by Zed Amadeo
“Welcome back,” she said. She took me into a room filled with bookcases and flat pillows on the floor, suitable for seating.
“I don’t want to feel this way anymore,” I told her. “I saw my sister get attacked, and I just stood and watched, because I was too fucking afraid to do anything else. I’m stuck and I don’t know how to get out.” Alejandra wrapped an arm around me.
“You’ve come to the right place,” she said. “You have no more need to be afraid.”
“But this fear,” I said, “is always following me.”
“You have great power within you,” she said. “You just haven’t learned how to use it yet.” I knew she was talking about magic. I no longer had the energy to keep pushing it away. The only other option I had was fear.
“I can help you Dina,” she said, “If you are ready.”
“I’m ready now!” I said. “I don’t want to go back. I can’t go back.”
“Very well,” she said. “But for now, I think you need rest.” I nodded my head and followed closely behind her through the rest of the house, again hearing the same muffled noises from my previous visit. I had little time to dwell on it, instead focusing my attention on trying to keep myself together. Alejandra took me to a large bedroom at the top of a staircase
“Make yourself at home,” she told me as she left, closing the door behind her. My companion flitted down onto the bed. I saw little option but to follow suit. On my great journey to the world of peace that sleep provided me, I found myself confronted by those strange, distant sounds again. But my mind slipped away before I could consider them any further.
I experienced a momentary panic when Alejandra’s voice woke me the following morning and I did not see my own bedroom around me. My head needed a few moments to catch up before the fear subsided.
“Dina,” Alejandra said from the other side of the door, “Breakfast is ready. Come down whenever you’d like.” I thanked her and prepared myself for the journey downstairs as I stumbled into the hallway with my companion hovering at my side. The indistinct noises I had heard before were now gone, making me wonder whether I hadn’t been imagining them all along.
Walking back into the dining room felt like wandering into another dream. The table was filled with a variety of dishes and drinks, foods that I didn’t recognize. Alejandra was already seated at the head of the table, looking at me with that knowing smile. She made a gesture inviting me to sit next to her. My companion immediately went to work stuffing her face with food. I was more hesitant, mostly out of nervousness. While Alejandra began eating, I stared at the empty plate in front of me.
“Feel free to eat,” she said.
Partially through the meal the blue being came plodding back into the room and said something to Alejandra that I could barely hear. Whatever he told her made her jump up in her seat in anger.
“Well then go fetch her immediately!” she said. I continued to eat and tried to pretend like nothing was happening. This became almost impossible when another person entered the room and seated herself next to Alejandra. After I got my first good look at this new guest, I could not stop myself from staring at Alejandra’s younger reflection.
“Dina, this is my daughter Lisa,” Alejandra said. “Lisa, this is the lovely young woman I was telling you about.” Lisa looked at me for only a fleeting moment. I couldn’t understand why she was reacting to me like this.
“Aren’t you going to speak to our guest?” Alejandra asked her.
“Hello,” Lisa said, still not looking at me.
“Don’t you want some breakfast?” she asked Lisa.
“I’m not hungry,” Lisa said.
“Very well,” Alejandra said. “You may be dismissed.” Alejandra sighed after Lisa’s dismissal.
“Teenagers,” she said. “She won’t bother trying to involve herself in the outside world, so I teach her here. She’s practically afraid to leave the house. Surely you must understand that.” I nodded my head only out of a subtle fear of what would happen if I did not.
“How did you sleep?” she asked.
“Well,” I said. I was again tempted to ask her about the strange sounds, but I did not.
“That’s wonderful,” she said. “I want you to understand that you’re free to stay here for as long as you would like. As long as magic is your priority, you will always have a room here.”
“I’ve thought about it and…,” I began, “I’ve decided. I want to learn.”
“I have to know that you are serious about this,” she said. “You must know that there is no turning back from here.”
“I understand,” I said.
“You must have friends, family,” she said. “Is there anyone you would like me to send a message to?”
“Yes,” I answered. “My sister.” She gave me the materials to write the briefest letter I could muster.
Dear Kayla,
Hello
I hope
How
Do not worry about me. I am in a much better place now. Sorry I didn’t say goodbye before I left. I will see you as soon as I can. Send mom and dad my regards.
Since Best With Love,
Dina
Alejandra promised it would be delivered promptly. Another step toward distancing myself from the unremarkable life I had once led.
***
Even now, the words were still spinning around my mind. Alejandra had gone through the ritual with me, step by step. What to say. What to expect. Now that I was descending the staircase in almost complete darkness, I began to feel as though nothing could have prepared me for the adventure that was soon to come.
The basement was illuminated only by candles that had been set into the floor, forming a part of the intricate carved design that sprawled out across the entirety of the basement. Fear was beginning to creep into the forefront of my mind, sending my heart into a marathon. I thought back to what Alejandra had told me just before our descent.
