I’ve been obsessively working on my memoir or my new novel, The Betwixt. So if you’re into early 2000s nostalgia, emo bands, and reincarnation, you might like this. Cheers 🥂
The bar was nothing special, just a hole in the wall dive bar. The neon blue sign buzzed and flickered, lighting up the faces of the people standing in line to get in. “Jack’s” – although, some of the letters were out so it was “Ja k.” How, Penny wondered, had she ended up here? But somehow, Ray had dragged her here. She’d been going on and on about this band that was playing tonight, Penny couldn’t even remember the name, and she’d begged Penny to come along with her. The stone-faced bouncer checked their IDs (fake, thanks Ray) and waved them in with a bored look. Ray pouted a bit, sad that he hadn’t looked at them with anything more than apathy.
Penny had made both of their outfits: for Ray, a green (to match her hair, of course) corseted top with a darker green a-line skirt. She was wearing zebra print heels from Charlotte Russe and her winged eyeliner made her almond shaped eyes pop. Penny was wearing a faded denim dress that clung to her like a second skin, and a sleeveless vintage embroidered sweater that she’d found thrifting. Her concession to makeup was heavy eyeliner and nude lips (thanks, concealer). She’d let Ray dye the tips of her hair purple, and she kept fingering them, enamored of their color.
Inside the bar wasn’t much better than the exterior. There was a long bar that had seen better days, stained with liquor and cranberry juice and god knew what else. The bartenders were hustling back and forth, slinging drinks and laughing at crude jokes or pathetic attempts at flirting. It was dim, with disco balls dangling from the ceilings and casting light patterns this way and that. The stage dominated the space, Penny noticed, admiring the guitars and the drumset that were waiting there.
“Isn’t this great?” Ray gripped Penny’s arms and bounced up and down, her green curls going every which way, like limber snakes that wanted to dance in their own sinuous way. The thought made a smile curl across her mouth. “Aha, you smiled. I knew you’d be into this. Let’s go get drinks!”
Before Penny could react to any of that, she was dragging her to the bar, where the bartender was efficiently dealing with the neverending line. She had a shaved head and a septum piercing and no patience for waffling, apparently. “Whaddya want?”
“Two vodka and redbulls!” Ray shouted over the hubbub, and the bartender nodded and turned away. Fall Out Boy was blaring from the speakers and her friend shrieked happily as she grabbed their drinks, sloshing some over the sides. “Oh, I love this song! Let’s dance!”
Penny grimaced. “I’ll hold the drinks while you dance… go on.”
Ray’s nose crinkled, like she was contemplating arguing, but then she shrugged and lost herself in the sweaty masses of people dancing under the flashing lights. Penny pretended to sip her drink while she found an empty bar stool and wedged herself onto it. She kept an eye on Ray, just to make sure that no one was grabbing anything they shouldn’t be, but her friend seemed to be soaking up every writhing, rambling second. Ray was like sunshine: sweet, slippery sunshine. Penny watched as she extricated herself from uncomfortable situations, and somehow managed to end up on the other side of a creepy guy who was putting on unwanted moves. Every time Penny began to stand, Ray grinned and tossed back her curls; absolutely unaffected. She felt her own mouth twitching, and she was willing herself to stand, to get out there and dance, when she noticed the band had taken the stage.
They were wearing masks. Masks. Penny snorted. How pretentious could you be? The members of the band wore black and gold masks, a bit statue-like, and creepy. The lead singer, she assumed, was wearing a cheap grecian helmet that covered most of his face. Otherwise, they all wore jeans and black hoodies. God, who did these people think they were? “This should be good,” she murmured to herself, slightly shaking her head. Someone knocked into her from behind, jostling her, and she spilled more of the drink she had no intention of drinking. Let it be an offering for the Gods, Penny thought, trying to channel whatever the hell this band was trying to offer. Hopefully they were decent, at the very least. She was pretty sure the band Ray wanted to see came after these guys, whoever they were. The band stood, almost preternaturally still. The bar seemed to quiet as they looked out on the crowd, their eyes almost hollow behind their strange masks.
And then… he began to sing.
It was an Evanescence cover: “My Immortal” – but make it hard rock. The lead singer crooned and rasped into the microphone, and it was impossible, but… but Penny could have sworn that he was looking right at her, singing to her.
