Rite Name

by Sophie Duncan

  ~*~

  It was fun when Auntie Daisy was babysitting: they got to sleep in a big old four poster bed and stay up late and listen to her spooky stories. Yet the fun of it was missing for Rommy as he did as he was told and thought about what Auntie Daisy had said. He put on his pyjamas and cleaned his teeth without saying anything to Remy, and he didn't really listen to the story that night. Even when he lay down and stared at the farm yard scene on the bed canopy, he wasn't feeling his usual excitement of sharing the enormous bed with Remy. He smiled at Auntie Daisy when she kissed him goodnight, but they shared a look as well that told him she knew he was thinking hard.

  He closed his eyes, but he wasn't in the least bit sleepy.

  "What's wrong?"

  Remy's question came pretty quickly after the light went out and Rommy looked over to see a worried frown lit by moonlight on his twin's face. He didn't really know where to start, because he wasn't sure why he was so upset.

  "It's not the name thing, is it?" Remy got it right as usual and Rommy nodded.

  Remy sat up then and, leaning over Rommy, dismissed, "That was just Auntie Daisy. She has to be spooky one time every day."

  "But she's right," Rommy confessed and felt instantly guilty as Remy's shock showed.

  "You don't like being Rommy?" Remy checked and his voice was rather small.

  Rommy sat up then as well and Remy looked away at his knees.

  "Doesn't feel right," Rommy tried to explain what Auntie Daisy had told him to think about.

  "But we're Rommy and Remy," his brother sounded lost and Rommy stuck an arm round him.

  "I know, but I think it's wrong," Rommy sighed as the thought of it made him a little bit spikey inside also, kind of tingly as well, so he tried to explain again, "It's not like me not liking being called Romulus, I don't hate Rommy like that, but I think I have another name."

  Remy looked at him then and he could see spikiness in his twin's eyes too, and he didn't like it either, but Auntie Daisy had only told him something that had been bothering him since the 'stopping stuff' had finished and the 'making magic' had started.

  "Okay, what do you want to be called?" Remy asked with a shrug.

  That was the thing Rommy had been thinking about since bedtime.

  "Don't know," Rommy replied, sitting back, and he bit his lip when his brother scowled at him for that one.

  "So what are we going to do about it?" Remy did not sound like he was in the mood to be patient.

  It was Rommy's turn to look away then, because he had been thinking about it, but it would be naughty.

  "What do we have to do?" Remy read him like a book.

  A dig in his ribs pushed Rommy a bit more and so he admitted what he had been thinking.

  "Ask the elements?" Rommy half said, half asked as all his good-boy thoughts told him he was being bad.

  Remy's mouth fell open and Rommy knew he'd even surprised Remy.

  "You know how to do it?"

  Remy only checked stuff like that when he was nervous and Rommy had to take a deep breath to calm down as he nodded slowly.

  "I remember what Auntie Daisy showed us," he tried to sound like he really meant it, but it wasn't as if she'd let them do it on their own yet.

  "Why that way?" Remy pressed, frowning again.

  "The magic knows," Rommy couldn't think of another way of saying what had been going round and round in his head.

  Without anything else to add, Rommy just held his breath then and waited. It didn't take long, it never took Remy long to decide on anything, and he shrugged.

  "Okay. You say it, I'll push magic."

  Rommy beamed at his brother, it was really good to be a twin. When Remy, more or less, returned his smile, he pushed back the covers and clambered out of bed, over to the huge dresser that stood across the other side of the room.

  He stood on his tiptoes to reach up on top of it and closed his fingers around the crystal that stood there. Throwing that at the bed, he then dived into the bathroom. There he found a bowl and came out carefully carrying it full of water from the tap. It slopped as he put it on the bed where Remy was sitting cross-legged, looking at the crystal at his feet, but it wasn't very much, so he climbed back on to the high bed and sat to face Remy properly, also in the cross-legged position they used when working in the circle. Then, resting his elbows on his knees, Rommy held out his hands, palm up, to his twin.

  "I hope you know what we're doing," Remy made one final comment before slipping a palm under one of Rommy's and over the other and closing his eyes.

