“You know what? Screw the pentagram,” he said. “Maybe I’ll just write ”Jen Hoyt’s a Big Cock Tease“ instead. Bet they’d see that up in first class!” He laughed, bent over, and began spray painting the sloped roof of the covered bridge.
“You’re a royal asshole, Jack Carter,” Jen said, not caring anymore. She’d walk back to the dorm and let him break his neck up there. Serve him right.
She was climbing out of the Jeep when Jack exclaimed, “What the fuck?”
She looked up at him and saw he was looking up into the sky.
“Did you see that?” he asked.
There was a sound among the topmost branches, clacking violently together, as if a body had been tossed through them. Leaves rained down like confetti. Jen rubbed herself to get rid of the sudden chill she felt, something unnatural, an icy breath down her spine.
“Jack get down!”
Jack had lost interest in his graffiti. He was turning in a slow awkward circle as he straddled the peak of the covered bridge. He was looking up, not at his footing. “Biggest damn thing I ever…,” he said, still searching the sky.
A long shadow rippled across the road, up the side of the bridge, fluttered across Jack as he stood skylined on the bridge. The backwash brought a sour smell to Jen’s nostrils, part sewage, part rotting flesh, part maggot-ridden garbage. Her hand clamped over her mouth as she fought back the gag reflex.
“Jesus!” Jack said hoarsely. Jen had the feeling all the alcohol and marijuana had been miraculously flushed from his system. Clean and sober, he looked at her. “Did you see that fucking th—”
It streaked up from behind him, out of the sky, darker than the shadows it had cast, a gleam of long teeth and baleful eyes as its clawed hands snatched him off the roof of the bridge as a hawk snatches a rabbit. Its eyes met Jen’s and she thought it let out a predator’s shriek, but she couldn’t be sure. Jack’s scream drowned out any sound the flying creature had made as he writhed in its grasp, completely overwhelmed by the size of the thing. In a moment, it was gone, lost to the night with its prey.
Jen staggered against the Jeep, her legs all but completely numb. She wondered at how she could still hear Jack screaming. A long time passed before she realized the raw, primal sound was coming from her own throat.
Wendy sat naked and alone in the moonlight, cross-legged in the circle of cloth formed by her fallen robe. A wave of goose bumps flowed down her arms and legs.
I hope I remember everything. What happens—will anything happen—if I get it wrong, screw up somehow?
She faced east, the direction of sunrise and new days, hope and opportunity. Before she could commune with each element, she must find her center, her core, her own essence, everything that was Gwendolyn Alice Ward. Long minutes passed, her eyes closed, her breathing deep and regular, before she felt completely at peace, all tension and distracting emotions dissolved like ice in a glass on a hot summer day.
She opened her eyes, her gaze to the east. With a woodstove imatch, she lit the sandalwood incense sticks in the antique holder. She watched the smoke rise, forming ribbons lighter than air, imagined herself being carried up into the sky in the embrace of those tendrils. “Welcome my mind to your essence, Air,” she said. Did the incense smoke drift nearer her? She turned to the south; the burner greedily consumed the kindling. She imagined herself as flame, as fire, hot and passionate, demanding and bright. “Welcome my heart to your essence, Fire,” she said. She faced west, the silver cup of wine shining in the candlelight. She pictured herself as liquid, water flowing, caressing all of life, supporting it, but first producing it, the ancient home. “Welcome my life to your essence, Water.” She sipped the wine, tasted the sweetness and tang of life as it rushed through her, warmed her, claimed her. She turned to the north, facing the bowl of rice—uncooked, because she planned no Earth magic tonight. Still, she must recognize the element. She gave her thoughts to the embrace of the ground. Earth Mother gave life and received death, just payment “Welcome my body to your essence, Earth,” she said. Finally, she faced east again to close the circle.
Now I begin, she thought, trying to quiet her nerves.
She had purified her stones in a freshwater stream, but she had bought the herbs in a store—even though The Crystal Path was where she worked, it was not as pure as growing or finding your own herbs in the wild—and she needed to consecrate them before she made her magic. She offered each to the essence of the four elements.
