Out of Salem

by Hal Schrieve

  “It’s my fault he got arrested,” Tommy said. “Shit shit shit.”

  Z shrugged ambivalently. “Mostly my fault. So you have books now.”

  “Yes,” Tommy said. He gestured to his bag.

  “Can I have one?” Z asked.

  Tommy looked at Z. “You’re not going to turn me in?”

  “I mean, my body is falling apart. If you give me one, I won’t tell anyone you’re trying to resurrect your therapist.” They bent down and looked into Tommy’s bag.

  Necromancy in the Twentieth Century. Franz Boas’s Demon Anthropology. Summoning Great Old Ones for the Absolute Beginner. Necromancy and You. Z felt an ecstatic high build in their chest.

  “Can I help?” Tommy asked. He leaned over again and looked over Z’s shoulder to the book. “What are you looking for?”

  “Anything that would keep me around longer. Preferably something that would make it easier to walk,” Z said. They were looking at the beginning of the Preservation chapter.

  “I think there’s a spell for like, an eternal undead guard that doesn’t rot,” Tommy said. “It’s probably got something you could use.”

  Z flipped to the page and examined the text. Most of it was in Latin, so it took a second. “This spell is all about controlling the guard, though. I don’t want to be controlled.”

  Tommy shrugged. “You could modify it. I’ve tried a couple of these spells—”

  “A couple of spells from a necromancy book?” Z asked.

  “Just on rats and toads,” Tommy said quickly, as if that made it any less dangerous or illegal. “Anyway, I mean, like, you can change some of the words around and change the way the spell applies to the thing. So you could, uh, you could try that.” He looked very nervous suddenly. “Right now, I’m just practicing—just setting things up for when I really do it. I come here maybe once a week and practice setting things up. I want to be careful. I’m not being crazy about it.”

  “I think I’d prefer a potion,” Z said, ignoring him. “Something I could take like medicine that wouldn’t feel as dangerous.”

  Tommy’s face screwed up. “I wonder if there is anything like that.” He paused. “Wait. We could try to find the spell your mom did and do it again, right? Do it over?”

  “I don’t think that’ll work,” Z said.

  “You could try. What do you know about the spell?”

  “Uh, the mark is shaped like a star,” Z said. “That’s it.”

  Tommy flipped through the pages of the book. “See, I found this spell called the Familial Protection Hex, where anyone in the spell system won’t be able to die because the magic is shared between members. Moms use it to keep their babies safe. It’s like, if your baby dies, your magic brings it back. As a zombie. But if you’re dead, like the mom is dead, I guess there’s only so much magic and then it runs out maybe.”

  Z looked down at the page Tommy had turned to. There was a column on one side of the page which showed stars of various shapes, next to a series of complicated instructions.

  There was a subtitle on the yellowing page, printed in black-green ink, which read: This spell is for the necromancer who wishes to protect beloved companions and who wants a tasteful way to keep away the odors and signs of the crypt. Initial casting requires blood rites from all members of the spell system. Up to twenty people may be protected. Blood of the unicorn and the fruits from exotic lands help to preserve the heart and mind of the drinker and keep your companion as fresh and lively as the day they died.

  CAUTION: If four or more members of the system die, or the caster dies, all remaining undead protected bodies will gradually disintegrate after absorbing the magic of the caster. Some undead bodies will be able to access magic belonging to someone else, but it cannot sustain them without a new system.

  “That does look promising,” Z agreed. They looked at Tommy. His face was very close to their own—awkwardly close. They scooted farther away from him, to show him what distance was appropriate. “I guess I could recast this. Or could get help.” Their ankle cracked inside their shoe as they put it back on and rose to their feet, stumbling a little before they realized their foot was twisted sideways. “This is like too perfect. You showed up at exactly the right time with exactly what I needed. I think I’ll go home and try to do some illicit necromancy.”

  Tommy grinned at them awkwardly. “I’m glad I could help,” he said. He looked down at his books with a new, unsettled expression. He looked around, and then looked back at Z. “Please keep it secret.”

  “You’re not very good at keeping a secret,” Z said.

  Tommy shrugged. “I would want someone to help me if I was in your situation. And I know what it’s like to be on your own. People never stick up for me. You and Aysel do, I mean, but nobody else.”

  “They’re jerks.” Z’s fingers were waxy and white in the cold.

  “They say I’m gay. They tell everyone I look at boys in the locker room. And that’s the worst because I don’t.” He said the last part with a kind of forced laugh. He looked at Z. “Aysel’s gay, though, isn’t she?”

  “Yes,” Z said.

  “And you. So you don’t mind if people are.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Are you gay?” Tommy asked. “I said that but I was assuming.”

  “I . . . uh,” Z said, “I guess.”