“You must trust me,” she had said. “Whatever happens, focus on my eyes.” At that moment she glanced back at me with a knowing smile, and I regained my confidence.
“On your journey,” she had told me, “You will see and feel the impossible. You will be terrified at times, that much is guaranteed. But you will gain powerful knowledge. Your life will never be the same.”
Alejandra sat cross-legged in the middle in one of the sub-circles in the floor’s design. I sat in the sub-circle across from her and mimicked her posture, my companion resting within my lap.
“You’re getting scared,” Alejandra said. I could not look away from her gaze. “Remember what I said before.” I stared into her eyes. She then held out her arms to me, just as she had told me beforehand. I reached out my hands to clasp hers.
“Think about why you have decided to become a witch,” she said. “Think about the circumstances that have brought you to this point in your life.”
I allowed that nearly fatal scene to play out before me. I let myself feel the powerlessness all over again. I thought about all of those times when I had lain in bed one day after another, feeling too horrible to do anything else. I recalled the capstone of watching my sister get attacked in our home and being unable to stop it because of my own fear. Each memory unleashed a little bit of my frustration, culminating in a final, relieving scream.
“Dina,” Alejandra began, before rattling off phrases in the language of magic. I remembered their meaning from our previous run through:
“You agree to undertake this journey to become a witch, with me, Alejandra, as your teacher, for the thirty days and thirty nights of tradition, upon which time you will work toward your first accomplishment as a witch.”
“Na’am,” I answered, nodding my head for extra emphasis. I clumsily attempted to repeat the words as Alejandra had taught them to me, fumbling my way through the unfamiliar sounds of the language until I got to the end.
“You will allow your companion, who
has graciously led you to our world, to return to its home realm,” she continued.
“Na’am,” I said.
When I finished, Alejandra released my hands from hers to pick up the knife by her side. Even with my knowledge of what was to come, I still flinched when she sliced her wrist, smearing the blood into little pool below her. I hesitantly held out one of my wrists for her to slit and give my own blood sacrifice. Alejandra mixed my blood in with her own, and the blood began to move on its own, filling and illuminating the complex shapes around us.
Alejandra began reciting more magical phrases. The lights began to dim as Alejandra’s words summoned a new shadow into a circle behind her, bringing with it a strong, impossible gust of wind and plunging us into darkness. All I could do was stare into Alejandra’s eyes, even as I felt as if the wind were about to lift me out of my seat and my head and heart began pounding with fear.
I felt a momentary relief when the wind died down that died as soon as the sound was replaced. Though I could see nothing besides the strange shadow in the room, I heard a noise like a giant creature inhaling and exhaling deeply, each breath coinciding with a subsequent change in the shadow’s shape, until I realized that it somehow must have come from the shadow itself. The more she spoke, the faster the creature began to breath. For one moment, it inhaled and I felt like all of the air had been sucked out of the room, only to rush right back in a few moments later, nearly pushing me onto my back.
“Khalas,” Alejandra said. “It is done.” The breathing came to an end. One by one, the candles flickered back into flame. My companion hovered in midair, and even though she had no eyes, I could have sworn that she was looking straight into me. She spread each of her tiny limbs out into a star formation before slowly disappearing from my sight until she was nothing but an afterimage, as if she had only ever existed inside my mind. With that, the only form of relative stability I’d had in recent times was gone from my life.
I remained where I was, heart racing. A new, unknown energy pulsed through my veins as I sat in silence, watching as the smile grew on Alejandra’s face grew. She took my hands into hers once again.
“Congratulations,” she told me. “This moment marks the beginning of your journey toward becoming a witch.”
We emerged from the basement. The energy within me grew stronger, found its way into every part of my being. In that moment, I understood everything that Alejandra had told me. I felt a change coming over me, beginning to devour what remained of my old self.
***
I was awoken the next morning while in the middle of a dream, looking at myself in the mirror. Only in my reflection, I saw Alejandra instead of myself.
When I went down to breakfast, I found Alejandra already seated in her ordinary spot. This time, the delicacies that I had come to expect were replaced by fruit, bread, and a pitcher of water. I hesitantly took my seat. Alejandra seemed to sense my surprise.
“The way to become a witch requires clarity of thought and purity of the body. Your diet for the remainder of your training will be very simple. The fewer distractions you have, especially anything physical, the better off your learning process will be.”
I pitifully looked over the options set in front of me before taking a piece of fruit and slice of bread, washed down with a glass of cool water, taking only a few minutes to finish my meager meal before beginning my first lesson in magic.
A “magic-free” society has never existed. Whether practiced in private or openly performed, magic has always existed in one form or another. Call us witches, warlocks, shamans, or sorcerers. Whatever you want to call us, there is no denying the place that we and our art have carved into every place throughout time.
