By Eric Kao
“Sex Shells—we sell sex shells by the sea floor. How can I kelp you?”
Fulana nervously swept an errant lock of brown hair back and fumbled the spiral shell she held to her ear. In the other hand, she held a soft-bristle brush—it was okay to return it, right? Or no, was she being weird? Anxiety filled her chest and she almost put the sex shell down.
“Sex Shells here. Shello?” The voice coming from the shell became muffled, as if the merwoman on the other side had covered the opening with her hand. “Gilb, no one’s answering. Do I just disconnect or what?”
Fulana took a gulp of air as if she were about to dive into the sea, and bobbed her head, cradling the shell to her mouth. “Uh, uh, sorry. I’m here.” Her voice sounded tinny, traveling through the shell. Sometimes she imagined her words were taken by a little hermit crab—all her hopes and insecurities tucked into its shell—as it scuttled to a world far away. Somewhere that she was, well, not this. Somewhere that she was confident and suave enough to wink—wink, for Thread’s sake!—and not be so embarrassed she might die right after.
“Oh, there you are! Hi, this is Sex Shells—we sell sex shells by the sea floor. How may I kelp you, Miss …?”
Fulana jerked the shell from her ear as if it were hot. A name? They wanted a name? They never asked for a name. “Th-this is”—she cast around desperately, her eyes falling on the trees that shot up from the soil where the sand ended—“Sandy Tree Minx.” She clapped a hand over her mouth, her facing going scarlet despite no one from the village being anywhere near her.
Even if they were on the beach, they’d never see her. She’d made sure of that—checked and double-checked. The rock formation hid her perfectly from all angles. It formed a structure like a well, but above ground. The only possible way to see her would be climbing the rocks and peering down from above. And they’d have to break her perimeter binding to get close enough without her detecting.
No chance. There was a reason everyone in the village came to her for their security needs. She was the strongest binding witch in this village. And the next. And the next. You’d have to go all the way to one of the big cities to find an enchantress as strong as her when it came to binding and even then, she’d give them a run for their money, if she did say so herself.
The commissions of house bindings, chest locks, and other security enchantments was why she had the coin she did to talk to Gileen.
Ah, Gileen. Fulana’s lips tugged upward into a smile and she hugged the brush to her chest. The blood that had rushed to her face, bringing with it the crushing self-consciousness, ebbed away and she relaxed.
The sultry voice from the shell seemed unfazed by her hypersexual pseudonym. “Okay, Miss Tree Minx, now what—”
“Sandy.”
“Can I—um, I’m sorry?”
Fulana rubbed the back of her neck. If she was going to commit to the role, she might as well really commit. Names, after all, had power. They, like anything, like everything, were just another binding. Words to a concept. And what were people if nothing more than a concept?
She shook herself from following that existential tangent again and patted her cheek. “I-it’s Sandy Tree Minx, not just ‘Tree Minx’.” She chewed her cheek. It mattered, didn’t it?
“Of course, miss.” The whiff of annoyance was unmistakable in the woman’s voice. Her tone had a saccharine quality—congeniality strained through clenched teeth. “What can I help, uh, kelp you with?”
“I have Gileen’s brush!” Fulana perked up, despite herself.
“Her brush…?”
Fulana hastily set the brush on her lap and clutched the sex shell with both her hands, as if grasping someone’s wrist who was pulling away. She’d prepared for this—the shock they’d have at the implication she had physical contact with one of their workers. “It was a one-time thing!” Her voice warbled dangerously close to cracking and she braced herself against a rock. “I didn’t see her, I swear. My eyes were bound shut.” Not that they needed to be.
Gileen had insisted, though. One look at her, at the sea serpents adorning her head like ever-cascading loops of hair, and Fulana would die… unless she truly loved Gileen.
Oh, Gileen had been quick to assert her official stance. Lots of people, men and women, ‘fell in love’ with her. And Fulana didn’t really feel that way, it was just the sex. The many hours of intimate, sensual conversations, the exhilarating freedom of feeling desired. At least, that was Gileen’s theory.
Fulana dropped a hand from the shell and stroked the brush with a smile. Theory—it was all well and good. She was quite the theorist herself—on what lay beyond the normal plane, on the magic of the fascial plane. Those theories would have gotten her labelled a heretic if the Society of the Knot ever found out. But it was the tangle of those very theories that made her so good at binding magic.
So she knew plenty about theories—more than enough to know when one was full of shit.
Fulana stifled a giggle, stroking the soft hairs of the brush with her thumb. Sensual conversations mistaken for love? She and Gileen rarely talked about sex anymore. Instead, their long hours were filled with Gileen’s stories of the sea, and in return, Fulana’s stories of the land. Of the time Gileen swam in on the Merking seducing one of his servants (so she claims). Of their shared giggling over the strange, fascinating, or downright embarrassing things people paid Fulana to bind into a chest, away from prying hands. Oh, and she didn’t feel bad about spilling their secrets to Gileen! Who was she going to tell anyway? She didn’t know anyone on the land.
Fulana craned forward, pressing the shell’s opening to her mouth. “I-I’d like to talk to her. Gileen. Arrange to give her back her brush.”
There was a long pause, filled only with the strumming as Fulana fiddled with the brush. They’d let Gileen see her, right? It had been unusual for them to meet, but everything had been approved. It wasn’t like they were doing anything wrong.
***
“Hello?”
