, “witch what?”
Christine begin to swing her feet, “witchy stuff. Do you have a familiar?”
Anna muttered something derogatory under her breath and then spoke, “I hate cats, if that’s what you mean.”
Christine for a moment was about to say something, she resigned and relaxed
into the seat but just as Anna thought the silly conversation was over Christine muttered, “and you don’t like dogs either? let alone lions.”
Christine stood up, reverting to an authoritative manner, a different person, “a witch enamours her being, her essence within a host, like, a fetish doll, or an habenti.”
She spun on the heel of her shoe and faced Anna.
“What do you know of habenti?”Asked Anna.
Christine looked from under her fringe as Anna looked at her, “I’ve read that book you’ve got…I know lots of things…”
Anna stood up and brushed past Christine, “maybe, maybe,” she said.
Behind her Christine span on her heel again, smiling, and watched as Anna rushed
forward away from Christine with the lexicon in hand.
—
Anna yearned to carry out a ritual on this rest day but stuck to the ways of
the Tentigo.
Respite
She moved the habenti, that bit closer and studied the lexicon and the Tentigo.
As the sun set she lit without ritual the candle, for the next thirty minutes or so she watched the flame, watched the wax melt. Without word, posture or
movement she observed the candle and her reflection.
—
Robin was hunched in bed, stomach cramps, loneliness. Thoughts of Christine temporarily eased the pain, but the cramps returned and so too the loneliness.
When the feelings of loneliness and emptiness disappeared he was left withthe feeling of subtle paranoia, someone in his room, but then the cramps came again.
_______________

Chapter 19
Sunday 18th April 2010
When Anna woke that morning, it wasn’t the moon that she thought of, it wasn’t
Peter Steele, or Robin Willbemine.
Above her Christine Livermore floated, the silly dress blowing wildly in an unseen wind, her ringlets rigid.
A false smile beckoned Anna……
Unable to move Anna watched the apparition fade.
The timer clicked, the music began to fill the room with the opening strains of Type-O-Negative’s ‘Bloody Kisses’ Album.
It was the sound of a girl, in orgasm then Peter Steele speaking,
“forgive her for she knows not what she does….”..
The moon, five days waxing, two before the half moon.
Shamash equals the sun, and sin, the moon. Their marriage producing Innanna.
The sun animates the organic, light and heat. The moon animates the consciousness.
Without the moon, life would be deep sleep.
—
Robin woke, gone the urge to follow his fitness programme. Sundays he would run upwards of seven miles. All he wanted now was sleep. His night was broken between waking and dreaming. He thought of Christine…….
—
…..consider the obese, devoid of fitness their instincts and awareness increase,
nature provide the self with means of survival…..
…..hand in hand go the physical, mental and spiritual. In equal measure developed,
the cunning grow. The cunning seek to be perfect in all measures, savant.
Anna put down the Tentigo.
Never been one to physical exercise, she hunted through her drawers.
—
“Anna!” Called her mother, “where is you going?”
As the front door shut Anna called back, “I’m going for a run….”
Lightly she warmed up stretching, arching, posturing.
Behind her the curtains twitched.
Her mother and father, eyes in disbelief yet also smiling.
“She’s definitely with fellow,” her mother whispered to her father, “she’s is keeping trim tum”
Another curtain twitched, Robin, dream-drunk, observed Anna Whatshername, running?
Robin felt all energy sap. He sat down hunched beneath the window… if only he witnessed Christine warming up, stretching, gyrating her hips, pushing outwards with her chest, her breasts, running.
Anna turned the volume up on her iPod, from the corner of her eye she had seen the curtains of Robin Willbemine moving, she saw the body of a voyeur at the
window. She held her stretches longer, paused, teased…..did for Robin all
she wished Robin would have done when she had salivated over his warm up exercises.
Robin watched but in place of the posturing Anna, visualized Christine Livermore.
—
When Christine awoke that Sunday morning she clutched the dragon and squeezed it tightly, excited.
“Maybe, maybe…” She whispered to it, repeating the last words Anna
had spoken to her at the shop.
Laying back she looked into a thousand-yard stare, a world appeared where she
and Anna walked and danced and talked.
She would always love her Dragon, it was her familiar. She also loved Anna Bonnamasso.
She had loved her from the first time Anna looked under her fringe at her, she loved her Italian looks and how she hid her beauty, she loved her dark mystique, and now she loved that Anna was practicing….. witchcraft.
Christine walked to her cupboard which opened to reveal an altar, upon it an assortment of pebbles, stones, crystals, beads and atop an elaborate holder sat a candle.
Around its shaft the name Anna etched, and like a helter skelter design…needles followed a path …all…. the…. way…. down.
Tonight Christine would continue her ritual, across town, Anna would do the same.
In parallel motion the paths ne’er collide. And yet as snakes coiled upon a fixed path, order must come.

_______________
Chapter 20
Monday 19th April 2010
Anna felt the tightening of her legs, the exercise pumping blood to muscles
eagerly waking from years of slumber. Her lungs burned as she run across the park, the sun rising sprayed rays of salmon pink across the clouds.
Father commented that morning that he doubted this new found regime would last long, but was impressed that for the second day running, she was running, and up early before school……..
Sometimes when Anna ran along the path she felt out of her body and seemed
to drift seamlessly across the park, as if she were an observer watching, Anna Bonnamasso.
She stopped by an old tree to change the music on her iPod, between every Type O Negative album there was only an assortment of background music, New age landscapes with sounds of wolves or hump backed whales merging with rising flute or pan pipes.
Her face was flecked with crimson, the alabaster skin showing veins of blood, gasping for breathe she took off her headphones. The noise of birds, the wind tickling the decrepit lonely oak where she stood.
Somewhere in the distant a man was calling for his dog. Farther still the shunt of a train.
She felt electrified, thinking back to only last week she observed herself as the shy, morbid loner.
The tree beside her reminded her, desolate and twisted……
The old Anna was gone.
—
Robin heard Anna Whatshername that morning and he shuffled across the window to observe her, projecting a fantasy of Christine Livermore as she stretched and arched and twisted…….
As she run off towards the park he slumped back down, pathetic, in a fetal position almost rocking back and forth, only last week, it was he, full of life and energy, it was him running first thing in the morning. It was a reversal, an opposite, a reflection. Like a baby in the womb he rocked there, awaiting rebirth.
—
Anna never saw Robin at school that day, on the way to school she kept looking behind her to see if he was there, continuously looking over her shoulder had been a habit, here she was repeating that gesture, but not for want of some peculiar trait, but… where was he?
Anna still went to the library at break time, though not to hide from the bullies, they were of no concern, but to research more, to dig deeper.
She wrote down the lines of her opening rites and then checked for a Sumerian translation. As she researched this she half imagined the ritual taking place,she could smell…..
the roses.
Keep the ritual progressive, improvise, adapt, change, elaborate. Stagnation
is taboo…..
Keep the child fire burning.
… the child….
…”I thought you’d be here.”
The voice belonged to Christine, the squeaky voice, the silly smile, the swaying
motion…..
Anna looked up, her concentration, train of thought, disturbed.
Christine saw the situation, “oh I’m sorry was you…”
Anna dismissed the worry and for the first Christine to sit. For the first timeinvited someone to be with her.
Christine looked around, it was a celebration, she wanted others to acknowledge that she sat with someone, that she was here with Anna Bonnamasso, her friend.
“What are you doing?” Asked Christine.
“Some research, just, looking at Sumerian stuff and that old book I bought…”
Christine waited for more information but none was forthcoming, “interesting” she said her feet now swinging.
Anna closed all her books, sat upright and with hands together looked as if she were about to give an interview in a major corporate enterprise.
Christine giggled somewhat at the spectacle.
“What, then, do you know of habenti?” Anna asked.
Christine looked around, mischievousness afoot.
Anna quickly mimicked, looking over her shoulder.
Christine looked over Anna’s shoulder.
Anna saw this, and quickly and nervously looked backwards, “what is it?”
She asked Christine.
“What is what? The habenti or what you sense….over your shoulder?”
Again, now fidgeting Anna insisted, “what do you mean?”
Christine adopted her sensible voice, “maybe, they’re both the same thing.”
Anna squinted, in Christine she saw perhaps for the first time, a chimera.
Something that is not.
Anna, ever the bottom of the rung in life’s climb grasped the initiative, “maybe,” she said, “we can be friends.”
Christine leapt up and span on her heel, excited, she looked back and with a teasing comment offered Anna the parting words, “maybe, maybe.”
Anna watched her exit the library, swinging hips, bouncing steps. A new Christine.
Long after Christine left Anna still felt her there, she could smell her, that subtle sense of roses.
The habenti, an image or representation of somebody.
The shadow upon her shoulder? The same thing?
Shadow… The reflection…no..that which cannot be reflected?..no..a shadow is seen in mirrors…Shadow…that which is not visible to light…habenti….that which…is not which it is…that which is…a chimera. Anna thought of Christine and a small hint of confusion appeared within her, a small seed of doubt.
—
The habenti moved prior to the evenings ritual.
Anna ran up the stairs and found her mother in her room, cradling in her hands the candle, complete with needles circling the etched drawn scarlet pillar.
“What’s is it? Mine Anna ‘s?”
Carefully, as careful can snatch, Anna took the candle.
“It is a timer!” She cursed.
“Timer?” Asked mother looking all around her room for evidence, clues as to Anna’s sudden change.
“For my fragrances, it times the reactions…oh…you wouldn’t understand….And….What are you doing here?”
Still looking around she asked Anna,” you want at school, so I am told?”
Anna placed the candle upon the vanity table and looked her mother squarely,
“want? Want at school! Wasn’t, wasn’t..I’ve already told you,” she lied, “I had bad…pains.”
“Is not then, pregnant are you, I would…”
“Mother…..!”
Anna ushered her prying, spying, interfering mother outwards and still berating and mocking slammed the lever to her door firmly downwards, listening to the slow steps sinking away.
” You not be plays with boys whens you want at school, I finders this out Anna ‘s.”
She looked about, looked for signs of secrets uncovered.
The personal journal safely tucked between drawers.
The Tentigo likewise discreetly wedged between exercise books.
The sun was fading fast.
The curtains close in this performance. The shadows become the dancers, the solitary candle directed by the breeze became the spotlight and an audience of those crafted from her imagination watched over Anna. She whispered ancient words methodically and with a notorious dagger drew signs and graffiti upon the tapestry of dreams.
Each etching upon the ether more pronounced than before, more deliberate.
Elaborate the ritual, progress, change, adapt…
Naked, the young girl perfects her routine. At times upon toes to extend her height she becomes the centre of the universe, the queen of heaven and then upon knees prostate, the lowest of the fallen, the slave to the cosmos.
—–
And Anna Manners sometimes stammered
Plays an ancient shamanic trick
Across the not so far distant land
Robin Ermine, bent over, toilet bound, undeniably sick.
_______________

