The tension was building in my body, but I had to fool my mind. I thought of Kairn instead, the way his dark hair framed his face, and all his sharp edges. He was the best thing that had ever happened to me. I wished that he was here with me. If I could only feel his hand intertwined with mine, I would know that everything was going to be ok. I held on to that image as I tried to calm myself. By some miracle, it worked. I came within reach of the shrine. The jagged edges, representing my mother's crown, came into view. It was beautiful but also frightening. I had made it, but so had the banshee.
I moved into the center of the shrine. The spikes of the crown creating a guard around me. She circled the shrine as I held my position. She reached for me and I lunged away, sensing her movement. She had a sharp claw that seemed to retract when she pulled her arm away. Her attacks increased in frequency. She was much faster than the other banshee. She was brazen and slashed at me with quick movements. I feinted to avoid her sharp talon, but It wasn't enough. She caught the edge of my palm slicing up the length of my arm. I let out a cry and pressed my other hand against the wound. It wasn't deep, but it stung. A river of red droplets flowed from the gash. The rivulets of blood splashed against the stone floor of the shrine.
The banshee stood still as though she was hearing something in the far off distance. I noticed the blood began to collect in a strange pattern against the shrine floor, as though it were flowing in invisible channels or grooves in the stone. It created a spiral pattern before flowing into the center of the shrine. I moved all the leaves and debris that were littered on the stone floor, obscuring my view. My blood pooled into a reservoir within the floor, then began to drain downwards.
I felt the sensation of movement as I had before, only this time it was much stronger and it came from underneath the ground. The banshee began to wail, but it was different. It was the sharp shriek of terror. She was afraid of the shrine. After all the blood had disappeared from the shrine, something strange began to take hold. Light was flooding the shrine. It was not the bright hot light of the day, it was gentle and cool, more like the reflected light of the moon. It produced beams that radiated all over the area and alighted across the stooped shrouded figure. Her cry became louder and louder until it was completely garbled.
The moonlight was hurting her. I watched in rapt fascination, as the light began to illuminate the figure beneath the shroud. As it beamed into the darkness behind the hood, the banshee dropped, as if she had completely disappeared underneath the robe. All that was left of her melted into the soil below. The shrine had destroyed her. I stood in awe before I felt that I was putting a lot of pressure on my arm. I released my opposite hand and the moonbeams fell across my skin. The wound had stopped bleeding. I could feel something, a sense of power soaking into my body. Where the gash had been, was now only a thin scar. It destroyed the banshee and somehow healed me.
I peered into the center of the shrine, where the flow of my blood had drained. Had I somehow managed to awaken it?
The movement erupted again. The vibration beneath me felt like an earthquake. I stepped back and the stone floor began to shake. The base of the shrine was a circle made up of interlocking stones, and the stones were shifting, turning in opposing concentric circles. The shrine was opening up.
I watched as each layer began to drop, opening up in a spiral stairway. I moved back to the edge of the shrine to peer down. there was a stone stairway leading into a rounded out center. The wall had a single door. Gingerly, I stepped onto the stairway, testing its strength. My intuition told me that this place was very ancient, as old as the shrine itself. I walked into the center of the shrine and opened the heavy stone door. Beyond the door was a very small chamber, smaller than my bedroom at Halewick House had been.
The smell of Earth and damp stone greeted me as I entered the room. The chamber was small and I had to stoop around the edges of the room so that I wouldn't hit my head. There was a dais in the center of the room with a round stone basin. I pushed further into the darkness of the room. Green moss carpeted the wall and floor. I stepped up to the basin. It was deeper than it first appeared. Peering down into the hollow stone bowl, I reached inside. Something was resting at
