Venus in Real Life

8. Her magick colors

"So, how was Paris?" Daire said, greeting them with a big smile and curious eyes.

"We can't complain. We got a friend you've probably been waiting to meet," Mei said, moving to the side and letting Venus into Daire's view.

"Venus, do you remember, Daire?" The girl was still a little bit shy. She saw a lot of new people when they were on their tours, but hadn't interacted with anyone other than her three friends.

"Yes, she was on your phone the first day," Venus said.

The witch smiled softly, noticing how shy and fragile Venus was at the moment, but impressed to see that she had learned enough to know what a phone was, and wondering if she knew how it worked.

"Hugh, would you mind turning the sign to "Closed" and locking the door, Please? And then, you all, come with me."

This was the first time, even for the twins, they have stepped into the back store. They weren't sure if it was surprising or not, but the many shelves continued in there, covering two of the walls. One of them was full of old books and tarot deck sets, that, just by glancing at some of the names, Ciel knew were abut magick history and practices. The other one was full of mason jars with plants and all sorts of ingredients, like thick salt, rainwater, rosemary, smudging sage wands and cedar sticks, color candles, Daire's amazing collection of energy stones and pendulums, among many others, and had a medium-sized cedarwood working table right in front. The store in the back was also cladded with ebony wood "Au naturel," so the walls were black and shiny as well as the front part. There were a few windows right below the next level's floor, where Daire had her apartment, but they were all covered for the occasion. The witch also had a kitchenette in one of the corners, right after the herbs and jars shelves. It was equipped with an electric teapot and many small tins of tea leaves and infusions, some cabinets, and a small fridge, and on the other side. Near the stairs to her apartment, a small metal round table surrounded by a few chairs, all made in classical french style, of course, as it was Daire's favorite.

A circle was already traced on the floor, with many runes and sigils in place. Most of the light came from the many candles lit around it.

Hugh couldn't believe what he was seeing. Venus wondered and curiously checked every jar and object, without touching anything or distance herself too much from her friends. The twins were very familiar with that kind of surroundings, but it was very different than their parent's house. Ciel was definitely delighted with all that, and, when the moment was right, she was dying to ask Daire if she'd allow her to check her book collection.

"Come on, dear, it's fine," Daire called Venus to come forward. "I just need you to step in the circle. I promise nothing will happen to you."

The girl looked for her friends. Ciel gave a small but firm nod to her as Mei told her, "It's alright, you're safe."

Venus nodded and slowly came into the circle. She had no memory of anything related to magick, but she easily felt the energy, and something inside her translated in "Ok," and "Not ok," like in many other aspects in her new life. Words, shapes, and feelings had meaning, but she could not always explain how.

As soon as Venus was in the middle of the circle, the runes on the floor reacted. A golden glare surrounded her. The light, however, was pulsing as if somehow, something was blocking the energy. The girl extended her hand to try and touch the golden light that now was high and surrounding her, while Daire, Mei, and Ciel looked at each other. They knew by the color of the light around the circle what she was, and it gave them more questions than answers, while Hugh stood there waiting for a hint.

"What is happening?" He finally asked as they remembered he could not see the energy as they could.

"The circle is designed so that, when you step inside, it would reveal the nature of your power and energy. Each color has a meaning, and right now, around Venus, there is a golden light, like a warm ray of sun, and that is what we can't understand." Mei stopped abruptly, as black spots started to form on Venus's golden energy that was still flickering.

"Mei," Hugh called her again, "What does the golden mean?"

"It means deity, Hugh. It means she is somehow a goddess, one who doesn't remember anything, and there's something else. Black spots formed in her aura, which means she was cursed. She is probably still cursed. All that had happened to her, how she ended up transformed in marble, buried underground in Milos, and why she woke up with no memory, was the product of a curse. We still have much to do, Hugh, this will take time."

Mei stopped talking to him and joined her sister and Daire, who were closer to the circle now. They looked at each other as if sharing their thoughts through their stares. This was unbelievable, and yet, there it was. The light started to fade as the circle revealed all the information it had to.

"So," she started talking in almost a whisper, "What did the light over there meant?"

"It means that you're special and that we have a lot of work to do," Ciel said.

"Venus, why don't you come and help me make some tea for everybody? Then we can sit and talk a little more about what you saw."

Daire took Venus to the kitchenette.

"What did you mean with a goddess?" Hugh whispered once he could get closer to Mei again.

"There was a time in which the gods and goddesses walked the Earth. We, humans, were the ones who closed to them, then they didn't want to live among us anymore. I can't answer you with all certainty. We still have a long way to solve this, but that year, 100 BC, when she was supposedly crafted, was most likely the year she became a marble stone," Mei finished in a whisper.

