Free Circle of Nine: Circle of Nine Trilogy 1 by Josephine Pennicott

window was the owl. It seemed the most natural action for me to approach the window where it perched passively, waiting for me.
    I’m still in the dream , I told myself, I’m controlling the dream. How interesting!
    A warning hissed in my mind. They can only enter if you invite them in.
    The owl waited patiently.
    As I looked into its eyes, visions whirled and spun before me. I saw cornfields filled with blood. I saw an Egyptian High Priestess entombed alive for knowledge that overthrew the priests. I saw ancient fertility monuments that seeded generations, alien life forms planted into the earth, and finally a single raindrop, glistening and perfect, the whole world contained within it.
    The owl scratched the glass impatiently with its claws. I saw, with sudden horror, the damage its claws could wreak upon my face.
    Even in a dream you can die. In our dreams lie the seeds of our deaths.
    The owl scratched harder. It proved impossible to deny the creature’s commands, so I advanced toward the window and threw it open. But the owl was gone. From the distant mountains echoed the lonely cry of a woman, then all was still.
    *
    I had to get out of the house. I was getting cabin fever what with the vivid dreams I was having, and the mural that I was convinced had changed. Or had it? The more I thought about it, the less sure I was. Perhaps I simply needed to get my eyes checked. I really needed to get out, make some contact with people, if I was going to start thinking that my dead aunt was returning to the house to work on a painting. Prior to coming to the mountains, I had vague dreams of meeting like-minded people among the burgeoning artistic community that had settled in the mountains. I needed to form contacts with the locals.
    Perhaps it was simply talking to Effie yesterday, hearing her confident, familiar voice on the telephone, but today I felt as if I could take on the world — well, at least get the confidence to enquire about putting some of my artworks up for sale. I threw a small portfolio of my paintings into my day pack and left the house, making sure that I locked the door carefully behind me. A legacy of my years of living in Sydney.
    I never felt totally at ease on the short walk into the nearby towns. Although I avoided the more scenic mountain walk, I was always conscious of the fact that Johanna had chosen to live her life in isolation, and she had died a sadistic, apparently meaningless death there.
    Black puddles lay on the ground, an icy wind blew and I huddled into my trench coat. It was difficult to believe that it was spring when it was this cold. It felt like the dead of winter. My fingers were red and freezing, and I vowed to look for a pair of gloves as soon as I reached Katoomba. Although I was walking on a major road, not one car passed by, and I had to fight to keep my already overactive imagination from spinning out of control. All my life I had been a person who valued privacy and enjoyed my own company. But now, when I was actually living the sort of life I had often longed for, I was acting like the female lead in one of those corny horror films.
    For the hundredth time I attempted to make sense of the journal entries of Johanna’s. Was I the child that she referred to? Had Johanna had a child that we didn’t know about? Or was there another child? What were the Solumbi, crossings, the Azephim? The entries had raised more questions than they had answered. Or were they just proof that my aunt’s mental balance had been precarious? Not to mention mine, for I had even been seriously entertaining the thought of performing some type of exorcism on the house to release my aunt’s spirit.
    Reaching Katoomba, with its eclectic range of shops, I browsed in one of the local second-hand bookstores where a woman sat playing a small piano. A log fire burned in a corner, and I picked up a couple of books, one on Egyptian art and the other on occultism in Australia.
    ‘You’re Emma Develle, aren’t