A-Cup Angst Ch. 06

"Well," drawled Jamie, "I got a perfect punishment in mind, but I don't know exactly how to draw up the spell. You two have been studying the ways nerves and magic interact in order to make the dildo, haven't you?" When the girls nodded, he waved them in close. "Here's what I have in mind..."

Mara O'Donnell was striding across the quad. Her mind was preoccupied with thoughts of violence and justice, so she didn't notice the many leering and appreciative looks she was getting from the passing students. She was of medium height and a somewhat zaftig build, but most of her weight, that fashion magazines would call excessive, was either high on the front of her chest, or low on her back and sides.

Her long, dark, wavy hair floated in the morning breeze, exposing the freckled, alabaster skin of her prominent, high cheeks to many an admiring eye. Giant, bright blue eyes were clouded with hatred. Her thick, pillowy lips were pursed tight. Her spirit guide had said Branford Hall, dorm room 309. She reached the entrance to the dormitory and barged right in.

Just last week, Mara had seen a change in her roommate Julie's spirit. Julie had been out at a party the night before. Her behavior started to slowly change over the next few days. She was becoming auto destructive and withdrawn. Mara asked Julie what was wrong, but the girl insisted everything was fine. Mara was becoming more concerned with every day, but Julie insisted she was all right. When she started screaming in her nightmares, Mara knew she had to investigate.

She sent her spirit guide to enter Julie's dreams and then report back on them. She needed to know what was making the bright girl collapse from within. Mara sat that morning, after Julie's haggard version had managed to drag herself to an early class, and meditated. Her spirit visited the infinite prairie and the otter, her spirit guide, popped out of the Great River to tell her of Julie's nightmares.

Julie was haunted every night by a dark figure that bent her will to his own and turned her into his cunt, good for one fuck only. When Mara pressed for more information, the otter told her the nightmares were not the result of an active spell or curse, but rather Julie's mind's attempts to reconcile the memory of a tremendous trauma with a complete absence of context for it. Mara and the otter came to the conclusion that Julie was raped and her mind wiped of the specific memories of the act itself. Julie could still remember the horrible trauma she felt during the violation, she just had no idea what caused it.

Mara demanded to know the cause, but the otter told her that information was not available in Julie's mind. If she truly wanted to know, then the otter would have to ask the Spirits of the Great River for the information, and the spirits would name a price. Mara ordered the otter to get the info, price be damned.

Mara climbed the stairs, looking for the door with the number 309 on it. She had already checked out the sole occupant in the registrar's office. She knew he didn't have any classes right now. Walking down the corridors and searching for the right room number brought back memories of her early childhood, on the run with her mom, moving from motel room to motel room.

Her mother had been abused heavily by Mara's biological father, so the mere thought of a man molesting a woman got her Irish up. Her mother had left the abusive dick and ran away with a tiny Mara in tow, years ago. When he couldn't find them, he literally drank himself to death. Mara's mother changed their last names to her maiden name, O'Donnell, and kept her daughter away from her grandfather's tribe.

She was fifteen when her paternal grandfather passed away in an accident. Attending his funeral was the first time Mara had set foot on an actual Native American reservation, despite her being one quarter native and thus eligible for membership in the tribe. They spent the night after the funeral rites in a motel, just outside the reservation. Mara dreamed she was sitting in an endless prairie, baking under the Sun and watching a river that flowed through the dusty land. An otter swam out of the river and addressed her by name, startling her awake. The tribe elders came to their motel in the morning and shouted abuse at Mara and her mother. They called Mara a thief, and made nasty sounding threats, and the two women cleared out of there in two shakes of a lamb's tail.

The only reason they had attended the funeral, in the first place, was because her mom had hoped the tribe would accept Mara and float some scratch towards her education and upkeep, but that was not to be. The morning incident served to validate Mrs. O'Donnell's decision to sever all contact between Mara and her "tribe".

The joke turned out to be on Mrs. O'Donnell, in the end. On the night of the funeral rites, her late father in law's spirit guide entered Mara's dreams. It fused itself to her spirit, just like it had done with her grandfather, many years earlier. Whether the tribe elders approved or not, whether Mara wanted it or not, she became the tribe's witch doctor. All the knowledge of her predecessors was, from then on, at her disposal.

