Chapter 28 Gracie
Suggested Listening: Rave With Me (Hocus Pocus) by J?A - Topic
Ikneel in the grass, my fingers digging into the earth, and stare up at the starlit sky.
It’s so beautiful out here.
“Gracie!” Poppy squeals.
Oh, right.
I’m casting a motherfucking spell.
My chin snaps back down. Sparks of otherworldly light flit around the circle of flowers. Poppy insisted we needed them. Something about conducting lifeforce easier. Better. Something-something-pass the vape pen, and more stuff I wasn’t really listening to.
In my defense, I have told the girls that when I’m crafting a spell, the rest of the world doesn’t really exist to me. It’s there. And I’m not.
“What the hell is happening?” Briella yells across the circle at me.
There’s a not-quite-human figure lying in the middle of the flower circle.
The body was made using Briella’s dress form.
Poppy grew arms and legs from thick vines.
And I contributed one of my head-shaped hat stands for the head of the figure.
Delicate wire laces it together along with the physical elements of the spell.
Honestly, it looks like a glorified arts and crafts project.
I almost wonder if this is going to work. Was this a byproduct of too much witchweed?
But then I remember I am a motherfucking badass, and this is going to work.
I feel the energies. Hausé insisted this was where we had to do it. Which is great and all, except that introduces unknowns. And something is interfering with the layering of magics.
“Why won’t you just do what I fucking say?” I shout at the earth and elements of the spell. At the same time, I slam my will into the spell.
Sometimes a spell just doesn’t want to behave. It’s like magical Monday, no thank you, or something, which I totally get. But I’m not about to accept failure right now.
“Goddess,” Briella hisses into the night.
There’s a brilliant flash of light that leaves me blind, and then an invisible force knocks me back. I land hard on my butt and roll onto my back, arms flung wide, and suck in a deep breath.
I can feel the magic like water in a riverbed. It’s flowing exactly as I designed. It worked.
It fucking worked.
“It worked!” I screech and claw my way up.
“Seriously?” Poppy croaks.
There, in the middle of a now-wilting flower circle, sits a young woman with light brown hair.
Her skin is golden brown, a lot like the polished wood featured on the first floor of the house.
She’s naked, with a voluptuous figure, arms lifted, and fingers splayed.
She wiggles them like she doesn’t quite know what they do.
I see both Briella and Poppy sit up slower. I’m fairly certain we’re all staring wide-eyed at the woman in front of us.
“Hausé?” I whisper.
Her chin snaps up, and her pale yellow eyes glow, kind of like a pair of light bulbs.
Hey, it’s better than button eyes. Fucking creepy.
“Gracie,” she whispers back in a melodic voice that I somehow recognize. I’ve never heard her speak, and yet this is the only voice she could have ever had.
“Did it work?” Briella asks.
“I don’t know,” Hausé replies.
Poppy squints at her. “How do you not know?”
Hausé rolls her eyes dramatically. “I don’t know what I don’t know.”
“She’s got a point,” I say.
Poppy gasps and flaps her arms. “Goddess, it worked!”
“It worked!” I echo.
Briella claps her hands and squeals.
Poppy lunges forward, but gets caught in her long, dramatic house dress and face-plants into the grass.
I laugh and decide it’s safer to crawl forward. Even then, it’s slow progress. I’m laughing and can’t quite stop. Hausé catches what I have and giggles into her palms.
I don’t know how long it takes for us to converge on her, but Hausé flings her arms around me the moment I’m in reach. And I don’t even care. More arms wrap around us and squeeze.
“You did it,” Briella chants in my ear.
“Wait,” Poppy wails. “We aren’t alone, and Hausé is naked.”
“I’m naked?” Hausé parrots.
“Well, yeah,” I mutter. Honestly, I’m surprised she has eyes and skin and hair and…
Hausé palms her generous breasts and grins. “Oh, these are nice.”
Poppy laughs and flings a blanket over her. “Chill, girl.”
“Why did you turn out the lights?” Hausé says from under the blanket.
I can’t stop giggling, but I do turn around to see who Poppy meant. That’s when I see Darius peering around the corner of the house.
I don’t know what the girls say, but there is ear-splitting squealing going on and then the three of them are huddled under the blanket rushing inside.
“What the fuck?” I laugh and fling a handful of grass after them.
Yeah, this is going to go down in our record books as one of the most epic hold-my-beer nights. I just conjured a body for a being without this kind of a body. And not only did I conjure it, I transferred her consciousness, too.
“You seriously did it!” Darius says as he closes the distance, hands out, and helps me to my feet.
I cling to his hands and tip my chin up. “I did. This is when you kiss me and tell me I’m fucking amazing.”
He lifts a hand and cups my cheek. His eyes rove from side to side. It makes me wonder what he’s actually seeing.
“You are the most remarkable woman, Gracie. The things you do? No one else could do them.” His voice is reverent and solemn. I wanted a cheeky compliment; instead, he seems to see into my soul and says what I always wanted to hear.
“Keep talking like that and I’m going to fuck you.”
He grins at me. “Oh my.”
“Oh my? You’re fucking adorable, Darius.” A thought occurs to me… “Did you know this was going to happen?”
“Hm, I knew there was a chance. A good chance, I might add.”
“Yeah? I can’t believe it worked. I can’t believe Hausé let me. What if it had gone wrong? What if I messed up? What if she was pulled out of her body? What if—”
“Gracie.” He chuckles and squeezes me to him. “You did it. You—”
His head tips back, and he goes limp in my arms. I try to catch him, but he’s a big man. I yelp and cushion his fall a little. Isa is the real hero, reacting quickly to shield Darius from the ground and give him a soft spot to land.
“Darius? Darius!”
I glance up to look for help and see movement. An unfortunate face I wish I didn’t know.
Russ-the-shit-stain flanked by two smaller versions of Vyslan.
When did he have kids?
No, wait.
The demons are on me before I realize they aren’t Vyslan. They aren’t anyone I know.
And then the world goes dark, and far too hot for someone like me.