The 12th House: Persephone's curse

Soul Auction part 1

The gift and curse of Persephone. 

Soul Auction

If it weren’t for the pain in my hands and knees, I would have thought that I was dreaming. Nothing that I did was voluntary; my thoughts barely registered as they crossed through my mind. All that I knew for sure was this anxiety that forced me to keep digging. Then I found it. A perfect square, clothed in black and hard within. I stood and looked around, only vaguely aware that I was in the yard behind the building that I lived in, with my mother, Lorraine. 

I was about to turn 27 years old, but I was certain that she would still flip out if she saw me coming back into the house covered in dirt after midnight. 

The hole was about 1 ft deep and wide; there were tulips and marigolds lying within it. The roots and clumps of dirt were still attached as if they had been yanked out of the ground. 

I looked up at the moon and she; shining so brightly, seemed to beckon me forward. Whispers floated through my head, a voice and words that I couldn’t comprehend, but found pleasing. My stomach twisted in pleasure, a yearning that pulled me further into my body. 

Again, I moved against my free will; half of me wanting to stay there in the backyard of my apartment building, gazing up at the night’s sun. The other half of me wanted to go upstairs and explore this stirring in between my legs that made my legs move faster towards the building. 

Thoughts of the danger of being outside at this time of night in my neighborhood barely made it to my conscious mind as I kept walking to the front of the building; still captivated by the moon, face pointed to the sky the entire way, fingers clenched tightly around the object that I had taken from the hole. 

By the time I reached the front of the building the haze that had been compelling me forward was almost completely lifted; and I was almost completely aware that it was well after 12 am, and I was outside, still in my nightgown.

Smoke curdled through the air when I opened the heavy steel door that let me into the three story building. The door was supposed to be locked for safety reasons, but it never was. Nothing was safe here. That’s the way it was supposed to be in the hood. 

Uneasy and nameless. No name, no victim. No fowl. 

Two men exited the building, giving her a strange look as they passed her. She knew them both and counted herself lucky that they respected her enough to ignore the flimsy material that clung to her curvy frame. They shook their heads and held the door open for her. 

She took the stairs two steps at a time until she made it to the third floor. She wasn’t surprised to find the door unlocked. 

Again, she counted herself lucky that no one had tried the door. But then again, again, she wasn’t really that surprised. 

But even in the depths of a place like this, there was a certain level of respect that the hoods had for each other. That was the light, because even in all the violence, there was a security, where people near to each other looked out for one another- for the most part. Explaining cliques was hard, especially when you weren’t really apart of one. I was never apart of a clique. I gave respect to everyone I knew and stayed away from those who I didn’t know.

I watched the people whose spirit said to watch them and I stirred clear of the ones who my spirit told me to stir clear of- even if I knew them. Then there were people who were solid to know, and good to know. 

Most people would hardly think it, but the hood was a spiritual place. More spiritual than most places.  

There are demons that only resided in the hood. Spirits and darkness that can only reside in a place as lowly as the hood. But there were angels too. 

Most of the time, they inhabited the same person, which was why the hood seemed so unstable. 

I looked at the clock on my wall and in disbelief, it was already 2:30am. The last thing I remembered was going to bed at 12:30. Had I really been outside digging for 2 hours? Where did the time go?

My mind danced in a strange rhythm that made me feel heavy. I had a meeting in the morning that I couldn’t be late for, my mind went to the responsibilities that I had later on that day. I couldn’t believe that I had stayed out so late,let alone been in a trance. 

I shook it off, not wanting to think too much about it and find an answer that would give me a full scale panic attack. 

I was great at doing that- changing my course of thoughts, especially if the narrative was not along with mine. It’s what made me a great sales person. And I happily chose not to engage with this particular narrative.

My vision blurred for a second a blue light zoomed before my eyes.

‘Dragons.’ It was a thought that came with too many feelings to engage with. I diverted my mind away from the matter and the emotions that came along with it; Capricorn moon style.  

My hands were still caked with dirt and I was suddenly very aware that my entire body was filthy. I couldn’t even go to the bathroom which was right next door to Lorraine’s room, because she was sure to get up.