Fulana’s heart skipped at Gileen’s musical voice coming through the shell. The familiar rustle of scales sliding over each other filled the background—Gileen’s ‘hair’ getting comfortable, no doubt. Fulana jumped to her feet. “Gileen! I-I have your brush. You left it by accident and I found it on the rocks after we, well, you know, and-and I just wanted you to get it back because I know you can’t use any ordinary brush and your snakes really like this one so can we meet?” She gulped in a breath, her heart pounding.
Gileen snorted, followed by a throaty giggle. “Damn, girl, you get one taste of the salty sea and you’re already thirsty, again?”
Fulana flushed, warmth tingling down her arms and legs. “No, no, it’s not just that!” She bit her lip as memories of their time together washed through her. It had been amazing. No, transcendent. And not just the sex, though that was life-altering, too! No one had ever gotten her like Gileen did.
“Just that?”
Fulana could almost hear Gileen arching an eyebrow. Did little snakes make up the hair of her eyebrows, too? Frustration almost choked her excitement at talking to Gileen. If only they could be together, really be together. The sight of Gileen wouldn’t kill her, she knew it.
Fulana giggled and flopped onto a rock—her favorite one, the one cupped at the top like a stool. “Well, it was good, wasn’t it?” Gileen moaned in agreement, sending a rush of heat through Fulana’s entire body flush. Fulana twirled a finger through her hair. “I was wondering… would you want to come back to the land? Our spot. I could give you your brush.” And maybe not have to bind her eyes shut this time.
Gileen’s hair rustled, the snakes writhing against each other. The sound alone was enough to get Fulana worked up. How many times had she heard that as Gileen got more and more excited? Fulana’s fingers tingled at the memory of their smooth scales slipping between her fingers when she’d finally worked up the nerve to run her hands through Gileen’s hair. Gileen had warned her they might bite, but Fulana knew they wouldn’t. They wouldn’t harm her, they could sense it—how Fulana really felt. They wouldn’t bite her, just like the sight of them wouldn’t stop her heart.
Gileen sighed. “I did love going to the land. A-and other things.”
Fulana bit her lip to contain an excited gasp. There it was. Gileen did feel the same way, she just had other ways of saying it. Who could blame her? The mere sight of her killed anyone. How many times had someone claimed to love her, really love her, enough to withstand the death binding? Only for it to end in tears lost in the ocean.
“But you have to bind your eyes closed. Like last time.”
Fulana jolted upright, clenching the shell. “I could—”
“Fulana. I mean it.”
Fulana flinched at the iron in Gileen’s voice. “But I—”
“I don’t want to lose you. I don’t know what I’d do.”
Fulana sank back down, bitter disappointment burning in her chest. “Fine.”
What other choice did she have?
***
Fulana sat in the rocky structure on the beach, hidden from the world. She crossed her legs and took a moment to breathe and center herself. A binding—a good one—required proper focus. And consent, more than anything. That was what made hers so powerful.
To break a binding—and it was possible—required insight into the mind of the binder to unravel their enchantment. A willingness, and ability, to see the world as they did. Their linkages, their relationships, the way everything connected.
She closed her eyes and began weaving them shut. Constructing the enchantment felt like building a stone arch—powerful, but only when the keystone was in place. And the thought of her keystone weighed heavy on her.
But she had promised.
Footsteps pattered up to the rocks and Fulana’s heart fluttered. She’d recognize the rhythm of that gait anywhere. The sound of Gileen scaling the rocks floated down to her where she sat in the middle of the formation. Soon, Gileen would peek over the rocks, smiling down on her. Fulana’s heart nearly burst with the desire to open her eyes and take in Gileen in all of her beauty. Prove to her that her love was true and they’d never have to worry about all this again.
But Fulana was a powerful enchantress, not from knowledge alone, but through the strength of her conviction. And foremost of them: the sanctity of consent.
“Are your eyes closed?”
Fulana tipped her head up toward Gileen’s voice. “Of course.” Taunting sunlight warmed the backs of her eyelids.
“Okay, good.” Gileen giggled, then purred. “You look hot.”
“Gileen!” Fulana blushed, her heart dancing, and she hugged her arms around herself.
“It’s true! Okay, I’m coming…” Gileen let out a wicked laugh as she descended.
Fulana’s body practically melted from the heat of arousal, but she jerked her attention back to her burgeoning enchantment. She had work to do.
She reached out toward Gileen with her mind. That’s partially what it felt like. Attuning her senses toward Gileen, orienting to the sound of her climbing down, her breathing. Picturing her face, the feel of her skin.
That was the method most witches were taught by the Society. Anchor yourself to the spirit of the ‘key’.
And maybe that was why most of them weren’t actually very strong enchantresses. It was curious, but Fulana had realized long ago that the ‘reaching’ was more inward than outward. Yes, it felt like extending out and visualizing something external, but really it was an inward exploration. You think about the person, your linkages to them, your connection to them as well as their connection to the ‘lock’.
They existed—the linkages. Unseeable, unhearable, and yet detectable in every moment. Emotion was a word for it, but really only a single facet. There were strings that bound everyone and everything.
Fulana allowed memories of Gileen to wash through her, strengthening the connection between them. She would never see the connections between them, but she never doubted them, either. They were in every heartbeat. Maybe on the fascial plane you could see them?
Fulana finished constructing the ‘arch’ of her enchantment to seal her eyelids closed. Everything was in place except the keystone.
