Florence Welch's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

Florence stayed on the flat stone until her knees hurt. The pool had gone still. The hags were gone, but the water remembered her now. She could feel it listening at her ankles. She needed the goddess called up soon, before the deep decided what to do with the voice it had learned. She could not do it alone. She had tried once and her throat had split around a name she could not carry. She walked back to the hut and found Isa already there. Her partner sat on the step with her boots off, wringing bog water from her socks. Ink stains on her fingers. Copper hair pinned up in a knot that was losing itself. She did not look surprised to see Florence wet to the thigh. "Your circle is broken," Isa said. "I stepped over where it used to be." "I know." "Then I'm staying." She pulled her sock back on. "The cart is behind the reeds. I brought the pipes. What are we doing?" "Calling the mother down. I can't hold the chant by myself." Isa nodded once. "Then don't." They pulled the ritual vehicle up onto the dry ground beside the drying garden. Brass pipes, rune panels, two horns like open mouths. Isa cracked her knuckles and set her hands on the keys. Florence had forgotten what it felt like to have someone stand at the other end of a working with her. The child goddess stepped out from behind the shed. She held a wooden bowl. In it was salt scraped from the broken circle and small yellow flowers pulled from the drying garden, crushed together into a pale grit. "For your eyes," Danu said. She offered the bowl up. "There are veils on this bog that are not mine. Salt lifts what is laid. The yellow flower breaks what clings. Wear it before you sing." Florence pressed her wet thumb into the mix and marked her own forehead, then Isa's. Isa did not flinch. The bowl went warm and then cool. The air over the peat thinned. Florence saw the reeds without their soft edge. She saw a second shape crouched at the far pool that had not been there a moment ago, a woman-shape with wings folded tight. It had been watching all along. The wort had pulled the film off it. "Start," Danu said. Isa struck the first low chord. The horns took it and pushed it out across the water. Florence opened her mouth and the old word came without splitting her. Isa's harmony caught under it and held. The chant did not collapse. It stood. The peat under them warmed. Something answered from very far down, slow and enormous, still turning toward the surface. Not arrived. Coming. The winged shape at the far pool stood up. It had heard the call too. It began to walk toward them across the water.