Scratch closed The King in Yellow , setting the tome containing the play down on the podium with trembling hands. The dim and guarded undercroft chamber beneath the church rang with cries of ecstasy.

Cherry found herself face down, forehead pressed against the cold stone floor within the summoning circle etched into the ground, her body splayed across the yellow sign. A euphoric smile spread across her lips, her body filled with more pleasure than she ever experienced. There was dark, terrible magic in the King's text. Terrible, but great.

Instructed by Scratch, they arose from the ground and joined hands with the others in the group, their faces hidden behind yellow veils, their hands just barely peeking out of the folds of their long yellow robes. Scratch stood opposite of her at the head of the circle. She only knew him by voice, for he wore a pale bronze-colored mask. At first she thought it a replica, a casting of his face. But the longer she considered it, the more it didn't match his face completely. It was off somehow, and not just because of the color. She dare not ask him now. Her curiosity would have to wait.

Scratch had stressed before the ritual began, that this was a responsibility they trusted with few practitioners of the faith. And this was also a test of sorts to determine her awareness. "You must trust me completely, girl. You must obey every instruction. If your faith falters, there's nothing I can do to protect you from the King's wrath."

She nodded, ready to give him perfect obedience.

All eyes were on him waiting for instruction. They stood around a sign, a symbol etched into the ground. The dull yellow sign nagged at Cherry, filling her with both dread and a longing to know, to comprehend its meaning. Himura moved between the poles, lighting incense that soon permeated the room. It had a simultaneous warming and numbing quality, subduing all of Cherry's worries, putting her mind at ease.

She inhaled the incense, drawing it deep into her lungs, her mind, her soul. Likely it was a drug, now that she considered it. She wasn't worried. She'd done drugs plenty of times. Instead she focused on the binaural meditative ambient music flowing from small speakers surrounding the seance. Peace and love washed over her. The smoke swirled in her mind's eye. She allowed herself to fall into the incense until it enveloped her.

Scratch lingered so close to her, Cherry felt the inhales and exhales of his breath on her ear. "Open your eyes. Here's my gift to you."

She didn't know what to expect. So when Scratch removed a sheet from a tall shape, she gasped with delight when she recognized it was a large easel.

Opening his palm, Scratch offered her a yellow bulbous mushroom-type fungus, one of the few forms of life found native to Rubrum, discovered when the first Terran colonizers arrived, those hundreds of years ago.

The plants held amazing properties. They were illegal to pick, to consume, or to sell, not because they were the official county-state plant of Rubrum—as was commonly believed, but because of their hidden hallucinogenic impact on the human mind. Terran drugs paled in comparison to the saffron mushrooms.

Of all the participants, Cherry alone held the privilege of consuming them orally. Everyone else in attendance could only inhale the fumes of smoke as the burning tray was passed from hand to hand.

As she chewed the bulbs, an aromatic yet chalky tang spread over her tongue. All relation to time was rendered useless. Her mind opened to everything beyond her cranium. She still resided in her body, but now also spread her awareness, her being, herself, beyond the bounds of her mortal shell, pushing it out into the ether. Two Cherry's existed side by side. One on the physical plane, and the other Cherry was projected into a dreamscape.

Scratch pressed a compressed charcoal stick into her hands.

"Now, sketch the visions that you see." His voice resounded, deeper, fuller than she ever heard. She must obey.

With one hand she held the edge of the easel, feeling the minute peaks and valleys of the vellum textured paper. She turned control over to her metaphysical self, staring into the hazy ether.

Cherry stood alone in a black place, dark as space, darker still, as if all the stars had been snuffed out.

Movement caught her eye. A lone figure seated atop a lofty seat.

She spoke as she sketched, her voice reverberating in her own ears, as if her words stretched from infinity past to eternal future. "I see a man in a long black robe. In his hand is a hammer, no, a wooden gavel. He sits atop a raised chair."

"A judge," Scratch mused. She heard his voice as if from far away at the end of a long tunnel. "What else do you see, my child?"

"I see people at his side. A group of people sitting together, enclosed in a box."

"What kinds of people?"

Cherry fought to understand. They were all different shaped heads and various noses. Even their skin color showed a vast swath of difference, and their hair styles moreso. Yet there was one thing that unified them all. Her breath caught when she realized. "Contempt fills their eyes."

Scratch paused a moment, deciphering the vision. "A judge and a jury. Breathe deep. Look further. What does this vision reveal? What truth must we know?"