She faced where Gileen had stopped beside her. “Are you ready?”
Gileen took her hand and squeezed it. “I do trust you, you know.” She kissed Fulana’s fingers before clutching Fulana’s hand to her chest. “I just couldn’t bear it if you…”
Fulana blindly patted up Gileen’s shoulder and neck until her hand cradled Gileen’s cheek. “I know. One day…”
Gileen silently nodded her agreement of Fulana’s hope—and her consent to being the key.
A new connection forged between them, one that Fulana could feel through her magic. She spun it into the keystone of her enchantment and it neatly ‘slid’ into place. Just the final touch—her own consent.
This was Gileen’s condition to meeting in person. That Fulana bind her own eyelids closed and surrender control of them to Gileen. They would be locked, as it were, with Gileen’s will acting as the key. Fulana would not be able to open them unless Gileen allowed it. A protection against death. Gileen thought of it as her way of protecting Fulana.
Didn’t she know it was nothing more than a veil? A screen, thin as it was, that kept them from fully connecting. One day, she would shove the veil away. She would look at Gileen with all her love and not be harmed and then, then, Gileen would finally know.
And so, until then, Fulana could wait.
She opened her mind to the enchantment and accepted its terms. It flowed through her and bound her to its magic, with Gileen holding the reins. A slight heaviness weighed on her eyelids and she relaxed the muscles that kept them closed. Despite the absence of tension, they didn’t flutter up as they might normally. The binding was strong.
Gileen breathed a sigh of relief—had she really been worried this whole time?—and her lips were suddenly on Fulana’s. Salty from her journey from the sea. Fulana returned the kiss hungrily. How badly she needed the seasoning!
Her hands inched up Gileen’s face toward the slight rustling of her hair. Gileen caught her hands with a self-conscious giggle and broke off their kiss.
“So… you have my brush, huh?”
Fulana wrapped her hands around Gileen’s waist. “All business, are we?”
“Mm, and no pleasure.” Gileen bit Fulana’s neck, sending a delicious nip of pain tingling down her spine.
Fulana moaned and grazed her nails down Gileen’s back. As much a hindrance as not being able to see Gileen was, it did make their time together electric. No sight—but all sensation.
Gileen’s lips made it down to the base of Fulana’s neck and across her collarbone, while her hands quested lower, pulling up Fulana’s robe. “I suppose you’ll have to get used to sightless sex.”
Fulana’s breathing deepened, her body burning. “Oh, I could get used to it…”
Gileen guided her to the smooth surface of one of the bigger rocks. “Especially since you won’t even try to make me invisible.” One of her hands brushed—tantalizingly slowly—up Fulana’s calf to her inner thigh.
Fulana caught it as worry flitted through her. “I can’t. I told you how—”
“Dangerous it is, who knows what binding one’s corporeal essence to the fascial plane would do, or what’s even on the fascial plane…”
“So you do listen.”
Gileen pulled her hand free and playfully traced a circle on Fulana’s knee, spiralling upward. “When I want.”
Fulana’s chest relaxed and she grinned, easing back down to the rock. Gileen kissed her knee, then licked up the trail her nail had traced. Fulana groaned, her back arching off the stone.
A jarring sensation jolted through Fulana, like someone had jerked a phantom rope tied around her wrists. She bolted upright with a gasp and clapped a hand over her mouth. Down at her legs, she felt Gileen go rigid.
What misfortune was this? Now?
Fulana sat still as the stones around her, straining to hear any footsteps. Someone was near, she was sure. The feeling of her perimeter binding being crossed was unmistakable. But who? Practically no one ever came down to this end of the beach. Her binding surrounded the rocky hiding place by fifty paces in all directions. This intruder was close—and almost certainly not by mistake.
Still no sound reached her. Either they weren’t moving or they were exceptionally quiet. She leaned forward and fumbled for Gileen until she touched her face.
Gileen grabbed her hands, leaning close and speaking in a hush. “What is it?”
Fulana shook her head and gestured to her eyes. She needed to see. It wasn’t just a matter of them not getting caught. If whoever was there was persistent enough—a villager, but maybe even just an inquisitive kid—and they caught a glance of Gileen? Their death would weigh heavy enough on Fulana’s conscience, but she couldn’t stomach the idea of what it would do to Gileen as well. She acted tough—scaly like the snakes on her head—but she was sweet underneath it all. Fulana couldn’t let her go through that, not again. “My eyes.”
Gileen drew back and her serpentine locks swished through the air, indicating she was shaking her head even if Fulana didn’t intuitively sense her worry. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t—”
“Mistress Fulana?” A man’s voice, nearly twenty paces away, cut through the air, sending a jolt of fear through Fulana. “I heard you might be around here. It’s urgent, I need your help, please.”
Fulana wrung her hands. If she stayed silent, she risked him coming closer, maybe even climbing up and looking down. There was no helping it. “I’m here! Please, don’t come any closer. I’m coming up.” Gileen snatched Fulana’s hands, her fear almost palpable. Fulana squeezed them and leaned toward her. “Don’t worry. He probably just needs a binding corrected. I’ll help him and send him away.”
She pried her hands away and felt to the inner wall. So many hours, she’d spent talking to Gileen through the shell, well into the pitch-dark night. There wasn’t an inch of this pocket of paradise that she didn’t know by heart. She blindly scaled up the rocks—they were easy enough to navigate—and swung her legs around, perching on the top.