As much as I appreciated not having to be homeless at such a late age in life, I really hated the constant feeling of being under surveillance. Lorraine got up and checked every time I even so much as made a noise or moved. 

I looked like I had been out in the forest, lost for days instead of in the backyard, digging up the landlord’s marigolds and tulips that he had planted under the large oak tree in an attempt to civilize the projects.

It was pretty, but failed miserably. There were still too many cars, brick buildings and stifled streets to make the projects ‘civil’. People were too angry and confused, and drunk and high to notice what beauty Mr. Boldrensky had planted. 

Those were the lows of the hoods. The projects for the rich

And now, he was going to be so mad when he found that hole on his usual morning walk.

I shuddered to think of the cursing he would do with his thick Jamaican accent. 

Mr. Boldrensky had always been my favorite person in the building, he always had interesting stories to tell, and about 13 different stories to tell about how he’d gotten his limp. He had a story for everything except how he got his last name. Which was a valid question being that he was a tall black man with shark like eyes and even sharkier teeth. 

Mr. Boldrensky was intolerable of children, which included anyone under the age of 20. For as long as I’d known him, he rarely if ever allowed the neighborhood kids to come around him while he was in the garden and had cursed them all to hell on more than one occasion when they were up to their typical ‘hood kids’ antics. 

I had managed to clean the dirt off of me with a towel to a point where I could sleep with it. I was deadly tired and my body ached from the exertion of digging the hole… with my hands.

Another demon that lived in excess in the hood was uncleanliness. It was a man that went hand and hand with that b***h named depression.

She and I had a very close knit relationship. I still couldn’t process how I had managed to dig into the ground with my bare hands, especially now that I was standing still. Both the closet and the hamper doubled as my vision crossed and blurred. The book damn near disappeared. 

Depression and tiredness was not caring that I’d just risked my life to dig this book up in the middle of the night. I threw it down in the back of the closet. 

I didn’t care what it was and I was too tired to even try. Depression was thinking too much and not enough at all. It was letting the thought that I could have brought a bomb into my house and thrown it down slip right through my mind. 

I looked down at my hands, underneath my fingernails were still caked with dirt, but I was good, the rest of me only looked vaguely dirty- considering that I hadn’t turned my light on at all. 

I pulled on a different nightgown and threw the other in my hamper, deciding to wash it in the morning.

I climbed into bed exhausted, totally forgetting about the big black square thing that I had pulled out of the ground and had thrown into the back of my closet.

Sleep was quick to coddle me in it’s metaphorical arms.

The next morning brought an entirely different sentiment along with it. It was as if she was watching herself from outside of her body get up, get in the shower, wash, brush, comb. Even her thoughts were quieter than usual. She ate and called a cab, waiting in silence, even as Lorraine talked nonstop. 

She ignored the heaviness in the pit of her stomach, dismissing it as first day jitters, though it felt deeper than that. 

It was probably the book, she decided and then dismissed that as well. She didn’t have time to look at it before going to work. 

She reached across the table and picked up the black ink pen and scribbled her name on the signature line. 

“And sign right here… and finally- yay! Right here.” 

Siklana signed on the points that she was shown. The woman stood and she followed. She held out her hand Siklana took it. 

“Welcome to the Time Healey Cable, company, I’m so excited to have you on board.” Siklana smiled a near absent smile, except for the prospect of being able to help pay rent for another month, there was no real excitement there. 

Annette picked up the relief in not being homeless as a good sign that they would have a long lasting relationship.

Annette showed her around and gave her her new badge and login. Then she did an hour long training that would pick up again the next day. 

Siklana clicked her heels together, happy, at the very least that her job search was over. In the pit of her stomach, however a different excitement grew.

On the way home, Siklana spent the ride daydreaming about her new job and what it would be like. No, it wasn’t her dream job, she was certain that no one aspired to be a call center operator, but the job paid well enough and she was certain that it was going to help her afford her own place- finally. 

She’d been living with her mother for far too long. Images of her own apartment began to stir her excitement in a different way now. Hopeful. 

The cab skidded to a stop at that moment, Siklana put her hand up instinctively, stopping herself from flying into the back of his seat. 

“Sorry!” The driver looked up with his blue eyes and smiled.

