The Failed Ritual

Amen and amen and silk curtains. And sashes.

They approached the pool at twilight, when the whipper wills were out and the horizon was a cool blue. The fountain at the back of the pool was alive, and creeping behind one of the boulders was the woman who screams upstairs. She was doing her best to stay hidden, but despite her best efforts, the clothes she was wearing were altogether two colorful, and her crinkly wild hair had recently turned a bleach blonde. And she tended to make a great deal of noise whenever she made the smallest bit of movement. She was just one of those people. And so before the pair even reached the pool, they could tell that she was nearby.

Devon called out to her, and she did not reply. Mock absence. Commitment to the part.

Angelica called out to her, and she did not reply. Mock absence. Commitment to the part.

The fountain at the back of the pool tinkled away and all seemed right, with the ambience and the timing, but clearly all was not exactly right. It seemed as if even the whipper wills and the cicadas and the lightning bugs knew this. But meanwhile, the woman who screams upstairs was just playing innocent behind one of the boulders in the background.

Angelica had the sash in her hands, and Devon had the tremendous bundle of red silk curtain in his arms, but they found that they could not concentrate or even begin the ritual because of the obvious distraction in their midst.

Devon picked up a stray rock laying on the ground and tossed it into the pool. It made a splishy splashy sound, and this irritated him. What’s more, Angelica found that this irritated her as well.

And for this, Angelica reached down and picked up another errant rock that was lying close by. She tossed it into the pool and it made the exact same pithy splishy splashy sound that Devon‘s rock had made.

“Piss poor, that was.” They heard this coming from behind one of the background boulders.

“Just ignore her,” Devon told his partner.

“I’m trying to,”  Angelica hissed back. “But it’s a little hard to concentrate when she’s staring at us like that.”

“I’m not here,” came the voice from behind the boulder in question. They could so clearly see her arms extending out from beyond the boulder and could see the magenta train of her garment on the gravel floor. “I’m not here,” the voice said again. “Not even a little bit.”

“Just ignore her,” Devon advised. “Just focus on the ritual at hand.”

“I can’t,” she said exasperatedly. “It’s like she’s going out of her way to distract us.”

“I’m not, I swear,” the voice again. “I’m really not. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

A significant pause, and then Devon told his partner to begin. “The ritual, Lady Magistrate.”

“Stick a needle in my eye, make all the boys around me cry.”

“Son of a bitch,” Angelica screamed, throwing the red sash to the ground. “We can’t go on like this, Devon. We’ve got to clear the area.”

Devon looked at his partner long and hard, and then nodded resolutely. He turned to the boulders in the background. “Hey! Hey there! Women from the upstairs!”

“No woman here!” the voice said adamantly. “Nothing but air and wind and lots and lots of rocks! You’re entirely alone, so just keep talking and doing your thing.”

“We should probably go up and get her,” Devon said. And then he sighed.

Angelica sighed as well. “I was really hoping this wouldn’t happen tonight.”

“Get who? What would happen tonight?” the voice said. “Stay down there,  dum dums!”

As they began walking up the small hill to the surrounding boulders behind the pool, they could hear scuffing and scraping on the gravel floor. A flash of color, clusters of a garment, more scuffing, and a sizable object had shifted from one boulder to another. And then to another boulder. The more time and acceleration, the greater distance this woman ran.

“Blast,” Angelica said. “Now we’ve lost her.”

“Lost who?” the same voice said from behind one of the many distant boulders. “There’s absolutely no one here. Which means you can carry on doing whatever it is you need to do. Because there’s no one up here in the first place. So you can pretty much just continue doing whatever it is you were planning on doing.”

The pair of them rolled their eyes.

“We’re never going to catch her,” Devon muttered to his partner. “No matter how many times we go through this, she’s just too fast.”

They resigned themselves to their fate and walked back down the small hill to the central pool.

Angelica leaned down and gathered her sash. Devon leaned down and gathered the silk curtain.

Angelica drew in a deep breath and started. “Sins of our forefathers…”

A flash of color and garment. The woman who screams upstairs careening down the hill. “Belly flop!” she cried and landed smack dab in the middle of the pool.

“Goddamit,” Devon said.

“Every time,” Angelica said.