“Mistress Fulana, I—”
Fulana jerked her head to the left. The man’s voice was only ten paces away now and several paces to the side from where it had originally sounded. When had he moved? She hadn’t heard a thing.
“Wh-what do you need, sir? Oh, and don’t worry about this.” She waved to her sealed eyelids. “I’m just practicing. Working without sight, heightens my senses. I can bind without seeing, though.”
“It’s urgent, I need your help, please.”
Fulana leaned back, wobbling on her perch. The man’s voice had moved forward another few paces as he spoke. And this time, she was sure of it: she hadn’t heard a single footstep. How was he moving so quietly? “Don’t come any closer!” She regained her balance and thrust out a palm. “Please. It-it’s for your own safety. There is, um, powerful magic at play here.”
Hopefully, he bought it. If he was coming to her for an enchantment, he probably didn’t know anything about magic himself.
The man’s voice came directly from below Fulana at the base of the rocks. “I heard you might be around here. It’s urgent, I need your help, please.”
She drew her robes closed, crossing her legs tightly at the ankles. “Yes, you… said that.” Something seemed off. A dull anxiety tightened her stomach. Who was this man? Why did he keep saying the same thing? Why couldn’t she hear him move? Fear stabbed through her and she fervently wished she could see. Then she’d see he was just a distressed man, probably one she even knew from the village. That nothing was wrong.
How had he found her?
“I heard you might be around here.” The man’s voice came from slightly closer. He was climbing the rocks.
Fulana shrieked and pitched back. Her hands barely caught the lip of a rock, keeping her from flipping backward. She swung her legs over, back into the interior of the formation. “STAY BACK!”
“It’s urgent, I need your help, please.”
Fulana broke out into full body chills and sweat slickened her palms. She climbed down, praying her hands didn’t slip.
Gileen grabbed her legs, the sudden touch eliciting a gasp from Fulana. She hopped down the rest of the way and stumbled, but Gileen steadied her. “Fulana, what’s wrong?”
“H-he’s coming…”
“Who? Salt and snakes! What do we do?” The pitch of her voice tightened to a panicked squeak.
Fulana latched onto Gileen, grabbing both her shoulders, and faced her with as much intent as she could with her eyes still closed. “I-I think I have to hide you.”
“Where? There’s nowhere to go in here.”
Fulana’s heart pounded against her chest and she squeezed Gileen even tighter. “Hide you from sight.”
“From…? I thought you said you couldn’t. That it’s too dangerous.”
It was. But that man—what was he doing?—was coming up, despite her warnings. Fulana took a deep breath and forced a confident smile. “Well, maybe that was an exaggeration.” She tipped her head forward until it touched Gileen’s. “Trust me.”
“Mistriss Fulana. I heard you might be around here.” By the sound of his voice, the man was halfway up the rocks.
Fulana cupped Gileen’s face, then pushed her hands up to her hair. The snakes hissed in surprise, but none bit her. “Please, Gileen. I need your consent.”
Gileen wordlessly nodded and Fulana nearly sobbed in relief. She gently pushed Gileen away toward the perimeter. Gileen’s shuffling told her when she had got into place—probably on the small stool-like stone. Even those light scuffling steps made more noise than any the man had made. How was he so quiet?
Fulana shoved the thought away and focused deeply. She extended her magic to Gileen, feeling her essence. But now, the hard part. The dangerous part.
She could feel the fascial plane, every witch could. It was beyond her normal senses, like the pressure one felt in the air before rain. There was an understanding of it, even if the physical description was hard to articulate to others. And like all other witches, she had stayed far from it, never daring to dip her toes into those ‘waters’, so to speak. She’d heard, as much as anyone, the whispers of the occasional witch who strayed too far. It wasn’t shocking that they went mad. What bond—other than the very bond between the mind and body, or even the soul and body—would one expect to be severed?
But she had no choice.
Something to anchor her. Yes, she needed a tether to the normal plane—something physical and emotional at the same time. She thrust a hand into her pocket and pulled Gileen’s brush out. With her magic unfurled, she could feel the connection to it. It would have to do.
She bound her will to the brush—to this plane and her emotional center: her love for Gileen—then plunged her mind into the turbulence of the fascial plane.
By the Tethers!
Fulana reeled as, even with her eyes bound shut, she ‘saw’ once again. The world around her appeared a ghostly mass of string, as if everything were made of old spiderweb. The rocky formation she was in was built as if from fine thread—but in addition to the stones themselves, she could see the weak linkages from each rock to the next. Awe filled her, a heady exhilaration. She needed to see more. Know more. Eons, she could spend here and never be bored. She took a step toward the wall and stopped short as something strong pulled her back, almost from the very center of her body.
She touched it and her mind filled with memories of a world of color. Of writhing snakes and bodies, of lips on her lips, of fingers intertwined.
Gileen!
Fulana gasped and her mind jolted back to her mission—the enchantment. Hide Gileen, save Gileen. She spun and collapsed with a shout. Her hands flew in front of her eyes, but did nothing to obscure the brilliance her mind was exposed to, since her eyes weren’t truly how she was seeing.
Where Gileen had rested near the other side, a dazzling sun hovered—Gileen’s essence. Bright rays extended from it, many going toward the sea, but most running directly from Gileen to Fulana herself.
W-was this what love looked like?
