The Edifice

5. Pentagrams and the Past

My eyes struggle to adjust to the sudden flash of light and I blink away the painful burst of colour beneath my eyelids. When my vision rights, it's the splash of red across the concrete floor that draws my gaze.

It's a scene from a horror film. An enormous scarlet pentagram dominates the center of the room, thick steady brush strokes glistening wetly. Between the lines of that awful star are roughly scrawled symbols. The substance I initially perceived to be the splattered paint is actually spilled candle wax from the pillar candles that sit at each point of the pentagram.

A series of mismatched cupboards are bolted to the walls, their contents equally as occult. Several cracked jars house what I pray is ink, bones, sticks and strung herbs scatter the shelves. Lee wanders across the giant symbol like he's right at home, extinguishing the butt of his cigarette in the eye socket of a truly enormous deer skull.

"I understand of course, why you don't want me burning any of this," he tells me with a self-satisfied smile. "Clearly this is all a part of the treasured memories you have with my father."

I cling to the door frame, the sight and smell of the room turning the colours of my vision to a swirling blur. Were it not for the flight response still hammering through my veins, I'd have long since sunk to the floor. "Lee... What is.. is this?"

"You mean you don't have one of these? I mean, clearly I just abandoned home at fifteen for all the normal reasons schoolboys do at that-" His bragging cuts off as I gasp for breathe, whether he's learned some humility or the sound of my thrumming heartbeat has overpowered it, I just can't tell. "Olivia, are you alright there?"

The world flashes white as I topple to my knees. Lee's gentle hands barely catch me in time to ease my fall. Warm, smoke laced breath tickles my cheek as we stumble. His jacket is rough against my face as we slowly sink downwards until finally I feel the cold floor beneath me.

"Hey- Olivia, can you hear me?"

When was the last time I took a breath? I force myself to breathe deep and hold it, tasting the salty sweat that's begun to bead on my upper lip. What kind of nurse doesn't even notice their own vasovagal?

I can't bear the thought of laying any closer to the pentagram on the floor, so I fight the dizziness to keep myself sitting, cycling my legs to try and force blood back to my brain. Very slowly, lowly the world stops spinning.

"Listen, I have uh..." Lee fumbles with something in his pocket, pulling out a battered pack of cigarettes he's already halfway finished. Sitting innocently among the rows of Marlboros are two self-rolled sticks that are not like the others. He tugs one out then hesitates. "Wait, you're a nurse, aren't you? You probably don't want any, uh..."

Shuddering at the thought of what Lee expects weed to do for my blood pressure, I force myself to focus on the matter at hand.

"Lee, whose blood is that?"

"Oh," he sighs, relaxing. He reaches out and runs a finger across the gleaming scarlet and raises it where I can see. His skin comes out clean. "Rabbits blood under varnish. Don't ask me why. I use dollar store chalk. But I told you he was a freak."

My stomach settles slightly as I finally get my breathing under control. Lee's is still gripping my shoulder as though scared to see me fall, long fingers supporting the back of my head. My hand has dropped to his thigh, desperate to steady myself. We both seem to notice at the same time and each shrink back slightly when the moment lingers.

It's hardly romantic, fainting in his estranged father's ritual dungeon. In fact it borders on ridiculous, the sudden flutter in my stomach. But it's the closest I've been to someone in too many years to count. Especially like this.