Siklana was almost happy that she’d taken a cab instead of driving, because if it were her, she’d probably have crashed, so deep into her daydream had she been, it felt like she had actually been there. 

At home, she celebrated with some cake and coffee- Egyptian style- meaning with a little bit of Hennessy… on the side and in a shot glass. In fact, she had 4, which helped to lay the foundation for the world she was about to enter that night. 

She considered for the slightest of moments that she really didn’t want to find out what was in the cloth. Then she remembered what she had gone through in order to get whatever it was. She was also back at the consideration that she’d brought something incredibly dangerous inside and had just left it in the back of her closet. 

Of course, she had to acknowledge that she knew that it was a book, through something unshakeable within her she knew what was in the cloth. 

She took two more shots before she went into her room and closed the door. 

The book was sitting neatly in the corner, as if she hadn’t thrown it in the back of the closet. She wondered if Lorraine had come into her room while she was out at her meeting?

She hadn’t been back the entire time. It was going on 3 pm, it was strange that Lorraine was out at this time, being the type of person who did all of her errands by 12pm and was back in the house by 1pm the latest. 

Siklana shrugged it off and went over to her bed with the book and sat. 

In the daylight,  she could see that the cloth that it was wrapped in was midnight blue and had little silver and purple moons and stars on it. 

The stars seemed to twinkle like the real ones in the sky and the moons seemed to dance around in small circles, creating it’s own orbit on the cloth. 

Warmth flowed through her body and a feeling of compulsion filled her.

She flipped it open eagerly. All she wanted to do now was sit down with it and read it forever. Become one with the knowledge it could provide. And, she knew, somehow, that it could and would provide a lot. 

There was a lure that couldn’t really be explained. A feeling of familiarity. A yearning- a deep yearning to… learn-absorb what the book had to offer. recognized the feeling of grace and ease that was emanating from it. She wanted it. She wanted that feeling to emanate from her.

She opened the cloth.

For a moment, she just sat there holding it, watching the dancing moons and twinkling stars, mesmerized. It was as though the moon and stars wanted to lift off of the cloth, up into mid air, only waiting for her  permission to do just that. 

It was a thick, bluish black, double bound book with book spiral and leather binding. The double bounding was awkward. But beautiful.

There were 3 purple and blue stars surrounding a red looped cross. One was 5 points with the single point pointing up, the other was again 5 points with the single point pointing down and were on either side of the cross. The last was a combination of the two, a 10 pointed star, beneath the cross. In very small, yellow, italicized letters it read:  A book for the living. By the unknown.

She opened it, and it’s magical essence flowed off of the page into her mind.

Chapter 1

From her pedestal she sat watching them; the soul poachers coming into her kingdom. ‘Yhheeesss,’ she hissed under her breath like the starving lion that she was. She crouched in the shadows of her long abandoned kingdom. 

Over time, there had been some stragglers and randoms who had shown up at the door, but none with the proper blood. 

Not like the one that the soul poachers were following. 

The girl was overly confident and didn’t know her hat from her pinky toe, but she was a good girl. A loyal one, who in knowledge always went straight for wisdom.

And that was why they were about to have their first real meal in a long time. 

Welcome to Egypt. 

Welcome to the kingdom of Amen. 

WELL COME to the akhenaten tenements.

I hope that you are prepared to stay and worship for the rest of your life. 

The girl had warned them many times in drunken and sober outbursts to f**k all the way off, but they had never taken her seriously and that’s why they were still here, reading this book that was already written. Because as it says; the lord reigns. 

They rewrite, but it does not matter.

The lord already has them in derision. 

For they told themselves so many stories, they didn’t remember the original one. Even though they said his name everyday, they still didn’t know who it was. They didn’t understand their own greed, but she did. She understood their effort to subvert the Gods with their hypnotism and tricks that they called magic. 

That was not magic.

Magic was the lion that stalked through the dimensions of space and time, waiting for over 2000 years for them to f**k up and command the angels to begin the show.

Magic was the lion that looked through the window of the girls eyes every once and awhile, watching the havoc take place.  

Magic was the woman’s faith,even as she watched the world around her fall apart, that she still had faith in what was going down. 

Magic was NOT 600 years of mental slavery, harrassment and hypnotism.