Fulana felt like her entire being was bursting. A distant part of her mind registered her corporeal body, far away on another plane, and the taste of sweet tears that flowed into her mouth. Gileen. She really did feel the same way about her.
Fulana set about her next enchantment with renewed strength. She wove a tapestry of the very essence of the fascial plane itself and bound it to Gileen’s corporeal linkages. She’d never done anything like this before, but felt sure it would work. It—this, everything on the fascial plane—just felt right.
Gileen couldn’t see on this plane, but surely she knew Fulana’s feelings for her. It was time. The world would not see Gileen, but soon, she would. After she dealt with—
Fulana gasped as she remembered the man. The glamor of the fascial plane had nearly derailed her. How easy it would be to come here and never return to the normal plane. It wasn’t the dangers everyone had feared that preyed upon the witches who came here. It was the sheer beauty. But she couldn’t lose herself here, not when she had so much waiting for her back home!
Fulana reached to her tether and ‘tugged’ it.
With a jerk, she awoke to the oppressive darkness of the normal plane. The cobwebbed appearance of the world around her—and all the beautiful connections—winked out, replaced by blackness of her eyelids.
“Mistress Fulana. I heard you might be around here.” The man’s voice nearly crested the top of the formation.
Fulana fumbled across the rocks, still disoriented from the transition, and found Gileen by feel. “Unlock my eyes! Please, I need to see.”
Gileen clutched Fulana’s hand. “I don’t—”
Fulana clapped her other hand over Gileen’s. “I know how you feel. I-I’ve seen it! Please, you have to trust me.”
The man’s voice wafted from above, still partially obscured by the rocks. “It’s urgent, I need your help, please.” He was almost here. Only a moment away.
Gileen shuddered and Fulana felt a release. Her eyes popped open and reflexively watered at the sudden intrusion of light. Tears blurred her vision as she tried to focus on where Gileen was.
There was nothing.
Fulana’s hands clapped to her mouth in a rush of exhilaration. There was nothing!
She patted over the area and her hands encountered Gileen’s warm body in a strange mismatch between seeing empty space and feeling soft flesh.
Gileen’s hands met Fulana’s tentatively. Fulana felt Gileen’s shaky breath against her face—the only indication she had leaned forward. Scales slid over each other from a few inches above where Gileen’s breath came from. “You did it. You really can’t see me.”
Fulana grinned and put a finger to her lips. They still needed to be careful, but shells and string!, she’d done it!
Gileen’s giggle came out muffled as she must have covered her mouth with her hand. “Wow. I just wish I could see that other plane like you.”
“You’ve got a bit of the gift. Try it a little while I deal with this.” It’d be easier for Gileen to access that plane, normally too ‘far away’ for someone without training to reach, now that she was anchored to the fascial plane by the enchantment. Fulana smirked and winked at Gileen. “Now hush.”
She spun and craned her head back just as the man appeared over the wall. The tension that had built in her chest dissipated as she studied the face of her would-be terrorizer. She stifled a giggle, covering her mouth with a hand to hide her smile. He was no threat, at all.
The man had thinning brown hair, wrinkles on his head and a few at the corners of his eyes, and mud-brown eyes. At the sight of his thin frame, a spike of concern rose in her. He really needed to be careful. A fall from this height could be dangerous! No wonder he barely made any sound when he walked, he was a mere whisp of a man.
But more important than his appearance, he didn’t die as he looked down toward her. He couldn’t see Gileen. Her enchantment really had worked!
“Hello, sir. How can I help you?”
Behind her, Gileen let out a choked shout. Fulana jerked around, her eyes desperately searching the empty air. She jolted forward to where Gileen had been, but her hands met nothing. Gileen’s wheezing came from the ground with the sound of thrashing. Fulana dropped to her knees and finally felt Gileen. Her body was convulsing, her breathing coming in strangled heaves.
“GILEEN!”
What had she done? Her enchantment, was it killing Gileen somehow?
Fulana squeezed her eyes shut and plunged her will toward the fascial plane, just barely tethering herself to the brush before diving in.
Once again, the world burst to life around her, a ghostly array of web-like structures. Gileen’s essence laid in front of her with Fulana’s enchantment still covering her like a blanket. Fulana tore at the fabric of her enchantment and a chunk of the threads dissolved into nothingness, negating the magic.
The beautiful array of strings—Gileen’s love made ‘visible’—still extended toward Fulana, but now dark tendrils that hadn’t been there previously shot out from her. They spiral past Fulana, over and behind her. Gileen’s entire aura was darkened and almost shriveled in on itself. Even without words or sight or any other physical sense, Fulana knew the cause on a primal level.
Fear.
She spun and hissed. The web-like outline of the rocks appeared as before. Her eyes scanned upward to where the man stood and she drew back. There was no one there.
What was going on?
Gileen let out another whimper—a distant sound that Fulana’s corporeal body noticed, but sent shivers through her tether. She had to get back.
She jerked on her tether, realizing the moment before she opened her eyes that Gileen would no longer be invisible. If her love wasn’t true, she’d die in an instant.
Her eyes opened to the normal plane—and she saw Gileen for the first time.
Gileen was curled up on the ground, shivering with her eyes squeezed shut. Fulana dove down and cradled Gileen’s head in her lap. Her snakes flailed in an anxious dance atop her head. Despite all of that, she was beautiful.
