House of Persephone - Chapter 12

Twelve

The atmosphere in the House tonight is electric. I’ve walked the space a few times, but now the audience is in their seats. I look through the curtain and I can see Mel in the front row. She is wearing a dress, but still looks out of her element amongst the elite classes that come to our shows.

“Are you ready for tonight?”

Echo smiles at me as they stretch behind me.

“I don’t think I could be more ready.”

Echo chuckles behind me. This installation couldn’t have been possible without Echo’s help. I got stuck at the midpoint and they brought fresh ideas when I needed them so badly. This piece sunsets everything I hate being ushers in everything I’ve ever hoped to be. The more I work with this troupe, the more clear it becomes that they’re not just actors, but practitioners of the craft in such a deep way that they produce work that looks like magic. These artists have raised my abilities to new heights. I almost lose myself in the wave of gratitud when Willow’s voice slices through the air.

No microphone. No music.

Just breath, shaped into something holy and terrible.

"Good evening, bearers of breath and bone."

The House falls into a deeper silence than I’ve ever felt. Like it’s bracing.

"Tonight is not a performance. Tonight is not theater. Tonight is a binding."

The torches along the walls gutter low, the flames bending toward her like creatures desperate for her warmth.

"You have come here thinking you are untouched. Thinking you are safe. You are not."

Willow's voice vibrates like a thread under strain, thin enough that if you touched it, it would sing or snap.

"You are all woven into the loom of this night. You are all stitched into what is about to unfold."

She steps forward into a sliver of light, and for a moment, it isn't Willow at all. Her features are not different, exactly. But they are… sharpened. Hollowed. Carved out by something older.

"Mackie has been chosen, yes. But so have you."

Somewhere, someone in the audience shifts uneasily. A breath caught too loud. A whisper stifled.

"You will watch him step forward. You will watch him lay himself bare. You will feast on the undoing of him, and you will not turn away."

Her voice shudders once like a ripple under glass.

"For in every act of beauty, there is a butcher. In every offering, a hunger."

I take a small look outside the curtain and see Mel who looks pale and nervous. What is she so worried about?

A sound rises, not applause, not cheering, but a soft, low hum. From the audience. From the walls. From the House itself. As if the building is exhaling. As if the House of Persephone has been waiting for this moment longer than any of us knew. The torches snuff out all at once. A heartbeat of pure black. And then, the curtain rises.

Raven passes by me with a copal filled censer in hand. The sound of the rattling chain echoes through the room as they fill the space with the dense, syrup-like smoke. The audience begins shuffling and some coughing. I can feel the copal coat my own lungs as I take slow and deep breaths as I watch Raven almost float from corner to corner of the room. My cue is coming as she begins the walk back to the wings. I whisper under my breath a new ritual before stepping on stage. No longer do I cling to the old adages from college. I am no longer the artist I was, I am only the artist I am.

“He pulls. I obey.”

I step on stage through the dense smoke of the copal. My arms stretch out towards the heavens above. My arms are stretched to their limit as my legs drag a little behind me. I am testing the limits of my full reach. All I can think of is how badly I want to ascend to a better place. Suddenly, I am flipped by an unseen body that crawled through the smoke and now lay flat on my back. Pieter represents the unseen forces behind the rugs that have been pulled from underneath me. He stands and laughs at me. I feel shame, great shame. Suddenly, a chair slides to me. I take a seat as a small table drops from above. On the table, an array of makeup. I begin to put on the thick makeup and create the same character from my final show in Spokane. I can see Mel’s face as she begins to recognize what she sees. I’m halfway finished putting it on when suddenly, Echo enters and blows a puff of white substance into my face. I sneeze all over the makeup I was just applying. I throw my hands onto the table and swing everything on top to the floor making a loud crash. Echo immediately stands opposite of me at the table and begins making lines on the table for me.

In.

Out.

In.

Euphoria?

This is coke. Wait, is this for real? My heart begins pounding and I feel myself hitting the speed I’ve missed these last few months. What is happening? My mind begins to move too fast to remember my blocking, but I’m not about to fail, I will not stop this performance. Echo looks at me like they were forced to do something against their will. I swear I saw Echo say they’re sorry. Before I can fully register anything Pieter returns. My heart is beating in my head and pressing against the inside of my skull like something inside me is desperately trying to work its way outside of me. I hope I don’t look as lost as I feel. Pieter yanks me forward, and the table bites into my shins… Good. Pain means I’m still here.

