Despite this storyline taking place mostly in Shepperton off the Thames, United Kingdom, it is entirely written in Moss Park, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Shepperton is close to my heart in ideas rather than kilometers.
Temu? I am looking forward to the shipment of my order. You've totally got an awesome thing going there. And I want some. So I bought some.
Thank you to PC Express! Great service, great staff and a credit to the entire quality assurance paradigm.
Definitely, the recent grocery GST Grocery Bursary was very helpful in filling my fridge and cupboards with groceries, and enough to pay some bills and enjoy an evening or two over the weekend. Its great to see our tax money come back to us. That alleviation of weight comes back to the economy in many ways. Both promoting domestic businesses through consumer spending, and encouraging imports and exports through reciprocal trade in a buyer confident market economy.
Been eating a home made modified version of Yakisoba, with real bacon, egg, rice and veggies and its completely awesome!
Don't let bad actors employed by banks, finance companies, finance institutions or collectors hold your identity hostage. Lets take our human rights and our power back away from these criminal cults. Report it to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre and make them responsible for their identity crimes. The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre is backed by the RCMP and OPP and helps Canadians in the fight against identity theft and identity fraud.
I'm not a security guard and have never worked as a security guard, but its an honest way to make a living for an honest person.
Finally, anyone who reads this and interprets it as my attempt to steal John Penny's history is full of you know what. I've always been attracted to Southeast Asian women as much so as I am to European women. The truth is that there are some people that didn't want that to be the case, or wanted it to remain hidden so that anyone could wear that impression as their own, which required that in the case that I met someone Southeast Asian, that said group and cult would do everything they could to sabotage such a relationship. John Penny's history is his history, and my history is my own and I have nothing but respect for those who kept their principles back in those days, both women and men.
Besides, its a hate crime to replace a person's identity in order to replace any aspect of their being that is protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Human Rights Act of Canada (including their skin colour and their religion), and the United Nations. My name is not Michael Jacks. My name is not Shane. My name is not Sydney.
This content, all of it, meaning this post and every other post, is produced in Canada, and both publisher emails are mine. brian.joseph.johns@shhhhdigital.com and fav.inbox@gmail.com. They don't belong to two different people, and more people should name their emails after their true identity. The fav.inbox when I created it meant favourite inbox, long before I had plans to turn Shhhh! Digital Media into a publisher.
One two three...
Brian Joseph Johns
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I am Brian Joseph Johns and this is Shhhh! Digital Media at https://www.shhhhdigital.com or https://www.shhhhdigital.ca in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701.
[Spellbound - Siouxie And The Banshees]
Do you like enigmatic characters, engrossing story, magic and the ever atemporal weave?
Play Baldur's Gate 3 [On Steam]
Do you like Dark Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery, while forever averting the greed of the Stygian Empire or the Priests of Set?
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Do you like daring storytelling and stylish, cutting edge animation? Do you like to be left with the lingering contemplation of intense drama and gripping character dynamics?
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Chapters
- Nothing But A Kiss (Finished May 30, 2026)
- The Thought Of A Merger (Finished June 8, 2026)
- When Somebody Cares (Finished June 10, 2026)
- The Church Moves In (Finished June 11, 2026)
- Miracles Or Mirage (Started June 11, 2026)
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| Brian Joseph Johns as of June 10, 2026 Same guy as in the red profile photo Unmarried. My last gf was Korean. Approx. 6 feet tall. 175 lbs. Fit. |
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Because Barris told me to put it here. If I didn't, he said he'd walk. Geez. Stardom really gets to some people's heads. Maybe I could kill him and bury his heart beneath the floor boards! Or I could encase him in behind a brick and mortar wall, for shaming my family name of Amantillado!
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The World Veterans Federation is a humanitarian organisation, a charity and a peace activist movement. The WVF maintains its consultative status with the United Nations since 1951 and was conferred the title of “Peace Messenger” in 1987.
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I'd like to point out that it was the incredible Gary Sinese Foundation that brought the issue of Veteran's rights to my attention. I've always had little respect for those who'd forget the great contribution made by those who've risked life and limb to defend those values that so many of us espouse. Perhaps the true measure of one's principles are by that for which they'd risk their life.
"None can speak more eloquently for peace than those who have fought in war."
Ralph Bunche, Nobel Peace Prize 1950
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ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease) is a progressive neuromuscular disease in which nerve cells die and leave voluntary muscles paralyzed. The ALS society provides a variety of programs to combat this disease and help those with it to survive.
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Because Barris told me to put it here. If I didn't, he said he'd walk. Geez. Stardom really gets to some people's heads. Maybe I could kill him and bury his heart beneath the floor boards! Or I could encase him in behind a brick and mortar wall, for shaming my family name of Amantillado!
In all truth, there's a good chance that thanks to the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Jonathan Swift, Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Herbert George Wells, Jules Verne, Dr. Seuss, Stephen King, Clive Barker and Pierre Burton (for The Secret World Of Og and his ground breaking interview of Bruce Lee) that all of us are literate. Actually that goes back much farther to the Phoenecians and their first 22 character system of symbols. Literacy is important. Really it is. Literally. It allows us to approach our employer at the end of the week (with a big club) and ask: where my money?! Math important too. It help us count our thirteen fingers and toes.
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Shhhh! Digital Media
Brian Joseph Johns
Shhhh! Digital Media Presents:
Tales of the Sanctum: Era of the Spellbound - Episode 9: The Tarot Be Joined
by Brian Joseph Johns
Nothing But A Kiss
Shaela sat silently in the kitchen poised precariously upon the stool that held her. She was leaned forward, her elbow on the island countertop before which she sat, her chin propped upon her hand of the same arm of that elbow as she waited for Mila to return from the front door.
Instead, she was greeted with an eerie and disheartening silence, given the nature of the subject they'd previously been discussing. Yet, she waited, shifting from arm to arm (and elbow to elbow) as she did, until she could wait no more.
"Mila? You do have a house guest here you know, as familiar as I am to you..." Shaela said with simultaneously accentuated interest and boredom, hoping that either sentiment would draw Mila back to finish their conversation, given the importance of its subject matter.
Her response was silence. Plain and simple, though with Mila, nothing ever truly was as such.
Shaela stepped up onto her Doctor Martens and stepped around through the living room (which Mila seldom used except to clean it), pausing long enough to admire one of her paintings along the way, and then continuing along towards the front foyer and finally to where the door still stood open and...
Wes' eyes were already open, for her simply couldn't keep them off of Mila as he kissed her. The subtle curl of her eyelashes and the pointed curve of her eye's edge, revealing a little pocket of her eye white beneath, as she stared off into the dream-space of their kiss.
Despite his eyes being focused solely upon her, he couldn't help but catch the reflection of Shaela's bright red hair, the sunlight catching it and illuminating it as if it were fluorescent. Even from the extents of his peripheral vision.
Mila only stopped when she felt his lips and tongue suddenly become stationary, as if he'd somehow become inanimate. Her eyes opened as her lips pulled away from his, and she noticed that he was staring off into the space just to her left, and slightly behind her.
She turned, adjusting her top as she did, and completely suspecting of who she might spy within her gaze thereupon. However, she'd given no thought as to what she might say.
However, she didn't have to say anything at all, as Wes said it all. Stumbling over his own words, and perhaps his own guilt.
"Shaela...? I... I didn't know you were..." Wes' words jumped from him before Mila had a chance to address her guest.
Shaela had honestly felt nothing offensive about what she'd witnessed, perhaps a tinge of guilt over having breached its sanctity. That was until Wes had opened his mouth and vented his own guilt upon her, as if that very kiss was meant for her, and only for her.
"My best friend. There you are, and with a kiss that has thoroughly killed my heart..." Shaela flashed a glance to Mila as she spoke, and at the moment she felt Shaela's weave in her most sensitive parts.
Only briefly, and perhaps unintentionally, but it was there nonetheless.
"Shaela... two of us made that choice. Together. Don't hold it..." Mila began, but before she'd finished, Shaela had ventured back into Mila's home towards the kitchen, disappearing around the corner a distance beyond the front doorstep and foyer.
Mila followed Shaela, as did Wes, just behind her but by the time they'd reached the kitchen, only the echoes of Shaela's exit portal remained.
Mila went to step into the portal after her, but Wes grabbed her arm and held her back.
"You'd be going in blind! Don't! I was there when she studied trans-locational shadow weave. Its dangerous, Mila. Don't follow her. Its designed to trap her adversaries, and she likely didn't realize she'd used that method before stepping into it..." Wes held onto her tightly, not daring to let her go, for he knew what lay in wait for her if she did.
"But... we're both..." Mila resisted him, perhaps some distant echo of her dedication to her craft. As if Shaela was somehow beyond it. A divide as Mila's want of Wes grabbed hold of her.
"Why should I have to justify my love life... to my friends... to one of my best friends. A Wytch like myself..." Mila instead of struggling against him, turned to face him.
"No. Mila, Shaela is not a Wytch like yourself..." Wes held onto her arm, as the portal opening fluctuated not unlike the petals of a growing flower, rippling with the urgency of life as if beckoning her.