She ground the chatnomile flowers with the mortar and pestle, mixed them with her jar of springwater in a ceramic cup and drank the infusion. Then she tied the sachet of anise flowers to her crystal pendant. These flowers would awaken in her body the powers she needed for magic. Ready for the first spell.
As she had with the chamomile, she ground the sage leaves into a coarse powder. But this time, she poured the powder into the palm of her hand and faced east. This would be an Air spell for the health and beauty of Professor Glazer’s unborn baby, a girl. She should probably even give her prof a charm, and would have already if she knew it would be accepted in the spirit it was given. She visualized her holding a healthy baby girl.
“Air, please carry now the good of this sage on your swift and mighty winds.” She inhaled a slow, deep breath, then blew forcefully, as if facing a birthday cake with a hundred candles. The powder scattered, a momentary mist that rose and vanished in the branches far above her. “I thank you, Air.”
The next spell was for her. She was tired of the verbal abuse so many of her classmates directed at her.
While the code of white magic would not allow her to curse anyone, she felt justified in taking preemptive measures. She wrote quickly with a charcoal stick on a piece of parchment. In her left hand, she held the tektite stone; in her right she held a corner of the parchment paper. She repeated the words scrawled in charcoal three times. “Let others not attack by word or deed, and by the Fire will Gwendolyn be freed.” She touched the corner of the parchment to the flame and let the ashes fall into the burner to complete the banishing.
Next, she’d perform a healing spell to rid her of the pain and discoloration in her fingernails, and the psychological pain of the nightmares. She dropped the poisonous monkshood rootstock and leaves into her burner, then took out her rose quartz. In a few moments she retrieved the ashes and held them up in her hand where the light breeze would blow them from her. In her other hand, she clutched the rose quartz to her chest, where she could feel her slow, steady heartbeat. “Oh wind, please take away these things which ail me, I know great wind you will not fail me….” The ashes fluttered from her palm.
Before she began the next spell, she almost changed her mind. Oh, well, it’s no big deal. Mother Nature would certainly understand. In a moment she had written another message on parchment paper, but not to burn. She held the red jasper, the stone she’d taken with her from home on a last-minute whim before the flame, felt the heat on her fingertips, saw the fire sparkle through the stone, investing it with the element’s power. She read the message aloud, three times as well: “Bring to me a new romance, may Fire consort with Fate and Chance.” Then she carefully folded the paper in half three times and, together with the red jasper, placed it in a small box, which she would keep sealed for a full cycle of the moon. She hoped she still had a chance with Alex, that she hadn’t scared him off completely by hanging around at Marshall Field.
Now she knew she should quit, but sitting on the ground, naked to the world and alone with the elements of nature, she felt unfettered and empowered, absorbing strength from her inner circle, while the outer circle maintained her power, kept it concentrated like white heat. Yet somewhere in the back of her mind was a seed of doubt, not doubt in her confidence, but doubt that she would ever come back to this clearing this way again. A feeling that what she was experiencing now was like dream strength, dream courage, and that when she awoke she would be amazed at the words she had said and things she had done while asleep.
&nb
sp; Just one more spell, she told herself. Like nothing I’ve ever tried before. And the pure confidence was exhilarating.
Wendy had missed the weather forecast, but the night sky was cloudless and starry. This could be the quickest proof of her power. Witches had been known to create storms, some to destroy crops, others to sink ships. But Wendy only wanted a small sign that the elements’ power flowed to her this night. To confirm that what she felt was real and not imagined.
She began her meditation anew. She had read how to control the weather in one of her books, how to bring rain and storms. She crossed her arms below her throat, covering her crystal, concentrating on water: the feel of it as it dripped from her hair to her cheeks and shoulders, snaking down her back; the smell as it dampened her clothes, moistened the ground; the sound of it tapping the leaves, plunking in puddles, gathering and rushing in streams; the sight of it, falling in countless drops, a procession of infinity.