Chapter 21
Tuesday 20th April 2010
She saw him at school that morning. Yesterday, she had looked for him all day..to
no avail.
He came into her vision like a small rodent in the eyes of a Harrier hawk. Anna stopped in the middle of the corridor to observe him, causing other pupils to mutter remarks, cruel remarks of Anna Manners, “dum dum glum” said someone to the weirdo stood there in everyones way.
“out of the way Anna manky” said another…that was a new one.
He seemed to walk inch by inch, head bowed, the world upon his shoulders. Downcast, browbeat, haggard, tired.
Anna watched, her posture rigid and straight, from exercise, three days running, and time spent balancing upon toes.
For a moment Anna slipped into the personae of being Robin, as she looked over
at the frail pathetic individual shuffling the corridors it was as if the tables really had turned, she saw in the creature her old posture, her old mannerisms.
Robin Ermine, stooped, sometimes he looked over his shoulder…..
She felt a sharp, sharp tug at her hair.
“Yea, fucking got a mortgage on that spot then?”
Tracey Slingshot stood there with two scabby looking sycophants, “ya gonna move you’s little fuckin weirdo?”
Ever since Anna Manners had stared Tracey down at the school gates last week,
Tracey had been waiting for a chance to dig her out, to claw back the power…..
“ya gonna move you’s little fuckin weirdo?”
In the morning at sunrise, Anna had been running around the park, eating healthy foods, the Tentigo said, eat that which is natural and pure, and water from the purest running spring.
It only takes a few days for the body to adjust, to detox from the filth and additives of modern manufactured, processed foods. Well, maybe physically it takes a while, but the mind adjusts, the spirit positively claws at the new and natural food…..
“ya gonna move you’s little fuckin weirdo?”
…. It was deemed almost impossible to balance upon one foot with the eyes closed. The eyes together with the ears create balance, when one of these is shut down, the gyroscope in the brain seems to wobble. The Tentigo maintained posture and dance are emulation of nature. Anna always wondered how stupid it was in drama class to pretend to be a tree. The Tentigo explained these movements, from kung fu to tai chi, from mime to ballet. In darkness Anna could balance upon one foot. Anna’s movement became swift and graceful….
“ya gonna move you’s little fuckin weirdo?”
Emotions are really chemical interactions. The body responding. Raising adrenaline at what it perceives is approaching fear, increasing endorphins at approaching harm and danger. When watching the emotions arise, the self becomes an observer to the body, it is not the self that becomes anxious but the body ingesting the very chemicals it created….
“ya gonna move you’s little fuckin weirdo?”
…people have been dabbling in the subtle arts for aeons. Make up to reflect a woman in sexual ecstasy, perfumes to mimic pheremones, contrived walks to display powerful hips, it’s not really cheating to go, the whole hog and devote
hours and hours and hours studying, studying, studying, practicing, performing….
“ya gonna move you’s little fuckin weirdo?”
Excercise, healthy eating, healthy drinking, posture, mind control, stature, movement, strength, will, devotion. When you’re in the midst of such a complex and dynamic discipline others who yield to cigarettes, fast food, laziness, gluttony, pride and bullying should be pitied.
“ya gonna move you’s little fuckin weirdo?”
Anna turned quickly and snapped her arm towards Tracey slingshots throat, before
Faceache had even acknowledged what had happened she was pushed, almost lifted into the air by the mild Anna Manners.
Backwards she went through the vacant classroom door, pressed against the wipeboard.
Anna Manners lifted up her other arm and from the sleeve that draped over her hidden hand a dagger came into view. It was a dagger that Anna had carried to school, pointing at the pavement, marking the route where Robin Willbemine had trod. A dagger which etched invisible temples and created angels upon the crossroads.
Tracey slingshot felt the sharp steel upon her neck and could smell the masculine scent of old engine oil from the blade, she could feel, almost, an aura of evil from the long black handled dagger.
Tracey slingshot had expected, perhaps, Anna Manners to try and stare her down again. She was prepared for this, she was going to kick her behind the knees, so Anna would fall, like kneeling.
But Anna, these days, only knelt for darkness.
Tracey slingshot hadn’t expected for frail Anna to lift her up, force her backwards into a classroom and point a dagger at her throat.
All pride and strength dispersed from Tracey slingshot, together with the urine forming a puddle on the floor.
The sycophants were in two minds whether to run back to the school gates and
call her sister but, watching the collosus that was Tracey faceache Slingshot, held high, white with fear, fear that enamoured more passion in Anna, that gave impetus to her action. Tracey, sweating, her face clammy and contorted. Tracey, tracey, tracey, in front of the psychophants, pissing.
The psychophants stayed, they offered no clue or help to Tracey now beginning to turn quite red, not from anger, but from breathlessness, the little frail
girl Anna whose hand clutching, like a Harrier hawk upon a rodent. Her other hand rigid, poised and fixed, the dagger, there was no panic or unpredictability in the hand that wielded the dagger.
It was precise and guided by a soul living in the moment, devoid of desire or aversion, the self acts with the motion of the universe.
Anna was a witness to the rising Sun, and there she exercised, becoming alive, she was a witness to the falling sun, and there she performed great elaborate rites. She acknowledged the moon, she felt its motion, it’s beauty. The sun is “shamash”, and the moon is “sin”, the sun gives birth to the body, the moon gives birth to consciousness. The sun and the moon begat Venus known to the ancients as Inanna. In Anna at that moment was a Goddess,
the ancient Goddess Venus who by night was the goddess of love, but…in the morning the bride of war.
Anna looked deep into Tracey’s eyes, behind the abyss she saw fear, tangible to her, she certainly smelled fear, and the ammonia and stench of piss.
“Has the little fucking weirdo moved?” Anna spoke before releasing the grip upon Tracey’s throat.
The dagger and hand slipped upwards inside her coat sleeve. Anna passed the sycophants who quickly stepped aside.
Tracey reached for her throat, wobbled slightly and stepped forward slipping in the puddle of piss.
She skated along the short piss trail but balance came unsteadily for the overweight, deprived of oxygen and along the trail of piss she fell. At last writhing as a pathetic specimen she lay in the bed of urine.
—
The rumours went quickly, the grapevine and jungle drums in overdrive.
She was the daughter of a mafia boss from Sicily said some.
She had murdered somebody called Mr Arnold said others.
What Anna found most difficult in the aftermath was she was no longer in the shadows, no longer disregarded. Every other face greeted her, nodded at her, got out of the way for her, wanted to speak to her.
Clutching her rucksack she meandered through them, weaving like a serpent around a fixed path.
Living for the moment she attached no pride, Anna went back to the library at break time, and hid, not because of the events that happened, but because that’s where she always went.
To recognise the change and to grasp it, the changes cease, allow it to pass and continue the path, the maverick prolongs the hunt.
—
That night in ritual Anna performed, reciting in ancient tongue, balancing upon toes, gesturing the knife like an artist painting a portrait.
Even the shadows seemed entranced, avoiding Anna as she danced within the circle in full command of her temple, and therefore her destiny
_______________

Chapter 22

Wednesday 21st April 2010
The energy from last night’s ritual caused Anna to wake periodically through the night, but it was enough energy to drive her for another run, another run to dispel her father’s pessimism. Four days running.
The moon was in its quarter phase, waxing. Half lit and half in darkness.
The border land between the seen and unseen. That which is wanted becomes visible to that which is grasped.
She looked up at Robin Willbemine’s bedroom window as she warmed up.
She arched herself back and held the posture, her body tight and inhaled to bellow out the curves, accentuating every feminine curve…..
With contrived catwalk steps she began a slow procession into a sultry jog towards the park, a growing smile upon her lips at the little display of tease and please.
Robin craned his neck to see Whatshername disappear, in his mind he saw Christine Livermore, but Livermore was now known to him by a new name, strangely and in a quirk of what once would have been idle fancy, “Loveforevermore”.
Last night he had whispered her name over and over, Christine Livermore, Christine Livermore, he had said it so many times the words began to muddle and he found himself saying, love forever more.
He recognised the change.
He had gone from a confident and physically fit individual to a depressed and introverted sloth within a week. The depression was simply love imagined, and not attained.
He could no longer continue this fixation, it was a crush, he looked upon the dawn moon, and in a spark of genius realised, like the moon, half lit, half in the shadows he had to emerge, he had to make his feelings known.
He couldn’t continue with infantile dreams, imagining Christine Livermore. Just imagining.
He shook his head at the realisation.
Anna. Anna Whatshername, but no longer was she known as Whatshername.
Since yesterday, everybody knew her name. She had, like the moon emerged from the shadows into the light. She had faced everybody’s adversary, reduced Tracey Slingshot from beast to coward.
Anna Bonnamasso. That was her name. She had, apparently no friends, though some suggested in the aftermath of the drama she was friends with Christine Livermore.
Robin saw a chance, an opening, a stepping stone.
Anna Bonnamasso lived two doors away, all he had to do was befriend her, and….love forever more.
He quickly dressed and washed, ready for school and observed, waited, waited for Anna Bonnamasso to leave for school, and he would follow.
Watching, watching the world unfold before him, discreetly like a voyeur.
—
As the sun rose it cast rainbows in the bedroom of Christine Livermore. She had covered the windows with a light diffusing filters, the white light scattered and filled the room with seven shades of radiance. The light bounced through a dropped crystal chandelier and sparkles of light created multicoloured avenues of stars.
She sat there amongst the rainbows with her Dragon, shifting seashells, coloured stones and crystals.
“Look Dagon, look how things merge and follow.”
The Dragon faced the assortment of trinkets, some in clusters and some like a large pebble that Christine now took in her hand sat ominously alone.
“Poor poor Tracey slingshot” said Christine tapping the muddy coloured pebble. She gently stroked the stone with a hint of sarcasm and sadistic pleasure.
Father away still, slightly smaller and with a very small single stone beside it…”and poor poor Karen too…”
—
Anna had no fear that Tracey would be at the gates with her contingent of lieutenants and foot soldiers. Even if she was, Anna was ready.
Her sister Karen wouldn’t be there either, many said she was pregnant, apparently.

