Chapter 1 #2
I couldn’t begin to imagine what joy I would feel waking tomorrow, knowing my father was at home and the memories I’d created over the last two days would stay with me. Those hopes were dreams my heart had clung to for five long years.
Taking measured steps, I crept into the heart of the clearing and gazed up at the indigo sky stretching above me, vast and endless. The last breath of daylight bled from the horizon and stars pierced through the darkness like scattered diamonds on smooth black velvet.
It was time.
According to Grandmother’s grimoire, I needed to prepare the area for the ritual just before the moon rose.
With a determined breath, I knelt atop the soft grass, grateful for the cushioning it gave my knees. I opened my satchel and carefully slid out the dead crow I'd found that morning.
I’d wrapped it in the black silk scarf Grandmother had given me. Against the fabric, the crow’s obsidian feathers were still glossy.
I laid it on the tuft of grass before me and unwrapped the scarf. The smooth texture was a stark contrast to the crow’s stiff, cold feathers beneath.
The earthy, pungent scent of dried herbs rose from my bag as I took them out, then I retrieved the notepaper I’d written the spell on.
The spell was one that called back the lost from where they’d gone. The grimoire mentioned that necromancers and alchemists from Vaelthorne—the magical realm—had used it to reanimate the dead, and that witches reclaimed lost powers. I only hoped it would be enough to find Father.
I finished the preparation by spreading the herbs around the crow in a circle, then gazed up just as the silvery glow of the moon began to spill across the sky.
My breath caught at the sight.
The Phantom Moon crept above the horizon, larger than any normal moon, its surface shimmering with an ethereal silvery-blue light.
The temperature plummeted as the moon rose, its otherworldly light transforming the clearing into shades of silver against deep shadow. The air crackled with static energy, making the fine hairs on my arms rise. Shadows seemed to breathe and shift, moving in ways that defied reality.
The moon rose higher, and the dark corona forming around it shifted and swirled like living smoke. Unlike a normal moon, it took on an ethereal quality as if viewed through a veil of spirits.
“Gods, it’s really happening.” I brought my hands to my heart, holding on to hope.
The magical realm called the Phantom Moon the Eclipse of Souls, because it was believed that as the moon passed through the celestial pathway, it absorbed the remnants of ancient magic left behind by the dead.
Spells invoked during a Phantom Moon were said to be amplified a hundredfold. That’s why I had faith the blood spell would work for me.
The moon climbed higher and higher, and I swore I saw faces in the midst of its gunmetal surface. Ancient, hungry faces that watched with eyes that had never been human.
I’d never seen anything like this before. The sheer magnificence made me ignore the thrashing of my heart and the angst curling low in my gut.
The wind stirred my hair as I picked up the silver athame from my bag. My hand trembled, but I pressed the blade to my palm.
“By blood and bone,” my voice trembled, then steadied like steel finding its temper.
“By the bonds that cannot break, by the sacred oath I make.
Through darkness deep and shadows long, through time's relentless tide, reveal what magic stole away, show where my father hides.
By Phantom Moon and crow's last breath, by power old and true, pierce the veil between the worlds and guide my sight anew.”
I ran the blade across my palm, allowing it to bite deep into my flesh. I gasped at the sting but kept my hand steady as I let the blood drip onto the crow's feathers.
One drop. Two. Three... Each drop seemed to pulse with the rhythm of two heartbeats.
I stared at the crow with my heart throbbing in my throat as I waited for something to happen.
A minute went by, then another. And… nothing.
A shaky breath escaped my lips, desperate and demanding in tandem with the staccatoed rise and fall of my chest.
Why wasn’t anything happening? I was sure I’d done everything right.
Frantically, I looked up at the moon, now panting, each breath feeling more labored than the one before it.
What did I do wrong?
I checked the spell to make sure I said the words correctly, and then the herbs and the crow again. Then I lifted my hand to check my wound. Perhaps my cut wasn’t deep enough?
I touched my wounded hand to my heart, and more drops of blood fell onto the crow’s breast. Almost immediately, a crackle of white light speckled over the crow’s body. I gasped, grasping on to renewed hope.
Until the crow started to breathe.
My lungs locked, my body turning to steel.
The crow’s chest shuddered and its beak wrenched open in a silent scream. The thing that should not be alive was…breathing.
