Phoenix and the Dark Star

by Gerald Pruett

  “Does he know?” Ellen asked. “About us?”

  “He doesn’t,” Devon said. “Anyway, we should create that charm for Andie before your friends show up.”

  Ellen nodded before turning towards Sadie and asking, “Where is the incantation?”

  “It’s in the dining room,” Sadie informed before turning towards Andie. “Andie, do you have a piece of jewelry to cast the incantation on?”

  Andie pulled out her sterling silver zodiac charm necklace with a Cancer symbol from beneath her shirt before saying, “I want to cast it on this.”

  When Ellen saw the symbol, she shared, “My birth sign is Cancer too. When’s your birthday?”

  Andie grinned before saying, “June 23rd. When’s yours?”

  “July 19th,” Ellen said with a slight grin.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Sadie urged.

  “Okay,” Ellen said.

  “Okay,” Andie echoed, shyly before following Ellen, Harris, Sadie, Blaire and Devon into the dining room.

  Allyson, Trevor and Galvin stayed in the living room and talked.

  Once in the dining room, Andie slightly gasped in surprise.

  “Are you okay, Andie?” Blaire asked while giving her a concern look.

  “I’m fine,” Andie said, shyly, while appearing as though she was looking towards the far dining room wall. “Eleanor is here. She was looking at the notepad on the table. She’s looking at me now… and now she’s telling me that the ghost cloaking incantation is slightly flawed.”

  “How so?” Sadie quickly asked.

  After listening to Eleanor, Andie said, “She’s not answering your question, but she does want me to write out the correction. She thinks that you’re very talented at writing out incantations and that you’ll see where you had gone wrong once it’s written out correctly.”

  “Thanks, Eleanor, for thinking that I’m talented,” Sadie said.

  “‘You’re welcome,’ she says,” Andie shared. Sadie grinned and gave an acknowledging nod. “Anyway, she also wants me to add an exclusion verse that will exclude her from the cloaking incantation.”

  “Writing out the exclusion verse is entirely your call,” Sadie informed.

  “Eleanor has helped me, so I’ll add her verse,” Andie said while stepping towards the table.

  Andie took a seat at the table, picked up the pencil that was lying near the notepad, took the notepad, flipped to a blank page and began writing.

  It took Andie three minutes to transcribe the modified incantation as Eleanor dictated it. Once she was done, Andie held out the notepad for Sadie to take.

  Sadie took the notepad and when she saw the changes that were made, she uttered, “Yes! I see now where I was messing up. This version of the incantation will definitely work.” Sadie turned towards Andie. “I’ll need your necklace, and a few drops of your blood.”

  “I’ll go get a straight pin,” Harris volunteered before stepping away.

  Andie had stood up from the table and took off her necklace. As Harris was leaving the room, Andie was handing Sadie her necklace.

  Harris was gone from the room for only a minute, and after returning with a straight pin and a Band-Aid, he asked, “Can you prick your own finger, Andie? Or should I do it?”

  “Perhaps you should do it,” Andie replied, shyly. “To make sure that it gets done right.”

  “Alright,” Harris agreed while stepping closer to Andie. “Give me one of your hands.”

  Andie held out her right hand. When Harris took hold of it she closed her eyes in an anticipation of being stuck.

  “Ow,” Andie couldn’t help saying, barely loud enough to be heard and flinching when Harris pricked her thumb.

  “It’s done,” Harris informed.

  Within Sadie’s palm, Sadie held out the zodiac necklace while instructing, “Smear your blood over the Cancer symbol.”

  “Okay,” Andie agreed before proceeding to do so.

  Andie coated the necklace well with her blood, and after she was done, Harris held out the Band-Aid for her to take.

  Andie grinned while taking the Band-Aid. She then proceeded to wrap her thumb with it.

  “Ellen, you’ll cast the spell,” Sadie informed.

  Ellen shot Sadie a ‘why me?’ look before shaking it off, stepping forward and—in an uncertain tone—saying, “Okay.”

  Once Andie had the Band-Aid in place, she turned her focus on Ellen.

