NINE TIME MACHINES: Do you want to undo your entire life on planet earth?

CHAPTER 195

"Welcome, Mary, to the Feel Room," she says. "Relax. It's just you and me. Let's talk."

"What is this place?"

"It's what keeps you alive until I return."

"Who are you?"

"It will eventually come to you."

"I'm sorry, but you people have been treating me like a child all day."

"Let's begin the ritual," is all she gives me. "All you'll need is your feet and your throat."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You drum the floor with your feet and pull random rhythms from your throat."

"Like how Ebony wrote her songs?"

"Yes, like Ebony did," she says half-heartedly. "Now remember; it's anti-clockwise."

"I remember."

"Start walking."

At first I feel absolutely nothing. Then emotions run through me and make my feet slightly magnetize to the ground. Now they stomp the floor uncomfortably, one beat at a time, and then faster. A sound oils my throat. It's a sharp hmmm at first but when it warms up it pitches to a deep one. Now I'm a walking bass drum. And soon it finds a friend in my feet. They go one in one out, my body rocking back and forth with each round, fully in tune with my new frequency. It gives my walk purpose. And whatever it drummed up in me lights each of the nine etched triangles that surround the symbols.

"Good," she says. "Now lie down in the middle of the circle again."

"Now what?" I say after obeying.

"Draw each bit of moonlight from the triangles to you. It's yours. Now take it back!"

"How?"

"Use your throat. Create the black hat. Then suck it all in."

As usual, this makes absolutely no sense to me. But maybe if I wait for her words to soak in something will come to me. I no longer have the ability of my legs to draw sound from my throat. But perhaps if I let my soles touch like I did the last time that can be my grounding. I can trap the sound there and adjust myself for it to circulate. Yes, Mary! You can do this. And I let that be the music to my motivation. Then one by one, I really become the moon and suck each light dry. When I'm done, she enters the circle and drags me up; and the one thing I never expected happens. Silver wings grow out her back, beautiful and mighty. Afterward, she embraces me with them.

"My daughter, I approve of you, and will stand with you until the prophecy is fulfilled!"

Then the bracelets on my wrists heat up. When I look down, they are each engraved with a shen; and when I look up, I am alone, feeling a deep sense of loss and wonderment, with only one question on my mind. Why on earth would the serpent call me her daughter when everyone knows I am Ebony's daughter? I find myself longing to meet her again, for that truth and more.