AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yeah,” I reply, not doing very well in the conversation department tonight. But what can I say? I’m nervous. That’s only to be expected.
Rita laughs. “You don’t sound too happy, Tegan,” and raises a questioning eyebrow.
“I just – I don’t know what to expect with all of this. I’m just hoping everything turns out okay.”
“Believe me,” says Rita, and I could be mistaken, but she actually sounds like she’s making a conscious effort to be nice and reassure me. “I’ve worked it all out, I’m about 99.9% sure this is going to work. And, with the way I’m going to do this you’ll get to see everything that my casting reveals, whereas, if you’d gone along and allowed Marcel to do this, I can guarantee you’d only be given half the picture, the other half he’d keep for himself. As I said, it’s all about the power with the “families” and the Girards are notorious for their duplicity.”
“Really?” I ask, having a hard time picturing it. “I mean, I’ve never met any of his relations, but well, Marcel just seems like a jolly old hippy.”
“Sometimes deceptions can be even more believable than the truth,” Alvie interjects.
“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” I agree. The more I think about it, the more Marcel’s actions seem to be self-serving. With Rita, I was the one who asked her to do this for me, whereas with Marcel it had been him trying to convince me to let him study me all the way. And when I really think back to it, his calm persuasion did contain just the tiniest note of greedy desperation. Gabriel, on the other hand, is slightly more difficult to read.
I just keep picturing him shaking his head ever so slightly at Marcel that first day we’d met. Shaking his head, as if to say, No Marcel, we should not invade this girl’s privacy in order to further our own agenda. And what is that agenda exactly? Is it all to do with the DOH and hunting down vampires? Or is it something far more dark and murky?
While Rita goes about gathering her implements and readying them for the casting, I turn to Alvie and ask, “So, has Rita told you everything about me?”
Alvie, happy to be involved, replies somewhat uncertainly, “Yes. I hope that’s okay with you. It’s just that I need to know all the details if I’m going to be the third member of the circle. You couldn’t have done it with just the two of you anyway, with magic, everything goes in threes. If you didn’t have three people to form the circle then you’d need six, if you didn’t have six you’d need nine.” He shrugs.
“Multiples of three, I get it.” I reply, smiling. “And don’t worry, I’m not bothered by her telling you, so long as I can trust you not to go blabbing about it to all and sundry.”
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that, anything we do for non-magic users is strictly confidential.” At this he makes a gesture, zipping his mouth shut.
I sigh in relief. “Thank you.”
“No problem, hun,” he replies, and then gets up to help Rita carry over the various bits and pieces required for her spell.
I sit silently and watch as they place the big grey bowl in the centre of the table and then use the wooden ladle to spoon a green coloured liquid from the pot that had been simmering on the stove into the bowl. The steam rises gently and bits of leaves float to the surface. Alvie places three smaller bowls in front of each of our place settings, in them is what looks like plain hot water.
Rita and Alvie sit down then and place their hands in the water, as though to wash. Then they each pick up a bunch of herbs and begin rubbing them into their palms.
&n
bsp; “Thyme,” says Rita, handing me a bunch of my own. “Rub it onto your hands, it’s purifying. We hold hands to form the circle, so there can’t be anything on our skin that will corrupt the casting.”
“Oh, right. Got it,” I reply, and then copy their movements. First placing my hands in the bowl of hot water as they did, and then rubbing in the thyme.
There are a further four smaller bowls in front of Rita, containing various herbs and berries. I eye them curiously. Alvie is to my left and Rita to my right. A slow, calming breeze flows in from the open back door. The air is sharp and almost addictive in its purity. A moment later, after several beats of silence, both Rita and Alvie take either of my hands into theirs.
Rita turns to me. “In the bowl is a neutral bath, it contains a precise mixture to allow for the perfect base for this spell. What we put into it after we begin determines the nature and function of the casting, do you understand?” she asks. I give her a curt nod and she continues. “All right then, we’ll take several moments to clear our minds of all conscious thought before we begin.” Her solemnity is a first.
I try my best not to think of anything at all as the quiet closes in around the three of us, and all I hear is the gentle swoosh of leaves being blown by the slow night wind out in Rita’s back garden.
It’s strange, because normally when somebody tells me to clear my mind all I can do is think about so many things that I end up cluttering my head rather than emptying it. But here, as I sit hand in hand with Rita and Alvie, two people I barely know, the clearing of my mind comes surprisingly easily.
I find myself falling into a meditative trance, and I’m only awoken from it when Rita begins to speak. In a soft, yet musical voice, very uncharacteristic, she says, “I call on the Goddess to watch over our proceedings here this night, and secure the success of our casting,” she lets go of mine and Alvie’s hands. “Into the formula I firstly add Aniseed,” she lifts some flowery green leafy herbs and throws them into the grey bowl, “to banish any negative energy and any negative thoughts and to ensure that no person within the circle is present for deceitful or insidious reasons, and that all three who form the circle have nothing but pure and unimpeachable reasons for performing this spell.”
Next she plucks another bunch of herbs from the second bowl in front of her and throws them in, these ones long leafed. “Secondly I add Bay leaf, for protection from the seeping in of the dark arts and for purification of our intentions. But most importantly for clairvoyance, so that we three may see that which has been hidden.”
Rita takes a breath, makes eye contact with me, and then with Alvie, before lifting up a stalk of little black berries. Then she speaks up. “Thirdly I add Elderberry so that it may release this spell cast upon my circle sister who sits to my left, but that it may also protect from the fall out of that which is released.” My heart gives a quick hard thump in my chest as I comprehend her words. Protect me from what fall out? My subconscious asks, but I push away the question and do my best to focus on the task at hand.
“Finally,” says Rita. “I add Euphrasia, more commonly known as Eyebright, for it will serve in pulling out lost and forgotten memories from within the depths of my circle sister’s mind, and it will seek the truth, which is our purpose here tonight.” She tosses a cluster of small white flowers with a dash of yellow in their centre into the bowl to finish the casting.
Unconsciously, I hold on tighter to Rita and Alvie’s hands as my eyes focus intently on the bowl in the centre of the table. The concoction of herbs swirls back and forth and a sliver of golden light shines through the water for a brief second and then it’s gone.
Even though I haven’t once taken my eyes off the bowl, I know instinctively that both Rita and Alvie are staring at it also. It would be a difficult task for anybody to drag their eyes away from it as the gold fades away and a rainbow of colours takes its place. The pretty colours are enchanting, but I can feel that it isn’t their beauty that is holding my eyes to the bowl. It’s the magic, pulling, dragging, and demanding my attention. All three of us combined could not resist its allure.
After an insurmountable number of minutes the colours begin to converge, and as they do my eyes draw closer, closer, ever closer to the colours within the water within the bowl. I drop. We all do. I’m no longer in Rita’s higgledy piggledy kitchen, I have fallen straight into the colours. I drift for a moment, and then the colours form a picture. A forest in the dark of night. A woman runs through the trees, weaving in and out, and I know exactly why she’s doing it. She’s being chased. He’s going to get you, honey, a disembodied voice speaks out from the darkness. No point in running. No point in hiding.