  Ellen silently read through the incantation once before verbally reciting the words.

  Once the incantation was said in its entirety, the smeared blood glowed for a brief moment before fading completely and returning the necklace to its original sterling silver appearance.

  “The spell did something,” Ellen announced. “I couldn’t tell you what though.”

  “The spell did what it was supposed to do,” Sadie told Ellen.

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Ellen said. As if it was an afterthought, Ellen held out the necklace for Andie to take. “Oh, um, here’s your necklace, Andie, and hopefully this will make you blind and death to ghosts.”

  “Thanks.” Andie reached out for the necklace, and when she took hold of it, she uttered, “Wow! That was weird looking.”

  “What was weird looking?” Ellen, Harris and Blaire each questioned in a confused tone.

  “No one saw that?” Andie asked.

  “See what?” Ellen asked.

  “What did you see, Andie?” Sadie asked.

  “When I took hold of the necklace, everything around me shifted to a negative film appearance for a split second and then returned to normal,” Andie shared.

  “Can you still see Grandma Eleanor?” Ellen asked.

  Andie nodded while saying, “She’s explaining to me why I had seen what I did.” She then hesitated to say, “The spell is active when I’m touching the necklace and inactive when I’m not touching it, and only I will see the weird show during the transition times.”

  “That doesn’t hurt you, does it?” Ellen questioned.

  “It doesn’t,” Andie said while putting her necklace around her neck. “If it gives me a break from the ghosts, I can handle the occasional weird show.”

  “We need a spirit besides Grandma Eleanor to test the spirit shrouding incantation on,” Ellen thought aloud.

  “I’m certain it works,” Sadie said.

  “I’ll let you know if it doesn’t work,” Andie assured Ellen.

  Ellen slightly hesitated before nodding and saying in a slightly skeptical tone, “Alright.”

  “Let’s join the others in the living room,” Devon suggested.

  “I have a question for Grandma Eleanor first,” Ellen announced.

  “She’s listening,” Andie informed.

  “That code sheet that you had given me through Spencer had created ten incantations,” Ellen began. “We had only figured out nine of the ten. In sequence as you have given them to me, we can’t figure out what the fifth one does.”

  Andie listened to Eleanor before saying, “The combine verses that you have of the fifth incantation creates a hitch to any health stealing incantation.”

  “And I’m guessing that the current usage of the word ‘hitch’ won’t be found in the Merriam-Webster dictionary,” Ellen assumed.

  “A magical hitch is an appendage to an incantation that will distort the intended incantation,” Blaire was the one to explain. “As a rule, a hitch can’t be tested prior to using it, so it is very unpredictable on how it will act; in fact, most of the time they’ll fail completely. Half of the ones that do work don’t even work as intended, and when one is used, the victim… or the potential loser will quietly recite the hitch near the end or simultaneously of the pending magical strike that the hitch was designed for. A hitch can be used as a counter, but mostly, it’s used as a backlash chant. And a backlash chant is a hitch that will kill the winner along with the loser.”

  “Great Grandma Gloria had used a hitch against Vincentia!” Ellen qu
ickly concluded while turning towards Andie.

  Andie hesitated before nodding and saying, “Yes.”

  “So that confirms it,” Ellen said. “Vincentia is dead.”

  “She’s not dead,” Andie relayed while looking at Eleanor.

  “What had happened to Vincentia, if she’s not dead?” Ellen quickly asked as the conversation grabbed everyone’s attention.

  Andie’s facial expression shifted to as if she was hearing something disturbing before relaying, “She’s trapped in time.”

  “Like the tigers that are currently trapped in time at Jessica and Karla’s house?” Ellen quickly asked in a confused tone.

  Andie listened to Eleanor before saying, “Thinking that those tigers are trapped in time is a mistaken belief. Since those tigers move forward with time, those tigers are each trapped in a motionless pose.”

  “Explain to me the difference, Grandma Eleanor,” Ellen quickly requested.

  Again Andie listened to Eleanor before saying, “When someone or something is trapped in time, time stops for that person or object. Vincentia is alive and unable to move forward in time on the second that she had killed your Great-Grandmother Gloria.”