The story of Siraj Ali and Zahrah, the founder of our kind, is present throughout the consciousness of our culture. The Adam and Eve of our magical folk transformed the desert around them into endless oases and created al-Alizab, a grand empire of magic, forging a center for all magical outcasts to flourish. The moment of their death marked the descent of their empire.
Most of their descendants had no vision for the empire. It was only in time that one of their successors, Tahani was able to gather enough followers to form a new society of magic, “al-Jafru.” She and her followers made repeated spiritual travels to bring magic to new heights.
Al-Jafru was not allowed to live in peace. Members of al-Alizab brutally attacked al-Jafru, igniting a conflict that would lead to the slaughter of too many of our kind. Following this bloodshed, our people scattered across the globe, immersing ourselves into whatever communities we could find. That is why witches and warlocks, in some form or another, can be found everywhere. Only the method of magic created by al-Alizab and al-Jafru is the purest form. All others are merely less powerful corruptions of this pure source…
Alejandra closed the book and ended her reading. I hadn’t understood half of the terms or the names, but I thought that I had at least caught the general idea. Still too nervous to speak, I waited for Alejandra to initiate the conversation.
“Is any of that true?” I asked.
“Maybe,” Alejandra said. “I have reason to believe so. Regardless of its accuracy, I think you’ll find great value in our mythology.” Unable to determine an acceptable response, I remained silent.
“Spells provide a way to channel the magic force running through our universe with your intent to create change in the world,” Alejandra explained to me on my first day of practice.
“When casting a spell, you must also use your hand as a rod to guide this energy,” she said. “Speak the spell’s name clearly and correctly. What is the most important is the image in your mind of your intentions. A spell is only a word without your intent behind it.”
Each day became a lesson in casting a new spell, learning them at dazzling speed. First, we began with summoning small samples of each element. At the end of each day, I stood amazed as I held a new element in the palm of my hand:
Hariyak, for fire.
Bahara, for water.
Riyah for a burst of wind.
Sokrah for rock.
We soon moved on the spells that would allow me to have more specific effects on an object – or with a great amount of effort and practice, Alejandra explained, a person:
Fawuk, to ascend
Ila, to descend
Bayiden, to push away from me.
Nahu, to pull toward me.
“It is quite easy to affect a small object with this kind of magic,” Alejandra explained. “Most mundane objects have nothing magical about them. No will to oppose your force.The situation gets a bit more complicated when you’re dealing with charmed objects, but that’s a lesson for a later date.”
Soon after, Alejandra taught me the delicate art of potion making.
“Many of the best potions are passed down in families,” she told me, displaying an ancient, ratted tome of recipes she kept in her dedicated workshop, a room that was packed with musty, tattered volumes and cabinets full of mysterious ingredients stored in glass jars.
“A colleague of mine gave me a copy of the recipe book that has been in his family for generations” Potion-making, as I learned, involved a lot more than gathering the right ingredients. Some of the components had to have been raised, killed, or obtained during a certain point of the year or moon cycle.
“To become a skillful potion maker,” Alejandra explained, “You must memorize charts of nature and know the uses of hundreds, if not thousands, of ingredients, taking into account the proper incantations or rituals that must be performed to give the potions their effectiveness. It requires so much effort that certain members of our society specialize in creating the proper ingredients for the rest of us.”
Alejandra began laying the foundation for what I considered to be the most difficult aspect of magic: rituals.
“Rituals are the surest way to invoke powerful magic,” Alejandra she explained. “Many of them require great energy and
concentration, complex incantations, and sometimes multiple people.” I had been introduced to this particular kind of magic the night of the attack. For that reason alone, my education in this arena became the most important to me.
“But even the most complicated of rituals begins with the simplest of steps: the casting of a proper circle,” Alejandra said, demonstrating how to ground myself before drawing a circle around my body. I used ink in this instance, but as Alejandra explained to me, you could use just about any substance as long as your intent was there.
“You can then determine the specific purpose of the ritual by adapting the circle in various ways and drawing the proper symbols upon the body,” Alejandra said. Exactly what had been done to me.
Sometimes you could invoke mystical beings when you performed the proper rituals. This, as I learned, was exactly what Alejandra had done during my initiation.
“The being that appeared to us is an entity from another realm,” Alejandra explained. “Witches may form a bond with such creatures to add power to their magic. This being is one that I have happened to know for a very long time.”
Our world is inhabited with creatures great and small, many unseen by the mundane eye, others created by our kind for particular purposes.
Rafik. Another name for our companions. Miniature beings from an otherworldly place to assist new witches or warlocks.
Saldan. Winged beasts created by our ancestors for warfare to infiltrate rival communities.
Kadma. Short-lived humanoids with little intellect. Forbidden from creation.
Strewn throughout my lessons in magic, Alejandra taught me about the culture of witches and warlocks. Our beliefs, our backgrounds, our holidays. The practices of my new people.