Her headphones silent, wrapped around her neck, she listened to the sound of nature, farther went her audible range, wider her perception. With the panorama opened in her mind, instincts and paranoia married, but someone was close behind.
She felt for her dagger in the sleeve and just as the shadow came into view she turned.
Robin Willbemine stood there, nervous, his pale skin, eyes bloodshot.
“Anna” he smiled.
“Uh, it’s you,” she replied withdrawing her hand back through the overthrown sleeve, and with it the dagger.
Robin feigned a smile, slightly out of breathe he now stood next to her and walked beside her to school.
The first time, ever, he had walked with her to school.
“I heard about the, fight, you had with Tracey Slingsby.”
Anna stopped and looked at Robin, something inside of her was repulsed, she couldn’t work out the cause, something about Robin was wrong. The confidence replaced by a nervous, painfully shy personae. Gone the sporty smell, the fresh scent of lemon, balm, and eucalyptus, instead a stagnant smell of old sweat, mildew, a gingery rank odour as he spoke…..
Anna stepped back from him, the subject of a week’s long obsession, hours and hours of ritual, study, preparation, exercise… for this ?
He stood there, the manifestation of her dreams and yet she felt rising repulsion.
“Is that why you talk to me?” She spoke.
His smile broken into a grimace of concern. Years they had lived nearly side by side and only now, after, only now….
“No, not really,” he said with a slight stammer, “I’m making sure you’re OK, and, and just,..”
There seemed to be a flash of illumination on his mind as he offered, “thought I’d walk with you to school, in case Tracey Slingsby…”
Anna looked at the object of lust before her, not a spark of the wonderful power of the Robin Willbemine she created in her imaginations, and not a patch of the brooding orgasm inducing sensuality of Peter Steele.
“My hero…,” she dismissed.
They walked onwards. Robin looking this way and that, behind him, over and yonder, behind him, Around and about. Behind him.
“Why do you keep looking behind, do you think Tracey or Karen will be following us?”
Robin quickly looked behind him again before answering, “no, it’s, you never know what’s behind you?”
Anna thought of the north, the abode of the ‘dark Lord’, “behind you, over the shoulder, it’s always unseen, if you look, behind you…. is still behind you…isn’t it?”
Anna was toying with Robin. Perhaps he would construe it as flirting, perhaps, but he had other things on his mind.
“I don’t, often see you with other people, friends? Who do you hang round with?” asked Robin, fully knowing the answer, fully laying the plot to his real target and intention.
Anna thought for a moment. She had waited for this moment, this first episode and first meeting. She had dreamt of his first words and pictured soft words of romance and compliments. She had smelled the odour, strong, of his lemon and balm and…now…..sweat and bad breath?
She had dreamt of his questions about her, what she liked, her pleasures, her wants, her desires…..
“I’m concentrating on school really, Christine is OK, sometimes I’m with her.”
Only days ago, her answer would have been, no-one. No friends. I don’t want any friends. I don’t need any friends.
“Yes,” Robin spoke quickly, “me, too, I want to go to university so I’m really, … Christine? I think I’ve seen her.”
He put his fingers to his lips, Anna saw this body language. Why was he shy?
What is he trying to hide?
The moon, half seen, half hidden. Robin cannot reveal his true side, but from the shadows he has emerged.
They turned towards the last road to school, the gates visible, as predicted there was no Tracey Slingsby, or Karen, instead standing with her rucksack.
Christine stood.
Robin brushed his hair with his hand again, pulled up his trousers somewhat and joked, “talk of the devil, look, it’s Christine”
Christine hardly acknowledged Robin, a quick glance, somewhat surprised to see him with Anna. Since yesterday, everyone suddenly had a vested interest in Anna Bonnamasso~ the giant killer.
“Well, see you then’” Anna said to the pitiful character, his face
now a deep crimson. He stumbled, before walking off, looking backwards.
Christine and Anna watched his progress with his ever careless steps.
They both looked at each other and, for the first time, perhaps in both their lives they, as friends, laughed. Friends enjoying a private moment, when only they knew the source of amusement.
Anna and Christine recognised this, this first, this moment, and they both reached for each other’s arm and together walked towards the school entrance.
Christine dressed in a free flowing gingham dress, with bows and ribbons, all brightly coloured, loosely hanging from tight knitted hair bunched in curls. A mass of garish coloured bangles upon her arm. Around her neck, a free flowing scarf, a rainbow but the yellow was gold.
The indigo was polka dot with white spots and where there should have been violet, silver flowed.
She was a palette of colours, sometimes subtle pastel shades, sometimes translucent and luminous shades of neon, always varied hues and multicoloured. Anna beside her, walked with her head in clouds of laughter, dressed. Head to toe, black.
—
Anna found it hard to concentrate at school.
Listening to the teacher and his monotone description of complex chemical interactions……
…..Anna had seen the fruits of her sowing, the blossom awake at the outset of spring. As others in the classroom looked forward to a pre-planned life created for them, Anna stood upon the threshold, the crossroads of destiny.
No longer alone, admired by her peers, a new friend who wanted nothing from
her, Anna was skilled and self taught in Herbalism, perfume and witchcraft.
Also, the emergence of the desire of her heart, who, falling to pieces had suddenly spoke to her, walked with her.
Life, she reasoned, is perfect. Life she reasoned is determined.
The moon, half lit, the shadows of the curtains close,
The performance near begun,
What crafts upon the spinning wheel?
Which craft.
_______________
Chapter 23

Anna reached for the habenti, it must be halfway from where she first placed it, to where it would sit on the full moon. It was a placed under the stairs measured by her footsteps earlier. She gave it a light dusting, shabby, shabby like Robin had looked. The silk beneath the tangled yarn emitting odours, not too nice, but still the underlying scent of mystery, and of course from elsewhere,somewhere, the roses.
—
Robin showered, scrubbed hard until he thought the skin would break. Christine would not be interested in him, looking as he did, since that accident upon the rugby field, he’d let himself go.
He felt dirty, unclean.
Though she hadn’t spoke to him that morning, he was near to her. Love was like an explosion. He never saw it emerging, it just appeared, just happened and in an instant his whole world, his whole view of the world had changed.
He needed to be near her, with her.
Anna, her early morning run.
He would wake, and wait, and join her…ask to join her.
Slowly, he would draw himself nearer to Christine.
Christine Loveforevermore.
Anna would be his stepping stone.
—
And Anna loved Robin and Robin Loved Christine and Christine loved Annaand round the world doth flow.
—
Anna lit the candle, a shadow behind crawled upwards, it’s tentacle fingers clawing at Anna, eyes flicked open and looked about the room. The presence mingled with the smell of come to me oil. Roses……
—
….Christine annointed herself with parfum d’Venus . She sighed as the myriad of colours floating and dancing within her room yielded to the night.
She picked up a new shell from an elaborate box, turning it in her hand and inspecting the new particular in her improvised game of chess she whispered mockingly to the new contestant in her game upon the floor whose pawns were pebble….
“So, Robin Ermine…What part do you play”
Into the air she threw the shell and it landed between two of the most prized in her collection.
Christine scowled a little, “between us? A stepping stone?”
She looked at the entrant, partly with humour and partly agitated by its presence amongst the beautiful two…..
—
….Robin sat upon the shower floor, red raw from scrubbing and exfoliating, the spray still soaked him with water as hot as he could bear.
“Christine” he sobbed, within the waterfall as if each drop was fallen from the cry of his pain. The avenue of a million tears, he felt alone.
—
“Nismay ilati innana!” Anna raised her dagger high, “abu shemti
………”
The flame danced more, spiralling, mimicking the spiral of the candle needles perforated into the waxed column.
As the candle danced so too Anna, waving her arms and turning, pirouetting, spinning.
At times she was gliding, her hair a sea of serpents hissing from Medusas head.

She turned quickly to face the mirror and in an instant stopped and thrust the dagger towards her image, now transformed into the image of Robin Ermine.
The dagger dropped, her arms limp, her reflection warped and merged back to that which stood in the physical, Anna Manners looked deep into the mirror, deep, to accuse the eyes that betrayed her, behind her the shadow now, also reflected her moves.
In an instant she had seen as she faced the mirror the shadow behind her, arms outstretched, and like a puppeteer it pulled at the strings that threw Anna into her shamanic dance.
Just for a moment Anna had seen the unseen, the shadow.
Fear.
Fear rose and with it doors to the ritual were opened, the invitation, the aroma as a pheremone to the unseen.
She felt centre stage to an audience, and as Eve, once tempted by the promise of knowledge she saw her nakedness. Her hands reached to cover herself.
“What in the name of…”
Turning quickly she found the door open, the heavy latch unfettered, in her haste neglecting that most initial aspect of ritual, securing the temple. Doors must be shut.
He father stood there, summoned by the ever frantic dance steps above, in candle lit darkness she stood.
It seemed as though the whole ritual had exploded, the theatre stopped abruptly by falling masonry.
Her father dismissed the scene with a wave of his hand, “put a the clothes on silly girl, what if I had sent up a your boyfriend”
Anna faced him as he walked back down the stairs mumbling.
“Knock!” She screamed.
Behind her, the shadow arched, a jester laughing, mocking, the prankster, the
Lord of chaos.
She listened to her father talking to mother, ” in da naughty nuddy..”
“Well you should have knocked like she said…”
“And why she never play her music loud like a normal kid…”
“She’s not eight, you always think she’s seven or eight, she’s a teenager, a woman…”
“Why she always up a da bedroom…”
“…she’s a woman you silly, she not a play with cuddling toys up at there……”
The needle dropped.
The candle snuffed.
The shadow sunk into darkness, into an avenue of tears.
_______________

Chapter 24

Thursday 22nd April 2010
He slept, it seemed for eternity and woke with a deep, deep breath.
Robin sat up and looked at the clock. He had missed her, he had missed Anna.
Anger rose, he would have to wait for the school walk, to question her more, secretly and stealthily, about Christine…….
……Christine knew, deep down that though she loved Anna, it probably couldn’t be reciprocated. She came to terms with that long ago. What she couldn’t have, perhaps she could control, but by control you lose the free spirit you love.
All she wanted was to be with Anna as much as possible, to be near her, and laugh, and share.
She was under no illusion that, a relationship in the normal sense of the word would happen. Even if she thought of that improbability, her and Anna cuddling, kissing, she immediately dismissed it.
It wasn’t that sort of love.
That sort of pang for physical conclusion.
It was an ongoing love, a sensual togetherness. Yes, at times, embarrassingly she felt aroused, thought of exploring, of touching and feeling….
….She dismissed the rising thoughts.
Looking upon the shells, she again saw the intruder, Robin Ermine.
Gently she picked up the Cowan.
“What shall we do?” She asked the Dragon.
From inside her head the purple beast said little, except perhaps what will be will be.
“But, I have come so close, finally, we are together, almost, can I allow this,” she said rolling the shell around her fingers, “to destroy all”
The little Dragon said and did nothing.
Christine sighed at the lack of guidance and placed the shell between the two coveted jewels, though she moved it slightly away from Anna.
Nearer to her.
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer…..
—
As she walked to school Anna felt mixed emotions. Embarrassment at her father’s intrusion and also carelessness.
The image of the shadow appeared in her wandering mind. Her visualisations were strong, lucid and she reasoned, independent and gaining soul.
The manner in which she projected the face and body of Robin Willbemine upon the mirror had become so vivid, at times she believed she really was him……..
“Anna”, came the familiar voice.
Robin looked different, cleaner, sharper, more the person she ……
Her flushed face began to betray her perceived indifference..
“Oh, hello, are you following me again?”
Robin laughed a little.
“No, I, I saw you walking and thought, I’d catch, catch you up,” he stammered.
Anna looked to the pavement as she walked and for a few steps that haunted time in a prolonged wait there was silence.
“That Christine,” he said at last, “she is a friend, then of yours?”
Anna could smell the scent of come to me oil in her hair, and also the smell of roses.
She heard his question, she saw in her mind the open lock to her bedroom, she saw the carelessness, she saw something was wrong, and now she heard it.
“Christine?…” He said again.
“Yes,” barked Anna, “I heard you, why are you so interested in
her….”
Robin panicked somewhat, “no, I mean she..”
“Do you fancy…her…Robin?”
The silence lasted but a moment but time itself dilated.
Anna felt a rising, stirring inside of her, the onset of panic, the herald of anger. The dagger was safely cushioned in the hidden pocket of her sleeve, for a moment she thought……
….The moon six days to full……
…. obstacles appear that prior to the ritual were not there….
Six days until full, six days until completion.
If the moon in the heavens were complete, and full, and reflected the scene complete as it was now merging in front of her Anna would have slipped out the dagger…….failure, destroy …
….six days…….wait.
Christine an obstacle or an omen, a lever, a stepping stone. Doors open when they shouldn’t be.
…this was meant to be, this plan……
_______________

