Revenant's Storm (The Wicked West series)

"Saint Vivienne tilled the spoiled earth and coaxed sweet vegetables from its decay. She had witnessed it in a dream, and she claimed that it was divine intervention which guided her hand. She fed the barren soil her prayers and scraps of raw red meat, reviving its fertility. After decades of bountiful harvests, Vivienne was canonized for cultivating that which had been lost for so many, many seasons. " Scriptorium of Mojave Saints, 10:15; From a dusty church tome in Tombstone

Chapter One
The Tattoo Prophet

The hut itself wasn't much to look at, just a few rusted metal sheets supported by tarp and fraying rope. The dirt floor was covered by a dusty tasseled rug brimming with complicated patterns that swirled the longer one stared at them. Wisps of violet smoke curled into the air like ink in water. The fragrance of the incense was heavy, saturated with piñon and hickory and sage and something peppery that clouded the mind and misted the eyes. The firelight conjured flickering shadows across the intimate space.

There was more than enough room for tiny Maritza to sit hugging her knees to her chest, staring wide-eyed at the legend seated before her. For, across the fire pit sat none other than the esoteric witch and prophet, Madame Zhalinka.

Maritza could feel her heart fluttering inside of her chest, rapid like a bird flapping against her ribcage. Her small fingers picked anxiously at the frayed carpet.

She was far too young to understand why, but she had heard from her mother that her village, too small to appear on a map but nevertheless monikered Salvation, respected Madame Zhalinka. They also feared her. No one knew where she lived, or what she did in her spare time. She would speak only to the saint-touched.

And now young Maritza, of all people, was stolen away in the witch's lair with the favor of the saints.
Maritza had, conspiratorially, been enraptured by the lore of the prophet. In her vivid imagination, Madame Zhalinka was the evil witch who terrorized her fairytale daydreams. Her mother would never allow a word against the saints, and Maritza was wise enough to understand that her musings were blasphemy. But she had overheard from the neighbors that the people who visited the Madame returned with strange and permanent markings. When the adults were not watching closely, her friends whispered in hushed tones that she slept on a pile of discarded bones. That she ate lizards and birds while they were still alive, to savor the taste of their dying spirit.

Maritza tugged at the frizzy ends of her hair anxiously. Casting a furtive glance around the hut, she did not see any bones or blood stains. Is that why Madame Zhalinka had summoned her? To suck the marrow from her bones?

It was only just yesterday that she had come for Maritza.

Maritza had been playing with Mothball, her favorite toy, alone in the dust outside of her mother's tent. Wind chimes fashioned out of twine and dented aluminum cans jangled in the breeze. Large pots encrusted with leftover chili and stews simmered over a low heat. The tantalizing scent would tease until a suppertime that Maritza would not get to enjoy.

Spots of light that bled through unmended patches in the billowy tent fabric dotted the ground and danced around her. She thought they looked like fairies and lost herself in the whimsy of pretending.
The drought meant that people spent most of their time taking shelter from the heat in the shade of their own residences. The neighborhood children had long stopped venturing outside during the day, waiting until the cool embrace of sundown to organize games. She would join them later, but in the meantime Maritza enjoyed the peace of solitude and did not mind the kiss of sun on her skin.

She had thought she was alone until a shadow had loomed over her. When Maritza had squinted up into the desert sun, she had seen the outline of a woman with long silver hair. Her dull eyes were a bottomless black.

As Maritza gazed into the black depths, she thought of the time that she had peered into an empty well just outside of Salvation, the taunts of her friends egging her on, the blackness obscuring whatever denizens lie at its bottom, just out of sight. She shivered despite the sweltering heat.

As her vision adjusted, she saw that the woman's tanned skin was marked with a thick black ink. Her mouth fell open in shock. She was dripping with arcane symbols and glyphs. Maritza noticed an owl, a ladder, a tree struck by lightning, a black droplet dripping off the tip of a winding dagger. She had never seen her before, but Maritza knew at once that it must be the legendary witch.

Madame Zhalinka spoke then in a raspy and melodic voice, "Come with me, child. The saints have called your name. I must mark your fate."