  Rommy felt the warm sensation of Remy's magic very quickly then and he settled a bit as his own rose up to meet it. He liked working magic, a lot, and the Grail that Auntie Daisy had begun to teach them was like when Daddy had built them the new sandpit in the back garden rather than the little plastic box they'd had when they were small. He didn't know a lot of words yet, but he remembered the words of the expression from the week before.

  "De Ar," he started, calling on what Auntie Daisy had called 'The Primary Element of their Magic' first in the way she had shown them.

  For a moment, he thought he'd got it wrong, because nothing happened, but then a puff of air touched his face and his skin tingled. Remy opened one eye as some of his fringe slid down over his nose, but he looked impressed. They both glanced down between their hands and there wasn't anything to see, but Rommy could feel bits of what they had created there, a 'vortex' – another big word Auntie Daisy had taught him.

  "Do Vaster," Rommy carried on, excited by the small success.

  Another bit to wait, and this time both he and Remy were looking down when gradually, from the bottom up, the vortex became visible as water from the bowl mixed with the air. The funnel was only about as tall as a lollipop and it stretched out to the same size wide at the top. It then closed down to almost a point at the bottom, but it glittered in the silver moonlight and the twins grinned at each other as they both felt and saw their magic working.

  Rommy sat still and let the vortex whirl for a little while, getting to know the wild feeling skipping through him. He was glad Remy was helping him, because he didn't think he'd have been able to hold the elements on his own. His strength and skills were getting bigger as he got bigger, but they weren't as big as Remy's.

  "Earth," Remy prodded excitedly and reminded Rommy of what he had been doing.

  "Da Erden," Rommy drew out the third element, concentrating harder as the expression got bigger.

  The crystal wobbled a lot as their magic lifted it and Rommy gritted his teeth as he tried to get hold of it properly. It more swooped than flew into place at the top of the vortex where he wanted it and he watched nervously as it began to spin. The crystal was bigger than the one they had practised with and he didn't know if they could hold it for very long.

  "I've got it," Remy read him again and he glanced up at his twin, who was giving him a 'don't mess with me' look.

  There was nothing left but to go for it, the expression required all four elements to be in place for the question to be asked, so, taking another deep breath, Rommy finished, "Dy Fyr."

  This was the scary bit and Rommy bit his lip as he waited for the final element to arrive. Fire was dangerous, it could be made from anywhere when magic was being used and, although he'd felt it before, he still jumped when the air just above their crystal burst into flame. Remy's magic jumped as well and the flame shot up half a foot.

  "Sorry," Remy muttered immediately and was frowning at their expression when Rommy checked.

  Forcing himself to breathe in deeply and make his shoulders go all floppy like Auntie Daisy had taught them, Rommy waited and slowly the flame receded to a normal size and Remy's sigh told him everything was back under control.

  The spinning elements were quite hard to hold onto and Rommy could feel them trying to break out of their magic, so he decided to be quick.

  "Elfen," Rommy spoke to all the elements, "tonen yani Narme."

  Rommy knew
he'd done something wrong as soon as he'd finished, because he felt the magic heave. Remy looked up at him, eyes wide, but they didn't dare move and risk dropping the expression.

  "What did you do?" Remy hissed, looking round the vortex for any sign of what was going to happen.

  Rommy tried to think – he'd said it all right, hadn't he? He ran the words back through his head, 'Elfen', 'tonen', 'yani'.

  "Yanu Narme, yanu Narme!" Rommy declared desperately as he realised what he'd done, but it was too late and he saw the additional fire he had called spread from above the crystal down over the stone and into the vortex.

  "Ugh!" Remy grunted and swayed forward dangerously close to the flames.

  Rommy felt the wave of power that had hit Remy and knew Remy had to have shielded him from most of it. The flame vortex started to grow and Rommy realised there was no saving the spell. Hurriedly, he leant back, untangled his legs and kicked at Remy, pushing him backwards and then, as the vortex began to hiss loudly, he rolled backwards as well. Remy fell off the bed with a shout and Rommy hit the ground on his side with a thump and he cowered there, shaking with the building power in the room.

