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best I can."
A little breeze blows against my face. I sit up next to him. He puts one big
warm hand on my shoulder. He is smiling in the moonlight as if sacrificing
his fears and regrets has lifted a great burden from him. Now it is me that
the world waits for, it is my turn.
"I am afraid I won't do this right," I say, as clearly as I can. My voice
sounds thin and childish after
Colin's. "I have been afraid that the voices of my ancestors in my
head would take me over and I
wouldn't know which one was me. I have been afraid that they will go away
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forever and leave me alone and not knowing how to cope. I have been afraid of
hurting my mother and not being what she wanted me to be. Most of all I have
been afraid to die. And now I am afraid to live. I have been afraid of what I
have seen in the future, and then I got to understand it and not be afraid.
Now I am afraid of a future I
have not seen. Nothing I ever saw in my life took me past this day, so I fear
the unknown world that will come of this. I am afraid of having to find a way
to live in it."
The knife takes my words, and I see that Elly is shaking. I try to remember
exactly what Colin said, and echo it. I feel strong and free of my fears. "I
give up all this fear, I throw it out into the dark. I shall be what I am,
myself as I am, I shall strive from this time forwards to do the best I can to
be the best I can."
The breeze comes again, and I can hear a sound in it this time, the distant
sound of reed pipes being blown.
Elly jumps up onto the rock beside me. Colin steadies her as she straightens
up. She holds the knife high up in her hand, so that the polished stone blade
catches the moonlight.
"I am so very afraid," she says, and her voice breaks again with a little sob
in the middle. "I have been afraid of sin and death, of breaking the rules and
being punished, of hell and damnation. I have been so afraid of crying, and
letting people know how I feel. I have been afraid of caring about other
people. I
have been afraid to be myself. I have been very afraid of Them, of all the
people around me. I was afraid of magic, and then I was afraid because I
wasn't afraid of it any more. I was afraid that people were afraid of me, and
then I was afraid that I liked that. I am afraid of the power in me. I am
afraid I am a bad person, that I am just like Cloud. I am afraid of myself. I
am afraid of doing the wrong thing and hurting people, and I am afraid that I
try too hard to be nice and not hard enough to be good. I want to give up all
this fear and cast it away into the dark, I want to go on fresh from now and
strive to be myself as best I can, but I am afraid I do not know the way. I am
afraid that what I have done is so bad that there is no forgiveness for it."
Tears are running down her face, her voice shakes, and the knife is shining
brightly. "I am afraid that everyone will always hate me. I am afraid to go on
living."
She takes a ragged breath. "I am afraid to die. I am afraid of Mother Hekate's
midnight knife here in my hand. I am afraid of Raymond, lying there in his own
fear. I am afraid to leave him bound and afraid to let him go free. I take
hold of all this fear and I cast it whole into the dark."
She takes another breath, a stronger one, and looks down at me, at Colin, at
the cups and bowls
and honeypot at the side of the rock, at the rock's rough black surface. Then
she looks up again at the knife, the moon, the stars, the trees all
round listening quietly. "I shall be all of myself, what I am,
accepting what has made me what I am. I shall strive to do the best I can and
be the best I can. And now
I shall let fear free."
She sits down, on Colin's other side, so that he is between us. She sets the
knife loosely on his lap so that the handle is on her own lap and the tip of
the blade is on mine. For a minute I don't understand what she means, and then
the bad man rises from the ground and laughs one mad laugh.
The moment hangs in the balance still, and starts to come back towards me
and I can see the twisting threads of the future that lead forward from
this place, and the breeze is blowing clear and strong and warm and bringing
towards me the distant music of pipes.
"I am not afraid to kill a god." he says.
(Raymond)
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I mean it. I will do it, if I can. She has let me loose and I come towards
them, slowly. A wind is blowing from behind me. The three of them are sitting
there on the rock, a shining curved knife like the sickle moon across their
knees. I am going to kill them, kill all of them, kill them now.
"Then what do you fear?" the boy asks. He is smiling. "Now is the time to give
up fear and make an end of it in this night, and start again."
"I'm not afraid of anything," I say, moving closer, ready to grab the knife.
I'll kill her first, the kid, because she dared to freeze me and free me at
her whim as if I'm nothing, as if I don't matter.
"That's not true," Colin says, and I take another step. He isn't moving but he
doesn't need to move to stop me if he has his magic back. "Tell us what you
fear."
"I'm not afraid, and I'm going to kill you." I'm going to leap for the knife,
stab her, then slash it across his throat. I think I can do it in two moves.
The little boy's no threat, I can kill him later. I have to get into the right
place to do it. I never killed anyone with a curved knife before, maybe it
won't stab. The point looks wickedly sharp though.
"You want to kill us," she says. She's not crying now, though her face is all
blotchy in the little bit of moonlight and the brighter light from the knife.
She said she was afraid of me, but she's not acting scared.
"We'll let you, if you give up your fear first. We will be willing sacrifices,
Raymond, if you will give up your fear and say out loud what you're scared
of."
That's worth considering, if she means it. I look at her. Could she mean it?
Blotchy face, hair all tangled, nothing else to see in the moonlight and the
knife's light. I look at the others, Colin's not much more than a dark shape,
leaning forward a little and shadowing his face. The boy's still smiling a big
smile, he almost seems to be glowing himself.
"Do you all agree?" I ask. I bet he's the All Holy. If the girl and Colin will
lie down and let me kill them it can be a real sacrifice, it can still wake
him up. On this stone. Here. Tonight. Even if all the others didn't make it,
I'm here, I can do it.
"Sacrifice your fears, Raymond, and I will let you free to choose, as I took
away your choice at
Siena." says Colin. Good. The little boy just nods and smiles away. Maybe it's
the girl, she's got all that power. "Dedicate yourselves then." They won't do
that if they don't mean it.
"In the name of all the bright and dark gods who care for the pattern of the
world." Colin says. "And most especially in the name of Apollo, Holy Jesus,
and Mother Hekate, whose gifts of self knowledge, compassion and understanding
I implore for you. If need be I will go willing into the dark for the sake of
the World Remade. With love."
"For the New All Holy," says Elly. "In trust."
"For Great Pan reborn," the boy says. "In hope."
Their faces are shining in the knife's light. The wind ruffles their hair. I
take the knife's handle and raise it, they do not stop me. My part of the
bargain, if I break it it won't work. Fear. Fear. What do I
fear, don't usually think about this sort of thing.
"I'm afraid this won't work. I'm afraid I've done it wrong, that I did it
wrong in Siena and I went wrong again now. I'm afraid maybe the whole thing
was wrong, that Claude made a mistake working it out and we were on the wrong
track. I'm afraid the new world won't be what we thought it was going to be."
Is that enough? I look at their faces. The knife's glowing brighter than ever
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