If her mouth was a riverbank, then her teeth were reeds jutting out of the slop. The gauzy cloth wrapped around her floated in the breeze, as fragile and iridescent as an insect wing. Behind her, sunlight illuminated her sterling hair like a halo. Despite her trepidation, Maritza was enchanted.

Something to her left shifted, and for the first time she noticed the apprentice. His name came to her absently, like an echo: Jasper Pentaghast.

He was a young man, tall and willowy and graceful. He wore a striped silk plum waistcoat and neatly-tailored brown trousers. The silver chain of what she assumed to be a pocket watch caught the light of the harsh noon sun. His skin was the alabaster of antique glass dolls; his hair a white-blond that rolled off his head in waves like a mirage. His fingers, long and slender, were clasped politely in front of him. Maritza could see the spidery veins through his porcelain skin. His delicate mouth was perpetually twisted into a grim pout.

He gazed at her with the saddest expression that she had ever seen, his funeral-ash black irises mournfully appraising her. The spaces under his eyes were a dark purple bruise. Maritza wondered if he had ever slept once in his entire life. Was it a curse from the oracle?

She thought he looked like a sad prince in his gleaming finery, kidnapped by the nasty witch in her expanding fairytale. She stared back at him, wondering if he was happy to work for her. If he ever thought about running away. But his patent leather shoes stood firmly in the dust beside the witch.
Maritza had peered back at her tent, where she was surprised to find her mother hovering pensively at the entrance. The drought had stolen some of her beauty; her full lips were chapped and her skin flaked in patches. Her eyes, like those of everyone else in the village, were sunken from prolonged dehydration. But the pinwheels of her hazel irises were bright and watery like the martyrs she idolized in the scraps of religious texts she collected. She always had her rosary in hand and a prayer on her lips. Maritza still thought that she was the most beautiful woman on Earth.

Her mother nodded once, her fingers burying themselves into the flap. Although she was an adult, she more so resembled a child in that moment, hovering apprehensively in their parent's doorway at a late hour. "You must go, Ritzy. The saints have willed it. You are destined for something more."
She paused, recognizing something in her daughter's face, and added, "Do not be afraid. I will be here when you return. Be brave, Ritzy, and find truth in faith."

With a scorpion sting in her chest, Maritza had realized that it was not what she had wanted to hear. The realization confused her, because she had never in her short life doubted her mother before. The thought felt treacherous. She felt an immense guilt and complied at once.

Maritza had hoped that her knees didn't knock together when she stood, they were shaking so badly.
She knew what must happen next. No one knew the path to the witch's lair. Her friends had taunted her about it, had called her a crybaby and sent her to the well to search for the witch.

Maritza had heard rumors of the oracle leading the saint-touched from the village blindfolded. Fantasy stole her and ran wild. Her panicked thoughts were abrupt and nonsensical, but in the moment, undeniably true. She was being kidnapped. She was being taken away forever. She imagined herself being led away forever and forced into servitude. She imagined herself standing beside Jasper, with clasped, manacled hands and sad eyes that pitied their next victim.

She felt her mother's expectation radiating from her stiff posture. Her rosary dangled from her calloused hands. Please, Ritzy, honor the saints.

Madame Zhalinka untied a linen scarf from her wrist and handed it to her apprentice. Her mother kissed Maritza's forehead before Jasper gently fastened the cloth across her eyes. Terror seized her, made her pulse thicken as the fabric chafed her face. Without her sight, the area surrounding her felt cavernous and vacant. It was filled to the brim with unknown dangers in her imagination.

She gripped Mothball and hesitated before reaching a trembling hand out to the apprentice. She had no concept of how far to reach, what his distance was from her, so she stretched as far as her slender arm could.

He took it, his cool fingers squeezing hers once before guiding her forward.

She remembered the clammy, dark stones of the well. The murky splash of her feet as she had plopped down to the bottom and her friends' staccato leers. The press of stagnant damp air suffocating her like a tomb. Maritza shook herself from her reverie and honed in on the noises around her as they walked. The rustle of Madame Zhalinka's rags. Their footsteps, hers clumsy, in the sand.

