Dead Space

Crunch, crunch, crunch, the sound of dead leaves

Crunch, crunch, crunch, how happy we can be

Crunch, crunch, crunch, we’ll take the building back

Crunch, crunch, crunch, nature will not lack

This land, This land

Belongs to us, not them

This land, This land

No longer be condemned

The melody of the song Molly’s mom used to sing to her waltzed into her head and she stepped on the crunching leaves, walking hand and hand with her fourteen-year-old daughter, Sarah. Molly’s mom, Anne,  had gone on her first adventure to the dead spaces with Molly’s grandmother when Anne was fourteen. Molly had gone on her first with Anne when Molly had been fourteen. Now, with her Sarah’s birthday having just passed they walked towards the nearest dead space together.

Sarah was chatting, as Molly had when she was that age, not having known what was going to happen. It is one thing to hear about the ritual, but it was certainly another to experience it. They had practiced the beginning of ritual together since Sarah was twelve, to make sure the experience went smoothly, but nerves still wormed their way inside both. They rounded a corner and stopped the melody of their crunching steps. There the house stood. Four stories tall, and decaying.

Once owned by the unnaturally wealthy Gillians many centuries ago, the house still showed signs of the beauty it once held before it became a dead space. None of the Naturali women knew exactly why or how these dead spaces existed, they only knew that they were here, tucked away and forgotten. These spaces held no sound, no animals, no plants, not even grass. So many called these places haunted, but they held no spirits, as dead spaces don’t even hold the dead, they hold absolutely nothing but the feeling of decay. Molly told her daughter to breath, noticing the young girl’s breath had stopped at the sight of the dead space. Sarah took a deep breath and clutched her backpack closer. Together, they entered the circle of nothingness and climbed the stairs towards the old houses entrance.

As they neared, Sarah couldn’t help but be memorized at the majestic and intricate woodwork around the frame of the door. Celtic symbols wound around,  only breaking apart every so often to show the details of deer, birds, wolfs, and people with spears in the once darkly stained wood. Molly pulled her along and found that the door was already slightly open, unusual for a condemned house but she figured the teens around the area most likely came here to smoke marijuana and do… other things. She hoped that her daughter would wait for those “other things” until she was much older.

They stepped inside the grand foyer and looked around at the dirt covered tile that covered the whole floor. The only place the tile was not was a circle in the middle where a fountain stood, now completely dry of any water it once had held. “Do we have to be in here? Can’t we do this outside?” Sarah asked of her mom as her eyes drifted over the mirrored staircase crawling around the fountain to the top ledge. “This place is kind of creepy.”

“Yes, we need to be at the center,” Molly cringed at the sound of her own voice as it bounced back at her from the walls. Walking around the fountain to the open doors behind it, the women and her child stepped into what must have once been a grand dining room, now empty of all furniture and life. “Spread out the candles like I taught you,” She whispered this time, avoiding the echo.

Sarah did as she was told, laying out the wide verity of colored candles in a circle. Red, blue, green, orange, red, blue, green, orange, sixteen in total. She then used the stark white candles to make one line straight across the circle she had made. Molly nodded at her work and adjusted a few of the candles to make the circle even all the way through. “Very well done for your first time, dear, just remember that everything needs to be perfect for this to work.” Her daughter nodded at her and sat inside the candles. Lowering down and crossing her legs, Molly did the same on the other side of the white line. “Let’s begin.”

The two moved into a buddha position and closed their eyes tight, drawing out a v shaped line above both of their dark brown brows. Palms up, heads tilted slightly down, the two started:

“Enter this void,” They spoke together now in complete harmony. Sarah’s voice slightly quieter than her mom’s. Molly’s hands were as still as a tiger before it pounces on it’s prey, but Sarah’s slightly shook.

“Enter through us, stir the land, awake what’s here but currently dead.” Sarah’s voice started to grow in volume, matching her mothers in perfect harmony. Like swans in the mating dance, their voices swirled together to match pitch and tone. A piece of dark auburn hair fell from Sarah’s braid, she hoped that it did not disturb the ritual.

“Come together, with us, through us, take our lives while you retake what is yours, awaken the dead, awaken the space, awake and claim.” The whole house seemed to shake, a presence entered, the only living thing besides the two that had stepped foot inside in centuries. They could feel the presence but kept their eyes closed, as to not scare it away. Sarah remembered the day when her mother had told her how cautious mother nature was about showing herself to humans. It saddened Sarah but she understand the destruction that humans had brought upon her. “Use us to complete your task. Reclaim what is yours.”

Windows shattered as a rush of air claimed the space. Sarah almost opened her eyes but stopped herself. The ritual was done, but they had to wait until the air stopped, at least that’s what her mother had told her. With their eyes closed, the girls could not see vines that started to climb towards them, coming in through the broken windows and stretching over the tile, over the walls, over the ceiling. Deep purple and bright yellow leaves sprouted over the vines and dandelions began to pop up, creating cracks in the tile. The air shifted to the left, then the right, as it crawled through every crevice of the house, bringing life. The two slowly open their eyes as the wind slowed down and then became a light breeze. Molly smiled; Sarah gasped. It was beautiful.

Neither one spoke as they exited the house, but Sarah noticed how the outside had grown just like the inside, it was no longer a dead space. There was no crunch, crunch, crunch of the leaves as they left. Instead, the leaves slowly drifted back up to the trees. Molly started to hum the tune her mother used to sing, and Sarah joined in:

Drift, drift, drift, the leave no longer dead

Drift, drift, drift, as we head back to bed

Drift, drift, drift, one down but more to come

Drift, drift, drift, nature will carry on

Dead space, Dead Space

No longer in this land

Dead space, Dead Space

Now given to natures hand

Molly smiled.