I Hope You Can Hear Me #2
It doesn’t take long for the balance to tip in favour of more annoying than refreshing, so I gather my wayward hair the best I can, and shove it back under the cap—then tug it firmly down.
I take in the plum-coloured night sky. It’s about as twilight as it’s going to get, so if I’m to capitalise on the liminal time, then I’d best get on with what I came here to do.
Kicking off from the door twists my face into a pained grimace. Jogging—or any form of movement beyond a lumbering and ungainly walk—is now strictly banned on account of the fact that all my muscles have turned entirely to lactic acid.
Awkwardly, I lurch across the roof space and shrug off my backpack.
Unwilling to kneel—in case I never get back up—I catch the strap in one hand and unzip the bag with my other.
I tip out the candles and crystals, but the feathers, which I’d smartly bundled inside a pillowcase for safety, I keep hold of.
My harsh breaths compete with the blustery air, and each one rasps over a sore throat. It’s hard to ignore them and focus on the craft work Sarah and I devised. Slowly, I fill my lungs and then hold it in, releasing it gradually to the count of five.
I’m to set out a thirteen-point grid that will represent my spiritual coven and also amplify my cast beyond the known and into the unknown. Turning in a circle, I mentally map those points, and then clear my mind of everything but my intentions toward this spell.
Rowan had laughed at me yesterday when I’d cleansed the mirror in the kitchen, and okay, maybe I’d been a little rushed when I did that, but the principle is solid. The best way to have a clear intention in mind is to state that intention out loud.
Grateful I’m alone up here, I set about creating the first-ever coven that contains an equal split in membership between witches and werewolves. At its centre, I lay my wonky Cairngorm Quartz and trap a pillow feather underneath her.
Cutting a straight line north, I place an amber crystal in memory of my ancestor—who first crafted the Luna del Lupo enchantment—and weight her feather under it.
At the southernmost point, I set a large moonstone to represent my “whatever we are that isn’t boyfriends but also means I’m still risking my ass up here to keep him safe” relationship with Rowan, and honour his connection to lunar energy.
To the east and west, I anchor more feathers under rose quartzes, to represent my parents, and the strength that family members will bring this impromptu rooftop coven.
At the other compass points, I add clear crystals to link Sarah and Anabelle as my elders, and smoky crystals for all the other Dogs, who are united through this common cause.
As I mark each point in my hybrid coven, I repeat my intention: “I’m here to notify you of a crime, and to stop it from being repeated.”
Migrating to the centre, I light a candle that I immediately need to shield from the wind by bracing my hand around the flame.
Into the flickering golden light, I spiritually open myself and add my energy to that of my coven. Together, we converge with the liminal space provided by the sacred height of the building, and the transition of time as enhanced by the twilight hour and the two-faced clock attached far below.
With one final, calming breath, I begin my cast.
“Dear Time, we are gathered—sort of—here today to bring a serious matter to your attention. Years ago, you appointed people into powerful roles, and one of them has abused this power.”
Okay. This is a little weird. I close my eyes against my own embarrassment and carry on.
“Janus, from the department of Transitions, has used his unique magic to fold countless people away in the fabric of time. That I know of, he has done this to Remus—brother of Romulus—the whole township of Roanoke Island, and he told me about some others but didn’t specify who.
It’s possible he’s responsible for the Bermuda Triangle, I reckon.
Although that’s conjecture, and so I’ll strike that.
Sorry. Too many TV crime dramas. But I promise that everything else is true.
“The other day, Janus told me he intends to inflict this fate upon the entire Romulan Bloodline. So we’re here, as a cooperative coven, to ask you—please—can you come back and…
sort him out? I’m not sure what you might do with him, I’d imagine he’d escape a Russian gulag, but surely there’s some godly version of breaking rocks all day?
You know, forever? I hope you can hear me, and I hope you care, because these people he’s done this to… ”
A sudden wave of emotional overwhelm causes my bottom lip to wobble and my breath to hitch.
“These people, they’re not just names in a history book.
Each one of them was a person with hopes and dreams. They had things they wanted to achieve with their lives.
Probably great things, but even if they were just going to live average lives, they deserved to do that.
They deserved to have their lives, and to live them their way.
They had families who never knew what happened to them.
And possibly the worst thing is that these people he’s folded away, they’re all still alive; they live each day with some altered perception of time, over and over. It’s like it doesn’t exist for them.
“What makes humans special, Time, is their mortality. It’s valued by us because it’s finite, and to take that away removes that spark and that drive we have for creation.”
I sniff, and quickly wipe my eyes with the back of my hand.
Somewhere in this spell, I stopped petitioning Time and began speaking about myself.
About what started all of this, about my fears of being left alone whenever Ethel…
and about how the time we each get is precious—and valuable—and how I still so desperately want Ethel to have more of it.
“Anyway, if you can hear me, please, help me to help them. I’m just… Milo. And I can’t save them all by myself.”
An especially strong gust of wind blows out the flame on my candle, and then localises to a small whirlwind that lifts all the feathers from under their crystals up into the violet sky.
Sniffing again, I wipe my wet cheeks, and look around at the quiet and empty roof space.
My shoulders deflate and my hands drop loosely by my sides, dripping hot wax onto my boots. I’m not sure what I expected really, but when I did my last spell cast, the travel part was instant. Then again, Sarah had been screaming into the void for five hundred years, so….
Slowly, because my muscles are still complaining about the twelve flights of stairs I forced them up earlier, I gather my crystals back into the pack.
As I sling the bag up and over my shoulder, it feels heavier than before, and I sag under its weight.
Each laboured step back toward the rooftop exit is conducted with leaden feet.
If the spell didn’t work, I don’t know what else to do. Get arrested for breaking into a bank, probably.
Arm outstretched, ready to reach for the rooftop door handle, I pause when the security bar on the other side rattles loudly. Reflexively, I dart sideways, and strafe around the corner of the bulkhead.
It must be Matt and the other security guards; the timing is about right for them to have made it to the roof on their sweep of the building.
But it seems I’m still in covert ops mode from having sneaked in here in the first place, because even though logic tells me that’s the most likely outcome, I’m still reluctant to be found.
Held together by hopes, prayers, and adrenaline, I flatten my back against the pebble-dashed wall and wait to hear the sound of the wind smashing the door open.
Each pound of my heart echoes painfully in my sore throat, but I clench my fists and force myself to remain perfectly still until I hear the telltale crunch of footsteps.
One set—not two. The security guards move in pairs.
I wait a few seconds longer to be sure. But whoever it is, there’s only one of them, and the wind didn’t catch the door like it did for me.
This was a really stupid idea. Not the spell—that bit was fine, really, even if it didn’t work—but the coming up here alone part.
That part was dumb. I’ve undertaken a tactical mission without my partner.
Not that I especially want Rowan coming to my rescue, not after the sting of his rejection, but now that the cast is over, I realise that I never actually planned for how to get down again after.
I was so entirely focused on completing the spell—exactly as Sarah and I crafted it—that I didn’t consider logistics or safety at all. I bite my bottom lip.
That’s Ranger’s specialty. Making sure his Dogs get in—and out—of missions alive.