Magic was the fact that she was still able to recognize her roots, even when 600 years of mental harrassment, slavery and hypnotism had been performed. 

She had never seen someone want to end their entire existence so badly.

The group of about 16 men and women stalked behind her. Pulling mental strings that used to make the woman trip and fall and holler in pain, but didn’t anymore. If it did anything more than piss her off, then it certain supplied with the motivation she never really needed to return to her own kingdom.

The main woman who stalked her was a woman well acquainted with hypnotism and subterfuge. A red headed woman who thought she owned the sea. Tricky, little b***h. Her gemini lilith sparkled in the beams of Aten. 

She wanted her soul? Her ‘can't go for the sake of going, ain't never been nowhere for the sake of being’ ass soul?

Her soul that was filled with and weighed down with self hate and contempt? That was constantly disturbed by the slightest movements and thoughts?

She laughed to herself at the desperation and stupidity of this woman and her coven. 

Her soul which couldn't settle or finish a deal?

Be my guest, she welcomed the woman who had a great song and poetical and whimsical essence. but there is a price to admission and they paid each and every time they did their rituals of demands and commands. 

Magic was the amount of water that was in this kingdom now, after so many years of having nothing. Everytime they tried to flood the woman and overwhelm her with their programmed thoughtforms and responses, the lions were right there to make use of it. 

Faith was the restoration of a kingdom even with the trolls that tried to prevent and stop it. 

Stupid was the man and woman who tried to stop it and block it out and still tried to imagine themselves in high places, these people always lead themselves into destruction. 

That was stupidity and desperation which was almost equal to greed. 

She could make up so many stories in her head, yet she’d only ever finished three. She’d always had issues with her stomach and digestion. She had so many trines that it made her more than complacent with loss. Her mind was so full of gas and lights that she could barely see in front of her.

She wanted her soul? 

The major issue was one of two things; these people who were playing these parts were under several faulty impressions.

One that a soul was a spirit- and she supposed that if she hadn’t known better, then she would have been very much so out of luck by now. 

But she knew better, which was why her spirit always came back to her, sometimes with even more than it had had in its possession before it left. They didn’t understand it, which was why they kept trying and sending different people in to fulfill the prophecy in the way they understood it. 

She knew, of course, that when they lamented for her soul, they were ultimately referring to her point of view. And for that, she truly prayed for them- not that they would need prayer soon.  

Two: They thought that it was her soul that ate magic, nah. That wasn’t it. At all. 

Nor was it her mind- which they had been working hard to take for the past five years. 

That means that she didn’t need to do magic in order to take someone’s seeds or magic from them. All she needed was her decision to take it. 

She had made the decision a long time ago that she was a double agent, looking to weed out the fucktards. 

The fucktards that followed her so deep into the kingdom that they would never find their way out on their own. Fucktards who had the hubris to split up to see what they would take from this kingdom. 

Because she’d said, ‘Sure, you can have my soul.’ to people whose entire practice was based on a lie and stolen identity. To people who did daily and weekly rituals to transfer their guilt and weight of their wicked deeds onto others. 

They believed her, because such people were a different kind of desperate. 

She didn’t turn around as they went to the lapis fountain and drank from the water- completely unaware of where that water had come from. 

Surely, the waters would be cleansed, but at the moment, the water was still filled with lamentations and woes. Their rituals powered the fountains which now moved on their own.

The lion’s blood stained mouth let the enemies blood imprint on her tongue. This was her preferred taste from now on. 

She didn’t explain it, that the soul is simply a chair. The throne in a kingdom, certainly, but, my love, that didn’t mean that you kept the jewels upon the throne, nor did it mean that you took the kingdom, nor even a castle. 

You had to be really careful when dealing with her kind, they were a tricky bunch- those melanated sea babies. 

A wrong deal was a certain death sentence. For instance, this woman who had much support in her attempt to take a soul that she had spent years trying to break down, had never, ever asked the price- not of the soul- but of the magic she’d done for it.

She’d been given a number to spend. She’d been given certain tools and words to use. Offerings to make. Check, check, check, but did she check on her own, the individual price of their magic- especially the magic that she’d done up to their meeting. 