  “It’s okay, you don’t have to say,” Tommy said quickly.

  Z took that as the OK to leave.

  Z arrived at Aysel’s house an hour later, carrying the book in their backpack. Their knees were weak and unexpected snow was coming down now, so the walk couldn’t have been easy. There was a gap in their memory. It was just that suddenly they were on Aysel’s porch. This kind of thing was happening more lately. Aysel answered the door. She looked sick. Z really hoped that being around a dead person wouldn’t make Aysel’s moon-illness any worse. Z swayed. Behind them, the street was going pale gray as snow settled on it and became slush that gradually piled up. Aysel let them in.

  “You got a book?” Aysel asked, her nose sounding stuffed up, as Z showed her excitedly, unable to speak because something was happening in their lungs that made it hard to expel air.

  Z coughed. “Yes,” they rasped. “You’ll never believe what happened. It’s a necromancy book.”

  Aysel looked at Z, eyebrows raised. “I really hope you didn’t like, kill someone for that, Z. You look really messed up right now.”

  “No,” Z said.

  Aysel squinted and swallowed. Her eyes were puffy. Z felt bad that she was having to take all this in while sick.

  “I went to the graveyard to visit my parents because I felt really bad, and Tommy was there,” Z said. “He, uh, he was doing some kind of thing over Archie Pagan’s grave. He had a bunch of books with him. You know how Tommy is. He said he took them from the library last month, before Mr. Weber and I were there. He’s trying to bring back Archie Pagan or something, because he was his therapist. And I was like, hi, can I have one of those?”

  Z felt very tired when they were done explaining. They got up to make more tea and fumbled at the handle of the pantry door with their numb arthritic fingers. They were thirsty lately; it felt as if their throat was made of cement. Aysel was staring into space, scowling, as the water heated.

  “Wait,” Aysel said, “so it’s his fault that Mr. Weber got arrested?”

  “Well, sort of,” Z said. They touched the hot kettle with one hand, trying to feel something. They didn’t really want Aysel to get mad at Tommy. “I mean, it is still my fault. Tommy took the books because . . . he’s Tommy. He’s weird and wanted to learn something, or do some kind of weird magic.”

  “Dangerous weird magic. Why would he bring back Archie Pagan?”

  “He wasn’t thinking of hurting anyone,” Z said, not making eye contact. “Nobody would have noticed the books were gone, and nobody would have gotten hurt.”

  “Hmm.” Aysel looked disgruntled, but it was clear she was too stuff
ed up to do anything about it. She gargled the last of her lukewarm lemon tea and stared at a spider on the ceiling.

  “We can recast the spell my mom put on me that brought me back,” Z said. “He helped me.”

  “So what’s in this spell you found?” Aysel asked.

  “Right!” Z looked down at the book again and squinted at the ingredients. “The main thing is unicorn blood, it looks like.”

  “That’s so expensive!” Aysel exclaimed. “Shit. They probably want it to be organic, too. I guess we have to go to the store.”

  “You should stay here,” Z said hastily. “You’re sick.”

  “Not so sick,” Aysel said, grinning and snuffling. Her nose was bright red.

  Z made a face. “Let’s make a list of the other stuff we need,” they said. They went over and got a notebook and copied down the rest of the ingredients. It took an obnoxiously long time because of how long it took to move their hands. “We’ll need a lot of bananas for some reason,” Z said.

  Aysel came over and looked at the recipe. “That’s just for flavor, probably,” she said. “And to make it seem exotic. When this came out it was probably the nineteenth century and bananas were très chic.”

  “Do you think we still need them?” Z asked. They could not imagine their mother mixing a bunch of bananas into unicorn blood.

  “It wouldn’t hurt,” Aysel said. “We have bananas here, though.” She tapped her finger on the paper. “We have some of the other stuff, too, like the ground licorice root and ginger. It’s mostly just the ground Himalayan enchanted turmeric and all that nonsense that we’ll have to go looking for.”

  They went out to the grocery store and somehow found everything except for tiger milk yogurt. Aysel managed to steal most of it in her coat. The cashier watched them suspiciously but didn’t say anything when they came through to buy just the turmeric and applesauce. Then they went to the health food store for the yogurt. The health food store was too small to get away with stealing something straight out, but the tiger’s milk yogurt was something awful like eighteen dollars for a big tub of it. It was a bit of a dilemma, and they kept pacing back and forth talking about what to do. Eventually Z sighed and dug the money out of their wallet and paid; it was almost the last of the money Z had saved up the previous summer walking dogs. Z wasn’t sure what they would do when it was gone.

  Z and Aysel brewed the potion on the floor of Aysel’s garage. When Azra got home, they told her it was a health potion to cure Z’s eczema. Azra still didn’t know Z was dead, or if she did she was too polite to say anything.