  Ellen thought for a second before confessing, “Okay, for some reason I’m having a hard time comprehending what trapped in time means.”

  “If you would travel back in time before or on the exact nanosecond that Vincentia had killed your great-grandmother, you would find Vincentia,” Andie was the one to explain. “The nanosecond after Vincentia had killed your great-grandmother, Vincentia would be nowhere to be found because she now only exists in the past.”

  “Okay, that’s a hard concept to grasp,” Ellen began, “and if I’m grasping it correctly… then Vincentia isn’t aware that she’s even stuck in time.”

  “Vincentia isn’t aware of anything,” Sadie was the one to say. “Her life and time and physical existence just stop like the last typed character in an unfinished novel that had been abandoned by the author.”

  “Wow!” Ellen let out. “And what was the hitch that had caused that?”

  “The hitch is for the Dark Ritual, and Eleanor says that she can give you that hitch if you really want it,” Andie informed.

  “I really want it,” Ellen quickly said.

  “Ellen, why would you want that hitch?” Harris quickly asked.

  “That hitch was the last words that my great-grandmother had spoken,” Ellen said. “I want it because it was her final words.”

  Harris shook his head slightly and shrugged while saying in a defeated tone, “Okay.”

  Andie gestured towards the notepad while saying, “I’ll transcribe it as Eleanor dictates it to me.”

  Ellen nodded in agreement.

  Andie retook her seat at the table, took the notepad, flipped to a blank page, picked up the pencil and began writing.

  It took Andie two minutes to transcribe the hitch as Eleanor dictated it. Once it was written out, Andie held out the notepad for Ellen to take.

  Ellen took the notepad and read silently. Once she was finished she uttered, “Déjà vu!”

  “Déjà vu?” Harris, Sadie, Blaire and Devon echoed, simultaneously.

  “I can’t remember when… where or even how, but I remember seeing these exact words,” Ellen shared. “Recently too.”

  Andie listened to Eleanor before saying, “As a spirit, Eleanor has a spiritual awareness, and she can see that every wizard and sorceress in the world who are between the ages of fifteen and eighteen—including the shamans from the fourth wizard line—will dream about that hitch, but only one percent of those wizards and sorceresses can remember it after waking up.”

  Blaire reached out for the notepad and mouthed out, “May I see that?”

  Ellen handed Blaire the notepad while asking Eleanor, “So when my Great-Grandma Gloria was a teenager, she was in that one percent who had remembered it?”

  Andie’s facial expression again shifted to as if she was hearing something disturbing before relaying, “When your Great-Grandma Gloria was sixteen, she was being made to forget things by her sister… of course your great-grandma didn’t know that. And she died not knowing it. She just knew or realized that she wasn’t remembering things like she should, so she created her first incantation—an incantation that would help her to remember things. The morning after she had cast the incantation on herself she woke up remembering the hitch to the Dark Ritual. Her notebook and a pencil were on her nightstand, and so she grabbed them quickly and wrote down the hitch before she could forget.”

  “Wow,” Ellen let out in an astonish tone. “So why does every wizard who is between the ages of fifteen and eighteen—including the shamans of the fourth wizard line—dream of the hitch to the Dark Ritual? And most importantly, why can’t any of us remember dreaming about it after waking up?”

  Andie listened to Eleanor before saying, “There are not enough wizards or sorceresses who can remember it to even ask that question or to explore the reason.”

  “How far into history does dreaming about this hitch go?” Ellen asked.

  “Eleanor doesn’t know,” Andie said. “She does know that dreaming about the hitch was long before her time.”

  “Could it be as far back as Merlin’s time?” Ellen asked in a tone as if she was mentally testing a puzzle piece.

  Before Andie could repeat Eleanor’s answer, Harris asked, “What are you thinking, Ellen?”

  “One of Merlin’s legends is that Merlin was captured in time—according to Leon Stone anyway,” Ellen shared. “So perhaps Merlin is trapped like Vincentia, and these dreams that we are receiving have something to do with Merlin being trapped.”