The vision swirled like mist. Only obsidian black filled her. A black wall rose in front of her, the full revelation withheld. Cherry's hands grew cold. Her lips trembled. "I can't go further."

"You must," said Roy. It was not a wish. It was a command. His word was law.

Cherry thought of Roy, her Scratch. He trusted her, saw the worth in her like no one else did. He looked past her affordable beauty and saw the real Cherry, the one who needed someone to love her, to guide her, to value her. If this was where Roy wanted to lead her, she must follow. She must obey. Roy was the herald. He revealed the hidden knowledge and his word was law.

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She pushed against the wall, then threw herself into it. The wall evaporated, turned to a twirling trail of smoke. She followed billowing fumes down to their source. The smoke trailed from two gun barrels the size of cannons. The guns shrank, pulling away from Cherry fast, until two deep eyes swallowed the guns whole, eyes as dark as a freshly dug grave.

The eyes belonged to a man. He was climbing out of the mouth of a dark cave that Cherry realized was actually the empty socket of a grinning skull. He stood erect, noble almost. The guns that vanished behind his eyes protruded from holsters at his hips. He could have been a preacher like Scratch, but for those twin instruments of finality. The exterior of the figure was that of a lawman, but the eyes belonged to an executioner. His fingers clutched a rose. Blood seeped between his fingers, streaming from where the thorns bit into his skin. If it pained the man, his face did not show it. Darkness fell across his face, filling his sockets with black shadows. Unease whispered in Cherry's mind. She feared this man.

"What do you see?"

Cherry did her best to illustrate the man. She shuddered as the image formed under her fingers, afraid of the man in the vision, and afraid of what Scratch might do to her for proclaiming the revelation.

"Who is he?"

"I don't know. I don't recognize him."

"Is he a lawman? A sheriff?"

Cherry shook her head. She wasn't sure how she knew, but Cherry knew the man was not a sheriff. He seemed distant, alien, from another place entirely.

"Is he a deputy?"

"No."

Irritation crept into Scratch's voice now. "Then who is he?"

A star suspended in the night sky twinkled. Then it dwindled down, pulsing, until it alighted, blazing on the man's chest. Cherry squinted against the bright light. The pulsing died down. A metal star of authority was now pinned on his chest. Underneath was a word etched in the metal.

"Marshal," she whispered.

The lawman's eyes turned on her and she froze, unable to speak. He'd heard her say his title. All of his vindictive wrath now pointed at her heart. A shriek exploded from her mouth.

The charcoal stick slipped from her hands and struck the floor, cracking in half. The floor rushed up to meet her. None of the other robed practitioners caught her. They let her fall like her touch was contaminated.

Behind the mask, Roy's eyes burned with yellow fire. And rage.

Cherry waited for his hand to fall, to strike her across the face. She would bear it, just as she had hundreds of times from hundreds of men who she displeased.

But punishment never came.

She cowered on the floor. If only there were a corner nearby she could crawl to. But she knew better than to show weakness. It always made things worse. So she trembled, but stayed put nonetheless. She dare not lift her eyes though.

A smooth hand lifted her chin. Through the watery gaze she looked into Scratch's face.

He spoke in a whisper meant only for her. "Speak truly. Did you really see this marshal?"

He directed her face to the easel.

There, on the vellum paper strode the lawman, enveloped in shadows, so lifelike that at any moment he could step out of the unending corridor of the dreamscape and right off of the page.

Had she drawn that horrid image? Black charcoal stained her hands. She must have. So strong was the drug, Cherry had only the faintest memory of actually sketching the vision. She trembled at the depiction made by her own blackened hand.

The answer lodged in her throat. She could not lie to Roy. To come this far and now to be rejected for her vision. Mascara streaked down her face, like two black roads, both leading to perdition. But no matter the consequence, lying to Roy would be far, far worse.

She nodded with vigor and forced the word out. "Yes. My vision is true."

Now it would come. The first strike. Then the second. And then she would awaken later with a headache and a swollen face needing a thick coat of foundation, blush, and eyeshadow. And after all that, she'd have to face Dahlia. What harsh words would Dahlia wield? Cherry didn't think she could face her.

"You did well, girl."

Cherry blinked away the tears. "What?"

Scratch did not repeat himself. Instead he offered her a hand, like a gentleman.

She searched his eyes for any hint of malice, or even disappointment.

He recognized her own baffled confusion and answered in kind.

"You've given me something great. A vision from the near future. Weeks, maybe days. But a head start, nonetheless. Come, daughter."

He led her out of the seance chamber. "We must prepare for the lawman that cometh."