Free Women Scorned by Angela Alsaleem

nightly vision. Once she was able to see without her eyes feeling like they would throb out of her skull, she sat up and poked her head through the dry prickly bushes.
    She looked up and down the road for the source of the sound. She remembered the road-man and smiled, an image of his disheveled angry spirit flitting through her mind. Her stomach growled. She picked up her bag and rummaged through it, pulling out some type of pressed-bar food. She nibbled the morsel, continuing to look back and forth, down the road. Would there be another road-man?
    She felt the spirit she hunted, the one who would bring the two worlds together, and grew alert, all of her focus in the spirit’s direction. Rubbing her hands together, swirling her tongue over her lips, she bounced into a crouched position, almost too excited to remain concealed.
    “Soon,” she whispered through her grin.
    As if materializing from the trees, a bloody and bruised woman with short, black hair appeared. Aludra stared at the spiky-haired girl. Her naked flesh seemed to glow in the early morning light.
    “She’s beautiful,” Aludra whispered to herself. And more so because of the spirit , she thought. The girl lurched along as if it was difficult to move. “I’ll have you soon enough,” she whispered, waving her finger toward the meandering apparition. “In a few days, you’ll be mine.”
    Aludra watched the naked woman walk downhill, waiting until she was a safe enough distance to follow. Just as she was ready to move, however, another girl emerged from the same path, a redhead with some small black animal on a rope.
    “Oooh,” she said in a soft, high voice like a child’s sing song. “A new toy.” The girl seemed timid, too alert. She follows the spirit too , she thought. She must be the other one the High Priestess told me about… the third. “This is going to be fun,” she snickered, showing all her teeth with her fingers playing on her chin. “You’ll be mine, too.”
    Once the pretty redhead went downhill a bit, Aludra followed, not too concerned with staying close since wherever the spirit went, she could follow. The pull was too strong to lose now. Before she’d been afraid she wouldn’t feel the right connection but now, it seemed everything would turn out well. Time was running short. She needed to capture the spirit, but she desired again to taste the elation she felt while throttling the road-man and cutting the Outside Woman’s neck. She felt a pull to this human, something stronger than the pull to Rory and couldn’t resist the urge to feel death. She followed the redhead while the redhead followed the spirit.
    After a while she veered off course, heading towards other pleasures, always checking on her prey with her mind and body, feeling for the wandering spirit. She had to feel again, needed the elation in a way she couldn’t describe or understand. The need for slick blood on her fingertips—blood other than her own—was strong. Her stomach knotted just thinking about never having that again.
    In the back of her mind she knew it was undisciplined, knew she’d be sent to the rope room for her detour, but she’d pay that price when she got back to the manor. She knew it would be painful, more torturous than she could bear. But then, maybe the High Priestess wouldn’t find out.
    Who was she fooling? She knew they could see all.
    As she fought with herself, she continued, blindly pulled to the human flesh. She just wanted to play one more time. And then she’d be good. She would be oh, so good.
     
    *  *  *
     
    The High Priestess paced, confined in the small room. Her long robes brushed the floor, and her hood hid her face. She appeared draped in blood. The room was furnished with nothing more than folded blankets in one corner and a hook on the wall next to the door. Alone, she clicked her fingernails in front of her, hands shaking. Three steps, turn, three steps, turn, three steps… She stopped, sighed, forced her