The thread tugs, and the thread does not loosen.

Pieter swings me as I slowly lay flat on the floor. Pieter hooks me to a pulley system he crafted for me on the floor and ascends upwards to the ceiling. I feel the pull on my arms first and then my legs. I levitate like bird in the sky. As I raise up, I am covered in feathers falling from above. I rise and fall smoothly. I am the feather, I am finding myself.

Up.

Down.

Up.

Down.

My body slowly descends back to the floor as the altar from The Offering is brought on stage by Raven and Pieter… This feels off.

Where’s Echo?

I look at the stone surface. That’s when I see it.

Waiting for me.

Laid atop the cracked stone, bathed in a light so pale it feels stolen from the moon itself: a blade. Not a prop. Not theater. This is real.

Obsidian, black and wet-looking, like it had just been birthed from the mouth of the earth. The edge is so thin it almost disappears if I don’t look directly at it. It doesn’t gleam. It drinks the light.

And somehow, I don’t recoil. I lean closer. As if the blade hums a note just for me, a frequency too low for hearing but felt deep inside the marrow. A song without words, crooning to some ancient part of me that was always waiting to be summoned. At the base of the altar, carved deep into the stone, there it is: a hand, wrist split clean and deliberate, pouring blood into the soil where a willow fig rises from the spill. Not lush. Not green. The fig tree is carved as skeletal, starved. It thrives not despite the blood, but because of it.

My hand lifts slightly.

Unbidden.

The thread around my finger tightens.

Am I still free?

No one moves. No one speaks. The smoke thickens, sweet and choking at once. The blade seems to pulse with my heartbeat, waiting, patient, knowing. There is no question. There is only the altar.The blade. And the hand that must be given.

My eyes drift to Mel. She looks terrified. I can tell she wants to get up, but she can’t. She’s a prisoner of this moment.

I know what must be done. I’m not afraid.

Should I be?

The blade comes closer to me, I touch my skin on my wrist and-

“STOP!”

Echo’s voice rips through the air like a tsunami through a lighthouse.

The lights quickly shift to the dull fluorescent of the work lights in the theater. Willow is on stage faster than a predator on its prey.

“What do you think you’re doing, Echo?”

Echo is shaking, but seems confident at the same time. The audience looks frozen in time.

“I will not stand by and let this bullshit happen again.”

Willow’s face contorts in a puzzlement I wish I had the front of the box to. I’ve never seen her confused like this.

“Echo… I thought you were truly one of us.”

Echo smiles.

“No, you didn’t. You’ve never thought much of me, and now I’ll make sure you never forget me.”

Echo turns and looks at the audience.

“When I was a child, my parents already belonged to a group of fanatics. I never knew anything different, so I never thought it was strange when they punished us for questioning them. I never thought to speak up when I saw them beat my closest friend in the compound within an inch of her life because she dared to give herself pleasure. I never stood up when they forced a baby out of me with the same tools I ate dinner with…”

Echo’s shoulders are shaking, I can tell they’re crying, but you wouldn’t know it by the strength in their voice.

“This House is not just a well branded campaign making art that pushes boundaries. This House is-”

Suddenly Willow has her hand on Echo’s shoulder.

“Thank you folks, this performance is over. It’s time for you to leave. The artists will meet you in the lobby shortly.”

Nobody moved.

“I said LEAVE.”

Suddenly, everyone rose and left the room. Mel connected eyes with me on the way out. Her eyes were like a lightning bolt on a placid lake. She mouthed to me on the way out.

“I’ll wait for you.”

I couldn’t respond, but I knew she was right.

Something isn’t right, and Echo turns to face Willow now.

“You got them out, Willow. What are you going to do to me?”

“You insolent little fuck! What the hell are you thinking?”

“You’re not going to do this to him. You think you’re safe? You think you’re in control? It isn’t you who pulls, you have no clue what he’ll ask for next.”

I’m snowblind. I can hear them and I can see them, but it feels like this is happening in another world. What was about to happen to me?

I’m lost in my mind. Even if I wanted to run, I don’t think I can. The copal has coated my lungs, the coke has diluted my mind. Why did they give me drugs? I had finally kicked them and now I’m pulled back in, I’ve tasted the sky only to realize I’m soaring on frail wings of vanity and wax. I can hear doubt and fear between the heart and the synapse. My vision clears a little to see Echo is screaming now.

