[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.”“Oooh, so you and the Yummy One have a sex life? Already? Damn, girl, you work almost as fast as I do!”“Ha! Wouldn’t you like to know.Good girls don’t kiss and tell.” And with that, she closed the door in the other woman’s face, still grinning.Determined to get the last word, Corinne laughed at her through the thick layers of steel.“Maybe not,” she called, her voice muffled but clearly intelligible.“But bad girls have more fun!”EightIn the end, every human being needs to make a choice: do I continue to live my life the way I’ve always lived it and simply keep my distance from the things and creatures who frighten me? Or do I take a chance and see where this new adventure of a life among the Others will lead me?—A Human Handbook to the Others, ConclusionShe kept her eyes closed and her head tipped back toward the apex of the tented ceiling, showing the loa no fear and no shame.Again, she smelled incense and charcoal and the sweet, earthy scent of burning tobacco.Her people offered only the finest, grown not two miles away in the English’s cherished fields.Her pulse throbbed, filling her head and trickling down the back of her throat like the rum she’d taken in Their names.Her heart beat louder, tempo increasing, urgency rising as the rhythm of the drums drove them all faster.Her feet pounded against the cool earth, the grit of dirt clinging to her soles.It was a new feeling for her, this cool, dry earth, different from the rich delta soil she’d been used to, but the dirt didn’t matter.Neither did the air matter, cooler here, thinner, for all the complaints the white men offered when the summer sun beat down on them.They were weak.They would not have survived in the thick, tropical humidity on which she had suckled.At home, fire had been a gateway and a duty, but here, the glow of firelight became a thing of beauty, a necessity that kept the biting chill from drawing her away from Their arms.Now the drums beat faster.Voices sang louder, driven by the drums, driven by the spirits.In the morning, the farmers and traders in the town at the tip of the island would whisper of dark rituals and dangerous spirits in the distance, and she would laugh, knowing the truth would only frighten them more than their ignorant speculations.She felt a familiar rush of fullness within her.Her gros bon ange began to shrink, making room to let the greater Ones in.She could feel the power welling up within her, feel the excitement, the exaltation.She lifted her arms to the roof and gave herself over to the communion with the divine, the dark, the eternal.She felt His ange settle over her like a heavy weight, thick and ancient with power, and when her eyes snapped open, they were His eyes, dark with menace and bright with intent.Nous sommes au ras au ras, chère.J’vas t’donne tous la puissance, tite fille, His voice whispered in her head, et nous avons choquer le ciel, non?She laughed, loud and long, and the sound made the drummers stutter in their blows.Daphanie sat bolt upright in her sister’s bed, her sheets and tank top soaked with sweat.She scrubbed at the skin of her arms, trying to rid herself of that feeling of heaviness, but it didn’t shift.It clung to her like oil, coating her from the inside out.It wasn’t just her body that felt heavy, but her soul.She couldn’t stay where she was.She felt tainted and she needed to get away.From the bed, from the dream, from herself.Throwing back the sheets, she scrambled to her feet and stripped off her clothes as if they’d been splattered in blood.God, she needed air.The thick fog of the dream stayed with her, a feeling she’d come to both know and dread over the past week.Every day for seven days she’d woken with this hazy, unclean feeling, and her nerves suffered for it.Every day she woke feeling a little heavier, a little less herself, and tonight, the one-week anniversary of her night at the club, she was ready to tear off her own skin to make the sensations go away.She needed air.Not stopping to think, Daphanie grabbed her sister’s cotton robe from where it hung on the back of the bedroom door.She was already halfway through the great room as she dipped her arms in the sleeves, and she barely had it belted closed when she pushed open the door at the back of the kitchen and stepped out onto the rooftop terrace built above the apartment building’s lower wing.She hadn’t even glanced toward the sofa where Asher habitually slept.She just needed to get out.She hurried over to the low wall facing the street and drew in great gulps of cool night air.Her hands trembled as she pressed them flat against the granite surface, and her eyes fixed sightlessly on the light traffic moving twelve stories below.Daphanie, she chanted to herself over and over.Your name is Daphanie.You’re a blacksmith.You’re a human being.It was only a dream.The problem