As if it had watched her pruning her Bonsai, as she shaped her ever expanding world around her home. Shaping the entire community, one branch - one clipping at a time. Shaping reality like any architect. An artist in the truest sense.
"You are so different. But you are not what that book of shadows instructed about the weave. It was darkness of the purest sense. Purposeful. Secretive. That tunnel twisting into our reality...? Its a trap. She did not intend it, but its a trap nonetheless. Everything about Shadow Wytches is deceit and deception. Stealth on an entirely different level. Do not chance it," Wes urged her as he held onto her.
"But I'm..." Mila began.
"Capable? You most certainly are. Many times over, but for a different purpose. Work with Shaela... and do not follow her. Ever. Promise me, that when we see Nelony again, that we'll tell her the same. Urge her never to do as such," Wes pleaded with her.
Happiu~isuka's claws could be heard clicking upon the hardwood floor as he clunked down the last step from Mila's upstairs and into the living area where they'd stopped.
"R.r.r.r.r.rrrRUFF!" the little dog barked at the two of them, perhaps grouchy, or hungry, or both.
By that time, Mila and Wes were already lip-locked once again.
The Thought Of A Merger
The sky lay quiet, still, silent and black, with the sugared dots of stars scattered across their matte. She was looking at the sky. Away from Mila's monster home manor, at the very end of the dock perched upon the largest artificial lake that graced Shepperton, by the Thames, London, the United Kingdom.
She found it so awkward that such a sky could be so visible and as much clearly, just shy by a few Imperial miles of central London. The dock itself was situated in such a way so as to be removed the furthest from the shore on either side (by way of its protrusion in the center, rather than favouring any side). She lay on a deck chair, fully inclined in the midst of the same darkness that had fueled the imaginations of recent student astronomers during their visit to the Norman Fisher Observatory in Kenley, a short drive from her current location. A visit taught by Mila's, Shaela's and Nelony's own Mrs. Trufflebury, under the promotions of Susan Gardener's political interests in the region.
There was no telescope on Mila's dock, as it was just Gwendolyn in the flesh, and not a prisoner within Gillie's mind. Gillie was upstairs, somewhere in Mila's large home, assumedly laying asleep on a bed with a perfectly clean mattress, and perfectly clean sheets. Laying on a perfectly clean body, and there within the cavity of her mind, a perfectly clean version of Gwendolyn's future self. Somehow, it all fit into Mila's effort to contain the tragedy of the loss of her parents, by maintaining a perfectly, if not obsessively clean home. Perhaps that is why Gwendolyn in the flesh had escaped it as such.
To disappear into the night sky darkness on top of an artificial lake held deep in the midst of a tall oak and birch berth, atop an inclined chair staring up at the night sky. The filtered sanctity of her ever-clean home was far behind her. She was in the midst of what the bugs struggled to see, and the dirt failed to cling to. They were there, but they were irrelevant to the one peering forth.
It was when the cards began to fall, that she ultimately had to question the reality of her perception, for they literally fell from the heavens, immensely large. Ginormously so. They fell fumbling end over end and side over side, shrinking in scale until they landed on the same table that held her drink. Flat faced and fervently flaccid.
Like a tarot spread, suddenly dealt by an even more so unwilling sky.
Gwendolyn leaned up from the deck chair, almost horizontal upon the dock. She leaned forward and there on the table were three cards. The very same cards that had drifted down from the sky, larger than the planet itself, until their scale had become relevant enough to indicate they'd simply fallen from just slightly above her face. Sliding across the thickness of air until they'd slid across the table's surface, coming to a stop.
Three cards.
Gwendolyn adjusted herself on the chair, folding it upright until she could easily see the cards absent of the Moon's bright reflection.
They had fallen in a three card spread, though they still retained an implied order, obviously dealt in reverse given that the fan they formed represented the spread from top to bottom.
The Lovers
The imagery was purposeful but not initially obvious, for Gwendolyn had gone in believing that she was looking at the deck of someone who'd somehow dropped theirs out the window of their flight. That they'd fallen through the night sky and somehow, however miraculously so, landed atop of Mila's table in a three card spread fan.
The first thing that caught Gwendolyn's eye, was the similarity of her visual impression of the interpretation of an Emily Brontë book: Wuthering Heights, and she immediately regarded the male subject of the card as being Heathcliffe.
When she looked closer however, it was the clear image of Mila holding a bonsai that had indicated the true nature of the symbolism.
They were on a clearly divided path. Mila on one side, and Wes on the other.
There behind Heathcliffe... er... Wes, she tripped semantically in her observation, was a Pug. Not just any Pug.
It was Happiu~isuka.
There was a grand palace of some kind, in the distance on Mila's side of the path, while on Wes' side, there was a mountain in the distance, and perhaps a tiny log cabin home. A fire burning within emitted a tiny puff of smoke from there within. A home. Warm, comfy and cozy. For two.
There, in the sky, a woman Gwendolyn had never seen nor met. She was looking down upon the scene with disdain. The dismay for all of what she was seeing was very apparent upon her face. She stared at them from above, as they took up the two sides a path with only two sides, and two directions there with each.
And then there was Wes' hand. Beckoning her to cross the line dividing them, to his side of the path. Away from the magnificence of the palace. Away from what awaited her on the other, safer side of her path.
This all of course pertained to Mila. A woman whom Gwendolyn had come to admire the more she'd come to know her. She was confident. She was independent and seemingly without struggle and frailty.
And yet, within her, there was something amiss. A longing. Lost to the throes of pain, and to the heart of her memory of recent history.
Her eyes drifted to the next card in the spread, and she heard shadows.
The next card immediately jumped out at her, for there within staring back at her, was the Moon.
Not just the Moon itself, but there within the same woman, the Moon woman as it were, whose eyes had stared down upon Mila and Wes.
A distant despair there within as if in the midst of an unbearable loss. One whose hope had been cultivated for many years, only to arrive at a crescendo that instantly fell upon the Aerth far below, like tears whose impact pocked the dusty dirt of a land bereft of them.
A solitary cat stood to one side of a path (the same side upon which Happiu~isuka had stood, in the case that meant anything as she wondered).
There framing the path on either side, were two towers.
"Towers!", Gwendolyn though aloud.
"Not just one... but two..." she once again elicited, her thoughts of an impending cataclysm highlighting her concern, for the tower had a reserved significance in tarot, as the harbinger of an impending doom.
She then noticed the trail of hair, slightly tinged of red and to one side of the path, opposite to that of the cat, whose side remained dark and blue. Cold and lost. Alone in a darkness that had abandoned the Moon, long ago. In distance. In time.
The last card she had seen many times in a variety of spreads, though this particular card had various details obviously very specific to the the situation.
For instance, the hanged man wasn't dangling from a tree, but from the remnants of a one great archway. The entryway to some vast complex that had withered and crumbled to dust, along the same path demarked on the previous two cards.
Written there upon the top of the arch were the Latin words: SANCTVM SECLORVM, which left no room for doubt as to the intended symbolism laid bare by this spread.
Though Gwendolyn had only momentarily met Wes, she could not be certain that it was his image that adorned the card, though his visage bore more than a passing resemblance.
Gwendolyn sat in the settling silence of the still water around her under the night sky that had presented her the gift. Though perhaps in this case, it was the curse of knowledge of the future.
"Its a difficult weight to bare, isn't it?" the familiar voice of a woman addressed her quietly from behind.
Gwendolyn turned in the dock chair, and was greeted by someone eerily familiar.
It was her.
Not exactly her, but her about six years onward. She still had the same long blonde hair, though it was styled a bit differently. A bit more of a mature look, slightly curled and wavy to go with a much more sophisticated adornment of her face paint, as she often liked to call it.
"Now I'm sure that I'm only dreaming," the younger Gwendolyn responded to her older doppleganger.
"Most days, I simply can't tell the difference. Maybe there isn't?" the older Gwendolyn responded as she stepped forward, and closer to her more youthful proxy.
"I thought you were trapped inside of Gillie's head?" confirmed the younger Gwendolyn.
"I've learned a trick. That while she's asleep, I can leave freely and go where I like. It took me a while to discover this, and I did quite literally by accident, but that isn't important right now. What's important is that you and I have something that their Sanctum Seclorum cannot do without, any more than the helm of an old sailing ship could do without a telescope, a compass and a sextant," the older Gwendolyn responded in a most learned manner, despite her still being a few years shy thirty.
"The cards spoke to me tonight," the younger Gwendolyn turned her attention back to the table, but the cards she'd seen earlier were no longer there.
"The Aether speaks with us in many different ways, and quite often in the languages of our familiarity. Not just spoken or written, but our vocation. Our natural talents. The things with which we feel most comfortable and are able to distinguish order from within the noise," the older Gwendolyn explained to the younger.
"They're gone!?" the younger Gwendolyn had become excited to show her new found friend, in the form of a woman who knew her better than anyone.
"No they aren't. They're up here..." the older Gwendolyn gestured to her head and then her heart.