Ciel went and helped the girls with the tea as Mei was filling up Hugh on the recent events. She noticed that Venus was loving the antique store, the artifacts, paintings, and furniture, as well as all of Daire's magical items she saw on the back store. When they just arrived at the store, and the girl touched any of the antique pieces, they shared their memories with her. Ciel saw the small white sparks formed and shine one or two seconds on her fingers and then disappear as a smile formed on Venus's face, and that gave Ciel an idea: as the twins had to go to college all day, Venus could help Daire at the store, while they figure out her whole story, besides if she was staying among the humans, it would definitely be good for her to have some work experience and savings.

"Hey, Daire, can I ask you something?" Ciel called her aside for one second. "I just had a crazy idea-"

"What's new on that?" Daire asked, laughing.

"Come on," Ciel laughed back. "Listen, what do you think of Venus coming and helping you at the store while Mei and I are in college, and while we figure out what her story is about?"

"I'm ok with that, as long as she accepts. I would also like to spend some time close to her, and see if we can get any new information."

"I'll talk to her later. I have a feeling that she'll love the idea." Ciel pointed towards Venus, who had her hand on a small antique tea table, sparks on her fingers, and was quietly giggling. It seemed like the circle had ignited some of her power back to her. They both giggled at that sight too. The fabric was taken from the windows, and light came in softly, illuminating the place that now looked homier. A couple of the windows had stained glass style painting with traditional Celtic knots and lightly coloring the light that came through. Tea was ready, and Daire got a nice fruit tart from the small fridge under the kitchenette's table. The five were walking to the small round table to have the afternoon tea and lighten up the mood a little when Venus fell on her knees, screaming her lungs out and holding her head with both hands. They all ran towards her, as in one second, she went quiet and fell unconscious to the floor. Hugh rushed and took her in his arms. Daire guided them upstairs into her apartment, where she rushedly opened the door of a guest room and pointed him to the bed, then ushered him out of the room while she worked on the vanished girl.

The apartment was very normal, Hugh thought as an attempt to distract his mind. It looked like the house where any other regular human, or rather, a wealthy human, would live. There were a few more doors in the hall where the room in which Daire and Venus were, and he wondered what was behind them. One had to be the witch's room, then this one where Venus was, was a guest room, then she probably had... What did a witch have at her house? He was worried sick, but he would not accept it, not even if all the girls around him had seen it. His attempts to imagine Daire's house as the regular witch house he'd seen in movies when he was a kid failed miserably. There was no big cauldron or pentagrams everywhere. No blood sacrifices either. As much as he wanted to be a regular naive and silly guy, at that moment, he was not able to, his mind had run wild, but there was a different reason for that. He knew it, from the first time he saw her. Every word that came to Hugh's mind and through his mouth while standing in front of her when she was still a statue came from a place inside of him he'd never been to, and it was making him go crazy. It was too much that weekend had extenuated his emotions. The twins looked at his face and deduced he was having a fight with himself. He mumbled, paced up and down the short hall, and gave weird, sad, and angry looks to the floor. The twins were very worried as well, but they had a better understanding of what was happening, and what could be done, compared to him. He had just been introduced to their world, almost forcefully. As soon as Venus fell, Daire and Ciel had exchanged a look of worry that the others didn't notice. Ciel was pretty sure she knew what was happening, and it was directly related to the course that was over the girl that now laid in bed. Ciel wasn't sure how to fix her, or if the symptoms would disappear on their own with few minutes or hours, the only thing known to her at the moment was the cause. Ciel was debating if she should share that information with the others when Mei stepped right in front of her.

"You know what happened, don't you?"

Mei knew. Her sister would not be at ease if she didn't have an explanation of what was happening. She knew Ciel wouldn't stop until she knew, and if Ciel was patiently waiting, it wasn't only not to step into an elder's toes, but because she had a knowledge that the others didn't have.

"I suspect," Ciel said, looking at her sister. A "Shut it," clearly written in her eyes.

After the way her sister looked at her, she knew she wouldn't like her answer, and probably, she deduced, was something that Hugh was not ready to hear about, but it was too late for that. She knew she'd screwed something, but Mei was too nervous to control herself, and now her sister was under Hugh's bus, where she pushed her. Mei's way of confronting her sister and ask her for information was something they were used to do. The problem now was that it tended to happened while they were alone, or at home, with other people that knew and understood their world. Now, Ciel was almost pushed to say whatever she knew. The guy that was mumbling and submerged deep into his own mind had raised his head and was looking at her directly, waiting for whatever she could tell him. No matter what he'd have to do, under the circumstances, he was not letting her out of it without telling him enough. Mei mouthed a "Sorry" that fell loose on her sister. This was not a situation where she could escape with a sorry.