Murmurs trailed behind them as they walked through the village. Although she strained to listen, she could not make out the individual words of the gossip, and could only register the scandalized and mournful tones.

After a while it was quiet and difficult to traverse the ragged terrain. She spent the majority of the journey this way, scrambling over rocks and scraping her bleeding shins on the spiky foliage of the scrublands.

She was too frightened to ask the questions crowding her mind, and ended up traveling in complete silence. All Maritza could grasp onto were her whirling thoughts and Jasper's ghostlike grip on her hand. Were they outside of town? Which direction were they going? How much time had passed? Each step away from Maritza's tent had felt like an acre. She missed her mother. She felt hungry. She squeezed Mothball again to make sure he was still there.

Now, sitting before the crackling fire in this clandestine place, Maritza could see that tattoos covered every inch of Madame Zhalinka's skin aside from her face, which was creased by the weight of a lifetime of divine knowledge. Her black irises trapped the amber glow of the flame, and Maritza wondered if it was just a reflection, or if her dead fish eyes actually blazed from within now that she had returned to her lair. The thick black ink writhed under the flickering candlelight, and Maritza thought of deep sea creatures sliding through the black depths.

She remembered the well again and, by some trick of pretending, turned it into the ocean in her thoughts. Maritza had never seen the ocean, since she had only ever known this desert, but to her it was something distant and mystical. Her mother had described its creatures to her before bed, and Maritza had dreamt of floating elegantly in an underwater ballet.

Madame Zhalinka was like the ocean to her, ethereal and mysterious. Maritza popped her thumb into her mouth and clutched her little alpaca toy closer.

At last, Jasper emerged like an apparition and handed Madame Zhalinka a wooden case and a leather water skin. He sat to the left of his mistress on a plush tasseled cushion, and then regarded Maritza once more. His woeful eyes met hers and in a soft voice he asked, "Do you understand why you are here?"

Maritza's fingers twisted into the loose strands of the carpet. Her voice was small and wavering. "The saints have called me?"

When he nodded, Maritza felt a tug of pride at having answered correctly. She felt small and frail, undeserving of the fate that would be thrust onto her. Deep in her heart, she felt the desire to be worthy of their appraisal. She wanted her mother to be proud of her.

"Yes. Madame Zhalinka has witnessed you in a dream. Now she must investigate further, in order to learn your fate." He paused, then in a gentler tone inquired, "Do you know how the Madame will scry your future?"

Maritza shook her head and clutched her toy against her chest. Her eyes were as wide as saucers. She pressed her mouth into a thin line to stop the bottom lip from trembling. Be brave, her mother had told her. Find truth in faith. Be brave.

Jasper continued as Madame Zhalinka began removing delicate instruments from the wooden box. She hung onto his every word, attention rapt, but she could not make her eyes leave the prophet meticulously tending to her tools of unknown intent. They had an unsettling shape, and she could not comprehend their function. Her mind concocted its own grisly explanation by mashing together unspeakable horrors.

“You will both drink from this flask. It contains a juice, made from prickly pear and cactus pulp. It will open your minds to the spirits. Madame Zhalinka will enter a trance. It is imperative that you do not disrupt it. She must mark you with her needle and ink."

He hesitated, dark eyes searching hers before he set his jaw. "It will hurt, Maritza. This is the price that the saints demand. You must be still and you must be patient. I will be here with you. It will not last long. Can you do it?"

Her eyes bounced between the two adults before her, who had coerced her and escorted her to this unknown place. She was simultaneously alone and outnumbered. She thought of the desert, humongous and hungry and unforgiving and just outside of the flimsy residence. It was nighttime, and she knew scorpions and coyotes and other dangers would be stalking the dark sands in search of prey like her.

She considered leaving anyway, but she thought of her mother clutching the rosary with the paint was chipping off the beads, her watery eyes filled with hope and apprehension and pride.

She hesitated. The saints had interest in her. The saints had a future prepared for her. She was saint-touched. The Madame had sought her out for a reason. Be brave. Her shoulders squared in a burst of shaky confidence, and then slumped a moment later in defeat. It didn't matter if she was brave or not. She didn't have a choice. She sealed her fate with a meek nod. A single tear slipped down her cheek.