  “I wouldn’t know how those dreams would be, but at the moment, I can’t come up with a better theory for them,” Blaire said.

  “Ellen, Eleanor has no answer for your last question,” Andie informed.

  Ellen nodded before asking, “Grandma Eleanor, can you tell me if anyone else is trapped in time?”

  Andie listened to the answer before saying, “She only knows of one other who is trapped in time.”

  “Where’s that person at?” Ellen asked.

  Andie listened to Eleanor before saying, “At Oxford University. He’s been trapped in time in the university’s library since June 12th, 1799.”

  “Wow,” Ellen again let out.

  “Ellen,” Blaire called to grab her attention. When Ellen looked, she held up the notebook and continued with, “Since the secret is out about this hitch, I’m going to form a group and explore the reason for teenage wizards dreaming about it, and explore why ninety-nine percent of us can’t even remember dreaming about it after waking up.”

  “So you’ll need a copy of it?” Ellen questioned.

  Blaire nodded while saying, “I will.”

  “Alright,” Ellen agreed.

  “Do you have any other questions for Eleanor?” Andie asked. “Eleanor’s asking.”

  Ellen thought for a moment before shaking her head and saying, “I can’t think of any more questions.”

  “If there’s nothing else, we should rejoin the others,” Devon suggested again.

  When everyone looked at Ellen, Ellen shot them each a curious look while insisting, “I don’t have anything else.”

  “Eleanor left,” Andie informed.

  “Okay,” Harris said before gesturing. “Let’s join the others.”

  Ellen nodded before she and the others left the dining room.

  As they stepped into the living room, Ellen asked, “Should we grab a movie DVD from Harris’s movie stack, Andie, and head to the basement?”

  “Okay,” Andie said in a tone as if she didn’t know how else to answer.

  “So how did the spell go?” Trevor asked.

  “We believe that it went well,” Blaire said as Ellen and Andie went to search through the DVDs. “Andie will let us know later, regardless.”

  “That’s the bad part about that kind of spell,” Galvin shared
as Andie looked towards Blaire. “There’s no immediate confirmation on if it works or not.”

  Andie looked towards Galvin before saying shyly, “I think it will work.”

  “I’m sure it will,” Galvin said in an appeasing tone and with a polite grin.

  Ellen—with five DVD cases in her hand—glanced towards Galvin before asking Andie, “What kind of movies do you like?”

  Andie looked towards the DVDs before gesturing and requesting, “May I see them?”

  “Sure,” Ellen said before handing Andie the DVDs.

  Andie looked at the five movies before picking out two of them. “I haven’t seen ‘Skeleton Key’ or ‘Hereafter’.”

  “We’ll watch those,” Ellen said. Andie just grinned. “Let’s go downstairs to watch them.”

  “Alright,” Andie said.

  Ellen put the three movies that they weren’t planning to watch back and then led Andie to the basement.

  The basement was set up as a second living room and a laundry room with a washer and dryer.

  The downstairs living room had a couch, a matching armchair, a coffee table, two end tables positioned on each end of the couch, two lamps (one lamp on each of the two end tables), an average size TV with a DVD player hooked to it and a desk with a desk chair. The only thing on the desk was Harris and Allyson’s laptop.

  Once Ellen and Andie reached the downstairs living room, Andie took a seat in the chair as Ellen turned on the TV and DVD player.

  She then turned towards Andie, and while holding up the two movies—one in each hand—she asked, “Which one do you want to watch first?”

  Andie gestured towards the one in Ellen’s left hand while saying, “The ‘Skeleton Key’.”

  “Okay,” Ellen said before facing the DVD player, removing the DVD from the case and putting the disc into the player.

  As the DVD began to play its FBI warning, Ellen walked over to the couch and sat down on the end, away from the entrance to the room.

  Ten minutes into the movie, Ellen’s and Andie’s attention were drawn to Jessica and Karla as they entered the living room.

  “Hey, guys,” Ellen quickly said.

  “Hey,” Jessica and Karla said.

  “Hi,” Andie said with a wave.

  “Did you bring the book?” Ellen asked.