“You are all indoctrinated in this cult! You have to leave!”

Willow shakes her head. Not in anger, but in something else. She exudes a coolness that feels surgical.

“Oh, Echo… You could have been something. But, I know there’s no way this would happen unless it was meant to.”

Echo turns to me and gets close enough that I can smell their toothpaste from before the show. I can see the teeth in their mouth that has been removed. I can see the look in their eyes that looks a lot like they must have as a child. Echo, even though they look more desperate than I’ve ever seen them, looks serene. Their eyes settle deep into mine.

“Mackie, you’re already the artist you want to be. YOU HAVE TO RU-”

It feels as though the House inhaled all of the air in the room. Nobody dares to move.

Echo’s eyes grow as large as the moon. Their hands raise up to their cheeks and I see they’re covered in blood. Smoother than choreography Marin steps from behind Echo with the Obsidian blade in hand. Her eyes gleamed like something feral had finally been allowed to surface.

“You cannot take what is not yours. Blood for blood, Echo.”

My heart is screaming in my head. I’ve never seen a body before and now I’m seeing Echo’s life drain from them. Did Echo just give their life to protect me? Their body hits the floor like Goliath. I hear their body splash in their blood against the hard crack of wood beneath them. I look over to Willow and find that she has maintained her confidence, but I can tell she’s worried. She didn’t expect this. She looks to Marin.

“Marin… What have you done?”

Marin brings the blade to her lips and licks it clean.

“Willow… You know better than anyone. He pulls. I obey.”

Willow holds eyes with Marin long enough that this feels like a challenge of power. Willow looks at me and blazes towards me, grabbing my arm hard and pulling me to the wings.

“Mackie, come with me!”

As we make our way through the wings I see Alfie crying on the floor while Sean holds him. Pieter and Raven are passing by us with mops and towels in hand. Nobody says a word. All I can hear is Willow’s hard breathing as we make our way to her office. The door flies open and she sits me in the chair. I look up at Hecate and her eyes are closed, not even she can watch this. I hear the door slam shut and a key lock it behind us.

Willow wanted me alone.

I cannot express how afraid I am right now.

Willow settles in her chair and looks at me. Her eyes soften and she begins to cry.

“Mackie… I don’t know what to do!”

She isn’t Willow right now, no, this is the woman who I held crying when her grandmother died junior year of college. I feel a shift in her.

My Billie.

“I can’t believe what just happened… Marin is a little intense, but I never knew she’d be do that to Echo. That was… That was…”

She sobs across the table from me. The difference between who she was outside of this room and who she is right now, could not be more stark. I know there’s no way I can say the right thing, so I say the first thing I can think of.

“I’m so sorry, Billie. I’m so sorry.”

I reach my hand to hold hers and she meets me in the middle of the table. She’s shaking.

“Mackie, I know you were close with Echo. Did you know?”

“I had no idea… But Bill… I have to ask… why was there a knife at all?”

Billie’s eyes looked at me and it was almost as though I could had asked the question she feared most. It was like looking into the eyes of a child who’s laying over their mothers body.

“You still don’t get it?”

“What’s there to get?”

Her gaze softened, her hand held mine gently like once upon a time when we had plans to run to Chicago together and start our own troupe. When we used to play cards until 2am and just talk about our dreams and our past life together. When we would go grocery shopping holding hands with one hand and pushing the cart together with the other. Finally, she let me see her.

“When you left… You don’t realize how alone I was. Do you even remember that night? You got the call about Jon and you broke our mirror. Do you remember? I held you on the bathroom floor while you cried for hours and then I helped you pack. You said, ‘just a few things, I’ll be back before you know it. I just gotta help my mom right now.’ Before I knew it became fifteen years of radio silence, Mackie.”

I couldn’t respond. There was nothing I could say. I just listened.

“I tried to call you and your phone was in our living room. I mean-”

She opened a drawer and pulled out an old smartphone. It was mine.

“All those years and I kept it. I didn’t know where you lived in Spokane, and after a few months I stopped caring. You’ll never understand what it’s like to be a woman alone forcing spaces to open for her. Every room I enter I know there are eyes looking at me with a desire to devour me. To command respect, I had to do what I had to do. I worked so hard to become what I am and dammit Mackie, I did it alone… This House… Moros… This isn’t just a small thing for me.”