Dark skin by complexion, but the hue was almost delicate—testimony to the lack of sun she’d been exposed to in the ocean. Her gills, which should have been closed while on land, flapped in distress along the sides of her neck. But her hair danced with life. Each snake was only as thick as two fingers, but had eyes like rubies and scales like dark emeralds.
If their dance weren’t fear-induced writhing, Fulana could have watched for hours. A glimmer of joy flitted through her at her own beating heart—unstopped by Gileen’s death binding. She’d known all along. And now, Gileen would never have to hide again.
If they survived this…
Fulana looked behind her to where the man used to be. She gasped as he stared back at her from atop the lip of the rocky formation. Why could she see him here, but not on the fascial plane?
“Mistress Fulana. I heard you might be around here.” He was looking right at her, which meant…
Fulana glanced back down at Gileen. She was visible. So why wasn’t he dead?
Gileen wouldn’t have lied to her about the death binding.
Gileen shuddered, her eyelids fluttering. “A-above… D-don’t look…”
Fulana stroked her hair, desperately trying to ease her. “Save your strength.”
“Don’t l-l-look up…”
Fulana froze, her hand poised over Gileen’s snakes. Don’t look up? Above?
Her chest seized, crushing the air from her lungs. No.
Gileen’s eyes were closed—but she could see something. She wasn’t looking on the normal plane.
No-no-no.
“It’s urgent, I need your help, please.” The man’s voice came from lower down as he began to descend.
Fulana tethered herself to Gileen herself and squeezed her eyes shut, a fear-induced tear rolling down her cheek.
The fascial plane burst into life all around her. The black thread of Gileen’s fear extended far upward. As Fulana turned around, this time she followed the thread. Her eyes went past where the man should have been based on the sound of his voice—empty once again. But Gileen’s thread didn’t go to that spot. It extended far above it, the reason Fulana hadn’t seen it last time.
Glints of thread caught her attention. They were thin, hanging down like wire to the space where the man should have been. She hadn’t noticed the threads before, but once her mind registered them, they became clearer as her magical sense sharpened. They were thin—but powerful. She could feel it, the strength of their magic similar to that of a binding one of the highest witches could spin.
She tipped her head back. The wire-like threads and Gileen’s dark thread led to the same thing. Fulana screamed as her entire body spasmed in rejection of the foreign entity.
An orb-like body hung high above her with roughly a dozen tendrils fanned out to hold the threads. Not hold—summon. That thing was performing a powerful binding to create them. The tendrils were like the tentacles of a squid, only flayed open into flaps. Small bits of… string? No! Bits of enchantment magic itself wriggled like worms from the interior of each tendril. Was this entity made of enchantment?
Its tendrils waved in the air, but not chaotically. Almost as if it were controlling something.
The man.
Fulana jolted back, pain burning through her physical body as she knocked her head into the rocks behind her.
She couldn’t see his essence on the fascial plane for the same reason he hadn’t died when he saw Gileen on the normal plane.
He was already dead.
The entity’s body seemed to orient toward her. Two more tendrils reached above its body to a cord, far thicker than the other strings, that extended from the sky. The entity lowered itself and more cord emanated from its body. It—whatever it was—was coming for her.
She could feel its attention on her tether, like sensing someone was looking at you, even without seeing their eyes.
She had to leave. Now.
Gileen groaned again and Fulana sobbed in realization. Gileen was bound here, at least partially, by her enchantment. She had fragmented it enough when she tore it to remove its effects, but parts of it still clung to Gileen like old web. It tethered her, even just weakly, to the fascial plane. Fulana fell to her knees, focusing her attention on the remaining enchantment. She couldn’t leave it—not a single connection—to Gileen here.
What would that thing do if it could reach her essence?
She desperately unwove her enchantment, disintegrating each strand. The presence of the entity continued to near. Her magic could detect it, like a heat source sliding closer. It had already descended to the top of the rocks.
She located the final bond that connected Gileen and tore through it. Distantly, her body heard Gileen gasp as her full consciousness returned to the normal plane.
The heat burned directly above Fulana like the blaze of a fire.
She shouted and twisted away. She fell on her back, fumbling for her tether. The entity’s orb-like body was above her. A maw, full of worm-like threads wriggling toward her, opened. She screamed and connected to her tether. It jerked her, but one of the entity’s tendrils shot out and caught her leg, keeping her anchored to its plane.
“LET GO!”
<feeeeeeeeeeed>
Its presence seemed to seep through her essence, bringing with it a hunger.
A hunger for her magic. Her bindings. Her precious connections.
NO.
It wouldn’t take them, wouldn’t take her—even just the memory—away.
Thoughts of Gileen filled her mind. Memories of talking in the dark of night, kissing in the black of her locked eyelids… and possible memories of their future.
Binding magic burst from Fulana, sending the entity skittering back. Its tentacle remained clenched on her leg, but she clapped a hand to her chest. Her tether tightened and wrenched her body back toward the normal plane. Her essence felt as if it would rip in two, torn between the two forces. In the pain of her splitting soul, she drowned herself in the phantom touch of Gileen. The tether strengthened and, with a final jerk, reeled her back to the waking world.
The color of the normal plane blinked in a haze as she reoriented. Her connection to the fascial plane dwindled away, like a length of rope falling from her body. Strange that she could still feel it. A lingering connection that hadn’t been there the previous switches.
