The day of the concert arrived. It was to be my debut with the recording label. My agent was a man named Gerald, who seemed vaguely familiar, though I couldn’t place from where. He smiled at me and spoke pleasantly enough, but I could tell there was a strength to him that belied his gentle exterior. He guided me to the side of the stage a few minutes before I was to go on, and smiled down at me. “Alright, Am— Trix, you got this. There are over a thousand people in the crowd, so just go out on stage and shine like the star you are.”
I looked at him as he stumbled on my name, but he shrugged it off. “A thousand?” I had never sung in front of that many people before, and I could feel the exhilaration building. It was almost orgasmic.
“More, if we can bribe the fire department,” he replied with a chuckle. “Now, Revan will announce you like normal, but just go out there and kill it.” He squeezed my shoulders gently and disappeared backstage.
I took a few deep breaths and centered myself. I could feel the crowd from here, undulating with excitement, and the high began. Once I heard my name called, and I burst onto stage, I knew that Theresa Gill would be no more. I would only be Trix. This was everything I had wanted for my entire life, and nothing was going to take it away from me. I felt my name called, the introduction beginning, and made my way out onto the stage. The lights shone down on me, the crowd roared, and I was in Heaven. If I died this very instant, I would be happy.
“Rock their world, love,” Revan whispered as he kissed me before departing the stage. I smiled back and then looked out over the sea of people. I could feel their desires, their needs, their wants, as if I were in tune with each and every individual, and it was addictive.
“Welcome and thank you for coming!” I gave a small curtsy and beamed out over the crowd. “My name is Trix Gill, and this is Wine Dark Sea!” I began the song, luring them all into my voice, and lost myself in the music. No faces, no visions disturbed me this time, and when it came time for the intermission, I was on such a high from everything, I didn’t know which way was up. I stumbled down the stairs once I was out of sight of the crowd, and Revan caught me.
“Whoa! Are you alright, Trix?” I nodded dumbly and smiled. “Do you want to meet some of your adoring fans?”
“Absolutely!” I was elated. I loved meeting my fans, getting to know them, and how my music touched them. “Let’s go!” I was off, a bullet out of Revan’s arms, and he laughed, trying to rein me in. As Revan guided me to the crowd, I felt the presence of someone behind me, but when I looked, no one was there. I shrugged it off and began talking with my fans, some of whom had been following me since my very first set almost a decade and a half ago, and I chatted with them the most.
Near the end of the intermission, a man caught my eye, warm in face, with soft brown eyes and auburn hair, and a name escaped my lips at barely a whisper, “Dionysos.” Revan caught the sound and looked at me before I took off in a run, chasing after him. I barely heard my husband in the distance racing after me.
The figure left Central Park, heading east towards the river. I didn’t know why I was following him. I didn’t know the man, and yet my heart told me I did. When we got to the water’s edge, the vision floated neatly out over the water, and I just stared at him. “Who are you!?” I called out, my voice ragged from the running.
“Who are you talking to?” Revan’s voice sounded from behind me. I spun around, not realizing he was there, and froze. My husband, the man I loved, had a pistol pointed at me. “Trix, you’re not going to destroy my future by leaving me!”
“No!” I took a step forward, and his hand shook, causing me to stop. “I’m not leaving, but I need to know what this is all about and why it affects me when I’m singing.”
“We’ll ask Gerald. He’ll know. He knows everything. Now, come back to the concert and finish the set.” I shook my head, surprising us both. “No? No! You’ve never denied me anything, anything I’ve asked for, and yet you deny me this?!”
“I can’t go back right now Revan, if I do, I’ll ruin the show. I know I will. I’ll pass out, or worse. I can feel something dark hanging over me. I have to…” I turned back to the river, watching the waves lap against the jetty. “I need to jump in,” I muttered.
“If you do, you’re as good as dead. But hey, maybe I can sell that and boost my own career.” I spun back around to him.
“Is that all you care about, your own career? Not the fact that I’m going mad here?” Revan just laughed, cold and harsh, nothing I had ever heard from him before.
“All I wanted was you and fame…and Melissa.” I shuddered and wrapped my arms around myself. “You killed our baby somehow. Your body decided to kill it, and for that,” Revan closed his eyes and fired without warning, the bullet piercing my stomach, “you need to feel this pain.”
I screamed out, clutching my abdomen as I fell backward into the river. Instead of calling out for my husband or for my unborn daughter, the only name I could hear, the only one that came to me, was the one I uttered earlier. “Dion!”
*****
I awoke in the warehouse, sitting up suddenly, not sure of where I was. I looked around me, seeing the faces and people who were familiar and not. It was like when you wake from a dream and can’t remember that you’re no longer dreaming. My eyes fell onto Dionysos and then Poseidon, and I realized those were the two faces the dream me had seen, the ones who were connecting her to this reality. I scrambled up and looked down at myself and the mirror that had my name on it. It was shattered, and a faint mist of glass hung in the air. I didn’t know if I was the first to wake, but I couldn’t stay. My hands went to my stomach, and I ran for a bucket, retching into it before I disappeared, taking the garbage with me.
Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong.
Natalie Bartley is a Canadian Adult-Fantasy author. Natalie has been writing for most of her teenage and adult life but started publishing those stories in December 2019 with her first book, Love and Pain in Zion. Natalie’s faith as a polytheistic witch leads her to many storylines involving the gods which surround her. She lives with her partner and stepson in Bowmanville, Ontario and is also completing her clergy status with the Correllian Nativist Tradition. They hope to one day open their own Pagan store together.
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