"Just one secret conversation between you and the universe, of many more to come. I saw the same spread, and I am aware of what's at risk, but I feel there is something much deeper within going on. There's what's obvious and on the surface, but there is also a hidden and deeply profound message within. This is exactly why the Sanctum Seclorum needs our vision to help guide its course. Mila already spoke about a woman of science. Mrs. Trufflebury, who has been working behind the scenes to arrange for a more formal location for their Sanctum, with the help of a woman named Susan Gardener. The objective search for truth is very important, and certainly one of the two sides of a coin, but for something of the nature of the Sanctum, there needs to be another set of eyes. Eyes that are capable of looking into and through subjectivity in all of its infinitesimal permutations. Someone that is able to work with the sciences, without the rigid barrier of a lack of contemplation for the other side," the older Gwendolyn explained to the younger one.
"And you feel that this will be possible by our merger?" asked the younger Gwendolyn of the elder.
"I do. And you must consider that my commitment doesn't come lightly. You'll still be and entirely have yourself. It is I that am at risk of ceasing to be, in the sense of my individuality, in terms of my being another you, but at a later date in time. Approximately six years older than you are now. Still however, I am a different woman than you. I've had very different experiences that have shaped me in a very different way than your future life path is going to shape you. That has some value to me, and to risk its uniqueness in order to merge with someone else. That's a lot to give up. No different a philosophical question than death, really. In one sense, you're like an afterlife to me, if I'll even be aware of the me that might be gone by our merger," the older Gwendolyn pondered aloud, though reminding the younger of the fact that the risk would mostly be hers.
"Or the me that might be gone by my sharing myself in such a way...?" the younger Gwendolyn retorted.
"Then my only future might be as a passenger in the body of a woman whose years are numbered, given her good graces to allow me that much," the older Gwendolyn replied.
"From what you've told me thus far, it was mutually beneficial, wasn't it? I mean, you urged her to clean up her health and to take better care of herself. Something that even the members of the local clergy neglected to do. You had a positive effect upon her life, and as a result, she has a new lease on life. Don't speak like its all one sided, and that you were simply an inconvenience, when we both know better. I know you. Better than anyone. Remember? I'm you! I know you'd never sleep a night without knowing that you left the world a little bit better than it was before you awoke for the day," the younger Gwendolyn reminded the older of their inspiration.
"As you get older, you'll find that its very difficult, sometimes impossible to maintain that kind of momentum. There are forces in this world that are trying to stop you. So do you give up? No. You simply adjust accordingly. Like our merger. It will be an adjustment for us both, but this stands to give their Sanctum a chance. A better chance than if they fumble forward through the darkness without any awareness of the risks that lay ahead," the older Gwendolyn responded, and before she'd spoken her last words, she quickly faded from view.
The younger Gwendolyn stood facing the point where her senior had been, at first saying nothing. And then she spoke.
"I will have my decision by this morning, after tea. I will call you my friend, and let you and Gillie know," the younger Gwendolyn made her way up to the house and in quietly through the sliding door.
She snuck up the stairs to the guest room, noting that Mila's door was closed, and that she'd passed Wes' shoes by the front door on her way up.
She thought once again about the tarot spread.
When Somebody Cares
Nelony trudged through a black watery sludge, her rubber boots protecting her from the worst of the thin film layer of oil that topped the ocean waves that washed ashore by Westgate Bay. Most of the sand was already blackened with the accumulating sludge, while further up the beach a growing army of environmental volunteers held their vigil, scrubbing birds carefully with a gentle soap that quickly softened the greasy sludge stuck to their feathers.
A trio of vans had been traveling to another part of the same beach, some five kilometers away to fill their beds with huge buckets of clean water, which they'd then transport back to the refuge to ensure there was clean water for those washing the wildlife.
Nelony had by this time already made six trips, each time having rescued a bird (five seagulls and one particularly large heron), and talking to them in their native language, had managed to calm the animals, explaining in details what they were doing to help them.
Most of the birds that she'd spoken to were simply embarrassed, perhaps like a human having to be rescued from their bathtub, though in all truth, it was a very difficult issue for most birds to have their feathers covered in black goo. First of all, it was a sure sign to any potential mate that there were issues, that would take a little more convincing than a well performed mating dance to explain away.
Secondly, it made other every day matters very, very difficult. Swimming was nearly impossible. Walking was just plain uncomfortable. Eating or sleeping were beyond any hope of achievement, while flying was absolutely out of the question. What was even worse was that most who were caught in it remained polite about the whole affair, until it was far too late. Of course this impressed Nelony to no end, and just motivated her to move that much faster, bringing the birds caught in the slick to the washing stations as fast as she could retrieve them.
Nelony arrived the a gull in her hands, hanging onto his legs carefully to prevent him from trying to fly off, as he was in a bit of a panic.
She handed the gull over to one of the volunteers working the cleaning stations.
"This one's a bit anxious. Says he's a bit shy. Stage fright I think," Nelony explained to the man, a large burly fellow who attended the washing station.
"He said all this to you, did he? Must be a talkative fellow...?" the man responded to her, somewhat amused by her words.
"He was just before I grabbed him up. Having an anxiety attack, as he couldn't feel his feet. I'm guessing that the oil must be pretty cold, and cuts through his natural feather oil, and probably drains heat from him. Then as soon as I picked him up, he stopped squabbling. Completely. He said he was very nervous, and he even joked that he'd forgotten his lines..." Nelony continued addressing the man and in all seriousness despite his bewildered gawking at her.
"Well, its good to know we have a bird psychiatrist with us today. I'm sure you'll have a lifetime of new clients on this gig alone," the man quipped to her.
Ethel had just arrived to where Nelony was, and leaned over to the burly man and spoke into his ear:
"She's serious you know. She really does talk birdese," Ethel winked at Nelony, and then looked back to the man.
"Well, I guess she's the right person for this gig then, isn't she?" the burly man began scrubbing the bird, who let out a rather dramatic squawk.
"He says his right wing is very sore. Could you go easy on him there?" Nelony offered a translation.
The man looked to her, and then tried scrubbing the bird's right wing more gently than before, while using a bit of force on his left wing. The bird remained quiet and mostly calm as the burly man washed him.
"Right then. There's a first time for everything I 'spose," the man replied as he continued cleaning the bird.
"How are things looking in the front lines?" asked Ethel of Nelony.
"We've managed to get most of the first ones to get caught in the slick. The rest of them seem to be keeping their distance, thankfully, though a few of them have tried to get at the dead fish they spy from above, and just end up getting soiled in oil themselves," Nelony explained to Ethel, who looked thoughtfully to the Environment Agency support truck a football field away from them.
"They've got a special cannister flare. It spits out a gas that birds don't like, but is fine for most humans. I'll have one of the other volunteers see if they can commandeer a couple for you. It might help to keep the other birds away," Ethel suggested to Nelony.
"Alright. I'll be on the north end of the beach. Seems a good spot to put a couple flares given the wind direction," Nelony responded, bending over and using her thick gloved hands to wipe the sand thickened black sludge from her boots and onto a special basin they'd erected to contain the sludge.
...
Shaela sat in the front seat beside Mila as she drove her mini-van north east, towards the suburb where Wes rented his flat. He sat in the back, the three of them remaining silent as they drove.
Shaela reached out and hit the power button on the radio, and the soft sound of classical music filled the mini-van. She leaned back into her seat and looked quietly out the passenger window at a tiny little mall she used to frequent when she was fourteen.
Wes used that moment to find Mila's eyes, specifically when they'd jumped to the rear view mirror. His found hers and they both smiled at each other, both them their hearts skipping a beat and stomachs full of butterflies. When Shaela's attention returned to the front of the van, they broke their gaze and went on as if nothing had happened at all.
In the background, one of Bach's more eloquent melodies found Shaela's interest, and it became a counterpoint between her and the other two in the car, the competing melodies seeming to find their way to the correct ears in their silent game. The irony was that much of Bach's work was written under the guise of actual counterpoint. A series or rules devised by the clergy so as to keep the devil in music at bay by averting a specific harmonic tritone interval that had been referred to as the diablus en musica.
Hundreds of years later, historians argued over the validity of such claims, and often attributed to the strict rules imposed upon composers as being related to the limited vocal range of singers rather than as a means to stave off the presence of any devils that might inhabit any intervals in music. Particularly, the augmented fifth, which correlated to the third and the seventh in a dominant seventh chord.
In the case of the music of the particular piece to which they were listening, the one within which their game of counterpoint was taking place, Bach himself had written it not with the intent of chasing the devil, but in fact as a playful motif involving two competing melodies as part of a study. One for each hand. The right hand played its run as Shaela looked to the passenger window again, only for Mila and Wes to meet once again in the mirror as the left hand part played.
"Take a left up here, please, if you could Mila?" Wes requested from the back seat.
"I almost forgot that you were back there, you were so quiet," Shaela responded.
"Here?" confirmed Mila.
"That's correct. I'm just down at the end of the street, just before it turns right," Wes explained to her.
"Its nice little neighbourhood. Looks cozy," Mila remarked.
"It is. Quite. Mostly old fogies. I lucked into the main floor rental of that house right there. I've got an old chap in the basement, and an older retired couple on either side. Barely any trouble, except for the occasionally mucking about of raccoons at night," Wes explained to her as she pulled into the driveway.
"Do you mind if I come in and take a quick peek?" asked Mila of him.
"Not at all. I'd like it if you could," Wes replied.