Chapter 25
Anna arranged to meet Christine at Christine’s house after school, she couldn’t stay long, homework was the excuse, or more importantly ritual at sunset.
Anna gave little clues as to the sudden interest, the momentum of the friendship increasing.
Christine lived in a similar house, all houses in the town were similar, a post war housing boom creating identical screen printed square blocks…..
Christine’s bed room was a room modelled on Christine, chintz, polka dots, dolphins, rainbows. It was a room that could have been a child’s, a child who
died and the mother kept it as the day…… keep the child alive.
Christine sat upon the edge of the bed whilst Anna sat in a small dayglo pink armchair.
Christine kept looking at the wardrobe with its door slightly ajar, Anna was intrigued by what was behind the door.
“What shall we do?” Christine asked eagerly, a child, with a hint of mischievousness in her tone.
Anna laid back, relaxing, easing the atmosphere, for the first time, ever, she was in the company of a friend.
It was a nervous exercise.
That’s how it felt to Anna, a ritual, simple interaction became methodical,
what to everyone is natural and normal became a system of rules and etiquette.
Anna Manners.
“You, don’t like boys?” Asked Anna.
It was a direct shortcut, devoid of subtlety, no beating around the bush to use an unfortunate analogy.
Christine was taken aback by this remark. Was Anna blatantly asking about her sexuality? Or questioning it? Or simply beginning a girly talk on boys?
“Boys?” She questioned with a question.
In Christine’s mind the only thought she could think was, no, she didn’t like boys, she didn’t like boys at all, she loved…Anna and…..
Christine got up from the bed and opened the wardrobe. It was an automatic response, in times of need, resistance. She reached down for a small purple dragon with fluorescent yellow eyes.
“What’s that?” Anna asked.
Christine realised the childish way she looked, she could have dismissed instantly the coveted Dragon, that would be a lie, that would not be courteous.
“It’s my Dragon,” she laughed, “I’ve had him since I was about four, he won’t let me talk about boys” she laughed aloud placing the toy at the head of the bed and stroked and then tapped its head.
The child before her was, for a moment oblivious to another person in the room, for a moment the veil slipped. Anna saw Christine and her, alike, devoid of friends the imaginary replacing reality.
In loneliness with no experience to contemplate the self dreams, and creates its own genesis.
“I’ve never had a friend before, let alone a…boyfriend” Christine looked at Anna, but her eyes were fidgeting, nervous.
Anna quickly, for a moment changed the subject.
She asked Christine about the languages she was studying, Sumerian and old Egyptian.
Christine told her about her stepfather, a traveller who taught her Travellers Romany. It inspired her to an interest in other, lost and sacred languages.
Every word, a sacred sound that conjours. Sound, when spoken in vain becomes worthless. Prepare ritual with sound that will only be spoken in ritual, only within the sacred circle.
Anna used the Sanskrit word “Agni” when lighting the fire that illuminated the candle, that word was spoken, fire would abruptly be manifest. Whenever “Agni” was pronounced, fire wouldn’t be far behind.
Ag in Sumerian was fire and ni, the lady of. And Anna in Sumerian was unto,
Anna Agni……….
Anna awoke from her daydream and saw Christine smiling, recognizing the slip into wandering dreams.
“Why did you ask about boys?” Asked Christine momentarily reaching for the dragon for comfort.
Anna answered, for a moment role-playing the typical girls she had seen on TV, discussing boys and dreams.
“Who would you date?” Asked Anna.
For Christine the answer was easy, she would date Anna, but it would not be.
She thought hard, which lie would be most telling.
She thought of her old step father, which boy reminded her of him?
None…who?
She tried to imagine which boy was most appealing but the black spaces keptreturning, the answer a void of emotion.
“What about Robin Ermine?” Asked Anna.
It was more accusation than a question. Christine thought and imagined ….her and Robin……
“He’s OK,” Christine looked, “but, I don’t know, what about you.”
Anna replied, rehearsed, repeated what Slingshot had said,” I’d let him give me one.”
It was a crude remark, one that was not bound in the mind of usual Anna. Christine felt a deep hole within, a cavern of sorrow at this remark but she knew, her and Anna could never be and the most she could hope for was friendship.
“That’s not like you” Christine laughed. The purple dragon gave a scream of pain in the midst where only those attuned to his little voice could hear, and only Christine heard the distant scream, and it was only Christine who noticed, with a slight tug of anger and jealousy.
Quickly Christine, dismissively, put the dragon down.
“Do you really like him?” Asked Christine feeling her stomach rise and hidden tears subdued.
Anna replied, ” I’d give anything to be with him, even if only for one
night”
Christine leapt off the bed towards the bookshelf, her eyes betrayed her, welling, ready to burst into uncontrollable sobs, she shuffled books with her back to Anna and quickly brushed the eye now wet with rising pain and sorrow.
“You’d give anything?” Laughed Christine, in her mind she conjured pictures of taboos that quickly sunk into an abyss.
“I think he likes someone else though..” Anna’s comment was neither subtle nor guess.
Christine sat back on the bed with a random book, the folly of distraction.
“Who?” Christine asked, fearing and realizing the answer all at once.
“He, fancies you.”
Christine wasn’t repulsed by this, it was complete disinterest, except, he was Anna’s desire, but Anna was….
“I don’t know why? Why would he… me ?” Christine almost at the edge of protest.
Anna persisted but with humour, ” He does like you he more or less told me, you lucky thing…Are you not interested?”
Christine wasn’t, she couldn’t tell Anna why. Robin Ermine, good looking, fit, educated, popular…who in their right mind would turn him down, what could
Christine say in defence, except what true friends would say, “besides,
even if I did like him, which I don’t, I’d never go out with him if you liked
him”
“Why?” Asked Anna
“Because, you’re my friend.”
A pause as the two friends merged in togetherness.
“How about if I fixed you up with him” Christine offered.
“You?”
“Yes, for you, I would”
If only Anna knew the sacrifice, if only Anna could see that for love, Christine would surrender all that she wished for, for loves sake.
They talked, the introvert weirdo and the dizzy child, they talked as if they were experts in the dating game, neither ever having kissed a boy.
The path to completion was on the horizon, Anna saw this avenue, this was the means by which the ritual would succeed.
People or events suddenly appear that enable the desire to be fulfilled.
Christine was the stepping stone, the bridge. Also, a friend. It didn’t matter whether in reality Robin had a love for Christine and not her… the fact
is, he would be hers.
—
As the sun set, the doorway sealed, Anna with more zeal and determination celebrated in ritual, praising the powers, surrendering herself to destiny. The candle ever diminishing, the aroma stronger. Roses. Christine.
The habenti closer, Robin Willbemine.
The ritual longer, deeper and more elaborate. The ancient tongue rolled with song, her postures and movement graceful, teasing the shadows. Her calls to the ancient goddess Innanna manifested subtle energies.
—
Christine stroked gently the shell that was Anna, she tried to hide the curse and venom for the one that was Robin, but it was her loved ones love.
—
Behind Anna, the shadow stretched, Anna crossed her arms, the posture of resurrection…The shadow stretched. Anna then spread wide her arms…The shadow crossed its arms.
Anna felt the urge to look behind, but in the mirror, the shadows were playing tricks upon her eyes.
—
Robin lay in bed, his eyes shut, half asleep but in his mind the imagery was vivid, he was with Christine, in tight embrace, naked, and as he pressed forward to make love to her he felt her tightness mimicked by the clench of his hand upon himself. He whispered her name with each stroke and rhythm of his hand, and at the point of climax a sharp bell sounded in his head.
—
The needle fell with a subtle ring upon the hardwood table.
_______________