At first, she wasn't aware that anything had happened. All she knew was that she suddenly started having very vivid dreams that she could always recall with perfect clarity. They didn't fade away as ordinary dreams did. And each dream consisted of her sitting in that dry prairie, baking under the Sun and talking to the otter. The conversations were incredibly illuminating. The otter gave her the best advice on life she could ever imagine. Following its guidance, Mara learned to resolve her conflicts with schoolmates, instead of waiting for the next move to a new school; got a partial scholarship to attend this prestigious University, and even managed to kiss a boy she liked.

He turned out to be a boneheaded malcontent, so they didn't do anything more, but she did get to go out on five dates with him. After a few months, the dreams became monotonous. The otter would insist they talk during the day, when Mara was awake and then began lecturing her on a ritual.

Mara then had to face the fact that she had been taking life advice from an animal that came to her while she slept. Her instinctive side told her that the animal was benevolent and that she would be alright. Her rational side told her it was long gone on vacation, will send her a postcard, and that she might as well try this ritual she kept dreaming of, night after night.

The ritual was short and simple, more a meditation than a ritual, really, and it brought her to the infinite prairie, fully awake. The otter emerged from the Great River, as it called it, and explained Mara's new situation to her. Mara's only duties were to make sure that the tribe does not become extinct, or severed from its lands. She was also supposed to advise the elders, but, seeing how they chased her off, she was off the hook on that one. In return, she could access all the supernatural knowledge of her predecessors by asking the otter. The spirit guide also conferred upon her a small amount of mystical power, so she could use all that skill and knowledge and not just dwell on it.

Mara had rarely used it. There was never any real call for it, anyway. Until Julie, her new friend, began falling apart, right before her eyes.

While the otter was swimming in the Great River, searching it for the information, Mara used the little power she had to make a dream tonic for Julie. When she came home that evening and sat in a corner and chewed her hair, instead of studying, Mara knew she was doing the right thing. She managed to get the skittish girl to accept a drink from her and Julie gulped down the cola and dream tonic. When she fell asleep, Mara put her dream catcher over Julie's bed, leaned over her ear, and began to narrate a dream in which she conquered the monster and went on with her life.

Julie woke up the next morning, refreshed and perky. She tackled her overdue essays with zeal and even cracked a joke. Mara laughed, knowing she did good.

That afternoon, she got in touch with the otter again and was told where the assailant was. She stood before door 309 and knocked. She cleared her throat and shook her arms loose. Her snake fetish was at the ready.

The rapist opened the door and immediately started to leer at the pale skinned beauty that stood before him. Mara recognized his photo from her earlier, online checkup and asked, "Are you alone?" The young man must have thought it was his lucky day, because he just nodded and opened his door wide. His eyes were glued to her tits, so he didn't see her bring up her snake fetish and touch the bare skin of his forearm with it. Horrible, crippling agony shot up his arm to render him paralyzed with pain.

Mara shoved him hard, putting all her weight into it, and he fell flat on his back. She entered the room and closed the door behind herself. "Don't worry, asshole," she told him, "this isn't fatal. Usually." When she took a closer look at the incapacitated warlock, she sensed something wrong. There was something unnatural about the man, beside his foul taint of magic.

Mara sat down next to his prone form, cross-legged, and concentrated. She found herself in the prairie, the man's spirit right before her. The otter emerged from the Great River and scooted over. The spirit was bound up in chains. Mara couldn't stop gaping at how beautiful the chains were. They shone and soaked up the light at the same time and they wrapped around the boy perfectly tight, without a beginning or an end. Mara couldn't imagine the warlock ever escaping from them, or ever getting freed by someone else.

When the otter urged her, she began to examine the chains with a critical eye. She noted three things. First was that the chains prevented the warlock from ever using magic again. In fact, it was his own magic that was actively preventing the chains from ever being removed. The second thing she noticed was that the chains constricted very tightly around the rapist's genitals. The spell was making him impotent. The third thing she saw was initially hidden. There was a nasty looking bush of thorns attached to the chains and a pretty, little bow was inside it. The bow was connected to each link of the chain with the tiniest, thinnest of threads.