The man’s body laid limp, his legs at strange angles from the fall when the entity must have dropped him to come after her. And in front of her…
“Gileen!”
Gileen pulled herself to a rock with a groan and shot a wan smile at Fulana. “You sure know how to show a girl a good ti—”
Something wrenched from deep within Fulana, bringing her to her knees with a shout. She shuddered as she struggled to stay upright. Something felt like it was climbing up her, like a spider on her leg—only it clawed up her very essence. She retched at the soul-crawling sensation and desperately tried to sever the linkage.
Gileen stumbled forward and grabbed her. “Fulana! What’s happening?”
The pulling strengthened, overwhelming her, and Fulana’s scream died off on her lips. The world dwindled to gray string-like outlines. Hot fluid sprayed her from behind.
Darkness enveloped her.
***
Fulana wheezed, her consciousness dripping back into her body like dirty water filtered through a cloth. A deep ache emanated from within her, though she couldn’t quite locate what hurt. She felt around her, but her hands didn’t touch any rocks.
Where was she? What happened?
Everything was black—a familiar darkness. Her eyelids were closed.
“Gileen!”
The memories stabbed into her mind like sharpened hail as if someone had wrung the horror back in. The man, the fascial plane, that thing.
Gileen—if she’d sealed Fulana’s eyes and it had killed her, Fulana would never be able to see again. With Gileen gone, would she even want to?
“I need your help.” Gileen’s hand touched Fulana’s shoulder.
A sob of relief escaped Fulana and she clung to Gileen. “Oh, thank the threads! You found me.”
“I heard you…”
Fulana touched her forehead to Gileen’s hand. “We have to go! Wh-where is th-that thing?”
“Might be around here.”
Fulana turned her head to look, straining against the enchantment, but her eyelids stayed shut. “I-I need to see. Please, release the enchantment.” She ran her hands up Gileen’s arm and cradled her face. “Gileen? D-did you hear me?” The enchantment remained unwavering, the darkness unrelenting.
Why wasn’t she helping? Why wasn’t she talking?
No.
No-no-no. Please.
Not her.
Fulana’s hands trembled and she reached up to Gileen’s hair. The snakes hung almost limp—but not completely. Fulana pulled Gileen to her. Did she dare return to the fascial plane?
It would give her a semblance of sight. But if Gileen’s essence wasn’t there. Or if it were there…
Did she have a choice?
“Gileen, please.”
Gileen’s arms wrapped around Fulana in a crushing embrace. Fulana tensed.
But hadn’t she always been ready to confront the possibility of Gileen’s death binding? Would dying in her arms be any worse way to go?
Fulana sagged against Gileen, inviting the envelopment. Gileen’s arms pulled her tight to her body. After a moment, her hand crept to the back of Fulana’s neck. Gileen’s shallow breath whispered over Fulana’s ear. “I-I don’t want you to see.”
Fulana gasped, warm relief thawing the icy dread that had expanded through her chest. She was okay. Gileen was still Gileen. Fulana pulled back and took Gileen by the shoulders. “See what?”
Snakes hissed. “See me…”
“It’s okay! I’ve—”
“… die.” Gileen’s shoulders slumped under Fulana’s fingers.
Fulana’s heart slammed in her chest. The oppressive darkness, the feeling that something would grab her at any moment… Sweat broke out along her back. “See you die? What happened?” She shook Gileen. “Tell me!” Her arms shook, her nails biting into Gileen’s skin. “Let me see! Please, please, let me see.”
Gileen didn’t resist Fulana shaking her, instead letting Fulana take her weight. Her breathing turned more rapid. “When you came back… th-the man, his body. It exploded. Blood everywhere.”
The memory of fluid burning her back returned, making Fulana’s stomach roil.
“And something came back, came out of you.” Gileen’s head collapsed against Fulana.
“Where is it?”
“Can’t get away. Already caught.”
“WHERE IS IT?”
“I-I don’t want you to see me. He exploded—so much blood… Don’t see me like that.”
“GILEEN.”
“Here. It’s here. It’s still here. It’s here. It’s here. I can feel it. I can feel it. Still here. I can feel it.”
Fulana strained against the magic of her own enchantment, begging her eyes to open. It was impossible. She could have broken another’s enchantment, with sufficient time and understanding, but not her own. That had been the whole point. The ultimate surrender of power, the truest showing of trust.
To protect her from Gileen’s death binding.
To shield her from death.
A sensation like heat erupted from above her. Fulana screamed as the entity rapidly descended down to her.
She raised her hands overhead. Something, like thick thread, tightened around her wrists. With a jerk, it forced her arms together. Layer after layer wrapped around her arms in a rapid spiral.
The entity forced her hands to her side, undeterred by her screaming and struggling. A web of enchantment—binding magic made corporeal—looped around her torso, then her legs, then up her neck.
“Gileen, please!” She didn’t want to die in the dark. “Gileen!”
Gileen’s own screams sent chills raking through Fulana’s body. Within a few moments, her screams became muffled.
“GILEE—”
Thread wrapped around Fulana’s jaw, stopping her from speaking. It moved up past her nose. She could breathe through the web. Her enchantment released, allowing her eyes to open.
Gileen hung in a web cocoon, her entire body already bound. She limply struggled, her body wriggling against the bonds to no avail. The entity was unseeable, yet Fulana could feel its presence. The burning heat of its foreign magic suspended above them.