Chapter 26

Friday 23rd April.
It would be Wednesday..The full moon.
Anna visualized the moon, ever closer to a radiant sphere of beauty, the reflection of the sun whose face was too harsh to stare at, yet by reflection can be viewed.
Freyas day,again, Anna knew, another leap upon the path, another step towards the finale, the dagger raised, the chalice filled.
She did her warm up exercises at the end of her garden, the twitch of Robins curtain still, instead, the door to Mrs Arnold’s house slowly opened, the old lady saw Anna and softly smiled before looking down the road for…him.
“I see you’ve been jogging, they say, jogging?”
“Yes Mrs Arnold, just around the park.”
Mrs Arnold was on the verge of asking something of her when the Ermines house opened.
Robin appeared in tracksuit.
Anna froze and felt her running shirt pull tight, a slight dizziness and warmth, butterflies and fear.
Robin smiled softly at her.
Mrs Arnold looked on as the two youthful souls run towards the rising sun edging over the trees by the park.
Robin was still fit, despite the last week’s sudden lethargy. Anna fell behind a few times, she watched his leg muscles, the tight protrusion of his rump, his muscular back. As the sun rose higher she stepped upon his shadow.
The conservation was minimal.
Robin seemed eager to talk about something but Anna, would skip into a jog,
“keep up,” she would say ironically, and Robin would all too quickly pass her by.
—
“When will you, ask him?” Anna asked Christine sheepishly.
Christine shuffled nervously in her chair. “What will I say?”
Anna squinted at her, it was a gesture to provoke.
Christine loved the way Anna squinted, it made her seem malevolent and vulnerable at the same time.
“I’ll think of something,” Christine replied.
—
In the English class Anna sat, as she always did towards the back and by the window, but the viewpoint was for Robin who was also in her English class.
Now and then he would glance over, a soft smile.
“It is,” began the teacher, “the birthday of the greatest poet and playwright in history…And we are talking about…….Janice Tiptree?”
Janice Tiptree looked up from her doodles, “erm…J.K. Rowling”
The class jeered, Anna stared blankly at the canvas she imagined in front of her.
…”Shakespeare, Tiptree…Shakespeare…”
The teachers voice echoed, it seemed to roll around an infinite chamber, softer, quiet, as Anna slipped into other matters.
By meditation we gradually negate the emotional, we negate the sensory attachments, we still the senses. In stillness, with no aversion or attraction all beings
are the same. The cunning manifest from this stillness the object of their affection, and in that host, the object wants for naught but the very cunning. In the other body, it wants for the self, A becomes B, And in that spirit,B desires A.
Anna rested in the classroom as she had many times in ritual. The only sound she heard was her breathing, and her heartbeat, the only sight she saw was a fading of the reality before her, at first it became a blur and then the classroom and all its irrelevant pupils merged to form an abstract painting. Her sense of touch and smell diminished, numb, the last sense of smell was the underlying note, familiar, of roses.
In this stillness gradually she imagined……., but! The cunning never imagine they become, and she was Robin Ermine.
She felt her body becoming muscular, she smelled the aroma of his aftershave and muscle rub and sweat.
In Robins mind she thought, she thought of Anna Bonnamasso, who was sitting behind her in the classroom.
In Robin Ermine’s mind she thought of Christine. In Robin’s mind the picture of Christine emerged but Anna’s will over the imagery was lost. As the form of Christine became apparent in Anna’s body she felt a rise of warmth, a surge of erotic pleasure, a tingling and shudder from her spine that clamped around her womb and downwards.
She lost the meditation and the classroom became a sense of paranoia fuelled by the vision of all the pupils staring at her. The teacher, arms folded, tapping his fingers upon his arm glared at her, “ah, Anna, back with us I see.”
A few of the fellow pupils laughed nervously, only a week ago they would have sneered at Anna for the spectacle of seeing her half asleep, dreaming and moaning, they would have thrown screwballs of paper at her…..but this was Anna Bonnamasso….who overcame the Slingshot.
She snapped back to reality, apologised to the teacher and in that moment became
Anna
Manners.
Robin, throughout was looking ahead. Affixed, unable to move, petrified, as if someone had stolen the ghost from within him.
Anna ignored the fellow students, her mind distracted by the exercise and also the ecstasy.
Slowly the teachers voice emerged from the post orgasmic experience,
—
Christine stood by the gates at lunchtime, she was sure Anna was to meet her there, Christine became nervous, the congregation were the remnants of the Slingshot gang. Karen was indeed pregnant and Tracey…As one of them said, “on the missing list.”
None of the stooges dared torment Christine as they so easily would have until recently, she was the friend of Anna Bonnamasso.
Christine looked downwards to the ground, the shingle in the pavement, flecks of white noise that formed shadows, gargoyles and monsters and a dragon.
She became oblivious to the activity around her, a wave of excitement.
“Oi, Cunt !…”
Christine looked up, Tracey Slingsby came from nowhere, looked down at her.
Tracey’s face blotchy, caked with dry skin, flaking.
Christine went to turn but her path was blocked by two of Tracey’s die-hard stooges.
“You been hanging round with Anna Manners innit?”
Christine looked up, “leave me alone, haven’t you had enough..”
The suffering and laughter began, the teasing and tormenting.
Tracey moved forward towards her
“She’s a fucking weirdo, you’re a fucking weirdo…”
“And you piss yourself!…….”came a protesting voice….
Through the crowd Robin pushed forward and took hold of Christine’s arm. He stared back at Tracey, “ain’t you had enough? Nobody’s interested in your shit anymore.”
Tracey looked to the stooges, to the small gathering crowd, none offered support,the stooges looked the other way.
Tracey looked to her left, where, her sister would have been. Alone. Where onceshe gained popularity by being feared, now she stood naked, a lonely friendless fool. Where tyrants stood now, pathetique rubble. All the followers look inwards to see their own weakness, the stooges looked to Tracey and saw a fake, and Tracey saw that too.
—
“You didn’t have to come to my rescue, like some St George on St George’s day.”
Christine’s words rocked Robin.
It was difficult for Christine to hide both her contempt and jealousy towards him. He walked with her, he was nervous and figedy, often stumbling and stammering.
Christine knew, for Anna’s sake she had to befriend him, she had to sway him, she was the matchmaker. In her heart was a loss, but it was a love she knew could never be.
She saw Anna earlier through the window of the school corridor walking briskly in an overcoat that covered her like a black carpet, a thick black scarf into which a pair of bulbous crow eyes looked out beneath a furry hat.
It was like the first time she had seen her. Every time that Christine saw Anna, it was like seeing her for the first time.
Anna walked apart from the rest of the others, Christine saw empathy, a loner and different.
Her white skin reminded her of the poor calfs boxed cruelly in the veal trade.
It wasn’t just sympathy that Christine felt for her on that day, it was something deeper that as yet she hadn’t figured out.
With each glimpse, each secret glance that progressed into obsession and sometimes stalking, the admiration became love. Pure love. There was no request, no wantof physical reciprocation, no security of financial gain, nor social standing,no want of emotional and psychological appeasement. It was just love.
And.
As she walked with Robin who, would perhaps take Anna as her lover she felt repulsed, she saw in him someone who would…could…have Anna, make demands of her, order her, her, the love of her life becoming a slave to St. George.
“Are you seeing someone?” She asked Robin.
Robins heart leapt.
He stopped and faced her, smiling, trying to remain calm, trying to play it
cool.
“No, Christine, why do you ask”
St. George, the mass of muscle and bravery and the archetype of masculinity, she could smell his odour and see his demeanour, St. George. But Christine loved the Dragon and her princess Anna.
Anna loved Robin. Robin, St. George the brave, the hero that Christine could crush….
“Because, I know someone who fancies you?”
The words she spoke repulsed her. Objects. Cakes in a bakers shop. Prodded, pointed at, chosen. Fancied.
Robin brushed the mop of hair with his hand, he stood upright as if on parade, a mannequin in perfect stance.
In jest where truth is alluded he replied, “it’s not you is it?”
The answer would crush him, would stamp a foot on the creature before her, “no, don’t be silly,” she said, “I’m with someone, the love of my life, I’ll never be with anyone else, anyone..”
The world paused. The clock stopped. Her curt reply destroyed him and in the
vacant space she buried him further, “I’ll tell you, but if you ever hurt her, if you ever makes her cry I will hate you. I will hate you.”
Robin hid back the tears, but like a submissive, a devotee to a guru his mind was held in her reins, his will lassoed upon her command. If she would not love him then all he could do in life, all his focus and destiny would be to….to not make her hate him. He would do anything not to have her hate him. If she hates him, his life would collapse.

“Who is it then?” Even as he asked hiding the pain of rejection, the thought that Christine was with someone, who was the love of her life? He tried to act without revealing his rejection, his destruction.
Christine looked back at him and saw the dewey eyes, a puppy dog waiting for a biscuit.
“But, will you go out with her, my friend?”
Did she call him her friend or is it her friend, his mind was a muddle, for one moment he lent against the wall, feeling feint, exhausted.
“I, I, I..” He stammered, “I would if she was your friend.”
It didn’t make sense what he was saying, that he’d go with someone for the sake of the one he truly loved? He felt as a pawn, a piece moved around.
To serve.
“It’s Anna, Anna Bonnamasso Robin, and if you ever hurt her…”
“I won’t, Anna?…I would never…Anna Bonnamasso?…She wants to go out with me?”
Christine hid well her pain, what she would give to have someone say to her, that Anna loved her, that Anna wanted to go out with her…not as a friend,
but as a lover, a partner. Christine hadn’t even considered whether Robin would want to be with Anna, of course he would, how dare he if he declined.
“Yes,” replied Christine, “and…..wait till after the weekend,think about it…”
Robin felt powerless, even as he spoke with Christine, was near her, he felt the deep swimming within his stomach, the breeze within his head.
“If you love her, then you will be my friend St. George,” she mocked,“but if you cause her trouble, ?…”
“No, no, she’s nice, I, I, like her..”
“Like?”
Robin looked at Christine one last time before she turned and walked the opposite way, he wanted to clutch her and hold her tight but all that slipped from his mouth was, “she’s nice, I will, she’s nice I will….”
“Good” said Christine with a slap upon his shoulder, she walked away with a bounce in her step, the hair like springs jostling with the ribbons, the wide flared skirt swooning at her power.
“Christine” Robin whispered….”Christine.”
—
“O swear not by the moon,
The fickle moon,
The inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circle orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.”
Anna wrote these lines from Shakespeare into her journal and then directly below it the brief summary of the rites of love, the commission of one desired by path of the moon, from New to full.
The moon now more lit than dark, and Robin, hidden in the shadows now conjured be, to walk into the glade.
Anna created incense of the woods and spring, blossoms, honey, and grasses, underlying this the aroma of old oaks and woods.
“Robin Good fellow” she smiled, acknowledging the ancient character,
“Robin Willbemine” she said again, the contemporary.
_______________

Chapter 27

Saturday 24th April 2010
Anna awoke, today she would rest, only the candle would burn at sunset. Only the incense would rise.
She remembered the phone call from Christine late last night. Anna’s heart raced.
The harvest, the bounty revealed.
Christine had sounded solemn. Anna listened as Christine spoke and heard behind
the excitement, sorrow.
“I hope he treats you well…”
Christine listened to the song playing in the background of Anna’s room. Christine averted her ears from the crude and crass, “I know you’re fucking someone else”, sang Peter Steele.
Anna heard her objections to the song, Anna told her it was the only band she liked, Anna heard Christine’s ignorance of the dark moody gothic band that was Type O Negative. Anna couldn’t see the tears rolling down Christine’s face, the tightness with which Christine held her toy dragon.
—
He imagined making love to Christine, he remembered watching Anna outside, warming up, pretending it was Christine, he promised…..
…He promised Christine. Imagine. Imagine. He could make love, to Anna Bonnamasso, but in his mind, it would be Christine.
As the sun set, he smelled the imaginary roses, in his mind he saw the petals open, in body he felt arousal. At times he wanted the yearning to cease. Anna, a substitute, a stepping stone. He hated whoever it was that Christine loved, but for Christine he would, he had to love…love? Anna.
_______________

Chapter 28
Sunday 25th April 2010
Even the action of closing the wieldy door latch became a drama within the ritual. The slight creek, the groan that emanated as she turned it downwards
became the croak of a subterranean amphibious guardian.
With the dagger in hand three diagonal strokes cut across the lock in the air, the binding reeds which symbolically sealed the door.
“Kunuk Barag” she said as the dagger passed over the lock, the seal
of the inner sanctum.
For a moment she ‘felt’, the atmosphere become enclosed, not just physically but entombed.
To ‘feel’ she rested, she let the chatter and whispers of the mind still, listening to noises in the room, then the house, the street, the town, the world, further she listened until…. the great drone of the turning of the universe.
With the expansion of the hearing, so too she felt herself free from body, she felt herself outgrow the confines of skin and bone, larger, larger than the house, the street, the town, the world, larger, until she encompassed the universe.
Of smell, she resided only in the instant, the smell of unknown roses and a hint of patchouli and Jasmine. Also the undertone of the woods incences she
had created and burnt the night before.
She became the universe and the Goddess of the wild wood, summoning her desire as a siren.
“Innanna” she intoned, the voice whispered as she breathed inwards.
For sacred words are not spoken as words in vain. Those we invite are said in tandem with the inwards breath, and those we command with the breath outwards.
In the sacred sphere, stillness of breath is stillness of voice.
She created her own anointing oil, this she lightly applied as she undressed.
The glow of the room disposed, the sun melting into the horizon, leaving behind residue of deep reds, tonight an ethereal orange shimmered across the front wall before breaking into the reflection of the dancing candlelight.