"I won't be but a minute. Just going to take a peek," Mila assured Shaela, who nodded and kept her face looking out of the passenger window, not daring to look to either Wes or Mila.
The two of them stepped in through the front door and closed the door behind themselves, where Mila threw her arms around his neck and their lips met once again.
The front door opened about three minutes later, and Mila stepped out, waving to Wes who stood at the front door, watching her every step of the way to her mini-van.
"Call me?" he said to her before she got in.
"You call me. Tonight," she responded, blowing him a kiss before getting back in the driver's seat of the van and pulling back out of the driveway and onto the street.
Wes watched them until they were out of sight, after which point he pinched himself to be certain that he hadn't just dreamt the whole affair.
...
"Have you decided?" asked Shaela of Mila.
"About what?!" Mila responded defensively.
"About helping Nelony with that environmental situation...?" Shaela replied, feeling the tension in the air fall as she explained her question.
"You didn't think I was going to drive for an hour just to drop you off out there, did you?" asked Mila.
"So I take it that's a yes?" Shaela confirmed with her.
"It is, but I've got to decide how I'm going to do this. It isn't just as simple as showing up and solving that problem for them, you realize," Mila explained to Shaela as she headed for the A2 along which they'd travel east, after which they'd take the M2,east to West Bay.
"If it can be solved at all. Are you so presumptuous as to think that you're capable enough at this point to take on a problem of this scale?" asked Shaela, with a hint of sarcasm in her voice.
"Have you been studying your shadow arts?" Mila asked her in response.
"Tirelessly, and I've made considerable progress. Probably more than both you and Nelony combined," Shaela responded confidently and with a hint of arrogance that made Mila slightly uncomfortable, but only as a result of the situation between her and Wes.
"That's a little brash, don't you think?" asked Mila in response, though not so much so as to increase the tension between them, but rather in order to give her friend a way back to even ground.
"Not at all. If I didn't take pride in my progress, then I wouldn't know when to stop, and that could be dangerous in our undertaking, don't you think?" Shaela responded.
"True, and I suppose your attitude is very much the Shaela I know. Let me say that my progress has been quiet but profound. I don't think it unreasonable to consider that its possible to have an effect on the scale we're hoping for. We'll see when we get there. Besides, I don't see that as being the issue as much so as something else we've not yet spoken about. Neither in our daily goings on this summer, nor at any of our official Sanctum meetings," Mila got over to the left just in time to get onto the entry ramp of highway A2, eastbound towards the Rochester/Chatham region.
"Well you could just wake me up when we get there if its not too much trouble. I'm thinking that a little nap might help for the time when push comes to shove," Shaela leaned back in her chair, sheltering her eyes from direct sunlight as she closed them.
"You mean you're going to leave me to drive you the entire way, and give me no company along the way?" Mila turned to Shaela, who was already falling asleep.
"Exactly. Then next time Wes spends the night, you'll get probably remember to get more sleep," Shaela responded as she drifted off.
"You are definitely the reason behind the word witch having such a bad history, my friend..." Mila said to her as she drifted off, while Mila gripped the wheel and struggled to maintain her concentration on the road ahead.
The Church Moves In
Glynis picked up her pace, her cane in hand as she walked the path ashore of the lake in Mila's backyard.
"How are your legs holding out?" asked Gallea from within her.
"No cramps yet. Pretty good so far, but I still need the cane..." Glynis responded as she tried to pace herself, maintaining a slower jog.
"We're building up muscle. Especially that of your stabilizers, which are probably the least developed given your challenges, but you're doing well. I haven't had to jump in yet, which is a considerable improvement," Gallea encouraged Glynis, who dared to lean forward enough so as to force her momentum that much more further ahead of her.
Her cane came down hard, almost tripping her, but she managed to catch her off step with her other leg, using the momentum to push herself onto her other leg. She suddenly fumbled and Gallea's strength and sense of balance suddenly kicked in to catch her. Rather than tumbling to the floor of the path, Glynis managed to stay on her feet and come to an abrupt stop, no longer requiring her cane.
"Not bad. That was twelve minutes with no mishaps, and you managed to do all that with your own muscles and metabolic function. I think that's grounds for celebration," Gallea said to her, excited that she'd gone so far on her own.
"When we get there. To Mila's I mean. Assuming she's even there," Glynis responded, slightly out of breath.
"Remember, deep breath in, and hold it for one... two... three... and then out again. That will prevent your muscles from becoming saturated with carbon dioxide, and cramping as a result of the pH imbalance. Do you want me to get us there, or do you want to try again?" asked Gallea.
"Twelve minutes is pretty good. I'll take that gain for now, but maybe it would be safer if you got us both there," Glynis agreed, already feeling a slight tension in her tendons, which indicated the onset of her Becker Muscular Dystrophy symptoms.
"Alright, but you need to stretch first, and then we'll go," Gallea responded, making sure that Glynis was taking care to manage her symptoms with a proactive approach.
"Gallea, when you were first... born... or made... or however you arrived... did you have to learn all of this? I mean, about your body?" Glynis asked Gallea as she stretched the inner tendon in order to avert a catastrophic failure of her ligature.
"I think I just knew... I mean, how to walk. How to jump. Even how to run, however, nothing could prepare me for the first time I actually did it. Maybe a little bit like it is for you?" asked Gallea of Glynis, who then shifted and stretched her other tendon.
"I guess that's kind of what its like now. I mean I remember running when I was a little girl, but I can't run like I could when I was a little girl. I can remember, and my muscles want to move, but it all just falls apart when I used to try... after the Muscular Dystrophy showed up..." Glynis explained to her interior friend.
"That's exactly what it was like for me. I could remember how to do it, even though I'd never done it. Nothing could prepare me for that feeling. Of being able to walk, and then run. It was like being... free," Gallea ceased when she realized she was speaking in such a way that might cause Glynis harm or even resent.
"That's what it like just a few moments ago, running on my own legs, for the first time in a long time. Since I was a little girl. Like freedom. Like flying," Glynis smiled, standing herself up tall, her tendons no longer flaring or burning with the tightness that signaled the onset of cramps and cessation of functioning.
"Speaking of, I'll race you to Mila's front door..." Gallea responded to Glynis, who was caught off guard by the challenge.
And then her legs began moving, and she was forced to lean forward as her momentum picked up. Before she knew it, she was in a full sprint, approaching the limits of what athletes experienced. During their their training. During their peak.
They rounded the row of oaks, three of them in all, and the ginormous weeping willow whose boughs spread from the far side of the street over Glynis' head. Mila's fence then came into view and not far beyond, the pink leaves and red blossoms there beyond. Painting their scenery with such brilliance and magnificence that Glynis almost stopped in place, fixated by their majestic beauty.
"Come on. Can't give up yet..." Gallea encouraged her, and Glynis returned her focus to their race as she rounded the corner of the fence and pressed through the wooden archway and up the front steps to Mila's front door, pausing to take a deep breath.
She inhaled and held it for the count of three, and then exhaled steadily, repeating the process two more times.
"If that was a real race between you and me, I'd say that you would have had it," Gallea said to her from inside of the girl's own body.
"We had it. Now lets take a moment to appreciate Mila's cherry blossoms, and then we'll try the door, like any normal, non-Becker Muscular Dystrophy and non-Golem possessed person might do," Glynis joked with her best friend.
"Golem? Listen missie, I'm made from the best quality gold dust and clay you know," Gallea responded.
"And a heart of gold," Glynis added.
"That too, but that's only for the premium members... like you," Gallea joked.
Glynis extended her hand and pressed the digital door chime, and then waited for Mila to arrive.
The intercom clicked several times and then came to life with a girl's voice:
"May I help you?" the voice asked Glynis, most obviously seeing her on the front door camera, and yet not sounding familiar to her at all.
"I'm here looking for Mila. Is she in?" asked Glynis of the girl, leaning in close to the intercom's speaker to speak her words.
"She's out for most of the day. Can I take a message?" asked the woman of Glynis.
Glynis stepped into frame and made sure she was visible onscreen. Cane and all.
"I'm a friend. A fellow artist... I was hoping to spend a bit of this lovely morning with her. Could you let her know that Glynis was here to see her?" asked Glynis of the mysterious woman who neither bore Mila's name nor identity.
The sound of the door locks clacking could be heard and a moment later, there stood a young and pretty blonde haired woman at the door, not unlike Glynis.
Glynis retreated slightly, as she found something quite familiar about the woman before her.
"Gallea?" Gwendolyn said to Glynis, seemingly seeing right through her and recognizing the Golem/Woman within her.
"Gwendolyn? You can see me?" Gallea responded through Glynis' mouth.
"Not in the security monitor. Not one bit. But out here, through my own eyes? Like I was looking at you through the light of day," Gwendolyn responded.
"You really are Gwendolyn! From Mila's party...?" Gallea responded, holding Glynis' body up as Glynis fumbled backwards from Gallea's own sense of shock.
"Mila's SAPCHoP you mean..." Gwendolyn smiled.
"Yes. Exactly! Mila's SAPCHoP!" Gallea recalled Mila's acronym.
"What's a SAPCHoP?" asked Glynis of Gallea and Gwendolyn both.