Blue eyes. They were lighting her up. They were shining. She knew those eyes. Something was happening to her. Something was waking up. Something was shimmering, waiting to be released, tingling in the back of her throat and making her own eyes throb. Lights seemed to connect into webs, and it all led back to… him. A beautiful spider in his silken threads, gloriously webbed in light.
Before Penny knew what she was doing, she was pushing her way to the front of the room. Where had her drinks gone? She didn’t know. Ray might be mad, but she didn’t care. She needed to get closer. The crowd seemed uncertain at first, but then they began to dance, as if they were being whipped into some sort of frenzy. A bacchanal, Penny thought grimly, narrowly avoiding an elbow to the face. In front of the stage some people had started a mosh pit, and Penny was careful to avoid it; she had no intention of getting a bloody nose or bruises. Although, oddly, there was something almost reverent about the pit, like they were shaking their demons free. She wondered how that felt. There was a bad ass girl with red hair that was making her own sort of mania in the pit, and Penny stepped forward for a moment, her heart shaking. Could it be…? After all this time…?
“Willow?” She murmured it to herself, moving closer. When the girl looked up, perhaps feeling Penny’s stare, she felt her heart sink. The girl wasn’t Willow, although she had the same slim build and red hair. She arched an eyebrow at Penny and then turned away, throwing her body into someone else’s, sweat flying from her hair. Penny blinked and backed up. What was wrong with her? Of course Willow wasn’t here. And even if she was, it was clear that she didn’t want to be found. Not by her, at least. She’d pretty much given up searching. Mostly. Sometimes she’d look on MySpace or Facebook, just to see if she’d appear. But so far, she was still a ghost. A ghost who had broken her heart, who lingered in that shade of red, like a cherry hearth flame she longed to sit beside. Or that goddamn blue, that blue that was the color of an ocean she’d only seen in dreams and pieces… pieces of a lover who even now haunted her. A lover she’d never met. A world she longed to walk in.
Suddenly she felt too hot, too closed in. She needed the open Florida sky and the stars, and the smell of the ocean – her ocean. Not the one from dreams, but the one she had waded in as a child, the one she wept in, the one she often wanted to disappear into. Not an ocean of and from dreams. Penny began pushing through the crowd as the band whipped them into more of a fury. Now it was “The Kill” by 30 Seconds to Mars, and the lead singer, in his helm, growled and shrieked. That voice tugged at her, trying to bring her back, but she just needed to get out of there for a bit. She caught sight of Ray, who was shimmying and shaking. She’d be fine, for a few moments at least.
Penny was nearly to the door when feedback from the microphone stopped her, and then a self deprecating chuckle echoed around the room. Goosebumps prickled her skin. “Hey, uh. Sorry. We’re The Erinyes. And uh, thanks for coming out. We’ll get back to the covers in a second but we wanted to share some of our own stuff so, hope you like it!” She sniffed, steeling herself to walk through the doors and bum a cigarette from someone, when a haunting voice began to rumble through the room. And she went completely still.
“There in my dreams, in crushed pearl by the sea,
I wander destruction, melted gold and wax wings,
Rose petals torn by maenads in heat,
A goddess weeping, a requiem defeat.
Find me in the stones, in the never-sunned bones,
In the darkness, plagued, ever to wait,
For the one who can lead me,
The Hades out of this place.
Warm lilac fingers on the shell of my chest,
And I could swear the blood in those veins is blessed,
O Mine? This shit’s cursed, blood and ash,
Claws that’ll tear, Tartarus fear, an open rib gash.
Find me in the stones, in the never-sunned bones,
In the darkness, plagued, ever to wait,
For the one who can lead me,
The Hades out of this place.
In the Betwixt, I search for her ghost.
Grey eyes and limbs entwined, baby, I’m dosed.
I need that hit, to find that phantom kiss,
Nothing in dreams, Hell, or Heaven can give that bliss.
Baby, I’m dosed.
Give me that kiss.
Baby I’m dosed.
Give me that bliss.
Baby I’m dosed, dosed, dosed,
In the Betwixt…”
Penny felt something stirring. A wind that smelled like roses and salt air, a sharp pain in her heart like a rose thorn, lodged deeply. There was an echo of music, of a lullaby only half heard, and she wanted to grip onto that thread and pull. The singer’s blue eyes flashed, and her knees wobbled; her head throbbed as a vision passed in front of her eyes, a hill with a coliseum, crystals that pulsed with music, a woman with a small smile looking at her knowingly. She put a hand to her temple, suddenly dizzy.