“A-Tau!” In a whisper she called, the dagger raised high, her slender body stretched, the arms and tendons and sinews taut, upon toes she stood in perfect balance.
“Annu Kia” she whispered, the dagger in both hands pointing downwards, her feet now rested firm upon the ground.
She took the dagger in her right hand and with arm bent to right angles upwards whispered, “Annu Emuq”
The dagger in both hands pointing upwards at her sternum, breathing, she felt a surge of power.
The dagger in left hand, arm at right angles but pointing downwards she whispered,
“Annu Arramu”
The dagger again at sternum in both hands she breathed and felt compassion and a surge of warmth as that felt in the throes of love.
She now thrust high the dagger intoning, “Istu Darisam”, and now passed glancing hand gestures about the space, as a gardener would sow seeds whilst whispering, ” Annu Basu, ” and let an ever increasing droning of that ancient and sacred chant Aum permeate the space, in her mind she saw each seed growing, the fruits, the temple which she established, and created in Emuq, strength, and Arramu, beauty.
Silent now she stood with her arms loose at side. The candle flame hypnotising her with its dance.
She drew the first Pentagram in the east, the silver of the steel flashing the form in the twilight. Each ritual more intense than the previous, more exact, perfecting, on the approach towards the full moon. More elaborate.
The angel before her visible in her minds eye, visible in the shadows.
“Chasmaran” she called the watcher, in garlands of spring
It stood there motionless, a witness, an androgynous virgin and all about was rising mist, the morning dew.
She saw the first day she began her ritual, the day she stood upon this threshold, how within a short time, events unfolded and within that time, Willbemine was an aloof neighbour who hardly knew her name, and now ran at her side, and would soon, soon…
She turned towards the south and cast the angel, “Ardarel” she named.
Upon fire and heat, the sun blazing above. The figure before her was abundant from feast or full with child. Anna in a slight gesture somewhat bowed, somewhat thanked the angel for the present time. That she was here, that life was as
so.
Around the circle drew, towards the west, an angel cast that walked from an enchanted lake, the sun setting. Anna in the future, looked back to what will be. Her and Robin. The fate accomplished.
“Talliud” she whispered. The hooded watcher, aged and wise.
On towards the north where as the star is drawn, to her knees Anna fell and looked not upon the angel there, “Phurlac” she whispered to the shadow.
The flickering candlelight illuminated her own shadow kneeling. Her head bowed, she considered the unknown, the darkness, all that she could not see, could not control, the realm of the dread Lord. Head bowed, the quarter she could not face or see, and her own shadow, unseen to her raised its head to look upon the naked girl below it.
Prostate now she spun and slowly raised herself until again she faced east.
“Innanna” she called, “Innanna, Innanna”……
She felt unseen hands touch her skin and sweat rose from the pores, a sheen of moisture became her robe…….
—
Christine picked up the shell stroking it, a tear rolled off her cheek exploding upon the shell and Christine gently rubbed the tear over and over the face of the shell whispering, “Anna, into Anna my love, my tears, in Anna, in Anna my love.”
—
Robin lay upon the bed, Christine seemed lost, taken from him, but he knew there was a way back towards….., the way to keep her in his life was Anna. Anna
Bonnamasso.
—
Anna stood now silent. She saw emotions rise like dreams, luxuries. All, all of them superficial. She resisted the urge to condemn the futile nature of her desire, of Willbemine. It was folly. She saw in her mind the oak tree, the lonely oak tree in the park. Still, it’s roots connected to the earth, and the earth and the tree, by that connection were one.
Beneath her feet she felt a tingling, she resisted the urge to study its nature, resist, submit. It rose, it rose upwards. The tree, the earth, energy, Anna.
She breathes out, the tree breathed in.
The sun, the moon, the earth……….
The thoughts of madmen, the food of fools, the light of the wise.
_______________

Chapter 29
Monday 26th April 2010
So close the moon to full. Images of wolves appeared to her in her dreams.
The archetypes rising. The image of the tarot card, the moon, wolves howling, lycanthrope desire, the path of the nocturnal feast illuminated by a full moon.
Wolf moon…. A song by Type O Negative, the warm up exercise before she run towards the park and disappeared into the mist, the morning dew, where nature herself would greet her with fresh kisses as she pushed herself harder and faster, heat and sweat.
The sacred ritual emulated in life, the merging of the sacred with the ordinary.
The Physical growth with the spiritual awakening.
The physical, the emotional and the spiritual in perfection. Physically strong and vibrant, spiritually open, the conduit between worlds and emotionally focused, the cunning forever upon the crossroads, with themselves and the three fates of destiny.
She heard Robin calling in the mist, she had heard his door open as she embarked upon her morning run, but, in spring, the time of the chase, she ran, the kiss chase. She played the ancient game of nature.
“Anna” he called, “wait for me…”
Her face a broad smile, her eyes scrying glasses of destiny.
“Anna” he called.
Deep into the park she ran upon well trodden paths, ahead, turning left she would run towards the lonely oak..
The fog thickened.
She cut across diagonally to run as the crow flies towards the ‘old man of the park’. A short stumble, a wrong footing, a slight change of course, slight diversions, off the beaten track, it doesn’t take long before the wayward traveller either ends up running in circles or is completely lost.
The fog clothed the park as a shroud….
“Anna”
She stopped, she must be in the middle of the football pitches. Gasping she reached down clasping her knees, gorging on breath, the cold mist like a nebulizer chilling her lungs.
“Anna”
All around her fog. Dense. Thick.
“Anna” his voice becoming distant. For a moment she felt a feint flicker of panic.
The physical and emotional and spiritual, in balance, perfection. The cunning… ….unattached to want or aversion the cunning stands wise…..
She stood there for a moment, waiting for a break in the heaven sent cloud, if anything the mist rolled deeper towards her.
Still panting for breath she looked all about, not a shadow in the distant to run towards, no path near, not even a marking on the ground that showed the lines of the football pitches.
In the distant towards the faraway docks a fog horn bellowed a deep groan.
Ethereal, standing in the dragons breathe.
She walked back, presumably the way she came, the urge to run lost, another lost footing in hidden furrows and ditches could twist ankles, could cause injury.
She listened as she had trained in ritual, farther, farther. She heard but the sound of dense cold nothingness.
Silence, and with it the rise of fear, the food to the unseen, the food to which unseen entities cling and feed and thereby grow.
Each step now carefully trodden, for a moment she was about to call…”Robin!”
Ahead the mist danced and balls of fog collided together, within the thick grey canvas a slender shadow emerged. At first distinct, but merging back and forth with the cloak of dancing mist.
Anna stopped.
Watched.
The figure stopped and sunk back into the fog.
Fear.
The figure reanimated no longer slender but large and bulky its full height disappearing into twisting fog.
Peter Steele.
Silence.
The figure seemed to merge within the mist.
Was it fear or emotional suppression that Anna felt, Anna flitted between the normal reaction and the cunning.
She walked towards the shadow, her eyes trying to paint its form into recognition,but it wavered and blinked, she kept seeing the emergence of the ghost of Peter
Steele. The twisting clouds flickered and played havoc with the dreams she conjured.
Dragons breathe. Christine had mentioned St. George. Where was he?
A wisp of cold fog passed her eyes and the form now stood before her, the mist parting either side like curtains, the shadow stood with open arms to greet her.
The old man of the park, the oak tree. Unaffected, unconcerned, as ever a witness to nature.
With her hands upon its weathered bark Anna said nothing.
Faintly she heard one last resigned call, “Anna?”
—
Avoiding Robin she left for school in a rush, again as she turned the corner she heard from behind, “Anna” but she ran.
With enough distance between them she thought, why was she avoiding him? embarrassed
that the one she adored would soon be hers? Or, was she tired of loves game?
The hours, the years! Looking through slits in the window, small glimpses from the spy hole in the attic. The poems, the endless drawings, the fantasies and dreams.
To an end it would come and would the reality equal the dream? When he held her in his arms, when he would touch and kiss her. Is the pursuit the real adrenaline.
Is the hunt the real ecstasy? Would the kiss be an elevation into a palace of treasures or a damp sloppy nothing.
Two more days, two more days ….and fate unveils the answer.
As Anna entered the school, from the corner where some temporary ‘portacabin’ classes stood,Christine watched, another tear, and also, running she saw Robin.
Robin stopped, watching Anna enter the school.
He will never love Anna as Christine.
No, thought Christine, he will never love Anna as Christine does.