They looked at each other and responded simultaneously:
"SAPCHoP: Seasonally Appropriate Politically Correct Holiday Party..." their voices merged, as did their laughter afterwards.
They both stood on the stairs laughing as they recalled Mila's hilarious acronym, which had become a secret amongst them all. A code word that would allow them to recognize one another from across vast distances of time and space. A magical memory they could all share, together, to recognize one another from across the storm.
"Mila left with Wes and Shaela a couple of hours ago. I've been staying here. Both of us actually," Gwendolyn explained to Glynis and Gallea.
"Both of you? How so? What do you mean?" asked Glynis and Gallea of her.
"Your Gwendolyn and I? We merged," Gwendolyn explained to them, and Gallea's memory became filled with her memories of the SAPCHoP.
"How did you even know to trust me?" asked Glynis and Gallea through the same body.
"The Alchemist..." Gwendolyn showed them the card she'd drawn before coming to answer the door:
"That's my father..." Gallea's voice found its way out through Glynis' lips.
"I know. I was there. Remember?" the Gwendolyn that Gallea had never met responded, though with the memories of her older, more worldly and traveled self intact.
"How did you merge without over writing each other? Without any kind of schizoid artifacts as a result of your fragmented psyche?" asked Gallea of Gwendolyn.
"A carefully planned and conducted ritual, guided by Mila and Shaela before they left for the day," Gwendolyn explained to her, beckoning her into Mila's quaint manor on the lake.
Glynis stepped up to the front door and stepped inside, Gwendolyn closing the door behind them. Just as she locked the door, a van pulled up out front, though across the road and a pudgy older man with a beard and moustache stepped out, and went over to a utility pole, one fashionably styled to appear as it were from yesteryear, a large lantern hanging dangling from a single arm brass boom high above him.
He pulled a poster from a stack of them he'd been carrying in his left hand, and placed the rest of them on the passenger seat of the van, then closing that door behind him. He then proceeded to fasten the poster to the utility pole, using the adhesive he'd brought with him.
When he was done, he carefully looked around and when he was certain that nobody was looking, he placed a micro-camera near the base of the utility point, ensuring that it was directed at the front door of Mila's home. He then pulled his smartphone from his pocket and used it to connect to the camera, testing its field of vision to ensure that it was aimed correctly.
When he was certain that it was, he once again looked around and then headed back to the driver's seat of his van and got in, then dialing a number.
"Hello again. Its Finnegan here. I just got the camera in place and we should have a pertinent record of the comings and goings from their home," the man said to someone on the other end.
"Excellent. You can consider the donation transferred then, and you should find it in your online ledger in about ten minutes. Three hundred thousand pounds as we agreed," the man on the other end responded.
"The Lord thanks ye kindly for looking after our Church and ensuring that we can do the Lord's work. We'll be certain to keep an eye upon these tools of Satan, and we'll keep you informed of our progress Mr. Bidman," Finnegan was already spending the money in his head.
"Thank you. We look forward to hearing from you, especially with any information concerning the girl. The gothic girl? The one in the dark clothing? We'll talk soon," Mr. Bidman hung up, and Finnegan shortly thereafter put the van in drive and made his way to another utility pole a half a mile onward.
A small bird flew down from the branches of a nearby tree and landed atop of the folded edge of the poster, spying it carefully as it looked around.
The poster said:
Church Goods Bake Sale. Support The Lord's Good Work, And Have A Bite At The Same Time.
Saturday July 5th At 99 Berringer Drive. 10 AM - 2 PM Rain or Shine
Be Good!
You Never Know When The Lord's A Watchin'...
Miracle or Mirage
From the point that Mila had arrived at West Bay, she spent another ten minutes driving around trying to find a parking space, seeing as the oil slick and the wildlife rescue effort had attracted a large crowd of onlookers, and the local London Press.
When she did finally stop the van and stopped the ignition, she turned to Shaela who still lay asleep beside her, leaning back in her chair and on the precipice between a quiet growl and a full fledge snore.
"Wakey wakey..." Mila used a feather she'd kept in her purse, rubbing it gently under Shaela's nose.
Her nose began to twitch, and then she suddenly leaned forward violently and sneezed several times.
"You might look charming and innocent, but you're truly cruel at heart..." Shaela responded sharply, not amused at having been plucked from her slumber by such a sudden means.
"Not so cruel as to let a friend drive me across the UK, while I slept," Mila responded, opening her door to step out into the warm but brisk ocean air.
Despite the warmth, she kept her sandals on her feet, as much of the traffic between the shore line and the cleaning stations was soiled with thick black deposits of oil that soaked up the sand, forming malleable clumps of lumpy clay-like substance.
"We certainly don't appear dressed for the occasion," Mila remarked to Shaela.
"I'm always dressed for the occasion. Its the occasion that has to change for me," Shaela replied with an air of brashness that only she could muster.
"Lets see how Nelony feels about that," Mila spotted her in the distance, where she was carrying another heron from the shore up to one of the cleaning stations.
Mila picked up her feet and jogged, jumping over the bits of oil blackened sand, Shaela keeping up easily with her long legs. The two of them finally arriving where Nelony had just unhanded the heron into the care of the cleaning attendant.
"Glad you could make it to the party. I don't suppose you're going to be working in those clothes, are you?" Nelony asked them, her clothing already dirty with both sand and oil, some of it wet with salt water from the bay.
"Yes, but I think we're going to be coming at this problem a bit differently. How does this break down by itself, when we aren't messing about with nature?" asked Mila of Nelony.
"Its complicated really. Its kind of like the ocean has its own metabolism and digestive system. Not that much different from our own gut. Just like our guts, there are micro-organisms, many thousands of different kinds, each of them specialized in breaking down one of the hundreds of different chemicals there are in an oil slick," Nelony took a moment to explain what she knew and understood about the process, which though considerable, was far from the perspective of an expert.
But it was enough to give Mila an idea.
"I think that the three of us might be able to pull this off. To quickly dilute and digest as you said, the entirety of the oil spill itself, but its going to take all three of us working together," Mila explained to them.
"How so?" Nelony asked Mila.
"First of all, you have knowledge of these microbes. The ones that digest the chemicals that make up the oil spill. Much the same as you can communicate and empathize with birds or other animals, you can likely do the same with them, and just because you've never tried, doesn't mean that you can't," Mila explained her idea one piece at a time.
"You're going to need to get them to work together and to conglomerate from all over the bay and close in on the oil spill itself..." Mila said to them.
"But that won't be nearly enough to clean the entire spill and over any appreciable course of time that we have here," Nelony responded.
"That's where I come in. I've been practicing a kind of weave that I can't explain. You'll just have to trust me when I say that if you can speak to those microbes and get them working in our interest, I can help their effectiveness..." Mila explained to Nelony and Shaela, who looked at each other skeptically.
"And what do I do? Just stand around and blend in with the oil?" asked Shaela of them.
"No. You're going to do what you do best. You're going to keep our effort entirely hidden and until long after we're done. You're going to keep our progress hidden, until after night fall at which point there will nobody around, and by that time I'm hoping that your veil will fade. Nobody will be aware that the spill is gone until the wee hours of the morning, and by that time, we'll still be asleep back home," Mila laid the plan out before them, and it was Shaela who began trying to find problems with it.
"And how am I supposed to conceal an oil slick, that's in the process of disappearing, in the ocean mind you?" Shaela asked her.
"I don't know. If I did, then I suppose I'd be a Night Wytch, wouldn't I?" Mila responded sarcastically.
"You've got a point there," Nelony agreed with Mila.
"What happens when they find out its gone?" asked Shaela of the other two.
"We'll cross that bridge when we get there. For the time being, lets focus on the task at hand. Think about it. Most of these people will be able to go home early, and most of the other birds and wildlife will be safe. The scientists over there at the monitoring station will immediately know something is up when the casualties suddenly drop, but the slick will still be there from their perspective. The Environmental Agency volunteers will be able to leave early, while the scientists will probably be able to do the same, maybe a few hours onward. The emergency will be over, and that should be the goal of the Sanctum. Our Sanctum Seclorum," Mila said convincingly and with enthusiasm.
"I'm going to have to get close to the spill. Really close if I'm going to be communicating with the ocean's metabolic microbes in order to gather them to the that location, but there is one more caveat..." Nelony explained to Mila and Shaela.
"What's that?" asked Mila.
"I've never spoken to microbes before. Its not like they have a voice or anything. I mean, how many times have you heard them chirping in the trees, or gargling in your bath water?" Nelony responded, trying to relay to Mila just how far she'd be reaching into the unknown in order to achieve that for which they were hoping.
"That's because they're probably too busy doing the back stroke... Look nature girl. Improvise. Its not like I'm David Copperfield or anything, well practiced at making anything the size of an oil slick disappear," Shaela responded sarcastically.
"I don't think that was part of any of Charles Dickens' works. I mean about making an oil slick disappear...?" Nelony responded, her only knowledge of anyone named David Copperfield having come from the writing of Charles Dickens.
"Its alright Shaela. I know who you were talking about. Look, can you two just reach for the stars? I mean, this isn't like anything I've tried either, but that's the point. At some time we're going to have to rely on ourselves and each other when we can't rely on anyone else. That is going to mean that we're going to have to stretch our abilities to their furthest reaches and our furthest limits. I trust you that you can do this Nelony. You too Shaela. You just need to trust yourselves," Mila said encouragingly to them.
