author’s note: didn’t do much with prose today but i did do some much needed brainstorming on the world-building for this story. thanks, @distant-rose! xo
author’s note: here’s another tidbit from my forever upcoming novel re: cacophony, a woman who made a bad deal to save her son and was turned into a sphynx cat. and yes, that detail is crucial. Also, the “[...]” is a placeholder for what will be set dressing and more introspection.
+ Hélène’s house had a... disquieting relationship with what most people would perceive as being “reality.” For her own part, Cacophony had never much fucked with it, to be extremely honest. She knew of it, in the same way most practitioners did—it would be hard not to, with how loud it was. The way the world bent and shimmered around its frame, as if in a perpetual state of near-absence.
There were very few reasons for which she would ever visit this house. In fact, there was likely only ever one reason she would visit this house, and truthfully she had never considered it to be an actual possibility. As most people will discover far too late, it can be difficult to prepare for what will become the hardest moments of our lives. There’s little to be done in the way of preparation—even if the universe is supposedly on your side. Which, what a load of crap, by the way. All those years, all that time, and they had taken him anyway. And on a perfectly normal day—it was almost insulting, how normal. Almost malicious, in its mundanity; with nary a raven to be found. Nothing that might’ve have prevented such an astronomically vile occurrence.
It was the injustice of it all (paired with the grief, she was sure) that had urged her to visit Hélène. And in hindsight, it was probably less the injustice and more so the grief. A cloying, unrelenting thing that she was unable to escape—felt that she never, ever would. And Hélène, like her house, had a tempting reputation. Not much was known about her, but what was had a lot to do with the shunning of the god-folk. Which simply wasn’t done, at least so far as Cacophony had been taught. They worked in “mysterious (fucking) ways,” and all that, but it was generally accepted that the mystery did not necessarily equate with being incorrect, and so any attempts at correction were largely considered to be sacrilege in some form or another.
Walking up the front path certainly felt like sacrilege. The uncomfortable sensation she had felt from the mere presence of the place was nothing in contrast to entering the property, which would probably be considered to be—under less morbid conditions—extremely inviting.
[...]
“Of course he can be saved,” Hélène hummed offhandedly, “What kind of stupid question is that, dear?”
Part of the trick was in how she spoke. It was so pleasant and matter of fact, as if what she was asking was so not a big deal at all, that Cacophony had very little reason to suspect that she had made a catastrophic error. Even in hindsight, she would struggle to take the blame completely off of her own shoulders, as it was as clear to her as it might be to anyone else—this was a fate entirely of her own making.
“I’ll expect a favor in return of course,” she explained distractedly, her fingers running over a shelf of glass vials, “but I’m sure you expected that.”
“Yes,” Cacophony croaked, “obviously.”
“No need to get snippy,” she chirped, “just making sure you’re clear on what’s at stake.”
Not really. “Sure.”
The change itself was only mildly unpleasant, which was pretty impressive, considering how dramatic it was. Going from two legs to four? You’d think there’d be a lot more pain involved.
“Pain is for amateurs,” Hélène chuckled, taking the mirror off the wall, “it can hurt so much worse than that.”