_______________

Chapter 30
Tuesday 27th April 2010
So close, so close the moon.
So close the habenti, within her room, feet away from the altar.
So close that spring morning he run with her, stuttering questions, mumbling over irrelevant conversation, ready, to ask something but never quite managing the words.
They stopped by the oak tree. Robin suggested they climb it, like young children, innocent.
Anna looked at the lonely sentinel, “it might not like being climbed over.”
Robin found this funny and was about to take the first lunge upwards on the majestic tree when he realised Anna meant those words.
“Do you want something to conquer?” She asked, she cringed at the blatant entendre, the flirtation.
Robin felt a surge within, half wanting to run, half like a servant he walked over to her.
It was only on Friday that the school studied the great prose and sonnets, the flowing words of love so endearing that Shakespeare gifted the world.
Anna had imagined this time. She imagined knights from battle returning to the castle, she had dreamt of Peter Steele emerging from the fog, towering over her, he picked her up and they disappeared into the mist. She had books and books of poems and short stories of gothic romance she had created, canvases
of the symbolic union of the warrior and the maiden, the dagger and the chalice.
“Anna,” he said, “can we be together, like?”
Her first urge was to laugh, her second to scorn and mock him, none of the mountains of romantic gestures she created began like this.
Her third was reality, the mists reveal the landscape in all its crude and brutal glory, so too the beauty of life’s austere limits.
” Like, boyfriend and, girlfriend?” she replied, looking at him, eyes sneering from under her fringe.
“If you like.” He said.
If I like? Like? If I ! ?
Anna sat by the oak tree and looked at Robin, she saw behind the stillness of his face..mockery? Or was it boredom, perhaps the simplicity of a shallow man as the Tentigo described at the outset, the folly of obsession with love seen in another person.
“Are you, a shallow man or cunning?” Anna gave him a short stare, a stare that was both scorn and challenge.
“What’s a shallow man?” He replied.
She paused, “a fool that knows he is a fool is a cunning man, a fool that knows not…is a shallow man.”
Robin laughed a little and decided he was neither, he was not a fool, he wouldn’t say he was a genius he said, but he was no fool, indeed as he explained to Anna
who was now yawning and pressing her back into the oak tree for company, he would be going to university.
He looked at Anna, hoping for some sadness in this remark, that new found lovers
would soon be departed.
Anna saw the knight off to war.
Robin stood up and stretched, “you haven’t answered my question.”
” Question?” She asked.
“You know about, us” he stuttered.
“I will say yes on one condition” Anna replied.
Cocking his head Robin awaited the challenge.
“As you stand, bend your right arm at right angles from the elbow, pointing upwards, bend your left arm at the elbow at right angles pointing downwards, and with eyes closed place one foot above the other knee”
Robin looked at her, she stared back, clearly the challenge was meant.
It took only a few seconds before Robin toppled.
“Ah” said Anna getting to her feet before quickly announcing in rhetoric,”you are neither a scarecrow though I accept the sacrifice” she kissed him quickly on the cheek and ran….. ran… Robin ran soon after.
” You’re mad Anna Bonnamasso” he called after her.
“…But do I know it?” She jeered back.
As she dissapered robin stood there. He did not feel connected to himself, or to this world. As he thought of Christine he felt complete, but the situation, the reality that was happening, he didn’t feel connected to anything. An actor,a farce, a chimera.
—
Christine put the phone to one side, he had done it. Anna sounded so happy?
But was she?
Christine thought hard, was Robin using Anna to please me… has he came to realize me and him will never be and, and perhaps he really can and will love
Anna?
She lay back upon the bed, Anna and Robin. Anna and Christine, she had only just become my friend and too soon, will she drift away?
Christine saw a return to her lonely existence, happy, but alone.
Anna had asked for Christine to her house after school tomorrow. It was the full moon. Christine accepted, knowing that her month long rite, a futile exercise involving shells and dreams was folly.
She looked at the little circle of pieces and felt the urge to stamp upon the
shell that was…Robin.
Robin was Anna’s love, and Anna was Christine’s love.
She sighed, she looked at the shell and whispered, “pitiful, pity the fool”
She clutched the dragon and looked out at the window, yesterday was so foggy, she told Dagon it was his breathe and he was mighty. A mighty dragon that no prince would ever slay.
“I am tied to you forever,” she said kissing it’s well worn brow.
—
The shadows that night were multiplied, the candle flame illuminated the spectre behind, The black shadow danced and spun and rejoiced, the new shadow, becoming stronger, animated by moonlight watched in awe.
Anna, in ancient tongue and sacred dance performed her penultimate rite.
The shadow reared upwards behind her and with jaws like the crashing wave of a tsunami roared as a lion. About her, the circle, etched into the ground, a serpent devouring its tail.

_______________

Chapter 31 (and 32)

Wednesday 28th April 2010
FULL MOON. @12:20 gmt.
Anna awoke at sunrise. There would be no run, not that she told Robin, run Robin run.
The subterranean toads called as the latch upon the door was shut. This last

ceremony at sunrise…..And Innanna as the goddess of war demands victory……
The cunning accept the natural festivals. The solstices, the equinoxes, the full moons and the new moons. These are the artwork to admire, all else is painted and contrived by man.
She faces east, one solitary needle left skewers the candle, inside her room she picks up the habenti, the familiar, that which is…Robin Willbemine. She mimics the kiss she gave him yesterday, upon its cheek and rests the doll in front of the candle.
The flame is lit, its light glows in unison with the suns rays over the horizon.
There is no ritual, no casting of a sacred circle, no creation of watchers, no words of ancient power.
Anna kneels, prostate towards the east, she lay there, submissive to the power of the orb that crafted creation, in reverence and salutation.
She stands, upon toes, stretches, her spine that ancient serpent arose and spoke into her head. Like a ladder towards the mind it ascends, its vertebrae of 33 steps.
Each a path to glory, each with paths and roots to supply the body with function.
At its base, the tail, flickering like the candle, the flame, supplying heat and motion to the organs of creation, the urges of evolution.
Upwards the energy flows, spiralling around each rung of the ladder, the core of the serpent.
Each outward breath Anna pulls the energy from the tail of the serpent, each step of the ladder the fire illuminated, the aura of Anna Bonnamasso, the light of the shadow behind her, both now synchronous, both now stretched.
Both in posture crucified, the crossroads that she stood, inherent within her.
“A-Tau” she whispers. The ancient Hebrew tongue, drawn from the letters of the flame, aleph to tau its alphabet. A-TAU, representing every letter in that ancient tongue, and thereby every word. The first and the last.
“Aten” she whispers, the ancient word for the sun, the orb that rises on invisible wings from east to west.
Upwards the energy through the spine, fire.
Falling back upon the soles of her feet and at once, grounded, her whole body illuminates.
She kneels again before the candle, the sun, the sun and the moon both lit, the candle in the mirror, the illuminated moon.
There Anna knelt, remembering the days, the Anna whose life was viewing the world alone from the window, the Anna who wandered alone and hid from others.

The Anna who created perfumes, the smells, the kisses of nature.
She watched her progress through the days as the moon waxed, the Anna who found a friend when previous there were none, who faced the nemesis of everyone at school, who studied ancient rites and kept the ritual sacred, who watched within those short days, the boy she watched grow, who never knew her name… Now, would be hers.
Constant in all this those kisses from nature, the perfumes. The mystical scents that entice, that conjour thoughts and dreams. And roses.
She thought inwards, as much as the past is set in stone, her visions of the future, she saw as if carved likewise.
Robin and her, growing old together, the waiting for him as he prepares for a career at university, the sharing, eating, sleeping, holidays. Together.
She saw the future with all its pitfalls and joys. The arguments, the loving.
Together.
She saw the person she was, the person she is, and the person she will be.
Constant in this, roses.
She saw her evolution.
And smelled the roses.
And Christine would be as she is now, as she was, and as she will be. Where Anna rode the streets in black, Christine would stride in garish colours. Two shades of the same loneliness. Anna like a shadow in black, apart, yet the same.
But Christine would be alone when for such a short moment, they were friends.
The colour and the darkness, the sun and the moon.
Anna refocused her mind to Robin.
Constant in this, the smell of roses.
—
In many respects the way Anna avoided Robin that day was embarrassment. Sometimes she saw him approaching in the reflection of a window, with ease she moved swiftly, she could smell sometimes he was ahead of her, she slowed. At dinnertime, she wandered into the library, again, she could smell the lingering odour of his deodorant. She stopped, dead in her tracks, and curtailed, taking her lunch and a final browse through the Tentigo in the side porchway of the temporary portacabin blocks.
“Anna” called Christine.
Anna turned, Christine stood there waiting for Anna to greet her. Anna smiled and at once Christine returned the gesture half running to catch up with her.
Off they walked, the rainbow girl and the shadow, bumping into each other. Anna looked behind her, as once, she always did.
Christine copied, and they both looked at each in response.
Looking behind again Christine said, “the past”
Anna laughed, that rare laugh, a mixture of innocence and mischievousness.
Mrs. Arnold was at her gate as they approached the house. Anna slipped her arm inside Christine’s. Anna wanted the world to know she had friends, like other people.
“Good afternoon” Mrs. Arnold said to the contrasting girls.
“Good afternoon” they both said in tandem as they scurried into Anna’s house.
Mrs. Arnold craned her neck to see if her husband was in the distant, she had cooked him a joint of ham with sliced roast potatoes and runner beans, best
of all, a blob of English mustard…….
“Anna ‘s, is it?” In broken grammar Anna’s mother smiled broadly at the sight of Christine and Anna. It was the first time she had ever seen Anna, with, a friend.
“Yes mother, it is a girl, my friend.”
The two girls in unison laughed softly, as Anna’s mother shuffled off to the kitchen singing a little folk song from Sicily.
Christine looked around Anna’s room, the bare patch upon the wall between the windows, where once, perhaps a poster was placed.
“It is… Peter Steele” said Anna watching Christine conjure images onto the blank canvas.
Christine, finger in contemplating mouth said nothing.
“I’ll play you some later” said Anna.
Christine relaxed a little, the way Anna had taken her arm, the way she introduced her to her mother, this wasn’t the beginning of the end but the start. Robin wouldn’t come between them, he was Anna’s boyfriend, and Christine would be…her best friend.
“What’s that smell?” Christine asked, eyes wide, the odour a blitzkrieg to her sensitive senses.
Anna half closed her eyes and began to reel off essential oils, powders, perfumes, balms, resins and herbs…..
The more Anna rolled off names, some familiar, some exotic the more Christine smiled.
“Will you make me something?” Christine asked?
“It will have to be whacky” Anna laughed, “to go with your dress sense”
It wasn’t a put down, before Christine could even question whether Anna liked her fashion sense, Anna spoke, “I love your clothes, wild and free, a meadow in bloom…”
Anna paused, a secret poem, inspired by Shakespeare, nearly exposed.
Christine laughed a little and bounced upon the bed followed by Anna, now they sat, the contrived gossiping girls at a slumber party.
“So what should I…how…Robin? I’m a bit scared…you know?” Anna said nervously, gone the confidence she had shown of late.
Anna saw Christine’s face change, it was like wanting to talk about an enemy.
Christine knew, she knew this would happen, this was the way, and to keep Anna close which she so dearly wanted she would have to be a confidante, a person who would always be there for her, a friend.
“I don’t know” said Christine with a false smile,” are you going to invite him here, or go out somewhere first?”
Anna thought, “we’ve been out, running a few times… I’m not sure, does it all come naturally?”
Christine lay back upon the bed, she looked at the ceiling, in her room the light would shatter through crystals and painted stained glass windows, a myriad of colours would provide a kaleidoscope of colours, above her now, only magnolia, and a hairline crack.
“I suppose it does” said Christine, Anna interrupted, “have you kissed a boy?”
It was a question that would normally cause Christine to retch, but, she so wanted to keep this friendship, she wouldn’t allow anything to damage that, not even her own true feelings.
“Not really, not really, deeply, long..” She lied.
“We’re a couple of weirdoes” laughed Anna, “what have we been doing”
She also lay back staring at the ceiling.
The pause was broken by a simultaneous giggle, and spontaneous laughter. They both sat up.
Christine looked at Anna, Anna looked over Christine’s shoulder, the sun would set soon… The ritual ended.Anna got up and went to her drawer of perfumes, “what aromas do you like?”
The drawer opened as Christine joined her and in the clutter amongst the various brown glass bottles lay the habenti, a grotesque looking figure. Anna instantly dismissed it and reached for some bottles without acknowledging the wax doll.
“Ylang ylang, perhaps and orange blossom maybe…”
Roses.
Christine reopened the drawer and looked at the doll, “Anna Bonnamasso
” she whispered, in that grown up way she often slipped into.
Anna bit her bottom lip, shrugged her shoulders, “but will it work,”she offered nonchalantly.
Christine wanted to touch her cheek, to hold both her shoulders, to kiss her >brow. She took the doll and gently inspected it whilst Anna looked on, slightly nervous, slightly agitated.
Rap rap rap.
The door knocked loudly. Anna walked to the window leaving Christine turning the doll over and over in her hands.
“Oh my fucking God” said Anna.
Christine turned sharply, “what is it?”
“It’s, Robin??”
Christine looked at the answer in despair, “shall I go?”
Anna looked about quickly in the room, under the bed, a mischievous eye….She stopped, looked at Christine and said, “hide in the cupboard, for a moment…
It will be fun.”
Christine was bundled into the closet, the slats providing perfect viewing.
She dropped the doll beside her, disgusting thing.
She watched Anna run out and downstairs answering her mother’s call. Listening.
Her mother making chit chat, yes, no, not for long, dinner, good boy, nice family,
Anna, homework , for a moment. Then silence followed by slow footsteps up the stairs.
Christine’s heart raced as Anna came into the room glancing over at her, the voyeur in the cupboard, with a wicked squint in her eye. Robin followed like a nervous puppy.