"You're preaching to the choir, Mila," Shaela responded.
"Why don't we stick with meditating to the lotus blossom, but I appreciate the sentiment. This isn't going to be a walk in the garden for me either. Lets get ourselves positioned and get started. Shaela, we're going to need cover first before we can start. You're in charge of everything that helps us to keep this hidden," Mila told Shaela, who nodded affirmatively.
"Alright. Let me get myself in a hidden position, and then I'm on it," Shaela made her way over to group of trees just the other side of the road from the beach.
From there, she spied the oil slick in its entirety, which at that point had spread to cover an area roughly two by two kilometers. A considerable surface area to obscure, let alone while keeping her friends hidden during their manipulation of the Aether.
She began by churning the hidden energetic Aether and folding it several times over until it was soft and malleable enough to disperse, and that is exactly what she did. Compressed in her hands, it quickly expanded outwards in the direction of the oil slick, and the section of beach where Nelony and Mila had chosen to attempt their manipulation of the microbes.
The monitoring station observed it first.
"Richard, are you getting this?" a woman in her early thirties spoke over a headset from her place in the table in front of the monitoring laptop. A device which was connected wirelessly to a network of buoys dispersed throughout the spill, keeping track of its density, temperature and other aspects that indicated its state enough so in order to predict its state of cohesion and its direction of motion.
Out beyond where the slick touched the horizon, a gaseous cloud began forming, appearing like the morning fog that often scattered itself in the valleys in rural London. Clinging to the deepest parts as the morning sun slowly heated the peaks. This fog seemed itself to be pushed through the water by the crests of the waves itself, clinging to the air just above the slick as it spread towards the beach from the horizon.
Eventually, it made landfall, quickly crawling up the beach and nearly as far as the cleaning stations. The Environmental Agency volunteers made their way to the cleaning stations, retreating from the fog and not daring to venture into it for the risk it posed to their visibility.
As soon as the fog arrived, Nelony began concentrating, trying to visualize the microbes from the film footage she'd seen seen in school, especially that of the metabolic process that broke down the sludge of oil over the course of many months, breaking the globules down into spores, and then into droplets as the enzymes produced by these microbes consumed the carbohydrates that made up much of the fossil fuel. Each of these kinds of microbes doing their part.
Nelony then felt a tingling in her hands, as the Aether opened channels between her and the minute life that made up the microbial world. A chattering could be heard, which grew in volume as more and more joined in the chorus.
By that time, Mila had began shaping the energetic weave, and using it to amplify the effects of Nelony's abilities, while at the same time beginning the digestive processes that would allow for the microbes to break down the oil slick into small edible molecules, closer to their size and population, which was in the hundreds of millions and quickly growing.
By the time Nelony had managed to figure out their language, the population of microbes had grown to over six hundred billion, thanks to Mila's amplification of Nelony's microbial lure. By the time the count had arrived at over three trillion, Nelony and Mila both began to notice, or rather feel a change in the oil spill. The total area it covered was still the same, but it had begun separating into smaller pools, at roughly even intervals throughout the entirety of the two by two kilometer slick. Each of these smaller pools was further shrinking, and very rapidly.
"Richard, I'm getting some very strange readings from the monitoring buoys. They seem to be overheating..." she reported to her colleague.
"Something's metabolizing the oil. Rapidly... I'm getting the same thing. A big spike in heat, and you and I both know that's a sign of metabolic functioning, especially the break down of carbohydrates... This is definitely not natural. Lets keep an eye on it, and ensure that we're not witnessing spontaneous combustion. Get your megaphone and start pulling everyone away from the beach and up towards the cleaning stations," Richard requested of his colleague
"I'm Annabel Lewis of the Environmental Agency. We need to get everyone away from the beach if we could! We have signs that there might be the risk of a fire, so I'm asking that everyone near the shoreline or on the beach itself, move themselves back to the cleaning stations, or preferably behind them, on the other side of the road!" Annabel used her megaphone and began directing the crowds to move back away from the shoreline.
Shaela noticed this and began thickening the fog nearest Nelony and Mila, perhaps trying to conceal them as Annabel searched through the fog to make sure she hadn't missed anyone. Shaela's bluff worked and Annabel failed to detect either Nelony or Mila, and simply returned to her monitoring station nearest their van, and watched the real-time graphs carefully for any signs of ignition.
By the time most of this had unfolded, the oil slick itself had dispersed into several million smaller droplets of oil, whose sum volume and area of coverage in the water was rapidly disappearing. Shaela, who could see through the fog and anything within it as clear as day, could no longer see the oil slick at all, nor any of its constituent droplets. It had mostly been metabolized by the monstrous population of microbes that Nelony and Mila had conjured for the task.
Shaela then twisted her hands, one in a counterclockwise direction, and the other clockwise, until a portal formed before her from her vantage point amidst the trees a distance behind the road overlooking the beach. Between Nelony and Mila, a similar portal opened, though barely large enough for anything smaller than a bird to pass through.
From within its depths, Shaela's voice echoed forth:
"The oil slick is gone. Completely. There's a layer of algae forming which I'm assuming is a biproduct of what you two were doing?" Shaela asked them through the portal.
"Yes. The algae are what use the refuse from these microbes as fertilizer and growing medium. If there's algae already forming, that's a very good sign. It means that the means to balance with the onset of algae is well under way. The microbes that devoured the oil slick also brought the algae needed to rebalance the homeostasis and keep the water part of a healthy habitable biosphere. The fish will certainly appreciate that, and the aquatic feedings birds will appreciate the fish..." Nelony explained through the portal.
"Now we need some way to cover up the fact that the oil slick has disappeared. What have you got for us Shaela?" Mila asked her through the portal.
"I can only offer an illusion. It will only last overnight, and be gone by the first light of dawn," Shaela responded, her voice hollow and echoing as it emerged from the portal.
"Lets get that into place, and then we can get out of here and celebrate," Mila responded.
"Alright, but its going to take about an hour for the fog to clear. You'll have to take my word for it that it worked," Shaela responded.
She immediately began shaping the air once again, and at once, the fog blackened as an illusory oil slick descended from its top and came to rest upon the surface of the water.
"Its in place. If you follow the same direction my portal is facing, you should find the edge of the fog and beach up and onto the road. I'll meet you there..." Shaela said to them.
Nelony turned and upon getting sight of the portal (it was behind her) she quickly followed its facing direction forward with Mila beside her as they progressed. Upon their arriving at the edge of the fog, they picked up their pace as they made their way up the back, past the cleaning stations (which were all now clear of any new arrivals), and onto the road.
The three of them stood and watched as the crowds slowly returned to their cars, and the Environmental Agency vans began packing up the cleaning stations. Nelony watched as Ethel debriefed her volunteers from the animal shelter and then headed over to speak with her.
"I take it your friends got here alright? Hi, I'm Ethel, from the animal shelter," Ethel introduced herself.
"Shaela. Pleased to meet you," Shaela smiled uneasily upon meeting Nelony's supervisor.
"Mila. Its a pleasure to meet you," Mila smiled, offering her a bow and then a smile she covered with her hand.
"Are you alright getting home, or do you need a ride?" asked Ethel of Nelony.
"I think Mila is alright to take us. Thank you for the experience here, Ethel. It was ever so meaningful to be a part of this," Nelony smiled.
"Alright, but you've got to get your overnight bag. Its still in my van," Ethel reminded her.
"I think we can get ourselves ready then. Hopefully the traffic won't be too bad getting out of here," Mila looked around her and noticed that there was already a growing line of cars backed up a great distance.
"I'm just going to get my overnight bag and then I'll meet you at your mini-van," Nelony said to Mila.
"Good. We can get home and I've got some yummy bacon and shrimp Yakisoba I made last night that we can have together for dinner, if you two would like to wait until tomorrow before I take you home," Mila offered to them.
"I'm in for that," Shaela agreed with a smile.
"I suppose I could, though I really shouldn't," Nelony responded before she turned to join Ethel on her way to her van.
"Then its settled. That'll cut off another forty-five minutes of driving to get you two home, which we can use to enjoy the night," Mila smiled, feeling satisfied with their day's effort.
...
Mila opened her front door and left it open for Nelony (who was right behind her and fully energetic seeing as she'd slept for most of the trip) and Shaela (who had this time managed to stay awake and kept Mila company during the drive).
Happiu~isuka was the first to greet them, his nails heard on the wooden stairs as he made his way from one of the upstairs bedrooms and to the front foyer, where Mila slipped into her slippers. Nelony and Shaela both followed suit as they'd long gotten used to it, and even had their own slippers.
The three of them made their way through the living room as Happiu~isuka barked, happily trailing them as they made their way to the kitchen.
Mila slid the back patio door open and peered out to see Gwendolyn and Glynis seated at the table, a drink before each of them as they turned to face Mila.
"Oh! You made it, Glynis. Gallea. How are you two?" asked Mila, as Happiu~isuka remained in competition for their attention.