was, it had never felt like a dream.Even the first night, the sensations of dancing to the beat of drums in a tent on the edge of nowhere had felt more real to her than the polished wooden floor of her sister’s swanky new apartment.It had been bad enough then, when all she’d dreamed of was a little dancing, but every night since, it had only gotten worse.At first, the dream had progressed with glacial slowness, advancing one footfall at a time so that the first couple of nights she hadn’t realized it was advancing at all.But by Thursday, the feeling of anticipation had built to a fever pitch, and last night she’d finally understood that in the dream, the woman she was had been inviting some sort of spirit to possess her.Tonight, she’d felt the first touch of that foreign presence within her body and the memory of it made her want to vomit.It had been dark, black, inside her, a feeling of corruption and vice and bone-deep malice Daphanie had never experienced before.It had threatened to consume her, but the Daphanie in the dream had gloried in it, had invited it in and welcomed it, even as she understood the evil it represented.The Daphanie in reality couldn’t even begin to comprehend that, but to the Daphanie in the dream, the spirit, the dark thing inside her, had represented power.For the first time in her life, Daphanie finally understood the concept of selling one’s soul to the devil.She felt as if hers was gone and the devil now crawled underneath her skin.“Are you all right?”She choked back a hysterical laugh.The voice behind her was soft and deep, low and fimiliar.He stepped out of the shadows of the small, private terrace and stood close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from his body and seeping through the thin fabric of her borrowed robe.“I’m fine.”If you called feeling like a stranger in your own skin “fine.” If “fine” meant feeling as if she were still walking around in the dream.Or as if the dream walked in her.Her hands clenched on top of the wall, the rough stone scraping across her skin as her knuckles curled.She flinched when his big, warm hand settled on her shoulder.“You don’t look fine.”This time she did laugh, and the sound rang with bitterness and fear.Was it hers? Or the dream’s? Did not being able to tell make her a lunatic? “That’s what I admire most about you, Asher.You’re just a fucking charmer.You just take my goddamned breath away [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.”“Oooh, so you and the Yummy One have a sex life? Already? Damn, girl, you work almost as fast as I do!”“Ha! Wouldn’t you like to know.Good girls don’t kiss and tell.” And with that, she closed the door in the other woman’s face, still grinning.Determined to get the last word, Corinne laughed at her through the thick layers of steel.“Maybe not,” she called, her voice muffled but clearly intelligible.“But bad girls have more fun!”EightIn the end, every human being needs to make a choice: do I continue to live my life the way I’ve always lived it and simply keep my distance from the things and creatures who frighten me? Or do I take a chance and see where this new adventure of a life among the Others will lead me?—A Human Handbook to the Others, ConclusionShe kept her eyes closed and her head tipped back toward the apex of the tented ceiling, showing the loa no fear and no shame.Again, she smelled incense and charcoal and the sweet, earthy scent of burning tobacco.Her people offered only the finest, grown not two miles away in the English’s cherished fields.Her pulse throbbed, filling her head and trickling down the back of her throat like the rum she’d taken in Their names.Her heart beat louder, tempo increasing, urgency rising as the rhythm of the drums drove them all faster.Her feet pounded against the cool earth, the grit of dirt clinging to her soles.It was a new feeling for her, this cool, dry earth, different from the rich delta soil she’d been used to, but the dirt didn’t matter.Neither did the air matter, cooler here, thinner, for all the complaints the white men offered when the summer sun beat down on them.They were weak.They would not have survived in the thick, tropical humidity on which she had suckled.At home, fire had been a gateway and a duty, but here, the glow of firelight became a thing of beauty, a necessity that kept the biting chill from drawing her away from Their arms.Now the drums beat faster.Voices sang louder, driven by the drums, driven by the spirits.In the morning, the farmers and traders in the town at the tip of the island would whisper of dark rituals and dangerous spirits in the distance, and she would laugh, knowing the truth would only frighten them more than their ignorant speculations.She felt a familiar rush of fullness within her.Her gros bon ange began to shrink, making room to let the greater Ones in.She could feel the power welling up