Christine knelt uncomfortably part in laughter that she and Anna were ‘in’ on this joke and sad that Anna was with him….
Robin nervously looked at Anna, “sorry,I didn’t mean to come in, up, your
mum made us ,I mean…where were you this morning, for the, run?”
Anna’s mother would never let a boy and her be alone, but Robin and Anna weren’t alone, Anna’s mum knew that, Anna knew that. Robin didn’t.
“Oh,” said Anna, and then with the joke between her and the watcher in the closet, “it’s, you know, that time of the month.”
Robin twitched, thought and Anna looked towards the slats, looking for Christine’s eyes, did Christine get the joke, the full moon… And, here he was, manifested with the setting sun.
Robin saw Anna looking curiously at the wardrobe and was about to follow her eyes there, Anna pre-empted, distracted him, and found herself with hand on his knee, Robin immediately snapped back his eyes to face her.
Anna couldn’t remove her hand quickly, Robin placed his hand on to hers and lent forward, he kissed her clumsily and too quickly upon her lips. Anna’s eyes widened.
He followed the first kiss with a more relaxed and prolonged kiss, his lips like the rest of his body began shaking. Anna faced the cupboard and saw movement,
Christine moving her leg, pins and …….needles.
The door of the cupboard moved a little.
Anna twisted Robin before he could turn to face the movement from the closet and he was now upon his back, laying on the bed, Anna sealed him, her hands upon his chest to prevent him from moving.
Robin relaxed and looked up, the shy and well mannered Anna. They say the quiet ones are the worst.
He was about to laugh when Anna spoke, “do you love me Robin Ermine?”
His eyes shifted slightly, he was about to get up from the pressure she held him under when she pushed down harder, “do you want me Robin Ermine?”
Again he laughed, he felt the warmth of her thighs upon his stomach as she straddled him, he could feel the arousal, rising passion.
Again she thrust her hands down upon his chest pushing him into the mattress,her groin momentarily thrust upwards towards his rib cage, “do you want me, Robin, Ermine?”
His face changed from pleasure to one of concern, worry, “we can’t, do anything, we can’t , now, it’s the time of the month, we can’t your mother might come in. We..”
It was too late, Anna slid backwards and lent forward to his face, with open mouth gorging upon him with lips and tongue.
Years of watching him, watching him grow, she alone, watching, the crude obsession, crawling naked through the attic, naked in ritual.
She had hungered for him and now upon him she devoured him with kisses, stumbling tongues and sliding lips, her hands at his elbows, preventing him from touching, preventing him from groping, dominating him.
In the closet Christine listened, her eyes tightly shut, no tears, no pain,
her friend allowing her into this private and first moment.
Robin tried to release his arm, his hands, to reach out and grab at her, to explore her body with eager fingers. She pushed down at each attempt, pushed his arms into the bed, releasing her lips upon his, teasing him, just as he was about to speak, or ask, or plead her mouth snapped to his, the tongue defining his lips then rolling into his mouth.
Robin felt her above him, controlling, he felt himself erect and tried to move his body, so that Anna would slide downwards to cover the aching stabbing momentum down there, but the more he fidgeted the more she pressed down with her hips, with her hands, with her mouth.
Anna sat back and flicked her hair, it cast a wide arc upon the ceiling, the moonlit shadow in unison.
Anna’s face, once white glowed a shade of crimson, a sheen of sweat and rapid breathing between each hungry kiss.
Robin tried again to pull away, to take control, from somewhere Anna Bonnamasso surged with hidden strength and with each pull and push from Robin, she countered, redirected.
Robin surrendered, exhausted urges and passion aflame, he closed his eyes, and could smell.
Roses.
Above him now he imagined Christine Livermore, and where, there was lust, pure lust he now felt love…his kisses became less hungry, less urgent. Slowly their lips merged, slowly an invisible force within them both merged with each warm embrace.
Anna pulled away slightly and Robin slowly opened his eyes.
Deep inside the dilated pupils she fell, and in the gateway to his dreams she saw the object of change, the love, the desire. Christine walking towards him with a bounce in her step, the curls in her hair tangling with the flying ribbons.
She could smell the roses, it’s petals, glowing red.
“Do you love me Robin Ermine?” She asked, her hands relaxing upon his arms, her body arching towards him, offering herself, her hips slowly slidingdownwards towards him, again she asked, “do you love me?”
He sighed, he breathed in, his arms began to move towards her, “I love you Christine, I love you” he said.
Before he recognised his slip of tongue his arms were back, thrust into the bed, Anna hips sharply moved forward, upwards. Her other hand quickly removed from under the bedcovers a black handled dagger, it’s steel blade now inches from his throat.
He froze, rigid. Her hands still, no panic or fear within her, a calm thrust towards his throat again. The tip of the blade menacingly a hairs width away.
Robin Ermine looked up, his eyes glazed, if he spoke his throat would expand and be severed by the blade.
Anna as calm as an assassin looked down towards him, he could be Slingsby.
She leant forward and gently whispered some words, then quickly jumped off.

Robin ran, he turned for a moment at the door, to say something, expecting to see Anna apologising or crying, she just stood there silent, still as a statue,the only movement, the shadow behind her dancing with the moonlight.
Down he fled.

Christine emerged from the closet, there was no fear, in fact, her face hid hysterical laughter. Anna turned to face her and a broad smile was born.
As Christine stepped into the moonlit room the silence was shot by a cracking sound, Christine bent down and picked up the broken habenti.
“Oh dear” she remarked.
Anna walked towards her and retrieved the fetish doll. She took the two halves and threw them upon the bed.
Roses.
“What did you say to him” asked Christine now consoling Anna with a light hug.
Anna, thought, she rested her head upon Christine’s shoulder and told her the last line of her secret poem, “for enemies, and lovers, are both the same, like new and full moon, a light and its shadow, with equal aim, and equal strength, both out to steal your heart.”
In the rituals Anna had stood, and using empathy became as Robin, willing in that metamorphosis for him to love Anna, but as the rites progressed and her soulshifting increased in clarity, she became aware, that he loved Christine.
What was it about Robin she loved? His confidence, his fitness, his laughter?
All these things about she loved, were now part of her. That was Anna now.
There was also something else about Robin that Anna now shared, that was now a part of Anna.
Anna looked up and placed her hand upon Christine’s cheek, their eyes like viewing reflections in the mirror, their lips drew together into a kiss. It wasn’t a kiss of nerves or fumble, of excitement and lust, venture or experiment, but that which is natural, that which is true, the kiss of lovers.
_______________

_______________
FINIS
_______________

Afterword.
On hearing the events of the tales related in this book, Christine became saddened by the Lion in the attic, she retrieved the toy and it has since been re-stuffed, patched up, cleaned and re-loved, it now sits happily with Dagon the Dragon.

—–

_______________

Appendix
The Tentigo Mandatum
As referenced within this book, The Tentigo Madatum, translated as;- Command Lust, is a grimoire that portrays rituals to bind a would be lover to thy will. However,much of it is philosophical in nature. At the outset it’s primary requirement is to negate the sense of self, and replace it with the personality of the one so desired, thereby, within their shoes willing them to love ‘you’.
Cleverley, by examination the person employs nothing less than meditation techniques to negate their emotions. By understanding emotions and by empathy with the one so desired, the desire is lost, instead the practitioner experiences the value of self, the ego and the true path, that of understanding and spiritual awakening.
The Tentigo was, as described in the story, referenced in the Magazine~ Elsewise Magazine. The actual magazine where this article first appeared however incorrectly states the Tentigo is a ritual from the Pravuus Grimoire. In point of fact ~ the article within the magazine actually describes the Pravuus rite, taken from The Tentigo Mandatum. Issues of Elsewise magazine are no longer available and were distributed independently.
The grimoire itself was ascribed to Carus Ut Prognatus;- for clarity of his understanding, that in no sense were his words or writings anti-Christian or otherwise he stated much in the vain of a ‘koan’ ~
There are six people travelling to Rome, each of them are on different routes, each of them are of different religions, but, which one will reach the city?
he also stated;-
He that has nothing and is content, is he that has everything.

Type O Negative
The band~ Type O negative were described as a Gothic Metal band. They came from New York and were headed by Peter Steele.
Peter Steele died of heart failure on April 14th 2010.
It is not the intent of the author to ‘use’ the memory of Peter Steele in any way to establish this story. The author writes as a huge fan of Type O Negative nothing more or less.
Of this he writes, ” I needed the story to start that included a ritual in spring and at the new moon, a brief study and I saw the new moon of April 14th 2010. I knew that date, I knew that date very well.”
Type O Negative produced Seven studio Albums between 1991 and 2007.