"Ciel, if you know, tell us. What is going on?" His words finally found the way to his mouth, but just then, Daire opened the door and called Ciel in. He looked at her as if his last hope for life was leaving, and she gave him a sad look as an answer.

After the older twin disappeared behind the door, he crumbled. His legs couldn't hold him anymore, and he let his body slide on the wall until it touched the floor. Hugh stood there with his head in his hands, ignorant, empty and broken, without understanding anything. The what-ifs were killing him. What if she became a statue again? What if her body couldn't hold her life now that she changed and she died? Should they take her to a hospital? Could she be treated like a human? His mind ran wild, while his heart ached for being forced to hide it all. Mei stood watching him for a while, afraid of getting close to him. She's never seen him like that, so she didn't know how he could react. After a few minutes, she kneeled and put her hand on his shoulder. He looked up to her, his eyes idle as he still was lost inside himself. She pulled him to his feet as he let her drag him. She sat him softly on the couch, put a hand on his forehead, and made him fall asleep. He felt the sleep coming and tried to fight it, but she relaxed him down, allowing soft, warm energy through.

"You can't do anything staying up. Let me help you, I'll ease your mind." He stopped fighting and let his body and mind be quieted by the younger energy sorceress.

Inside the room, Daire checked Venus carefully. She had a fever and had pain drawn in her face. The elder had her theory and wanted to check with the older twin, so she decided to call her in. The door of the room opened suddenly, and Daire saw Ciel against the wall. Hugh and Mei were in front of her, asking her questions about what she knew. Then the elder knew she probably got to the same conclusion and rushed her in.

"What do you think happened? I heard you have a theory," Daire asked seriously.

"I do. I think the curse Venus has, activated itself again when she got a fragment of her past revealed."

"That's what I thought. This was meant to avoid that Venus remembers who she is, or what she can do, and my guess is that her powers are bound by her memory, that's why we can feel her aura, but not make out who she really is."

"Also, why she can't use her power but knew certain things that we didn't teach her, like when she asked if the TV was a scrying mirror, or when she said the stone you gave Hugh was a catalyst."

"She said catalyst?"

"She did," Ciel answered. "Now, what I don't know is if she could get better with some time and rest, or if the curse is that bad that it would kill her, or return her to stone."

"It seems the curse was intended for her to suffer. I don't know if going back to stone, but she is very sick right now, and I think that at some point it could be too much for her body. We need to get her fever down."

"If it's an energy imbalance, I can fix it, but it's probably not that simple. If it doesn't work, we might need to try the mortal ways until we come up with something better," Ciel said.

"Give it a try then. Just by touching Venus, you'd know, right?"

"Before today, no. Venus's energy looked like a blur for us up to now, but I can try. The glamour can be weakened or have faded," Ciel said, sitting on the bed beside Venus. As soon as her hand entered Venus' energy body, she saw that the black dots were getting bigger and almost feeding off her energy, like parasites. Ciel first tried with an energy push, like the one she gave to Hugh's stone. The tip of her fingers shone brightly as she concentrated. Her mind was relaxed as she started to let clear white energy from her body towards the girl in bed. This was a pretty exhausting process, and she didn't know how long it would take, or if it would work, she just allowed it to happen. Daire looked at the process she barely knew and had only once seen before, on herself. She couldn't help or interrupt, so she decided to go check on the others. Quietly opened the door and left the room.

When she stepped out, she found Mei sitting in an armchair staring at the wall, and Hugh sounds asleep on the couch. His sleep seemed troubled, he might be having nightmares, but those were better than to be awake in the current circumstances.

"I'm surprised he fell asleep."

"I had to help him a little. He was in so much pain."

"So, he finally fell in love, huh?"

"You can torture him with all you've got, but he would not accept it."

"Maybe it's better that way," Daire said absently. "And you? How are you feeling?"

"I'm worried, but at least I know there are so many things that can be done. Hugh can only think of doctors and wonder if it would be right or useful if we took her to the hospital."

"That's true."

"So, you know what happened to her?"

"Your sister and I think that the revealing circle backfired on her, because of her curse. Something is keeping her from remembering who she is, and therefore to get her full power unlocked. If it is her goddess abilities or the work that was made on her, either is reacting badly, and she got a high fever. Your sister is sharing energy with her right now and seeing if she can balance her."

"I know she'll do it, she always can."

Then the door of the guest room behind them opened, and Ciel came out. She looked exhausted, but no longer as concerned as before.

"You did it?" Daire asked.

"Partially. For now, Venus has no fever, but she hasn't woken up. To be completely honest, I don't know when she will."