Widdershins

By Josy Bongiovanni

 

The dance floor overflowed with gyrating bodies, all coming together as one under the music that had them under its spell. Pausing her frenzied movements, Rinn wiped her brow with the little fabric available from her cut-off t-shirt and motioned to her friend Troy that she needed a water break. 

"This DJ is unbelievable!" she screamed over the deafening bass. 

"I know, right? Pure magic." replied her friend as they made their way to one of the designated watering stations in the converted warehouse. 

As one song flowed into another, Rinn caught her breath and watched how the DJ manipulated the crowd simply with sound. It was a beautiful sight. 

They had been dancing for almost three hours straight, and although she had her most comfortable sneakers on, Rinn couldn't go on without a pause. Unlike her friend, she had forgone any stimulants or illegal substances and was surviving solely on energy drinks and sheer excitement. 

"Are you ready to get back out there?" asked Troy eagerly.

"You go ahead. I'm going to hang back a while."

Troy jumped back into the fray, weaving into a circle of dancers to cozy up to a shirtless man she’d spotted earlier.

Sitting on a chair that looked more like an art piece than furniture, Rinn took a deep breath and closed her eyes, giving them a rest from the strobing lights. Her body felt achy and tired, but in a way that was freeing. She felt every part of her body thrumming to the beat of the music, pulsing to the rhythm of the bass. 

Suddenly, the track that was playing ended in an almost orgasmic crescendo, topped off by a single snare hit. When an ethereal voice chimed in, following the millisecond of silence after the snare, Rinn felt a chill go through her. The voice was like a siren's song, pulling her towards something familiar and yet indescribable. 

She opened her eyes to find her vision blurry. No wait. It was the people who seemed to phase in and out of reality, dancing counterclockwise in a languid circle. Like ghosts, she could see through them. Lifting her hand to her face, Rinn wiggled her fingers, sighing as the full digits appeared normal. Until they weren't. 

"What the hell?" she mumbled to herself as she jerked up from her seat and stumbled towards the dance floor to find her friend. But she never made it. Rinn heard the siren-like voice fade and a drum hit crash. The dance floor disappeared instantly as she heard a whooshing sound like a torrent of water in her ears. The pressure on her eardrum was so intense that she held her head on both sides and shut her eyes tight. Then, suddenly, the pressure vanished, and the chaotic sound of the warehouse party gave way to the babbling of water and the twitter of birds. 

Rinn opened her eyes and took in the lush green trees and brook before her. 

"I'm having a stroke." 

Shaking her head, she reached for her phone to call 911 but came up empty-handed when her pants pocket was no longer there. Neither were her pants. She was wearing some sort of long-sleeved tunic. 

In the distance, she could hear drums and singing. Walking through the brush as the sun rose, she followed the sound, hoping that someone could help her. She came to a clearing where a group of women swayed in a circle around a rock formation, as three other women played instruments to the side. They all wore different tunics, some tied at the waist and others so loose they fell off the shoulder. Some of them wore bells on their ankles, which chimed beautifully in time with the drums. She longed to join them but simply watched from afar until they all seemed to come out of the trance they were in. One musician quickly cast aside her drum when she set eyes on her.

"Rinn, you've returned!"

She shook her head from side to side, frowning as she took in the group of women staring at her. Though their words were foreign to her ears, their meaning was perfectly clear.

"I'm sorry, do I know you?"

"Cun-vada nith," an older woman spoke as she approached. "She has forgotten us, sisters."

"She was gone but for a moment, how can this be?" The drummer had approached Rinn and was standing next to the older woman. 

Confused and still a bit shaken, Rinn grasped her head in her hands. Both women ran to her to hold her up by her elbows as she swayed and sat her down on a large flat rock. 

"Aiofe, your flask!" ordered the older woman to the drummer.

Rinn felt cool water hit her lips and drank eagerly. 

"Where am I? Where is Troy?" she asked, trying to get up. 

"You're back in Cardden-Mòr. Tell us, where have you been? Who is Troy?" asked Aiofe excitedly.

"Hush, girl. Can't you see she needs a moment." 

With a single gesture, the elder dismissed the others, who dispersed like leaves into the woods. Sitting herself next to Rinn, her untamed white hair framed a face worn deep by time, one that felt hauntingly familiar, like a half-remembered dream.

"How long were you in the other realm, child?" 

"I don't understand." 

Rinn was still convinced she was dreaming or that someone had slipped something in her drink. 