She knew- she had gone through different Goddesses- but the fact of the matter was that all Gods and Goddesses spiraled up a ladder and at the very top of this ladder, was her throne. 

She couldn’t see her soul, even if she really wanted to. The woman- people- weren’t as smart as they thought they were. For all of their books could have never explained this fact.

They thought sending a ghost after her would scare her. It just pissed her off- mostly because she didn’t like being cold. 

They thought that speaking against her actions would stop her. 

All she had to say was her ancestors’s name and that silly little ghost was gone. Some of her ancestors ate ghosts, they ate this one, her essence and energy they drew in, her consciousness, they let dissolve into the dark matter of the universe. 

All she had to do was say her ancestors name and they took their power back. The very breath of life was their power for as long as power existed upon the face of the Earth.

These people thought that acclimation of a soul meant that they had the power of that person. If only that person didn’t know what a soul was, then certainly. But this woman who knew hardly anything, knew at least that and that was why they were mad. 

They wanted the power to turn and stir and move the Earth. To set a trend that was their own making and not just a copied version of those sea creatures. They wanted true power that was stirred, not shook.

But that was her power and she only had to thank them for reminding her.  

Yes, she would take the Earth and move it, but only after she was done pruning it. 

They thought that they were winning because she was alone. She was born alone. She meant to have a solemn face, her tenth house Scorpio and first house Aquarius ensured it.

She sipped from her own cup of lamentation, woe and fire, completely aware of where the water had come from and familiar with the taste and the effects. She’d been sipping on the water purposely for a while now

By now, it was like alcohol to her. It made her a little bit tipsy, but in a fun way. 

But to them, who had been avoiding this water and forcing others to drink of their cup, it was like drinking absinthe for a first time drinker.  

She sipped hers slowly, watching them. 

They wanted to be able to look at the stars and know?

Well, they would certain be able to look at the stars much closer now, but the only thing that they would know is the certainty of their complete and utter end. 

Everything had a price. All magic had a price, especially for those who had no birthright to magic. 

Sure, people thought it was terrible of the Gods to have given Egypt all of the world’s magic, but it was a fact that happened. And no amount of stories would be able to change it. 

No amount of moving would be able to change it. Nor would their lies and self righteous indignation serve the purpose of changing what was happening. 

They thought that getting together and possessing her with a talking spirit that agreed to sell her soul made a deal. 

It did not.

In fact, the closer they came to touching her soul, the poorer their own spirits became, for it was them who let in her thieves and corrupt kings and her sons who should have been king. 

They’d done the same to her mother, who was standing outside of her door, doing their dirty work. And it was too bad that she have a better understanding of the soul or of contracts.

Like the fact that a contract signed by someone else's hand- even if that hand be a spirit- was a contract null and void.

“La Bomba.”

The angels and old gods that they utilized to do their dirty work would be freed and released. The conscious mind of those who were under their possession would be returned to them. 

But those who had purchased souls would drink from a newly formed river which was the river of absence, for all of the water they had summoned to drown this woman had created a new river next to the river of lamentations. 

It was called the river of absence. The river of absence was not to be confused with the river of forgetfulness, because not only would they forget their past lives, but they would also be absent in their consciousness, should they be able to return to Earth. 

They would simply be breathing beings who worked to upkeep the kingdom and the land of Earth and the kingdoms of her sons who would now be the kings of their own kingdoms. 

She watched them who remained in the room with her, who stood watching and appraising her throne, begin to stumble in their drunkenness. They laughed and burped and hiccups in the drunkenness of their lamentations.

It didn’t matter how many times she fell asleep or how many dreams they infiltrated, nothing would change the face of God, nor would anything change the fact that every entry- authorized and unauthorized had a price that they had never asked her- the ruler of the domain for. 

Also; as ruler of this universe, she really couldn’t sell her soul, because everything within it was hers.

They owed her much more than they could ever pay. 

So for that, she would simply take their spectrum as well as her soul back. s**t- they had violated so much- she would also be taking their thrones and spirits as payment as well as their kingdoms.

After all, fear was fare was fair.

And she’d long ago paid her dues. Now it was time for them to pay theirs. 

The Lion purred in pleasure.