“I never said it was… And I’m sorry fo-”

She put her finger up in the air to stop me.

“I am choosing this. This is what I want, Mackie. And it’s so clear to me now why you were brought here in the first place… You are my last thread.”

The reality of it lands inside me like a stone dropped into deep water. No splash. Just sinking.

Maybe I was never here to stay. Maybe I was only ever meant to be the nail that sealed the door behind her.

Billie stands up and walks towards me. Her gaze pulls me up out of the chair. She gets close, close enough for me to smell her skin a little. She steps up, pulls me in, and kisses me deeply. Every feeling I’ve ever felt for her comes crashing over me. This isn’t a flood of memory, it’s a baptism I’m willing to drown in.

I lean back and can tell by the look in Billie’s eyes this is going to be the last time I see her. Her hair falls over her eye and she smiles.

“I’ll always love you Mackie. Never forget that.”

“I’ll always love you too, Billie.”

Suddenly her countenance turned. Her features got sharper, her stance got taller. She has transformed before my eyes. Her voice was pressing into me.

Willow has returned.

“Understand that I belong to him, and that’s what I want.”

A finality that striked me to the core.

“Now leave. And don’t let anyone see you go.”

I know this is what has to happen. I’m not enough for The House.

I’m not enough for Billie.

I stumble out of her office and the door seals behind me. I hear the click of the lock. I heard her say I shouldn’t see anyone, I’m not going to go anywhere before I say goodbye to my friends. We have crafted beauty from the thorns of our lives, carved our hearts hollow and wore them like a mask. I have to apologize to Echo, even if they can’t hear me. Everything that’s happened is my fault, it was my production and things went haywire. I was a fool to believe I could ever amount to this Company.

I walk the halls of the House and make my way to my sleeping quarters. For the first time, I notice how impersonal it is here. No pictures from my life, my few belongings still in the box they were in when I first got here. Even my clothes are just a smattering of solid black clothes meant for movement. It feels like I was stripped away bit by bit until I became exactly what The Pantheon wanted me to be. It was worth it in so many ways, but for the first time since I’ve arrived here I’m wondering if it truly was. What will I take from all of this? Will it ever amount to the same of what it took from me?

The halls feel longer than before, the walls breathing almost imperceptibly, flexing inward like lungs starved for air. The familiar scent of copal thickens with every step, cloying now, syrupy. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. The closer I get, the more the air hums with a low vibration, so low I feel it more in my bones than my ears.

I can’t find anyone backstage. The world behind the wings is empty. Hollow. But there… abandoned in the corner… a mop bucket filled with soapy, blood-tinged water. A rag floats on the surface, limp, like a drowned bird.

I swallow hard and push forward.

The air feels thicker here, so dense that it’s like moving through clay. As I step onto the stage, the smoke parts for me. And I see them.

The Obal Company. Pieter. Raven. Alfie. Sean. Marin.

They stand around the altar in perfect, frozen symmetry. Each one silent. Each one watching.

Their faces are wrong. Not twisted. Not monstrous.

Worse.

Blank.

Serene.

Pleased.

Marin smiles wide, feral, teeth gleaming too white in the torchlight. The wildness in her eyes hasn’t faded since she plunged the blade into Echo.

Behind them, filling the seats again like they never left, the Pantheon watches. Their silhouettes are sharp and rigid, as if they were carved there, birthed by the House itself. Mel’s drink still sits at the legs of her chair, but she is still nowhere to be found.

They’ve been waiting for me.

The altar calls to me now, a gravity I can no longer resist. Each step toward it feels like shedding something… memory, fear, self.

The stone gleams wetly in the torchlight. The carved image, the wrist, the bleeding willow fig, seems to ripple as I approach, the blood from the carving almost seems to seep across the altar, as if welcoming me. The blade waits, calling like a siren, still singing that low, terrible note in my bones.

I don’t know if I’m walking or being pulled anymore. I don't know if the thread tightens, or if I'm tightening it myself.

If The Pantheon is here, where is Mel? She’s not in the wings. Not among the Pantheon. Did she leave? Did she run? Or worse… Was she in that mop bucket? Another sin.

I step into the center of the ritual taking a deep breath.

In.

I was never enough.

I will be.

Out.

And with me in place… the House begins to breathe again.

Thank you for reading! I’m so glad you’re here :)