“Hey, are you okay?” Ray’s round face was suddenly there, grasping her elbows and holding her upright. Her forehead was slick with sweat, her breath smelled like booze, but she was here. She was here, and she was solid, and Penny could suddenly feel the ground beneath her feet. Slippery sunshine, she thought to herself with a wavering smirk. One minute here, the next minute there… “Honey, you look really out of it. You want to go outside for a second?” All she could do was nod, letting her friend keep her upright. The women made it to the patio and Ray settled Penny on a stool; she could feel the cold metal biting into her thighs and it shocked her back to reality, just a bit. It felt like whatever door had blown open had closed, just a bit. It was still open slightly, a crack into the…
Into the Betwixt. Shivers wracked her body as she thought of the word he’d sang with such intense soul. In the Betwixt. What the hell was that word? Why the hell had it touched something so deeply in her? And why did it still feel like he was singing to her? “I’m gonna grab you some water, just stay here, okay? I’ll be back in two seconds. Five seconds. Ten, max.” Penny managed a small nod and Ray rushed back inside. God, she must look really bad. Her hands, she noticed, were trembling violently. She stuck them under her thighs and leaned forward, her hair in her face, making herself as unapproachable as possible.
She didn’t know exactly how long Ray was gone, but she could still hear them singing, their magic only slightly muffled by glass and doorways. Penny didn’t dare look inside. Just in case. “I’m back!” Ray shoved someone out of the way and rushed forward with a plastic cup of water. “Drink.”
“Thank you,” Penny mumbled, taking a swig. And then she pressed it to her forehead, letting the cool water soothe her even more. She met Ray’s wary eyes. “I’m sorry I lost your drink. I… the band…”
Ray gave her an inscrutable look. “I’m not worried about the drinks,” she said, slowly, “but seriously, are you good? Did someone slip something into your drink?”
“No!” Penny assured her. “Nothing like that. I think I just got-” Blown away by music and someone who peered into my soul and dreams – “a little lightheaded from not eating enough today.”
“Penny,” Ray growled, “you should have told me! We could have gotten gyros from the food truck. Do you wanna go now? Or we can get some of the bratwursts from the other one? I don’t want you passing out on me before you can meet my friends!”
Penny waved off her concern, feeling reality solidify under her as she got fussed over by her friend. “I’m fine, promise. Maybe after the show we can get gyros. I want lamb and tons of tzatziki. Anyway. Aren’t your friends playing soon?”
Ray cocked her head and then put her hand to Penny’s forehead. “Just making sure you don’t have a fever, because I’m pretty sure I told you that the guys playing now are my friends. Remember? We were talking about Greek mythology? The furies?”
The memory came now, of Penny listening to Ray absently as she fitted her for the skirt she was currently wearing. Penny’s mouth had been full of pins and she’d been so in her own fashion zone that she’d somehow tuned it out. To be fair, Ray could talk. She did recall something about Hades and the Underworld and, yes, the furies. She remembered enough from English class to remember that the furies were the Chthonic goddesses of vengeance. So how, she wondered, did that blue eyed man fit into that, exactly?
She tuned back into Ray, and winced because she’d obviously missed something. Ray was smiling, talking a mile a minute, like she had to get it all out. “…And anyway, I mentioned that you did, like, fashion. And that maybe you could help. So what do you think?”
Penny didn’t want to admit that she had no idea what the hell Ray was talking about, so she only nodded. “Sure.”
Her friend squealed excitedly. “Yay! This is so exciting, I can’t wait for you to meet them. I promise, they’re not scary at all without the masks. Taylor is the best person ever, Kris is the funniest person I’ve ever met, besides you, Charlotte is cute and so funny, and James…” The smile slipped off her face a bit, her brows scrunching together as she searched for the word. “James is a genius.” Somehow, she didn’t think that’s what Ray had been about to say. Before she could pry, Ray shook herself and beamed. “Are you ready?”
She really didn’t feel like she had a choice. “Sure.”
What the hell was she getting into?
Elisabeth Writing 
One response to “The Night Penny met the Erinyes”
Very you, Liz. A kind of magic hiding and reaching and searching behind a world that eats itself somehow… in the tackiness and indifference of not really seeing when real magicians walk in it.
“Whaddaya want?”
I want stars to tumble, and something inside them to see me, unmask me and catch me before the world falls away.
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