First she imagined and her imagination was clear, completely focused on the rain that would come, must come. Then she visualized with a clarity that was breathtaking. In her mind, behind her closed eyes, the clouds gathered from afar and came as she beckoned. The winds marshaled to her command, gusting with a sense of primitive duty. The branches seemed to sway above her, the leaves rustled with an urgency that she alone could hear, the rush of air swept down and caressed her naked body, thrilling her every pore. The hair on the back of her neck bristled and she shuddered with a chill that whipped down her spine with the speed and power of thought.
She brought the clouds, mother of rains and father of thunder, soft and harsh, bright and dark, alive with lightning. So real were the sights and sounds and smell of the rain she had created in her mind that Wendy was surprised to discover that her hair was actually wet, that drops of water were falling from her eyebrows, to her cheeks, to the valley between her breasts, rolling softly over her abdomen.
Her eyes opened wide. Beads of water clung to her eyelashes. She smiled, then laughed. She hugged herself, almost giddy with the thrill of it. “I did it!” she cried. “It really worked.” She clutched her pendant and looked up into the sky. A dark shape or shadow— her storm cloud?—streaked across the sky, unnaturally fast, with tendrils that flowed oddly like gesturing arms. And as quickly, it was gone. Of course, it’s magic! Lightning flashed without an accompanying crack of thunder. Slowly, though water still dripped from the leaves, she realized that the rain had stopped. Her rain had stopped. All she had wanted was a sign that what she had felt was real, and now there could be no doubt.
The ground was not completely wet, but all the candles had been extinguished with protesting hisses. The burner flame flickered, sputtered, then regained strength. She noticed that her protective circle of flour had been broken in several places, no longer a complete ring.
You enjoyed the power, said an inner voice. Wendy shuddered, from the cold, she thought. She reached for a woodstove match to relight the candles, but a sudden cramp caused her to stop short. She reached again, and again winced in discomfort. Her fingernails ached, as if she had held them in flame for a long time. Not again! She looked down, half expecting to see her nails cracked and blistered. They had lost their recent purplish hue and were now completely black.
You enjoyed the power.
She stood up, lifting the robe with her, but dropping it as another cramp doubled her over. The cramp was accompanied by downward pressure, below the stomach, pushing, pushing. She almost cried out, gasped instead, stumbled forward. Another cramp, worse still. And then the blood came.
The thick, clotted flow streaked her inner thigh. She fell to her knees and wondered why it was a week early, why it was so painful this time. Why now?
All her confidence was gone, extinguished as quickly as her candles had been. Her rapport with nature had been whisked away. The trees seemed menacing, concealing unimaginable horrors lurking in the dark. Nature had become a trap for the unwary. She wanted to be home in her bed more than anything.
She was confused, but she knew several things. She knew that she must thank and dismiss the elements. She knew that she would dress quickly, in just the robe if necessary, filling her duffel bag and wooden chest with all her belongings. Then she would stumble to the car and drive home, arriving well before her parents’ rented film festival ended, sneaking into bed before them but not falling asleep until well after. She would suspect with dread certainty that that one spell had consumed a week of her life in the blink of an eye. And she would wonder, before she dreamed the dreams again, if she just might be losing her mind.
Jack Carter was flying. In those dizzying first moments he thought he was dying, thought the exhilarating rush of sight and sound was that last roller-coaster moment before you plunge into the vortex. He saw stars, a blur of treetops, heard the screaming of the wind and saw a scatter of distant house lights below him…
Then he was dropped into darkness…
And woke in darkness. But it was at least a lighter darkness than the oblivion of unconsciousness. He shifted, disoriented, and suddenly felt a lancing pain so fierce it made its own temporary flash of light—like a fountain of sparks behind his eyelids.
He winced, testing his limbs. Trying to pin the pain down, localize it. There—the overextended bones of his shoulders and arms. He couldn’t move his right arm at all. Shit, his throwing arm.