The final sheets of thread covered Fulana’s head, obscuring her vision. The world became a haze through the enchantment binding, like seeing through a thick sheet. What she could make out was cast in a gray hue and made everything appear web-like. Somehow, the entity had suspended the cocoons from a thick thread that wasn’t anchored to any physical object.
Beside her, Gileen’s muffled shouts continued. With her mouth bound, it came as dampened screams that reverberated from her chest and throat. The entity was still just above them. Despite the heat-like sensation that betrayed its presence, cold dread made Fulana’s limbs go numb. Every pulse of her pounding heart sent blood prickling through her body. What would it do?
Please. If it killed them, let it take her first.
She wished she’d bound her eyes and ears closed. Anything that would block out Gileen’s death throes. She wouldn’t be able to take hearing that.
The heat of the entity shifted slightly away from Fulana, toward Gileen. Fulana clenched her eyes shut, preparing herself to delve into the fascial plane. Had to fight it. Even there, she wouldn’t be able to move. But she could do… something. Anything. Even just to slow it for a second.
This entity that had been let loose, that she had loosed upon the world—it had used her tether to come to this plane, hadn’t it?—would kill them. But what would it do after? Go after the villagers? Kill the rest of her family?
Memories of her fathers and younger brother leaked from her mind like tears through clenched eyes. What had she done?
The entity froze, not inching toward Gileen anymore. Fulana’s body sensed the heat of its presence fade.
It had left.
She wheezed through her nose, her body barely able to take in enough air to stem the crushing panic in her chest. The entity’s presence had been like a great stone—death so certain there was nothing else to feel but the inundation of dread. And yet that stone had been like a dam to the torrent of fear. With the entity gone, the rush of anxiety raged over her. It threatened to drown her—to rob her of her breath and all senses—but she couldn’t sink. Not now.
Gileen’s muffled shouts kept her afloat.
She had to save her.
Every enchantment could be broken—given time… and understanding.
Fulana probed the bonds the entity had wrapped her in. Its foreign magic whispered through her mind like guttural words in a language she didn’t understand. But she didn’t need to understand the words to feel the entity’s thoughts.
A wave of nausea swept through her, threatening to wring her stomach. She steeled herself, forcing her gorge down. If she threw up, she likely really would drown—on her own sick.
No. She couldn’t die. Gileen needed her.
Fulana shut out the world around her, immersing herself in the healing waters of her memories of Gileen. She formed a tether like she’d never done before. What would trying to understand this entity’s thoughts do to her?
Was this the madness that had befallen the witches before her who dared venture to the fascial plane?
She thrust her will into the entity’s bindings.
A scream rattled in her chest, tearing at her closed mouth to be let free. All around her essence, the prickling sensation of worms trying to burrow into her flesh burned through her skin.
<feeeeeeed>
She shouted in defiance, forcing them away in a blast of desperation-infused magic. For a single moment, the oppressive consumption fell away.
Deep within the binding, the very center of the enchantment, was a singular desire.
<FFFFFFEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDDDDDDDDD>
The wriggling extensions of the entity’s enchantment clawed once more at her, but she wrenched herself free through the tether.
The cool feeling of the cocoon’s threads felt almost like a comfort.
She sucked in breath after breath through her nose as the ravenous hunger faded like a nightmare in the moonlight. That hunger…
Yes.
Of course!
She shielded her essence once again and extended just the lightest probe outward toward the web of enchantment.
The entity wasn’t of this plane. It didn’t function like them, didn’t think like them, didn’t bind like them.
And it didn’t feed like them.
It had escaped through her. Stored her and Gileen for future feeding and likely would have consumed them right there. But her thoughts had piqued its hunger.
Thoughts of her family. And what were those thoughts but bonds?
The very thing the entity was made of. On this plane, it could make enchantments corporeal.
That’s where it was going. After her family—to gather more of those bonded to her. It could not deny its hunger.
Yes. She could sense it. An understanding, if only just a glimmer, of how the entity thought.
She wove her own magic into the entity’s web, fraying through a layer and burrowing to its core. Little by little, she unraveled the strand, working slow enough to keep her essence shielded.
Gileen’s screams, growing hoarse in her throat, threatened to derail Fulana’s attention, but she forced the sounds away.
Would the entity kill her family? Would it be unable to contain its hunger, and feast right there?
Fulana’s chest tightened, her limbs tingling. All around her, the web seemed to take on a prickling sensation. Like worms. All around.
Couldn’t stop.
Gileen’s shouts weakened to anguished moaning.
Had to keep fighting.
No matter wh—
The thread snapped under the force of her will. Throughout the entire cocoon, the thread unraveled, weakening the overall enchantment. The webbing around her face loosened, allowing her jaw to open slightly. She heaved gulps of air through slightly parted lips.
“Gileen… I’m coming!”
Gileen fell silent.
“Gileen, d-did you hear me? I’m going to save you.”
Fulana’s eyelids snapped shut of their own volition. She gasped at the strange sensation and sudden darkness. A moment later, the enchantment released and she opened her eyes.
Relief flooded through her chest. Gileen was still conscious enough to control her mind. Tears wet Fulana’s eyes and she squeezed her eyes shut on her own, forcing the tears to run down her face.
She would do it.
Save them both, save her family.
Banish the entity to the unholy plane it came from.
And then, then, she’d never shield herself from Gileen’s beautiful face again.
Fulana sheathed herself in Gileen’s love and set to work.
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