"This man was recently hexed," said the otter. "He is impotent and he cannot use magic anymore."

"Yes, I got that," said Mara. "But what is this bush of thorns behind him?"

"It is the escape clause," spoke the otter. "Whoever cast this hex on the boy, knew what they were doing. Look to the thorns themselves and tell me what you see!"

"They're made out of him," she said, meaning the warlock.

"Yes, yes," praised the otter. "And the bow inside?"

"It is made out of love," she whispered, astonished that love could be a part of this powerful and debilitating hex.

"Precisely," confirmed the otter. "Forgiving your transgressor enables you to act against him with the greatest of effect. This man is doomed to be a eunuch without magic until the day a person sees all of his faults and transgression," the otter indicated the thorns, "and chooses to love him, romantically, all the same. Only that love" the otter pointed to the bow, "freely given, can free him of his doom."

"This is the perfect punishment," said Mara. "And he'll never be free of it, will he?"

"Perhaps," said the otter. "Perhaps he will. One thing is certain. If he does become free, he will be loved and inspired to redeem himself. You have no more to do here, Mara." Before Mara could thank the otter and retreat back to the physical world, it spoke on, "This man's identity came to you from the spirits that flow in the Great River. If you wish to keep their favor, you must pay the price for that knowledge." Mara nodded solemnly. The otter nodded in approval and began to draw in the sand with its tiny paws. "Your price is this, Mara! You must expose an insidious evil that lurks in the western suburbs of this city you reside in. It hides its dark magics under the most benevolent and laudable guise. Several of our blood have already fallen prey to it. Expose it!"

The otter retreated into the river, leaving Mara with a strange drawing in the sand.

Back in the physical world, Mara's eyes blinked open and she stood up. She searched the incapacitated man's room for a piece of paper and a writing implement. When she found them, she drew a copy of the symbol. It was her only real lead in the investigation. "Of our blood" was a phrasing that covered everything from pureblooded Native Americans to people who were only part Native, like she was. As she turned to leave, she gave the rapist one last look. She surmised that Section had obviously gotten to him before her. They were doing their job quite well, on the punishment side of things. If only they had fixed Julie as well, she wouldn't feel compelled to go all Nancy Drew on a weird drawing in her hand.

She kicked the rapist in the ribs and left. There was more evil to be tackled.

Jamie jumped awake, his heart beating a mile a minute, and gasped out a strangled cry. He rolled out of bed, instinctively looking for enemies. The only other person in the room was a sleeping Helena that was stirring slowly awake. He recognized that he was in a bedroom in Bastion. There was darkness outside the window and the bedside clock told him it was only four in the morning.

"Jamie," Helena mumbled, "what's wrong? Come back to bed!" She patted the sheets next to herself.

Jamie put on a pair of sweatpants and paced the room nervously. The nightmare had really disturbed him. "Yeah, yeah, in a minute," he told her, his voice shaking. He drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out. "I need a drink." He left the bedroom.

Helena grumbled wordlessly and rolled over to sleep some more. The tremor in Jamie's voice had woken her up completely, however, so she jumped out of bed and into one of his shirts to follow him downstairs.

As soon as Jamie descended the stairs, he turned and saw Sandra in the kitchen, warming up some milk. "How did you know," he asked her.

"Know what," Sandra inquired with a tired voice.

"That I wanted some warm milk," he explained.

"Oh," Sandra exclaimed softly, "I'll make some for you, too." Helena descended the stairs, followed by a sleepy Sonya who was comforting a distraught looking Rose.

"Warm up some for me, too," asked Rose, "and put some chocolate in mine. I had a nightmare."

"Me too," said Jamie.

"Me three," Sandra replied, yawning.

"Huh," said Helena. "What a coincidence. We didn't have anything heavy for dinner. And we didn't watch a horror movie, either. Can you remember any of it?"

"Yes," said Sandra and Rose in unison.

"Vividly," said Jamie, before yawning.

Helena hugged Jamie, sitting down on the stool next to his, and said, "Tell me all about it."

"I dreamed a woman was trying to gain entry into houses, malls, shops, anywhere, but she couldn't. Every door she tried was barred to her."