  Without them to hold it back, the vortex swelled rapidly, flames spitting out across the bed and Rommy screamed at the power of it. He scrabbled low round the end of the bed to get to Remy and found his twin, head covered with his arms. He ducked down next to him and they both screamed as a roar of flame ripped over their heads.

  "Ir onweg," Rommy yelled, but they'd lost control of the magic and it took no notice.

  "Auntie Daisy, Auntie Daisy!" Remy cried out his fear and Rommy joined in as his eyes began to prickle with fright.

  Rommy had never been so glad as when the bedroom door smashed in and their rescuer strode in, her hands raised to the storm of magic. Auntie Daisy was a little woman, but Rommy grabbed Remy and hid from her might as he felt her magic take on the mess they had made.

  "Do Vaster, purifen!" she ordered in a way that left Rommy breathless and a wave of magic was immediately followed by one of water.

  Ice cold liquid cascaded down on the twins and the shock made Rommy grab Remy and drag him away from the bed. They landed in a pile a few feet away, sodden and shivering and staring up at Auntie Daisy. The old lady lowered her hands slowly to her hips and turned from the smoking space where the expression had been to face them. Rommy shivered for a whole different reason to the cold when he saw the flash of her eyes.

  "What have I told you both about not casting magic without a protection in place?!" Auntie Daisy demanded, her voice getting higher as she continued. "You could have set yourselves on fire. Do you know how dangerous that was?"

  Rommy didn't know what to say, he was scared and guilty in equal measure and he didn't know how to make it right.

  "Oh, Boys!" Auntie Daisy exclaimed and then descended on them.

  Rommy was stunned when he found arms around him and Auntie Daisy pulled him and Remy in close to her.

  "You could have been killed," she told them, her voice cracking, and then she kissed them both on the top of their heads and began to rock them forcefully.

  Rommy just let the hug happen, glancing up at Remy, who was looking as shocked as he felt.

  "Sorry," he mumbled eventually and was given a sob and an even tighter hug.

  Eventually, Auntie Daisy let them go, and, kneeling back, she surveyed them with a stern, but damp eye.

  "What did you think you were doing?" she asked, sounding a bit calmer, but not much.

  Rommy looked at Remy, who blinked back at him. It was his fault, so he confessed, "Wanted to find my name."

  Auntie Daisy put her hands to her mouth and shook her head. Looking to the ceiling, she murmured, "Silly, silly old lady, I should learn to be more careful with what I say."

  When she looked back down, Auntie Daisy was smiling at him and she patted his shoulder.

  "I upset you, didn't I?"

  Rommy considered lying, but the look he was being given said Auntie Daisy knew anyway, so he nodded.

  "Didn't want it to be wrong," he admitted.

  "So you called the elements," Auntie Daisy was reaching her own conclusions and so Rommy just nodded.

  "They answered," Remy surprised Rommy when he spoke, and when he glanced up, his brother was pointing up at the bed canopy.

  The fine tapestry was a smoking mess where the flames had leapt to claim it, but they had not moved idly. Rommy's mouth fell open as he looked up at the holes that had been made.

  "Oh, Young Man, you have a name," Auntie Daisy sounded proud and upset and surprised all at the same time.

  Remy slipped an arm round his shoulders and Rommy just stared. It took him a little while to work out the letters that were all bent and old-fashioned, but then he smiled and his magic shifted approvingly as he read, "Tuh, huh: Th;, eh: Thee; oh: Theo."

  ####

  Also from Wittegen Press

  https://www.wittegenpress.com/allbooks

  Afterword

  About Wittegen Press:

  Wittegen Press is a small independent publisher of eBooks based in the UK. We publish on many eBook sites. To see our whole catalogue please visit our website.

  https://www.wittegenpress.com

  About Sophie

  Sophie was born with the writing bug in her blood, boring her primary school teachers with pages of creative writing and killing her first typewriter from over use when she was thirteen. She began publishing her work on line while at university where she discovered the internet and fanfiction. It took another decade for Sophie to realise her long-time dream of releasing her own original fiction.

  https://www.wittegenpress.com/sophieduncan