She would remember what happened next with clenched fists and gritted teeth, in a sequence of imagery strung together like beads on her mother's rosary, for the rest of her life. She had no concept of how much time passed in this state. In her memory, it was an eternity.

Madame Zhalinka drank from the skin, a rosy pink dripping from her lips as her black pupils expanded hypnotically. Jasper held the canteen to Maritza's lips, her throat bobbing as she choked down the sweet syrup. The hut wavered around her, rippling like the disturbed surface of a pond.

Words tumbled out of the witch's mouth, a constant stream of barely coherent ramblings. Maritza could not describe it, but something in the air shifted.

Madame Zhalinka began to move as though she were merely a puppet under the control of some unseen hand. The saints were here at last. She could not feel their presence, only see the change overtake the prophet, and the fright of it all was like ice against Maritza's spine.

The wicked glint of the needle winked at her in the firelight. Jasper's phantom fingers held her in place. The black ink dripped onto the white fleece of her toy as Madame reached towards her.

Adrenaline narrowed her perception into a hazy tunnel only interrupted by disjointed sensation. The press of the needle against her forehead. The pain a heat that radiated outwards. A whimper and a distant wailing. Fat tears dampening her cheeks.

The saints must have left as soon as they were finished. The unseen threads guiding Madame Zhalinka were abruptly severed, and she slumped forward towards the dying embers of the fire. The heat of the flame had cooled during the ceremony to the smoky obscurity of dying cinders, and her eyes were flat and lifeless once more. The old woman wiped her perspiring brow with a shaking hand.

Maritza felt the blood and ink bead on the raw skin of her forehead. She slumped in her seat as well, the absence of the needle a relief that washed over her entire being like the tides. Her voice was a low moan in the back of her throat.

The exhaustion in the Madame's voice floated through the daze. "The saints have not smiled upon you, little one." Her voice was unbelievably sad as she took in the symbol etched onto her. "The placement of the tattoo reveals the significance of your fate. The face, you see, is the most prominent location."

Maritza was shaking. She could not stop. She did not know how long Jasper had been holding her hand, but she squeezed it tight. The action contradicted her opinion of him. She did not like these people, she did not trust him, but she was delirious with the pain and needed anything at all to keep her tethered to reality.

She had woken from nightmares in the heavy darkness of night before, her mother stroking her hair and sharing singsong happy thoughts of the ocean to subdue the fear. That was nothing like how vulnerable she felt at this moment in time. She could not think of the comfort of her mother here, not after what she had condoned.

"You are a scourge upon Salvation."

Maritza recoiled, unable to stop the wobble of her chin and the unwanted tears leaking down her face.
Although Madame Zhalinka wavered at the reaction, she pressed on, duty-bound to her wretched saints. "You must leave this place and never return. Your departure will bring clouds swollen with rain, and this endless drought will cease. The village will survive and prosper. You will be remembered here as a savior and a martyr. If you do not leave, the rain will not come. But if you ever return, you will come to wreak great damage upon this land. You will do unspeakable things. You must never come back. And you must go alone. The saints have willed it so."

Maritza's heart sank into her stomach like a stone into water. The saints had not blessed her; it was a curse. Her mother's words rang in her ears. Find truth in faith. Find truth in faith. But her truth was a death sentence.

Dismay took hold of her like a sinkhole. Had she not trusted Madame enough? Was her fate a punishment from the saints for doubting? Had she come all this way and endured so much only to be scorned by the saints who supposedly guided her life?

She would have to leave everything she had ever known behind. She thought of her mother standing pensively in the tent, hiding behind the flaps while Maritza was taken away. Were her saints more important than her daughter?

With a spark of sudden frenzied relief, she realized that, in one regard, Madame Zhalinka was wrong. She clutched Mothball to her chest, the still-wet ink splotch dampening her fingertip. She did not think about her sore muscles and scraped legs and aching forehead. She instead focused wholeheartedly on the revelation.

Both she and Mothball had been marked. She would not be alone so long as she had Mothball. He was all that she had left.