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<mark>They tugged on the strings, machinations, always deliberate but,
they brought Gertrude and Agnes together - and even after everything, she still struggled to really decide; was it as much of a curse as it seemed?</mark>
><mark>[[Hit play.]]</mark><mark>Like a moth to the flame, how was Gertrude meant to stop? How was she meant to walk away?
A calling to a cast out Messiah for a cult she meant to dismantle, it was <<cyclinglink "exhilarating" "irresistible" "intoxicating">>, really.</mark>
<mark>[[A ritual]]; ashes and iron; a circle and cool Scottish air; dirt and glass and the scent of wet pine needles,</mark>
><mark>(and a lie; can't forget the lie)</mark>
<mark>-- and an unbreakable bond.
(She was the first, the first, but not the last. Seemed so special, then, so enticing.)
(How was Gertrude to know the scope of what lurked in shadows?)
(Endless. Limitless.)
(But that was later.)
Entrapment really, but of course it was; it fit.</mark>
> <mark>Wrapped up all neat and tidy and ready for them to pull her in. She'd dance for them because she didn't yet know that [[she had to resist.]]</mark><mark>She had read and read and dedicated every last word to memory and she still felt underprepared as she stood in the forest, feet planted firmly on the ground before the crudely constructed altar.
("Is it enough?" she'd wondered.)
(Everything she'd read indicated it probably was. And what if complicating it brought anything... unwanted into the equation?)
(No. Keep it simple, she told herself. Utilitarian. She was here to banish, after all, and if all went correctly it wasn't as if anyone ought to //see// it.)
She lined up the bottles, counted them out. Simple, clear, well-washed; she'd been saving them instead of leaving them out on the doorstep to be collected. Cost an arm and a leg.
The nails, next, before them. Enough, plus four spares, [[stowed in her cardigan pocket.]]</mark><mark>Oh, but when she knew--
Enraging, all consuming; she felt her rage go up in flames; the deception! The audacity!
(And to speak nothing of the pain, because how could she speak with her lungs alight? Burning as bright as her <<cyclinglink "rage" "agony" "betrayal">>.)</mark>
<mark>She really thought she could have been a hero, really thought she could put a stop to it, thought she could make a difference.
A difference, perhaps [[but hardly a dent.]]</mark><mark>It felt so much like the sun and the moon, ever circling, shining back her light.
The sun could live without the moon, of course, but they were trapped in one anothers' gravity, trapped until such a time as it burnt out.
So long it felt like eternity.
Maybe it would be.
Perhaps, though, Gertrude was not the moon.
Because the sun could live without the moon, yes, but it wouldn't <<cyclinglink "suffer" "perish" "extinguish">> if it left though some cosmic tragedy.</mark>
<mark>Maybe Gertrude was more a black hole, slowly pulling her closer,
and would it be best for the sun to burn out first, or [[to be swallowed whole?]]</mark><mark>When they finally met, Agnes was beautiful and bright and Gertrude wanted to shield her eyes lest she was blinded by it.
She didn't. Perhaps that was her mistake.
Much as she loathed Agnes' followers, Gertrude had to admit she admired her.
She was powerful. And Gertrude recognised that in herself; the loneliness that brought.It's hard to find peers when you're so high up [[the others cannot breathe at your level.]]</mark><mark>And then, pictures of herself. Passport photos; she hadn't wanted to risk taking photographs not good enough on her little 35mm film camera.
(And //that// cost her a bloody fortune; worse even than the bottles.)
All cut out into neat little squares already - she was nothing if not prepared.
She slipped one into each bottle before stepping back.
The first step was to hang the nails.
One in each tree trunk, hammered in far enough to be stable, with enough hanging out to let the bottles hang a little loose.
Her arm ached, but [[she knew she was far from done.]]</mark><mark>A little dirt in some bottles, a few pine needles in others; it was grounding. It was supposed to keep Gertrude bound to this plane of existence as she banished the monster they called a god.
She tied string around the neck of each tree with utmost care; had been practising on ribbon for weeks in advance, ensuring what she'd learned at Girl Guides hadn't escaped her memory.
Finally, the hair.
A strand of hers, a strand of Agnes's, braided together. Just enough for each bottle.
(At the time, all she'd read lead her to think this would give Gertrude some power over her; to cast her out, to remove her from this world, never to darken Earth's doors again.)
[[(It was easy to see why that didn't work with hindsight.)]]</mark><mark>But she forged ahead with the confidence of a woman who'd read too much and practised too little.
And when the last one hung up, she felt a shift, something not quite seismic but it was real, she knew it was real.
It had to be real after what followed.
She channeled her energy into each bottle as she hung it up, and when she lit a single match in the eerie stillness of the clearing (No wind? In Scotland? She should have known then, before the spark lit, but she was too [[focused on everything else--)|Hit play.]]</mark><mark>She would never have called it love.
She wasn't quite sure what she would call it.
In some ways, she supposed, she was one of Agnes's most devout followers.
Consistently, she'd return to tend the ritual site, keep them bound - and that was veneration, of a form.
And despite her twisted devotion, Agnes could not do what she needed to so long as Gertrude held her like that.
As they spoke, it became apparent to her that Agnes... didn't resent that [[quite as much as she thought she would.]]</mark><mark>It wasn't like they could touch - Gertrude wasn't self destructive.
But they could talk;
voice things that had lived in their heads for years, connections they never knew they were making, never realised really left their own heads. They did, they leaked, they knew more about one another than they ever let on.
It was fulfilling - she could say little more than that, because she wasn't quite sure what they had.
It was... good?</mark>
> <mark>She wanted more?</mark>
> <mark>She wished she could reach out?</mark>
> <mark><<cyclinglink "Feel her skin?" "Touch her face?" "Kiss her lips?" "Know the rhythm of her pulse?">></mark>
<mark>[[She knew better.]]</mark><mark>Maybe if things had been different, maybe she would have <<cyclinglink "reached out and touched." "found a way to make it not hurt quite so badly." "taken the hit if she'd known Agnes as anything other than a threat.">>
(Sometimes when she got really lonely- sometimes, she'd hold her hand over a candle and see how long she could tolerate.)
(Sometimes, she'd nearly convince herself she could cope.)
(Sometimes she'd pick up the phone, sometimes she'd be halfway to dialling her number and checking she was home before she caught herself.)
Gertrude was not self destructive.
She swore she wasn't.
So if she went to bed (alone) thinking of auburn hair and long limbs and green eyes that burnt right through her; it was self preservation.
Thoughts couldn't hollow her out from the inside.
(Had the Lonely's grip managed to tighten around her ankle [[when she wasn't looking?)]]</mark><mark>The anger that had burned so bright for so long, it paled as time went on, down into still simmering need-fire, necessary, but only embers.
She wouldn't blame it on her age.
She wouldn't, because that interfered with nothing else save for the twinges and aches. She was still herself.
[[And Agnes was still Agnes.]]</mark><mark>It was a curse after all.
Forcing her into this orbit, this inescapable push-pull, and not even letting her know how much she had been missing this whole time.
And when she did know, it was so close yet so untouchable.
It was a curse, to want, to need, but never to touch.
It was a curse she wouldn't trade for all the knowledge in the world.</mark>