Chapter 19
Roishin
T he house was so quiet after Bear left.
I took advantage of it by laying out all the things he’d purchased and tuning each item to my energy.
As I worked, I called on the neutral nature of magic.
Neither good nor evil, it existed as everything does, in its own state.
My spirit extended outward, creating a vibration of awareness that sensed each element of magic within the house.
Bear’s altar was bright, loud, boisterous. Laughing with gusto and tuned to the place he felt happiest. The bottle of ale in particular held that magical state of promise.
Surrounding and intertwining with that vibrance was something much darker. Powerful . Like the man himself.
I lit a candle and paced through the house. The bedroom sang with vigor. My skin heated. We’d consecrated that space well.
There were corners that sorely needed life.
After opening a window, I blew blessings into their dusty spaces over the candle flame to dispel the negative void and bring life back into their stagnation.
Even the basement needed a blessing or ten.
And a good cleaning. I swept, blessed, and wiped through the entire house, working slowly, eventually rubbing the surfaces with mint-infused cleaning cloths until the place smelled fresh.
Then I laid out the remaining stones and what-not on the grass in the backyard to soak in the sunlight.
In my eclectic practice, I did both shadow and light work.
My blessings weren’t as powerful as the shield spells or wardings which came to me as easily as breathing, but they were a part of my solitary craft, just the same.
Moonlight alone wasn’t enough to boost that magic.
Then I locked the house and took a long walk down the woodland path that eventually ended at the river.
In daylight, it seemed so small and not nearly as ominous or wild as it had been that fateful night.
I sat on the river bank between the last posts of the dock rooted in the mud.
Meditation came easily for a change. My inner frantic pace calmed and thrummed with the languid pulse of the river and land.
Was this what happiness felt like?
I smiled to myself, knowing that it wasn’t just happiness. My body ached in very good ways. Each little pang of exertion was a reminder of Bear .
He had amazing stamina.
“ I’ve got it bad.” It being the harmonious buzz of multiple orgasms.
I stretched and focused on the sunlight dappling the water in bright little shimmers of light. The hum of insects and the soft lapping of water sliding against the shoreline set the musical score I paced my chants to.
A cloud passed overhead, chilling my skin. I looked up, still dazed by the hypnotic state of inner peace I’d found. A noisy truck rumbled by on a distant highway. The susurrus of life stilled.
Someone was close. My senses, or the spirits, whispered a warning.
I crouched low to hide my body amongst the weeds and grass that grew wild.
The crunch of footsteps made me slip closer to the river bank where erosion had scooped the soil from the edge in a large curving bite that concealed my entire body.
Carefully , I climbed over tangled tree roots to creep further into the shadows there.
I barely moved ten feet before the noises on the gravel ceased and the thump of tread on asphalt began.
Whoever it was, they took the path toward the subdivision.
And they weren’t some random hiker walking casually.
Nor were they a jogger, pacing their strides for maximum sustainable effort. This was a person with a purpose.
I avoided the path as much as I could, but the river bank quickly became too overgrown to follow, and I had to cut through the woods to work my way back to Bear’s house.
I was muddy and my dress was torn by the time I crested a hill and caught a glimpse of the neat little semi-circle of houses that made up that dead-end street I called home for now.
Something moved in Bear’s backyard.
It definitely wasn’t Bear . He told me his last appointment was at six. The sun wasn’t far enough west in the sky for that. And the colorful flash meant it wasn’t one of his brothers from the club. Not a one of them wore anything lighter than dark gray. And none of them wore anything bright.
Except when it came to bright neon pink running shoes. I smiled. Poor Bear .
The patch of blue appeared again on the path I’d taken earlier. It slipped south toward the crumbled dock and the river park.
I picked my way downhill. It took me a long time because of fence lines, steep drops, and overgrowth.
Eventually , I emerged two houses down from Bear’s , missing the path completely, with no clue how that happened.
I’d have to go back and figure that out someday, but for now, I cut through a lawn to get to the opening that allowed me back into the yard.
I stopped dead in my tracks as I did.
My carefully blessed stones and tools had been rearranged.
Someone cut a pentagram into the lawn, dumping my items with no order whatsoever at each point.
But that wasn’t what made me freeze in terror. In the center of the crudely inscribed star was a mutilated animal. Or maybe two?