"Good... especially after hearing about Gwendolyn's homecoming," Glynis responded, readying herself to get up and greet them.
"No. You stay put. Let us get ready inside and we'll come to you," Mila responded, closing the sliding door after retreating into the kitchen, at which point she bent down to greet Happiu~isuka.
"I don't know about you two, but I need to get cleaned up. Nelony, if you'd like, you can use the shower in the basement or the one in the main bathroom. I'm going upstairs to the master bathroom to get cleaned up. There's towels in the linen closet and there's some extra hand-me-down dresses in the guest room, if you want fresh clothes. You can toss your dirty clothes in the laundry room, next to the garage door," Mila instructed them as she made her way over to the stairs.
Nelony by that time had opened the pantry and withdrawn a bag with the last of the designer dog biscuits she'd brought with her from the last time she was there. Happiu~isuka barked happily and devoured what he was given, by which point Shaela had stepped out onto the patio with a glass of wine, while Nelony disappeared into the main bathroom shower.
An hour later, and they were all situated outside of the kitchen, at the back patio table, a platter of finger foods that Mila and Gwendolyn had picked up the day before, and a drink before each of them.
"How did it go?" Gwendolyn asked Mila, eager to know.
"I think that we can call the first official action on the part of the Sanctum Seclorum, a resounding success, though we'll have to wait until tomorrow to know for sure," Mila raised her glass, and the other four ladies followed her toast.
"Here's to the first of many attempts to make this world a little bit better, and to help where and when we can," Mila drank from her glass, as did the other four from theirs.
"So what happened exactly?" Glynis asked her.
"We managed to work together for the first time, each of us using our abilities with the weave to complement the others skills. By that accord alone, we were able to deal with the environmental disaster," Nelony explained to them.
"Nelony had the knowledge. Mila had the plan, and I kept it all hidden from everyone else," Shaela added.
"So what happens now?" asked Gwendolyn.
"We enjoy our success, and we wait," Mila took another sip of her drink, sporting a friendly smile.
"People are going to want to know who did it. Who or what it was that solved that problem. What are you going to do when they start asking that question?" asked Glynis.
Nelony looked to Mila, as did Shaela, though she zippered her lips first rather than saying anything.
"We're not going to say anything on the matter, though we might hint at the fact that the help of the Environmental Agency, and their volunteers who helps clean up the animals and the biome that probably made it happen. I mean that's what I believe we should say, if the subject comes up. We should not mention our means or involvement at all. The only time that we should, is if we take part in an effort like any other person. At most, we can also advocate. For their work, and ours, but we should never ever reveal anything about our methods and means, unless its to stop other people who are abusing the weave," Mila voiced her opinion on the matter.
"Agreed, but even then we should remain tight lipped, only revealing what is necessary to protect others," Shaela added.
"What happens when people start asking us how we know?" Nelony asked them.
"We could say we were victims of a sort. In a sense we were. Of the Norbids, from early on..." Shaela replied, recalling their experience in the classroom with the substitute teacher Mr. Norbid.
"How about how all of this is going to tie in with that Church? The one who seem to have desecrated our our temple?" Nelony brought up the matter of the Church.
"We're going to have to see how that plays out. I mean, if we behave normally, and enjoy life and keep on living it the way that we do, we should be alright. I mean, when the public is given an example of a moment of a person's life that is taken out of context, or in a twisted context, most people are just going to run with it regardless of what we do. I know this from the second show I did. After my multi-million dollar sale of a very specific painting. There were fans of art there, certainly. But there were others there, who were quite different. Who don't exactly see things with their heart. It was after my parents had died, and I couldn't believe how cold and callous people could be in that situation. I learned to recognize them but not by their faces. By the way they feel. Like a crowd that had become one person. Cruel. Narcissistic. Even sadistic. Just people who wanted a pound of flesh, no matter the cost... I remember running into that for the first time... and staying inside for months afterwards. Painting after painting after painting. And then, one day when I'd healed, I called my agent and arranged for another show, and that crowd that had become one, the dark one, the narcissist, simply wasn't there. I didn't run into it again for another six months, and when I did, I was ready. Mostly, because over that time, I had armed myself with memories of people like Nelony out on the beach today. Selflessly cleaning those birds one at a time, and the difference that people like her make, versus the narcissist. The crowd that became the dark one. It only takes one like Nelony, to undo a thousand like that crowd. So, when they're gawking at us, and calling us devil worshippers or whatever they might emit forth from their zeal, just think about what we were able to achieve when we worked together. Where was their camera then? Its funny how their cameras only seem to catch the worst, but never the best, or the worst of the people they choose, and the best of the people they choose. Find it in yourself, that confidence to know yourself versus how the dark one wants to break you down," Mila recalled the depths of her most challenging days and then she paused, smiled, and grabbed the hands of her two best friends.
Glynis checked the internet on her phone, thumbing through the search results until she found a headline that had caught her attention.
"Have you ever heard of Norville Bidman?" she asked them.
"Why? Where did you get that name?" asked Shaela quickly.
"He's on the news. A press release related to the oil spill..." Glynis showed Shaela her phone.
Shaela grabbed it from her, and clicked on the news item to read the entire story herself.
"It says here that Norville Bidman, is the head of an organization out to help humanity find its way in trying and difficult times. He claims that with the help of clergy volunteers through a community Church, that his organization was able to employ technology that depleted the effects of the oil spill, and that by the morning, there would be no evidence left that there had even been an oil spill..." Shaela read from the news story, a look of shock on her face.
"I think I'm going to be sick..." Nelony quickly added.
"Its the same Church that took the photo and video of our temple..." Shaela showed the news story to both Nelony and Mila, passing the phone to them.
"That's James Benley...?" Nelony pointed out from another photo.
It was the same fellow they had met. The one who had fled the shelter system and into housing, except that instead of wearing his modest clothing, he was wearing a blue three piece suit, with a power tie.
The same sort of outfit that Jorge Stockard would have worn.
"I think the wool is being pulled over the public's eyes..." Mila responded to what she was seeing.
"This isn't going to lead anywhere pleasant..." Nelony slumped in her chair.
"I can't believe this! After everything we did! And this Norville Bidman fellow just comes along and takes it all, just like that!!! And even helps those Church maniacs, who literally violated the privacy of your home! Our temple!" Shaela almost threw the phone, catching herself before she did.
"Sorry, but you have no idea how all of this feels..." Shaela handed the phone back to Glynis.
"On the contrary, I know exactly how it feels. Every time I'm home, and with my parents, and I want to show them how Gallea has changed things for me, but I can't say a thing, because if I do, then not only will I have to go to physio therapy once a week for Becker Muscular Dystrophy, but I'd likely have to go for Psychiatric help as well as soon as I told my parents that I could walk because I have another healthy athletic woman living in my body with me..." Glynis responded to Shaela.
"I had a friend back home in Canada. A writer. He was a guy that wrote fantasy and science fiction. He was pretty popular too, but he was stalked by a similar group as this Church and that Norville Bidman fellow, and they would take the credit for all of his writing, and give it to someone who was a member of their Church. It got so bad that he eventually quit, and when I happened into my fortune, I hired a private investigator to look into the matter, and he explained to me what had happened," Mila began speaking about her experiences with a similar group.
"The Church had buried and erased the real writer's records and history. They even tried to erase his culture, his appearance, his religion and his physical features. He was thin, but the Church painted him as being heavy. He was pale skinned, of European ancestry, and the Church tried to paint him as being dark skinned, African or Caribbean or from the Middle East or India. He was a secular atheist with a bit of Buddhism and Taoism, but the Church had painted him as being part of any of a number of western religions, changing it to suit their needs. The Private Investigator told me that this evidence amounted to being a hate crime. They'd essentially erased everything about his social footprint as well. Who his girlfriends were, many of whom they'd also stalked. His family too, some of whom they'd turned against him," Mila continued.
"They even used colour symbolism to alter the context of expression. Apparently if you're on the blue team, then nothing you say is taken seriously. So often this Church would give others the impression of his being on the blue team, which would essentially nullify any accusations he'd made against them. The Private Investigator indicated to me that this is a method often used by rackets to cover up those with enough courage to stand against them," Mila continued her recollection of the writer's situation.
"The private investigator then dug into the past of the person they'd given credit for his writing, and their Church, and had found that the same group had done this same thing numerous times to other people as well. Same modus operandi. An ongoing scam they'd been running for decades, and one that had ruined numerous lives and careers. I couldn't exactly save him, because I lost track of him, but I did send the evidence to the authorities, who eventually investigated and arrested numerous people as a result. This Church had stalked him for years as well, and attempted to break him down emotionally and psychologically, so he was in pretty bad shape when he quit, but at least they got their just dessert and a considerable amount of time in jail for the whole ordeal. This situation is a bit different, as some of these people have resources that go beyond mine. Beyond ours. We're going to have to be careful, but most of all, we're going to have to learn how to overcome this sort of thing, because this is exactly the kind of thing that plagued the first Sanctum..." Mila explained to them.
"Well I'm definitely sick over this, but I'm not going to give up..." Nelony sat up and took a healthy swig of her drink.
"You've got that right. I say we take them on," Shaela followed Nelony's suit and took a drink.