"We gathered here to give thanks to the goddess and it was your day to take the voyage. Drums played, feet danced, voices sung. One minute you were resting in the middle of our Windershinns, the next you were gone."

"That's what just happened to me!"

"In the other realm?" her pale eyes grew wide.

"Yes! I mean, I guess. The music had everyone in a trance and they were phasing in and out and then I just disappeared."

"What do you remember of the other realm?"

Rinn was done listening. 

"The place you call the other realm is where I belong. I don't know if this is a nightmare, a coma, or something else, but I need to go back. I just need to recreate what happened the first time."

"I'm afraid we can't."

"What do you mean? Why?" 

Rinn pushed off from the rock with sudden haste. Her feet wanted to flee, although there was nowhere to go. 

"This moon only appears every three years."

Body slumping to the floor, Rinn held back tears as a gurgle of sadness welled up inside of her chest. 

"There, there, child. It's not as bad as it seems. You've still got us, after all." said the old woman with a glint in her eye. 

And she was right. For three years, Rinn lived with the sisters in their forest huts, learning how to live off the land. She shared not only their home, but in their laughter and sorrow. Aiofe taught her how to play the drums. Domelch tried to instill in her a love for the bow and arrow, but Rinn was a horrible shot, even after practicing for months on end. 

One bitterly cold winter month, the old woman, who she had come to know as Eithne, had fallen gravely ill. Lying on her pile of furs, she rasped as her chest rose and fell with effort. Some women brought draughts and herbs to make her more comfortable, but her fever wouldn't break. Rinn sat with her day and night, looking into the fire for answers that wouldn't come. 

"You were always her favorite." Aiofe told her one night as she came to bring Rinn some honeyed bread. 

"I'm sorry, I still don't remember."

"As her apprentice, you used to sit with her as a child right there near her workbench and watch her prepare herbs and tinctures. So many questions out of your young mouth!" the drummer's mouth pulled up at the corners at the memory. 

Rinn looked over to the piles of clay pots and dried herbs on the workbench. Suddenly, she was flooded with a memory so vivid that she almost dropped her food. She was in the forest near the water's edge and someone was showing her how to extract pieces of bark from a tree without damaging it. 

"White willow!" she exclaimed, shoving Aiofe aside.

Launching herself to the workbench, she searched for the familiar powder they had made with the tree bark. She instinctively reached for a jar and sniffed it knowingly. When they mixed the powder with water and had Eithne sip on it, she eventually began to come around. 

Rinn didn't know who she was anymore. As her past with the witches returned in bits and pieces, her life with Troy refused to fade away. She spent every day trying to make sense of her reality, caught between the absurd possibility of time travel and the terrifying thought that none of this was real and that her brain was just making it up while she lay in a coma.

When it was time to perform the Widdershins, Rinn felt a tightness in her chest knowing that she would leave all these wonderful people behind. It had occurred to her to stay of course, but something was pulling her towards the life she remembered. 

"Are you certain that you want to go through with this?" asked Aoife as she stood in her spot, drum in hand.

"No." replied Rinn truthfully, "but there is something pulling me back."

Eithne squeezed her hand, a resigned look on her weathered face. 

"The same song calls to her as the first time she begged to step into the Widdershins ring. If her spirit is bound to us, the goddess will guide her back to us."

Rinn stood in the center of the circle as the moon hung swollen and high above them. The women began chanting as they moved counterclockwise in cadence with the rhythm of the drums. With every stride of their bare feet across the forest floor, the ankle bells chimed in a dark, hypnotic unison. Domelch, her bow at her side, plucked her stringed instrument with teary eyes. Then, as they swayed faster and faster, a pure and beautiful voice broke through the music and seized Rinn's very soul. 

Eithne joined her on the rock formation, giving voice to sounds Rinn would never have believed possible. Faster and faster the dancers moved, becoming a blur of hair and limbs under the luminescent moon, causing Rinn to feel faint and stumble onto the same rock as when she first arrived. Eithne reached out, her fingers catching Rinn’s shoulder just as the whooshing roar of a rushing torrent filled her ears. The pressure built inside her skull to the edge of agony, drowning out her old friend’s voice beneath a final, deafening crash of drums. 

And then silence. 

Rinn opened her eyes. She was flat on her back on a cold floor, strangers hovering over her in the flashing darkness, their voices swallowed whole by the music blasting from the speakers.

"Give her space!" cried a woman as she pushed everyone away. "Rinn, omigod are you okay?"

Rinn took in the concerned look on the woman's face and in that instant, she knew she had made a grave mistake. 

The End