within her, feel the excitement, the exaltation.She lifted her arms to the roof and gave herself over to the communion with the divine, the dark, the eternal.She felt His ange settle over her like a heavy weight, thick and ancient with power, and when her eyes snapped open, they were His eyes, dark with menace and bright with intent.Nous sommes au ras au ras, chère.J’vas t’donne tous la puissance, tite fille, His voice whispered in her head, et nous avons choquer le ciel, non?She laughed, loud and long, and the sound made the drummers stutter in their blows.Daphanie sat bolt upright in her sister’s bed, her sheets and tank top soaked with sweat.She scrubbed at the skin of her arms, trying to rid herself of that feeling of heaviness, but it didn’t shift.It clung to her like oil, coating her from the inside out.It wasn’t just her body that felt heavy, but her soul.She couldn’t stay where she was.She felt tainted and she needed to get away.From the bed, from the dream, from herself.Throwing back the sheets, she scrambled to her feet and stripped off her clothes as if they’d been splattered in blood.God, she needed air.The thick fog of the dream stayed with her, a feeling she’d come to both know and dread over the past week.Every day for seven days she’d woken with this hazy, unclean feeling, and her nerves suffered for it.Every day she woke feeling a little heavier, a little less herself, and tonight, the one-week anniversary of her night at the club, she was ready to tear off her own skin to make the sensations go away.She needed air.Not stopping to think, Daphanie grabbed her sister’s cotton robe from where it hung on the back of the bedroom door.She was already halfway through the great room as she dipped her arms in the sleeves, and she barely had it belted closed when she pushed open the door at the back of the kitchen and stepped out onto the rooftop terrace built above the apartment building’s lower wing.She hadn’t even glanced toward the sofa where Asher habitually slept.She just needed to get out.She hurried over to the low wall facing the street and drew in great gulps of cool night air.Her hands trembled as she pressed them flat against the granite surface, and her eyes fixed sightlessly on the light traffic moving twelve stories below.Daphanie, she chanted to herself over and over.Your name is Daphanie.You’re a blacksmith.You’re a human being.It was only a dream.The problem was, it had never felt like a dream.Even the first night, the sensations of dancing to the beat of drums in a tent on the edge of nowhere had felt more real to her than the polished wooden floor of her sister’s swanky new apartment.It had been bad enough then, when all she’d dreamed of was a little dancing, but every night since, it had only gotten worse.At first, the dream had progressed with glacial slowness, advancing one footfall at a time so that the first couple of nights she hadn’t realized it was advancing at all.But by Thursday, the feeling of anticipation had built to a fever pitch, and last night she’d finally understood that in the dream, the woman she was had been inviting some sort of spirit to possess her.Tonight, she’d felt the first touch of that foreign presence within her body and the memory of it made her want to vomit.It had been dark, black, inside her, a feeling of corruption and vice and bone-deep malice Daphanie had never experienced before.It had threatened to consume her, but the Daphanie in the dream had gloried in it, had invited it in and welcomed it, even as she understood the evil it represented.The Daphanie in reality couldn’t even begin to comprehend that, but to the Daphanie in the dream, the spirit, the dark thing inside her, had represented power.For the first time in her life, Daphanie finally understood the concept of selling one’s soul to the devil.She felt as if hers was gone and the devil now crawled underneath her skin.“Are you all right?”She choked back a hysterical laugh.The voice behind her was soft and deep, low and fimiliar.He stepped out of the shadows of the small, private terrace and stood close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from his body and seeping through the thin fabric of her borrowed robe.“I’m fine.”If you called feeling like a stranger in your own skin “fine.” If “fine” meant feeling as if she were still walking around in the dream.Or as if the dream walked in her.Her hands clenched on top of the wall, the rough stone scraping across her skin as her knuckles curled.She flinched when his big, warm hand settled on her shoulder.“You don’t look fine.”This time she did laugh, and the sound rang with bitterness and fear.Was it hers? Or the dream’s? Did not being able to tell make her a lunatic? “That’s what I admire most about you, Asher.You’re just a fucking charmer.You just take my goddamned breath away [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]