Breathing. As in not dead anymore.
Its feathers rustled with jerky, unnatural movements, like puppet strings being pulled by unseen hands.
Then it took a deep wet breath that made a rattling sound no living creature should make.
Its eyes snapped open, glowing with an unholy amber light as its claws scraped against the earth with a sound like nails on stone.
Before my next thought could form, shadows moved around me, gathering into a mass. It looked exactly like the thing that took my father.
Maybe this was how the spell worked.
Darkness took Father. Maybe darkness would release him.
An unnatural silence fell over the clearing, as if the very air had been stolen away. The temperature plunged further, bringing with it the putrid smell of ancient decay. The air around the mass distorted like heat waves over parched earth, but these ripples brought a bitter wintry cold.
The undead crow flapped its wings and squawked as it bounced toward me. I bolted upright and away from it, not wanting it to touch me.
The darkness thickened then rose and spread, swallowing the crow before it could squawk again. Then the darkness took shape with horrible slowness, rising higher and higher and higher until it loomed over me, haunting and deadly.
The air vanished from my lungs as I realized what I was looking at. The thing before me, black, shifting, death itself, was a wraith.
A wraith.
The soulless demons Grandmother told me about who could destroy you by sucking the essence from your life.
Shit. What had I done?
Grandmother believed it was wraiths who’d wiped out our army when they went in search for Father and never returned.
Until now, I may have believed they were just stories. Monsters whispered about to scare children. But here was the reality hovering before me.
Frozen in place like a stone sculpture, all I could do was stare at the hideous creature. Where it should have had eyes, there were only swirling voids. And its mouth... its mouth was a gaping hollow of nothingness.
“I found you,” it whispered in a voice that sounded like gravel and waves crashing against jagged rocks. “My Lord will be pleased.”
The wraith’s void-black form surged forward, lunging for me. Only then did I move. But I was too late.
It grabbed my arm with long smoky talons, infusing the cold touch of death into my skin. The chill rushed over me, lacing through the fibers of my nerves like shadows devouring the last rays of light.
The coldness penetrated deeper than flesh, seeping into my very essence. The air warped and twisted around us, reality bending like a reflection in unsettled waters. Each movement of the wraith’s touch filled my head with a sound like wind rushing through the ancient catacombs.
I felt my soul stretching, pulling away from my body like thread being slowly unspooled. I tried to move. Tried to get away. Tried to do something besides stand here and be utterly paralyzed with the terror streaking through me.
Every thought that came to my mind was snuffed away like smoke in a storm. Then I felt it. A tug deep, deep, deep inside me, lifting from my core, ripping at the threads of my soul.
Everything I’d ever heard about wraiths crystallized in one terrifying moment. Especially how they kill.
With horrifying clarity, I realized this monstrous creature was trying to rip my soul from my body.
“Little thief, you’re coming with me now.” The wraith’s words cracked through my mind, striking a chord of primal dread.
Blessed Mother, it wanted to take me.
And thief?
What did it think I stole?
Never mind that. I had to get away. I couldn’t let this thing take me or kill me.
“Let me go!” My voice sounded strained and far away. As if it didn’t belong to me.
“Noooo.” In the void of the wraith’s voice, I was certain I heard satisfaction. Maybe even humor at my devastation and doom.
In those frozen moments, I saw the faces of the people I loved and cared about. I thought of all my hopes and dreams for the life I wanted. And I decided to fight.
Summoning all my strength, I tried to pull away again. I tugged so hard my insides tightened like clamps were attached to every organ.
The wraith reeled me back in, but not with his fingers.
With his mind.
I moved to it thoughtlessly, like a dutiful servant. Its mouth opened wider. Heat licked up my spine, curling in my blood like molten fire, searing through the frost the wraith left behind. It grew hotter, then a blast of energy pulsed around me, freeing me from the wraith’s grasp.
It screamed, a thousand smoky voices wailing all at once.
While it whirled backward, I took the chance and ran.
I ran as fast as my legs could carry me, but moments later, the wraith hovered over me. Those talons snatched me again.
I screamed, my hands flailing around me. Just as the wraith was about to take me up into the sky, a dark ring of smoke appeared before me and pulled me in, drawing me into its darkness.
Darkness surrounded me, thick and heavy and stifling.
Then there was nothing.
And I was falling into nowhere.