I wouldn’t know until I moved closer. Careful decision and inspection went into placing each step.
Despite the randomness of the supposed casting circle, there was the genuine possibility someone had booby-trapped the lawn with non-magical weapons.
Soon enough, I caught a glint in the grass.
Gingerly , I picked up the caltrop. It was small, shaped like a vicious toy.
There had to be more. This type of object was sold in bulk.
As I crept to the circle, I found two more. I collected them and the pieces of my altar. Finally , I stood over the poor creature who’d been savagely murdered to torment me. Or should I say, frame me? Because to an outsider, the grotesque display screamed “black magic.”
But whoever did this had no clue what black magic looked like. If it wasn’t so horrific, I’d laugh.
Feathers , brown—probably from a sparrow or some field bird—mingled with bits of rabbit flesh and fur.
The poor things.
I found the twisted, decapitated, and half-crushed head of the bird first. I knelt in the grass and cradled it in my palms. I chanted a quick prayer to commit its life to peace.
The rabbit hadn’t been as lucky.
There was foam at its mouth. It died slowly.
I cried, feeling the gash of terror and loss surrounding me.
As the tears dried and my heart stopped hurting, truth whispered to my soul. You know who did this. The suggestion slithered around me, clutching at my neck and burrowing deep like a carnivorous worm.
Fucking Carl .
I repeated my hypothesis out loud. A breeze rustled through the treetops.
The voices of nature and the spirits whispered in accord.
The creak and clatter of branches bending and striking each other fit my mood perfectly.
These creatures were murdered by one of the most twisted people I’d ever had the misfortune of meeting.
And deep down, I knew they’d been tormented because Carl was trying to control my life. I’d opened Pandora’s box by coming back to help Beth beat cancer again. But this felt so much darker than before.
We were children then. Or at least inexperienced and child-like in the ways of evil. “ When I was a child, I thought and spoke as a child.” That damn bible verse bubbled up unbidden.
“ Fuck him.” I re-sketched the circle, finding three more of those damn caltrops as I did.
This time, I used his torture devices to reflect his poor attempt at spell work back upon him.
The nearly dried blood from the animals remained in the center of the circle, but their torn bodies, carefully collected and blessed, were far from this place. I wasn’t about to bind their spirits to this work.
The sunlight angled sharply through the treetops, and I lit black candles to place at the sources for each of the four winds.
I cut and burned an offering of my own hair to seal the circle. Its acrid odor tainted the air.
Only then did I release my rage.
It fused into the magic I worked. A mirror reflected the dark purple sky and a flicker of candlelight.
“ Benedicta est vis venti et terrae.
Benedicta est vita et potentia ignis et aquae.
Benedicta est lamina metallica non calcata.
Vos invoco, o dii cordis mei.
Vos invoco, dii benedicti huius terrae.
Quercum et spinam invoco,
serras urticae et aculeos hederae invoco.
Hoc malum aggredimini.
Utinam vindicta naturae in intrusum percutiat.
Surgant dii et inimici mei dispergantur ut fumus.
Utinam vis eorum deficiat.
Utinam astutia eorum vacillet.
Utinam consilia eorum dissolvantur.
Ita sit sicut supra et infra,
in vita et terra spirituum.
Fiat .
Instetur .
Fiat .
Malum abeat.”
I moved the mirror thrice more, calling upon each wind to carry the curse back to Carl .
Finally , I knelt again, facing north. My blessings never came from any of the softer directions. Only the icy cold and harsh wind listened to my pleas. I called for resolve, justice, and let my will be the sacrifice for the spell. “ Carl has no power here.”
I spoke the affirmation seven times. Each time, I turned slightly and swept my hands in front of me to blanket the view with magic.
Then I meditated until the light was gone and the candles sputtered out. I must have been kneeling for hours because I could barely walk from the pain.
Only then did I break the circle and let the magic flow into the world. Carl would get what was coming to him. I had to trust the universe with that.
As I cleaned up, I found several more caltrops. The total hit seventeen. Either they were sold in batches of six and I’d missed one, or possibly tens, and I’d missed three. But it was too dark to find anything, and I needed to get dinner ready for Bear .
In fact, he should have arrived by now.