"We can't do it your way Shaela..." Mila urged her friend.
"Why not? What they don't know about, they'll never see coming," Shaela responded defensively of her arts.
"Because this is not our purpose. This is clearly something that the first Sanctum had to deal with as well. We have to overcome, but not by aggression. By truth and the virtue of our honesty. The one thing they don't have in their corner," Mila too took a drink.
"Meeting. On Sunday. We're going to discuss this, and other matters, with our two newest members," Mila looked to Gwendolyn and Glynis, both of whom finished their drinks with a smile.
To be continued in Era of the Spellbound Episode 15: The Power Lords
Written by Brian Joseph Johns and this is Shhhh! Digital Media at https://www.shhhhdigital.com or https://www.shhhhdigital.ca in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701.
Credits and attribution:
Perplexity AI once again, whose discussion and insight into this episode involved numerous late night discussions involving the tarot and Carl Gustav Jung, and the many fold symbolism there within resulted in both the written work (all human written by the way) and the tarot artwork (all AI created by Perplexity and the various models it holds at its disposal), with its own confidence and my complete support. A valuable addition to the Shhhh! Digital team, but never as much so to replace anyone. Lets get this thing going so that I can hire more contract artists and others, because you know that when given those resources, that I will. I've done it before.
Special thanks to Udemy, whose courses I have relied upon for the last few years to allow me to grow my skills at my own pace, even finding time between my frantic work pace here at Shhhh! Digital Media.
Thank you to ComfyCloud, whose web based desktop interface and cloud based rendering solution is one of the best solutions I've found yet. I first learned of ComfyUI from YouTubers MickMumPitz and PixelArtistry. If you're looking to get into using AI on your local machine under ComfyUI, then I'd highly suggest checking either of their sites for tutorials covering the topics you'd like to explore.
Thank you to Grok AI (via ComfyCloud) who was the key artist behind: (Danger Tiger), (Tea Reading), (Sailors at Port), (King's Court), Tarot Cards: (The King of Pentacles), (The Page of Swords), (The World), (The Inverted Hanging Man)
The image of the glossy red nail polished thumb holding the inverted tarot card was sourced from Paloma Glow, and in accordance with the Creative Commons 4.0 license, as found by this search on Google under images, where the license details are indicated.
Thank you to Kling O1 Image (via ComfyCloud) who was the key artist behind: (Nathalie and Gwendolyn).
Thanks to this Reddit post for the interpretation of The Hanged Man Inverted.
Special thanks to Perplexity AI and their Comet browser, who have recently become a part of my software toolkit. Their AI powered helpers accelerate your research, reference at every step of the way, not to mention built in tools for content generation, though Shhhh! Digital Media does not rely on text generation for any of its stories, though I do work with AI for suggestions, and scientific accuracy of concepts in Butterfly Dragon, and for delving into the more esoteric traditions of mysticism that are aligned with the story and background of Era of the Spellbound.
Special Thanks to the Natural History Museum in London, England and of course to the Royal Ontario Museum in my own home of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Special Thanks To Rocket Fuel Lakeshore Blvd West, perhaps the best place in history to get a coffee, circa 2001-2004. Miss you all very much.
Artwork: Amy Wong, Wendy Pusey, Ghastly, Birdman, Brian Joseph Johns, Daz3D, Unreal Engine...
Tools: Daz3D, Corel Painter, Adobe Photoshop, Lightwave 3D, Blender, Stable Diffusion (Easy Diffusion distribution), InstantID, Sadtalker, Google Colaboratory, Microsoft Copilot (Windows 11), Hitfilm, PhotoPea (a great web based Photoshop stand-in if you're on a low budget or in a pinch), Borderline Obsession...
DeepSeek AI for suggestions on exercises to improve aspects of describing scene and settings with a more sensory focused grammar.
InstantID by: Wang, Qixun and Bai, Xu and Wang, Haofan and Qin, Zekui and Chen, Anthony. Research Paper Title: InstantID - Zero-shot Identity-Preserving Generation in Seconds.
Sadtalker by: Zhang, Wenxuan and Cun, Xiaodong and Wang, Xuan and Zhang, Yong and Shen, Xi and Guo, Yu and Shan, Ying and Wang, Fei.
Research Paper Title: SadTalker: Learning Realistic 3D Motion Coefficients for Stylized Audio-Driven Single Image Talking Face Animation.
Gratitude: Our Mentors, Senseis, Sifus, Sebomnims, lifetime inspirations, family, friends, the Nomads (ask Stanton about that one), the Music, the Movies, the Theatre, the Arts, ASMR, (both YouTube and Bilibili and the many other creators on those platforms), the Gaming and Developer communities and of course, the audience.
Martial Arts (in the words of real experts and at least one comedian): https://brucelee.com (home of the real Dragon and an entire family of inspirations), http://iwco.online International Wing Chun Organization (International presence of a very scalable intensity martial art, protected and developed by Shaolin Nun Ng Mui) and the alma mater of Jinn Hua's own specialized variation thereof, https://iogkf.com International Okinawan Goju-Ryu Karatedo Federation (even Hanshi had his teachers), https://itftkd.sport International Taekwondo Federation (Here there be Taegers), https://tangsoodoworld.com Tang Soo Do World (the path of Grandmaster Chuck Norris), https://www.aikido-international.org International Aikido Federation (how else would Navy Chef Steven Seagal liberate a Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier from a team of hijackers?), https://www.stqitoronto.com Shaolin Temple Quanfa Institute (The City Of Toronto's own Shaolin Temple), https://www.enterthedojoshow.com Master Ken's Ameri-Te-Do presence (If we can't laugh at ourselves, then we can at least laugh the loudest at others, and other Zen)
Magic (performance, illusion and perhaps the real thing): Magic Week Archive (I'm currently growing this section so stay tuned)
Special thanks to Aitrepreneur, Mickmumpitz, Hugging Face and the YouTube educational content producers, including those catering to the AI content production pipeline and of course AlphaSignal.
Shi Heng Yi Shaolin Training For Self Mastery
A reknowned Sifu under whose tutelage you can study the theory and practical applications of the Shaolin Arts for health, physical and mental wellbeing in every day life
Shi Heng Yi Shaolin Training For Self Mastery
A reknowned Sifu under whose tutelage you can study the theory and practical applications of the Shaolin Arts for health, physical and mental wellbeing in every day life
Jesse Enkamp: Karate Nerd
Jesse, a reknowned Sensei who runs his own dojo, explores the world of Martial Arts, traveling to many exotic locations to meet practitioners of a variety of different arts
Sensei Rokas: Martial Arts Journey
A reknowned Sensei of Aikido who in seeking to understand the roots of Aikido and its applications, seeks to stress test its effectiveness in a number of real world situations while studying its history
Seamus O'Dowd
An extensive growing archive Katas, Techniques and Waza (mostly Shotokan)
Iaido: Train For Katana Mastery Like Samurai
The original weapons focused curriculum under which Samurai became masters of their art
Tapp Brothers Exercise For Better Motion
Extensive courses for calisthenics and body strength, stamina and flexibility
Special thanks to Canva for inspiring other creators and giving them the tools
Special thanks to Captain Crunch and his wonderful sister!
Special thanks to Bandcamp for giving indie music artists a home under one roof
Something to give you perspective: The very first teacher had no formal education, didn't graduate and was self taught, but only because they had no other choice. We do.
Magic (performance, illusion and perhaps the real thing): Magic Week Archive (I'm currently growing this section so stay tuned)
Special thanks to Aitrepreneur, Mickmumpitz, Hugging Face and the YouTube educational content producers, including those catering to the AI content production pipeline and of course AlphaSignal.
Shi Heng Yi Shaolin Training For Self Mastery
A reknowned Sifu under whose tutelage you can study the theory and practical applications of the Shaolin Arts for health, physical and mental wellbeing in every day life
Shi Heng Yi Shaolin Training For Self Mastery
A reknowned Sifu under whose tutelage you can study the theory and practical applications of the Shaolin Arts for health, physical and mental wellbeing in every day life
Jesse Enkamp: Karate Nerd
Jesse, a reknowned Sensei who runs his own dojo, explores the world of Martial Arts, traveling to many exotic locations to meet practitioners of a variety of different arts
Sensei Rokas: Martial Arts Journey
A reknowned Sensei of Aikido who in seeking to understand the roots of Aikido and its applications, seeks to stress test its effectiveness in a number of real world situations while studying its history
Seamus O'Dowd
An extensive growing archive Katas, Techniques and Waza (mostly Shotokan)
Iaido: Train For Katana Mastery Like Samurai
The original weapons focused curriculum under which Samurai became masters of their art
Tapp Brothers Exercise For Better Motion
Extensive courses for calisthenics and body strength, stamina and flexibility
Special thanks to Canva for inspiring other creators and giving them the tools
Special thanks to Captain Crunch and his wonderful sister!
Special thanks to Bandcamp for giving indie music artists a home under one roof
Something to give you perspective: The very first teacher had no formal education, didn't graduate and was self taught, but only because they had no other choice. We do.
This content is entirely produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701 under the Shhhh! Digital Media banner.
Click image for contact information...
This content is entirely produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701 under the Shhhh! Digital Media banner.
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