Work Text:
Heavy doggy panting on the basement floor in the green circle of garden plants and chicken feed. Seeds and berries emit horse smell as she hands and knees between the ritual stone slab and the wooden staircase. Before her: chicken bones bleached from the sun. The hours have passed, and the bones have danced danced danced. They tremble in the echo of their last movement as she looks up at him.
Arms crossed waiting look directed at her like sunlight. More dancing, he demands with a melody in his impatient shadowed voice.
Brow furrowing, her focus beams from her heavy-lidded eyes at the beast bones. Her own conjuring song invites the witchcraft. A twitch, then rearrangement: thigh bone lifts and falls to the tune of the wishbone beating against the concrete ground. They spin and twist, bumping into one another, and he sings faster for another song. Slow bones wiggle and shake until their movements cease, and they all collapse back into each other before the song is over.
When he sings the first verse again, she closes her eyes briefly and then stares back at the objects of her attention and hoarsely sings. Fingernails scratching at the floor, sweat running down her arms, she tries and groans through the pounding headache growing behind her eyes. Weak muscles quiver, and she sways. The bones are still.
The clock upstairs croons the witching hour again to tell the dancers they’ve been waltzing through three mealtimes plus dessert.
He reaches down and pulls on her hair hard so she cries out.
She nods, reaffirms her intention, and repeats the enchantment to the tune of his song. One bone jerks away to scatter the corn and seeds between two plants, and the others repel her determination.
He stops singing to pick up the bone. He drops it down into the pile and begins to clap to a new beat.
“Do it.”
Moaning, she rests her forehead on the ground and mumbles the spell again. When she hears no movement, she rubs her forehead raw on the bare concrete and repeats it again, louder, to overcome the incessant beating of his palm-to-palm instant prayers.
Her world goes a little green. Eyes closed, stars and schools of fish move in light ripples across her vision. Colors bloom behind her eyelids. Moss green, agate green, emerald green, green, green, green.
He watches as the plants wilt. Frowning, he goes to pull her hair again, but the bones start to move again. English ivy leaves droop and clutch the ground. Flowers gray with autumn sickness, and purple strawberries fall rotten into the pots as the bones squirm and twist faster and faster.
She hears the bones again and gasps in relief as the new wave of magical energy flows through her. The greens intensify and swarm louder than his fading confused music, and the bones dance and dance and dance.
Hard pull to her tangled hair. She gasps, and bones clatter back to their original positions. Fist keeps her still as he contemplates; green fades to black and blue. Eyes open, she sees the concrete like a bruise or echo of harsh light, but keeps her head bent. The headache has become a hurricane, pulsing behind her eyes and in her neck. She drops to one elbow, breath hurried in wait.
He says a spell, and the plants reverse their ill effects. The ivy leaves freshen and spring, and the berries still on the plant harden and shrink to their light pink state.
“Again. As before.” He pulls her head up, but her knees shake until she falls back down again. He sings a new song insistently, but the bones stay silent in her cross-eyed pleading.
Attempts continue for another hour, but the bones have danced their last. When he finally yields, her head is on fire and her muscles twitter in exhaustion. She cannot put her clothes back on, and he has to carry her to her bedroom. He does not say another word to her as she collapses under the mobiles of animal bones.