As his eyes began to adapt to the dark, he could make out a little more clearly where he was. Inside. At first he thought he might be in a cave of some kind, but some sixth sense told him this place was man-made. Wooden. And yet, confounding him, he saw high above a patch of night sky Wherever he was had a patchy roof that let the starlight in.
A barn. His nose discovered his location before his eyes. Beneath him was a thick layer of hay clumped with dirt and manure. Beyond those immediate smells were odors of old wood, chaff dust, the sweet stink of dead rodents. And something else. The instant he tasted that smell his balls seized inside him, so powerfully had the odor become associated with terror. It was an animal stink, hot and ripe, like some sour mix of shit and burning hair and unwashed bodies. And yet he recognized it as human. It was a primal recognition of his own kind. But so much worse
He had to get out of here. Out of this reeking darkness.
Now that he knew he was in a barn, his eyes were able to unravel some of the puzzling geometries they saw. The place was old, like no barn he’d ever seen before. The support posts seemed hewn from whole trees and still bore the marks of amputated branches. He came up into a crouch and stood, wincing when his dislocated shoulder shifted outside its socket. He held the dead arm close to his side, and took a shuffling step in the dark. Both his knees felt weak, unreliable. Even after the most brutal sack, you never let them see just how much you hurt. He took another step, regaining hope, strength with each inch of yardage. In the darkness, distances seemed to stretch. Another step.
And then he fell—
He let out a single yell as he dropped. The cry turned into an airless gasp as he landed hard, the wind driven out of him. He blacked out for a split second, a blink of unconsciousness. Then he was awake again, listening to the dusty rain of hay from the loft above. He sat very still, listening, hearing noises…
He wasn’t alone in the barn. Far above, huge black shapes unfolded themselves from their places among the rafters.
Go! Get the fuck out! Jack scrambled up, surprised he still had any strength in his arms and legs to stand and coordinate into a run. Pure adrenaline rush. He ran full tilt into a wall, then hit it again as he tried a second time to run through it, until he told his panicking mind to try another way out. He slid along the wall, hearing the dry leathery sound of movement high above in the rafters. He wanted to push himself into the grain of the wood, to hide in the knotholes.
Then he found it—the door. It was warped, crude and tall, wide enough for livestock. Through a crack between door and wall he smelled the clean breath of cool night air, bright as ice water.
The door would not budge. Jack pressed himself through the crack, ignoring the pain in his sides, the narrow gap constricting his chest. Something gave and the door swung outward. He stumbled out into the cool night. He took several deep agonizing breaths and cut right, an evasive maneuver, crashing headlong through tall grass and weed. He didn’t look back.
He fell, came up in a crouch and kept going. Ahead were trees, pale trunks luminescent in the moonlight. If he could make it into the trees maybe the things in the barn rafters wouldn’t be able to find him. They were so goddamned big, maybe theyd have trouble maneuvering through the dense woods. These were the thoughts he whispered to himself in cold comfort.
Just before he reached the trees, a foul blast of wind hit him. Jack gagged, stumbling against a tree as he puked up his dinner, the beers he’d drunk a hundred years ago coming up again as acid. He ran, leaves clotting around his ankles. He tripped again and again, snagged by tendrils of vine and thornbushes. Tangling him like barbed wire.
Then, ahead, he saw window light. A house, just beyond the stand of trees. He veered in its direction, crashing through the underbrush and lunging out into the weed-choked backyard. The house was old, its roof buckling as the place sagged on its foundation. An ancient pickup truck stood in the driveway, the hulks of older cars decomposing around it.
The screen door of the house clacked open and shut, an old man emerging onto the ramshackle porch. He met the crazed teen halfway across the yard. The old man held a shotgun. Jack nearly impaled himself on it as he staggered forward gratefully. Given what he’d been through tonight, a shotgun was nothing. “Something’s after me—please—you gotta HELP ME!”
“Get back.” The old man’s eyes were black and glittering. And there was something wrong with his face.
“Please! They’re coming!” Jack said. “We have to get inside—”
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