Screw You, Caster’s Insurance
Screw You, Caster's Insurance
Milo
I scrape my teeth over my bottom lip as I squint at the handwritten Latin on the ancient page. Latin was not my favourite lesson at school.
According to this, temporal magic has sub-categories, which makes sense, I guess. Time is… big.
Lightly, so as not to damage the pages, I run my index finger slowly under the words as I read.
A chronomancer can influence various aspects of time, from a person’s perception of time to their memory of it, from reversing time to communicating with an ancestor or descendent through time, from creating time loops to altering an individual’s timeline.
“Yes! This!” I say out loud to absolutely no one at all.
Altering an individual’s timeline. That’s exactly what’s been calling to me all day. I give an excited shimmy, and speed through the rest of the page.
“Something, something, exercising caution, something, paradoxes, blah blah, temporal backlash, and protective amulets.”
But none of this is really what I’m looking for. Then again, this is a journal, not a grimoire, so it won’t contain spells.
Snapping the book shut, I discard it beside me and select the next heavy tome from the shelf. The Book of Spirits and Animals weighs as much as Ethel, I’m sure, and it thuds to the floor in a cloud of dust.
The spine cracks when I open the cover. Reflexively, I look over my shoulder, half expecting to find Anabelle’s stern glare aimed my way. Chuckling, I whisper an apology, but my smile fades when I realise that this book is written in Latin too. Yay for me.
Compromising with myself, I read every other word, else I’m not convinced that I’ll carry on.
I flip through the crisp pages, scanning for any mention of ingredients or casting methods. “No, no… blah blah… no. Oh, wait. What was that?”
The phase of the moon directly correlates to the outcome of time magic.
“Okay, so if it’s in the waxing phase, the lunar energy lends itself to future growth, but if it’s in the waning phase, then there’s more energy to support reflection, or clearance and closure.
” Leaning on my elbows, I tip my head back to look behind me and out of the window over my bed, but I can’t see the moon from here.
Maybe it’s fine? These spells are calling to me for a reason. I can feel it. Maybe the time is now, whatever the lunar phase is.
Moving on, I continue my search for helpful information until my eyes cross. Nothing is written in an accessible way, it’s all dry and overly wordy. Boring, actually. “Sorry, ancestors, but how you all ever got anything done I don’t know.”
I must have flipped through one hundred pages and all I’ve really gotten from any of it is that I should include an item that symbolises how I wish time to be expressed in the cast. Some spells detail the alignment of the stars, others mention a clepsydra—and if it wasn’t for the rough-but-cute sketch beside the word, I wouldn’t have known it was a water clock.
Lowering the book back onto the floor, I look around my small studio-style apartment. There’s no clock anywhere, not on the wall, nor on a shelf. I pull my lip between my teeth while I think, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t inherit a watch, and neither do I own one.
Abandoning the book, I scoot backward until I can grab my phone from the floor by my bed, because that’s how I tell the time.
By the time I close the last page on the last grimoire, I’ve been at it for the better part of two hours. I’m convinced I now speak fluent Latin—whatever use that might be—and my butt is numb.
Flopping back and untucking my legs, I stretch out over the hardwood floor surrounded by spell books. Despite being so drawn to them earlier, none of the grimoires were especially helpful. None of them tell me exactly how to slow Ethel’s timeline.
I blow out a long breath, and fixate on the numerous spider threads, heavy with dust, that decorate my ceiling. Spiders bring good luck. Ethel never cleared them away from her home with Anabelle, and it seems I’ve picked up the same habit.
Absently, my fingers tap out the pace of my busy mind, as all the words I’ve read whizz around my brain box like it’s the blender baristas use to make my favourite coffee.
Draw casting circles in reverse, starting where the sun rises…
Use herbs that calm the body and slow its rhythms to amplify the intent…
Thick and sticky products like grape molasses will produce a heavy and dragging effect, whereas light and weightless items like feathers will give a gentle buoyancy to the spell…
Turn the candle upside down and carve out the wick from the bottom.
A warm ball steadily grows in my stomach, and the kernel of an idea forms in my mind. Slowly, I push up to sitting, and that heat in my gut bubbles and gurgles. Oh, not necessarily intuition, then. Hunger.
Shit, I forgot to order dinner.
