Short Fiction Excerpt: “The Consortium of Witches and the Peculiar”
“My tongue is possessed by a barely restrained devil,” Candice thought to herself as she contemplated the benefits of a long languorous kiss. Her tongue was roaming the interior of her mouth, but noticing her annoyance, it settled itself back comfortably into the curvature of her lower palette.
“Now, if you find yourself animated by a spirit of beauty where otherwise it would not reside,” Mrs. Falcon looked at the class meaningfully, “you will have to come to know who you’ve become. You have a variety of organs that will compete for your attention. Does one of those organs call to you in the absence of more precise description? Think, feel, and close your eyes.”
The ladies attending The Consortium of Witches and the Peculiar followed instructions as if part of a synchronized team. Their eyes blinked shut in unison and if the ineffable could be expressed, their settling into feeling would be like water color painted vapor. Perhaps, describing it as colorful auras suspended in an air that had suddenly taken on a more substantial weight would do. Candice, however, was still fixated on her tongue.
“The rude interruptions of a very soft cat may first come to mind. The cat will not desist until it is finally pet in the full grace of Venus. By and by, take this metaphor as you will, but think of it first as a symbol of the senses demanding attention in ways that are both pleasurable and disrupting all at once. The senses, if the prior metaphor will not do, may be imagined as the sea expressing itself in waves of yearning interspersed with bouts of fulfilled separation.”
The ladies swayed to imaginary waves as they listened with rapt eyes hidden behind closed lids.
“Your eyes…let’s say it is vision that distracts or draws you. Each eye is a window and a mirror. Each eye reflects softness and depth, hardness and shallowness. Time will be forgotten in the eternal glance, in the vision expressed as water for the soul, in the loveliness of blended colors and forms.”
Behind each eye lid, the women submerged themselves in landscapes of flowing colors. The swaying movement was slower now as it was taking place within.
“Perhaps the colors will take form in sound. Do you hear the beauteous melodies around you? Can you imagine the sounds as created by your hands or from your voice? Imagine Venus breathing down beauty as power of sound. Whether speech or music, under Venusian influence, the sounds pose an intoxicating risk though one may think of that risk as a virtue. We may lose ourselves in it or rise from it, the strands of sounds tangled in the curvature of our maze like minds.”
Chimes were caressed by a mellow breeze and leaves rustled as the ladies quietly connected to the auditory world, a world easily neglected until one’s attention is drawn to it or until one is asked to ignore it. The ladies knew this well as meditation practice instructed them in the power of sound on a daily basis.
“Your hair may take on a life of its own. It will reach out and cling to that which it likes. Like an entity in and of itself, it will come to know others intimately, intertwining itself in the warmth of the hair of others or perhaps obstinately tangling itself on decorations pleasing to the eye but not of practical utility. When discovering yourself under the influence of Venus, you may find that the hair calls for painting, to know itself in a different hue, or perhaps it may yearn for darling waves, mysterious ringlets, or smooth unfolding strands.”
Candice was starting to feel like she was in a daze. Despite the consistent meditation practice, her tongue was still depriving her of deeper concentration. She started rubbing her tongue back and forth over the ridges of the roof of her mouth.
The teacher continued, her expression birdlike.
“Scent also is favorably influenced by Venus. You may become addicted to olfactory impulses. Along a path, your scent may sensuously float on the air before you, announcing and asserting your presence before you arrive. The same may happen with departures. Though you have left the room, a part of you still resides. Expressed under the favorable aspect of Venus, your scent will take on a character all its own. People will come to know you by your choice of scent, and you will come to know yourself as you experience the permutations of each thing you smell. You may find yourself drawn to one scent, one school of scent, or many scents and the draw may vary on the setting. Taste…”
Candice make a clicking sound quite abruptly. She twirled her hair. The teacher’s gaze narrowed down on her instantaneously.
“Taste…will allow you to learn about a land and about your heart’s impulses. It will offer you the diametrics of your beauty: how you house it versus how you imagine it.”
Although Mrs. Falcon’s gaze was but recently zeroed in on the clicking tongue of Candice, she took a graceful stand to a side board upon which stood a copper tray with several delicate crystal glasses filled with a rose hued cordial.
“Taste will both reward and disappoint.” She continued as she handed each lady a glass. “You will crave flavors and sensation. It might be the sparkling of a champagne, the heat of an exotic spice, or the pleasant mildness of a tisane.”
The ladies sipped their cordials with intense curiosity, batting their eyelashes after spending so much time with shut eyes.
“When Beauty guides you to discover the health of your man, what would you do?”
The teacher’s question was unexpected. Candice almost spit out her cordial.
“I would tell him to do oil pulling,” Morgan responded, not missing a step of the lecture.
Mrs. Falcon batted her eye lashes in response.
“That is one of the better answers. Oil pulling not only offers a taste, it also offers a sensation only experienced by the tongue.You will feel contrary influences torn out. Poisonous things, poisonous words, and toxins will find themselves uprooted and dispelled. The interesting thing about it is that it is an act that can join you with your beloved. It can act as a bridge to a kiss, the kind that Venus blesses.”
“The next organ is the skin. It’s a tricky one. The sensation of touch can be riveting, ravishing, or even soothing. It can provoke, excite, or heal. The skin will express itself in thirst, heat, or coldness and pallor, fluctuating fluidly with your changing nuance of composure.As I mentioned, there is an element of trickiness to it: you will have to find a way to accept your skin’s function as clock. Trust that Venus has granted you her personal grace. You will be able to carry the map of your life in mesmerizing beauty at all points of its expression. In sickness and in health, your skin will radiate Venus’ light.”
“What about the womb?” Bailey asked.
“Venus’ love shall grant you fruit generated and nurtured by the womb once the seed has been sown.”
“And liver?” another voice chimed in.
“Venus’ grace is like a medicine. Your anger shall be healed, and the liver reoptimized so long as not otherwise irredeemably poisoned. You are but mortal after all.”
“The brain?” a hushed voice inquired from the back.
The teacher blinked her eyes. Candice noticed this. The eyelids of the women in the room were not static. They fluttered like moth wings in moonlight. Their eyelids were as hyperactive as her tongue.
“Your brain may become intoxicated. The senses could be obscured in the brain if your mind becomes trapped in cyclical ruminations. Our lady’s grace is like a mist. It seeps in and take up space. If her grace has truly touched you, you may transmute obsession to fascination, the kind that draws in rather than repels. Perhaps, as an alternate manifestation, you will find something beautiful in a space that was once more vacant.”
As if on cue, a bell rang in various tones which hung and slithered along the currents of air, echoing weirdly along the corridors of stone. Cordial glasses were put aside like a barely held memory; the ladies were stirring upward and onward, thoughts aflame with organ-planetary associations. Candice sat discontent, slave to her tongue.
