The Eldest Marked

3. Ace of Cups

The woods looked much the same for most of their journey, so when they nearly rode into the side of one of the shops they were truly shocked. Its bricks were made from the very soil beneath the horse hooves, and the trees wove around the building in a way that it could not be deciphered which was there first. The horse reared up with a huff, it was time to get off.

As her eyes adjusted to the sight of them, she saw many more of them all around, only truly given away by the glit of their glass and the painted signs above their entrances. It was magnificent, and much larger than the small grouping of stores they usually visited next to their home. Strangers crossed from shop to shop, occasionally giving friendly nods when their eyes met.

A particularly thin shop with a painted sign of a snake eating its own tail above the door was their first stop. It was difficult to know what store they were coming up on until they were there, but Demeter at least seemed to know where she was going. Gold lettering across the glass window proclaimed it to be 'Concealments by Rowan'.

"Ah Demeter. It's been awhile. This your youngest?" the exceedingly tall blond man behind the full glass counter said. "Always a pleasure to meet one of yours."

"My name is Winona," she said. "I presume you are Rowan?"

"You'd think, but no. I'm Jude. It's a family business. Rowan was a man three pacts back," he said.

"We are here, as you can imagine, for a ring. She just turned eighteen," Demeter said.

Jude looked around very seriously. "I'm sorry, we are all out," Jude said. Winona looked down at the full display of rings with a frown. His laugh was akin to a bark. "Sorry, sorry. Yes, we have those. Do you know your size?"

"No," she said.

He reached behind himself for a set of measuring rings. She stood there waiting for some sort of instructions. "Well?"

Demeter motioned for her to hold out her left hand. "The ring is meant to hide your mark," she said quietly.

Jude tried on the different ring sizes on her left ring finger. The mark, which everyone she had ever met had, was a sunken in line of missing skin across the base of the finger. She had never really given it much thought. They might as well have told her she needed to cover her left eyebrow.

"People over there don't have the mark?" she whispered to her mother as Jude rummaged in his display for rings that would fit her.

"That mark is where the flesh was taken to bind you here, to fulfill the pact before you were even out of the womb. It marks you as one of us," Demeter whispered back.

"And I'm to cover it? Why?" she asked a little too loudly.

Jude set down a tray of rings between them. "If you don't cover your mark, and one of the locals knows you to be a being of power by your mark, you could be in danger of being harmed," Jude said. Winona remembered the horse. "So these should all be your size. Pick one you like. Your mark is particularly thin, so you could get away with a smaller band than some," he added.

She picked out a band of garnets and seed pearls, set in silver in a flower pattern. It was extravagant compared to what she usually wore, but not the most dramatic in the case. But Demeter insisted on her getting whichever caught her eye the most.

"Now what would you like to trade for it?" Jude asked.

Her mother motioned for her to do the bartering. "We have some plastic cups, a watch, some perfume, and a collection of spellwoven bracelets," Winona said.

"Spellwoven?" Jude asked.

"It's just something I've been working on," she said as she opened the sack to take a few out. "They all have a different charm set into them."

"That's a pretty clever idea. Not something I've seen around. What sorts of charms do you have?"

She listed off the different effects each had until he found one that particularly interested him. Jude seemed very excited to receive it, so she upped her price to two rings, which she was surprised to see he accepted without hesitation. She picked a more sensible band of hammered silver to wear most days. He told her she should open up her own shop in town, when she was back from her pact making trip.

They stopped into another shop for a traditional black wool cloak, set with any pockets inside for concealing whatever was necessary. The shopkeep accepted the bee bracelet gladly, citing a deadly allergy. They next picked up a few books on pact making, society where she would be living, and a few topics she didn't even know existed. She insisted on the cups leaving this time.

They picked up some pastries for lunch that although the baker said weren't bewitched, still filled them with such joy. Winona gave her two of the food filling bracelets, to be given a basket of extras to take home. As they sat against the wall of the bakery they had to get more important things done.

"It's time you chose your familiar. You know of them, of course, but their purpose isn't to stay here, gather ingredients, and look cute," Demeter said. "Familiars are our bridge between here and the origin. They are not of one, or the other, but both. When our world split off from the Origin, it created an identical world, inhabited only by the animals, the Mother, and her child."

"Is that why no matter how much I begged, you wouldn't let me have one until now? They are meant to help me in my pact?" she asked.

Demeter nodded, and reached into her cloak to produce two stones, both cubic lumps of silver and gold.. "You know that they are bound to twin stones, but what you didn't know is that one stone is from here, and the other, there. Familiars are made by finding a stone n its location here, and there, and binding an animal's form to them."

She struck the stones together, producing a low hum into the air, pure harmony.

"But this is no easy task. The Origin has diverted far away from us. Whole mountains erased, great pits in the earth full of poison waters. So there is no guarantee that even if you make it to the exact same spot, that its twin will still be there. I bought my familiar second hand," Demeter said.

"How could someone get rid of their familiar?" she asked.

Demeter closed her eyes, willing the familiar tied to the stones to appear in front of them. Winona always liked her mothers familiar, a white weasel whose energy and warmth was tempered by a sharp bite when anyone tried to harm her own. It was hard to imagine it belonging to anyone but her. Whenever her mother was away, visiting another of her children, she would send the sweet creature to her to comfort her and the other children.

"It isn't a matter of could. Losing a familiar is like losing an organ. It should only be done at death. Or," she trailed off.

"Or?" Winona prompted. Her heart beat so loudly she was convinced they could hear it.

"Or when they sever their ties to our world, and can no longer feel the bond between them."