Mark Chadbourn - The Burning Man

‘We can run through them-’

‘No! If they touch you, they’ll wipe you out as if you never existed.’

The spiders advanced. Cursing under his breath, Veitch backed towards the tunnel leading to the Underworld until he stood on its lip, one arm across Miller’s chest.

The Libertarian waved his hand theatrically. ‘ “There go the loves that wither, the old loves with wearier wings; And all dead years draw thither, and all disastrous things.” ’

‘I’m going to get you, you bastard!’

‘Shout all you want, no one will hear you. You’re going where you belong, Ryan, down amongst the dead men.’

Something wrapped tightly around Veitch’s ankles and then he was dragged backwards into the dark. As he fell, funereal cloth wrapped tightly around his head, and the last thing he heard was the sound of the ground closing above him.

It was a night for whispers and memories, dreams and magic. A full moon hung over the purple mountains at the heart of the Peloponnese and the warm air was filled with the scent of cooling vegetation and olives. Occasionally the wind would bring the salty aroma of the sea.

‘You do not have to join us.’ Demetra’s face was still filled with the weight of her grief.

‘I didn’t know her,’ Ruth replied, ‘but I feel I want to be there.’

Demetra flopped onto the swing-seat on the farmhouse porch. ‘So strong for so long, for everyone relying on me, and tonight I feel as if I cannot go on.’

‘It’ll pass. We all feel like that sometimes. And if we didn’t, we wouldn’t know what it was like to feel on top.’ Ruth sat next to her.

‘You are strong. I see a quality in you … it is hard to define … but it has the colour blue.’ Demetra peered deeply into Ruth’s eyes, then looked away with a smile. ‘I am sorry. I have strange ways.’

‘I think you’re under a lot of pressure. It must be difficult, trying to manage this community, keep these women safe, while all those powerful people have been trying to close you down.’

‘It has been a difficult road. The world has not been safe for women for a long time. Three years after my grandmother walked the many miles from Athens to find a safe place, she was raped and murdered by a gang of men building a road. It was not about sex. It was about control. They did not like what she was doing here, and wanted to punish her for it. Eventually, my mother took over the running of our community. She died when I was twenty, beaten to death on the hillside here. Her murderer was never caught.’ The moonlight illuminated the defiance in her features. ‘I fear my own end will be the same. But if we do not stand and fight for what we believe in, then nothing will ever change. And change always demands sacrifice.’

Ruth’s owl flapped onto a perch on a tree in the courtyard. Demetra eyed it curiously, as if she could see its true nature.

‘I try to understand the patterns of life, but it makes so little sense. The world would be a better place without the brutality, and the hatred and suspicion, the desire for money and power. Everyone knows that, yet we embrace this sour existence. We are condemned prisoners cheering as we walk to the gallows.’ She smiled sadly. ‘Why do we want to live in a world without magic?’

‘The world can be changed. You’re doing your piece-’

‘How small and ineffectual it is. I could not save Roslyn. In the end, what have I achieved?’

As Demetra went to meet Lou, the American woman, who was approaching carrying a candle, she looked diminished somehow, worn down by grief and the demands of the life she had chosen. Ruth’s heart went out to her.

‘We’re ready,’ said Lou.

The women had gathered just beyond the courtyard, all dressed in white flowing dresses that glowed spectrally in the moonlight. There were twelve including Demetra, each carrying a candle. Hidden beneath a shroud, Roslyn lay on a wooden stretcher amongst them.

‘We welcome Ruth into our celebrations,’ Demetra said to them. ‘And this is a celebration, for when we move from this harsh world into a better place, it should be recognised with ecstasy.’

A large wine flask hung from each woman’s waist. In turn the women took a long draught and made a solemn speech.

‘My name is Alicia. My arm was broken in three places, but I survive. I wish my sister Roslyn well, for she is now beyond our pain.’

‘My name is Melantha. It took six months before I could look at myself in a mirror, but I survive. I wish my sister Roslyn well, for she is now beyond our pain.’

When the final woman had spoken, Demetra offered Ruth her own wine flask. ‘Drink deep. Experience the joy of detachment from this world.’

Ruth swallowed a mouthful of wine and was surprised by its potency. It was not like any wine she had ever tasted before.

Six of the larger women shouldered the stretcher and a slow procession set off up the hillside towards the olive groves. The flapping of Ruth’s owl disturbed her, but when she tried to see the cause of the commotion she noticed the lights of a vehicle making its way across the dark landscape in the direction of the compound. Though a commonplace sight, Ruth felt oddly uneasy.

The women began to sing a quiet, lilting song that contributed to the dreamlike atmosphere. As they walked, they took repeated draughts of wine, not for the flavour but to get drunk.

‘The Cult of Souls has been a part of our culture in Greece for thousands of years,’ Demetra began. ‘They called us a mystery religion, and one of the mysteries we taught was the strength of the true, primal being that lies at the heart of all of us. The real person, the rider of the mare that is our body.’

‘The soul,’ Ruth said.

Demetra smiled. ‘That word has too many connotations. It is a mystery at the heart of a mystery. Our beliefs underpinned, and preceded, the Orphic Mysteries, and Gnosticism, and even Christianity. Some trace it back to the Osiris Cult of ancient Egypt. They believed the spirit existed in three forms. The akh was the form the dead existed in when they travelled to the Underworld. The ba was a bird released at death that contained the individual’s personality and character. And the ka was a double that could be released in dreams, but was finally released at death.’

‘And you’re all part of this cult?’

‘No one is forced to join. There is no religious text, no rules and regulations. At its heart is one simple idea: that what is inside us is stronger than our bodies and can go on for ever. It is not about any religion, rather an idea, just an idea. And we believe that by freeing ourselves from the body, and the care and worry that come with it, we can access that deeper being and through it glimpse the true nature of Existence.’

Ruth smiled. ‘So get drunk-’

‘And dance, and sing, and leave the world behind.’

As they moved into the dense trees, Ruth had the strangest sensation that the women’s song was now accompanied by the playing of a flute, but it faded into the background whenever she strained to hear it clearly. Golden lights moved high in the branches, like will-o’-the-wisps, and Ruth realised it was the winged figures they had puzzled and argued over earlier.

‘There’s magic here,’ Ruth said firmly.

Demetra looked troubled. ‘I would so like to believe … Everything is changing so quickly that I no longer know what is true any more. It began yesterday. We noticed the olives were bigger and more bountiful than ever before. The wine was stronger. The water and soil tasted and smelled richer.’ She shook her head. ‘And now those … beings. Perhaps it is just a trick …’