Sieving through papers and books, I find my phone and check the time. Almost midnight. Too late to order.
Working out the remaining kinks in my legs, I pick my way over to the fridge.
It’s empty, save for half a bottle of sauce that’s long lost its label, a couple of lemons that might be alright if I juice them, and unidentifiable leftovers in a takeout carton.
For a moment, I wish I was one of those people who keeps a well-stocked fridge and meal preps on weekends.
I snort a laugh—those people aren’t real. They’re made up for social media to help companies sell Tupperware.
Closing the fridge door, I discover two paper bags on the small countertop. Oh, nice… pastries. Thanks Ethel.
Grabbing the nearest bag, I delve in with impatient fingers. A pretzel as big as my face wouldn’t have been my first choice, but beggars can’t be choosers. I bite in. Eh, I’ve had better. Still, food is food.
Chewing, I wander the short distance over to my mess of research.
Carefully stepping between strewn papers, I can’t help but think it’s a shame that the page I read on communicating with an ancestor wasn’t also referenced in the casting instructions for making a time loop, because it makes sense that if I want to avoid creating a paradox, I should isolate Ethel from her timeline first.
I stop eating my pretzel mid-bite.
A million thoughts all crash into one another and the effect is a bit like brain freeze. Except, I’m not sucking iced coffee through a straw, so… thought freeze? Shrugging, I crouch then flick back through the pages in the Book of Witches until… there!
The spell for reversing time uses the same five core ingredients as both of those other spells.
Swallowing the half-chewed lump of salty bread, I realise that if I want Ethel’s life to last as long as I can stretch her timeline for, then I need to let my intuition guide me through all of these spells… and then craft my own.
Enthused, I take another gratuitous bite of pretzel and wipe my salty fingers on my jeans.
With the toe of my boot, I kick away some laundry items, a bag I mostly use for groceries, and a small box of aloe vera haircare products to clear a casting space.
As I set my phone in its centre to represent time, I’m tickled by the idea that in the two thousand years since these books were written, spellcraft has changed.
I mean, the crystals, chalks, and herbs are probably the same, but everything else is going to look different. Speaking of… I whirl on my heels and stride back to the kitchen area. I might not have food in the fridge, but no good witch would be caught dead without the basics for any spell casting.
Rummaging through the drawers and cupboards, I turf out my collection of candles. However, I can only find one crystal.
The Cairngorm Quartz has been in my family for generations, and she’s so large and heavy that at one point some ancestor or other must have dropped her, because there’s a huge slice missing from her base.
While she still does her job of shielding the caster from negative energy, she’s a little wobbly.
Anabelle always had to lean her against something so that she’d work properly as a stone of power.
I don’t really see the importance of standing versus lying, and I don’t want to risk her falling and breaking again—not when it’s Ethel’s life that’s the focus of the spell—so I carefully rest the Cairngorm Quartz on the floor next to my phone.
Returning for the candles, I also fetch the box of chalk, but when I liberate it from the drawer, I can hear that only one piece rattles and rolls inside.
Next is a lighter, a side plate to contain salt and herbs… oh, herbs. Opening the top cupboard, I look through what’s available—but unless I can substitute thyme for paprika and rosemary for Cajun chicken seasoning, then I’m shit out of luck. Stupid, too-dusty-to-be-lucky spiderwebs.
At least I have a box of salt, despite that it’s moist and clumped together. Shrugging, I scoop up the items and bring them over.
With the tiny nubbin of chalk gripped between my fingers, I stand in the middle of my room and turn in a circle while I work out which way is east. It’s hard because I don’t get direct sun through my window, but when I step outside in the morning, the sun is always on my left.
And the door to my building is… I shuffle around to face my room door.
If the hallway runs that way, then it must be… I stare at my bathroom door. “Kinda there, I guess.”
Turning exactly one hundred and eighty degrees in the other direction, I face the kitchen and begin to mark my pentacle from the west. I think. But as I’m wrapping up the protective circle, the chalk runs out. Frowning, I pull my bottom lip between my teeth.
It’s not that I can’t cast without the circle, it’s just that this is already advanced craftwork and I don’t want to take unnecessary risks.
I look around for something I could use in place of chalk to finish it off.
A marker pen sticks up from the box of shampoos—I’d used it when I’d packaged some samples to send last week. Perfect.