Rose and Sandra pricked up at hearing him say that. "I dreamed that, too," they exclaimed in unison.

"And then I was in a field, and there was a tree, it had... it's that tree that droops, you know," he said, gesturing with his hands.

"A weeping willow," said Sandra and he nodded at her guess. "I dreamed of a weeping willow in a meadow, myself, except that in my dream it was dripping-"

"With blood," exclaimed Rose. She exchanged alarmed looks with Jamie and Sandra as they suspected they were dreaming the same dream.

"The blood ran down the field until it got to a well," offered Sandra, goose bumps running down her arms.

"The well then began overflowing with green water," Jamie continued, dread gripping his insides.

"And then that water turned red, like blood," finished Rose, looking panicked.

"Then I dreamed of a butcher chopping off his own hand and spraying blood everywhere," said Jamie. Sandra and Rose nodded in horror.

"And there were price tags written in blood everywhere," said Sandra, while Jamie and Rose nodded.

"A large rock was oozing out blood, like it was bleeding," continued Rose.

"And then a woman said that she was the son of John and coughed up blood all over me, and that's when I woke up," finished Jamie. The three of them just sat there, feeling sick and scared. The knowledge that the three casters among them shared a nightmare featuring rivers of blood made all five of them struggle to keep calm.

Helena cleared her throat and said, "Coincidence, that's all." Off their disbelieving looks, she said, "Gotta be."

"It could be, like, a premonition," offered Sandra. "You know, like in the movies, where the heroes dream of what's to come and then stop it from happening."

Jamie snorted in derision, before saying, "I wish. Let's get dressed and go to the Library of folklore, they have a lot of books on interpreting the meaning of dreams. We need to get to the bottom of this!"

When he got up, Helena asked him, "Where are you going?"

"To the library," he told her, as if she was stupid. "Get up and let's go," he ordered the others.

Rose, Sandra and Sonya stood up to go dress. Helena said, "It's four in the morning, the libraries don't open for hours!"

Jamie stopped and said, "Shit! Belay last!" The three girls stopped and went back to sitting around the kitchen island. "Ok, we'll wait a few hours, I guess. Can anyone sleep?" The girls shook their heads no, even Helena. He remembered something and it gave him reason to cool down. "One thing I also remember, kinda, from the dream, is seeing Princess Fiona, from Shrek, running around in the background." He snorted a forced-sounding laugh. "See, it can't be all that bad, if there's a cartoon character in it as well."

Rose snapped her fingers and gasped, "Yes! Yes, I remember now, there was a proper lady in a ball gown, carrying a parasol between the bloody things. I don't remember any cartoon ogres, though."

Sandra asked her, "Was she a redhead and her gown was more of a kilt, and she danced the jig?" Rose shook her head no. "Because that's the girl I dreamed of. She danced from the tree to the well, and in front of the butcher's shop and around the bleeding stone."

The five of them sipped slowly on the hot cocoa Sandra poured for everyone. No one felt like going back to bed. They silently watched dawn break.

They spent the whole day in the library, skipping lectures to pour over the various books on interpreting dreams. They even consulted a whole host of online dream dictionaries. Twice, they suspended their research to go eat, but they were back at it as soon as their stomachs stopped hurting.

By the time the library closed, they knew one thing and one thing only. The answer to the mystery of their shared nightmare was not to be found there. Each and every book offered a radically different interpretation of the things they saw in their dream.

Jamie rubbed his tired eyes and sighed. "That was a waste of fucking time," he said. The group walked towards the parking lot, where the BMW and the Wrangler awaited them.

"We should contact Moran," Helena said. "Maybe Section knows what magician's dreams mean."

Jamie grunted in response. "Maybe," he said. The day's work left him feeling like dreams were vastly overrated. It was all probably just a coincidence, brought up by the fact that they cast wards together. He opened his mouth to say something, but was stopped by Sandra tensing up. He let his instincts guide him as he unleashed one of his stored spirits. In an instant, the three casters were able to comprehensively, telepathically communicate with each other.

"Danger," thought Sandra. Rose and Jamie instantly picked up on the meaning behind her word. They were about to be attacked.