  After preparing the initial spell, the caster(s) must send a small energy pulse containing a drop of their own blood into the potion, the text read. This will allow the caster’s magic to be diverted into the companion’s body in a reliable way. It should be noted that once made, the seal can NEVER be broken, or the entire supply of the caster’s magic will be diverted through the body of the companion at once, causing magical tremors to disturb reality and potentially destroying both companion and caster, as well as anyone else around.

  “I guess I’m the caster,” Aysel said.

  “Is that okay?” Z asked.

  “Blood drinking, sharing magic, a bond that can only be severed by ripping apart reality . . . Pretty punk rock. This seems like it’s probably haram.”

  “What?”

  “Against Islam. Probably against a lot of other religions too. It’s chill, though. Either God’s cool with me saving my friend or he isn’t. Not gonna let that stop me.”

  “I don’t want you to do anything that’s against what you believe in,” Z said.

  “If God exists and is good, I know he’s cool with this. Saving a life is the most important thing. Don’t tell my mom, though. She’s a hippie but she would want to at least have a heartfelt discussion about consequences and smart life decisions and commitment and I’m so not ready to engage with that.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay with this?” Z asked. “It’s like, you’re sharing your magic with me to keep me alive. That might be a literal drain. And what if you get sick of me? Then I’m like a parasite.”

  “I have too much magic energy to begin with.” Aysel pricked her finger with a safety pin she had been wearing as an earring, and opened her hands to cast the energy pulse. Z watched her and felt a burst of something bigger than love in the middle of their stomach.

  The brew smelled really rank until the licorice and bananas were added. It turned an odd purple color in spite of the orange turmeric and bubbled sluggishly when the unicorn blood was poured in.

  When it was all done they realized they had to let it ferment for at least two days in a sealed glass container. Then a sigil was put into the body of the companion and the companion drank the brew four hours later. Z wondered how their mother had done it the first time, and when they’d been given the potion.

  A massive pulse of energy is sealed into the sigil at the moment of casting. If this energy is released at any point it will have an enormous destructive force, the text warned. Additionally, if the spell is tampered with by a third party and the seal breaks, the companion runs the risk of becoming a magical sink, draining magic from any immediate source around them and channeling it outward; the companion may not be able to control this magic, and it will either cause self-destruction or massive external chaos.

  “We should do it on the full moon,” Aysel said. “Then you’ll get a super huge dose of magic from me while the moon’s hitting me. You can be somewhere else, I think.”

  “It’s a good thing the full moon is this coming Monday,” Z said.

  8

  Aysel could feel that it was going to be a supermoon. Even though the clouds hung low and thick over the trees, Aysel could feel it pulling at her in the morning and the evening, tugging at her brain and her eyes and her stomach and arms and legs and hair, setting her teeth on edge and setting her shaking. She was sore in her bones. Her eyes did things to the light that made everything seem brighter than it was. When she watched TV it was bright, too bright. That usually only happened about thirty minutes before or after transformation. The perigee moon drew everything out. She tried to read, but everything in her felt like it was snapping and popping and buzzing and waiting. There was so much energy in her ready to sizzle out in a million directions.

  For the sigil on Z’s skin they used a temporary tattoo shaped like a moon. Aysel said the spell over it, and they both waited for something to happen, but nothing did.

  “I hope it works,” Aysel said. “Drink the stuff just when the moon rises.”

  Azra dropped Aysel off the night of the full moon just by the road, as she had the previous month. It had been warm during the day, so the snowfall of Friday was mostly gone.

  “Be good,” Azra said as Aysel got out and grabbed her duffel from the back. She seemed solemn instead of frantic, and this made Aysel even more scared. The car drove off down the road, gravel popping under its tires.

  In her sweatshirt and jeans, Aysel felt almost as if she didn’t have a body. The moon was just beginning to rise, and though it was freezing outside she was breaking into a sweat. She knew her temperature had been high for days; now it was burning hot. She staggered into the woods, loping in a way that even to her did not seem human. The dusk set in, cold and misty and wet, and the last rays of light faded fast from the blue-gray sky.

  Something else was happening, and Aysel felt sure that it had to do with Z and the spell. Whenever she moved, she felt a little spark like a fire left outside of her body, pulling vaguely at her back in the direction of town. She hoped that the spell would work even if she was not there with Z.

  Aysel saw something move out of the corner of her eye, and spun around fast, shining her flashlight on the ground and on the black branches of the trees above. She thought of the police. There was nothing—or whatever it was had moved. Aysel tried to tell herself that she was imagining things, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that there were huge things movin
g in the shadows. She walked on for a little before she heard, again, a cracking branch behind her.

  “I know there are other wolves out here,” she cried out loudly. “I am not hunting you. Just please, tell me who you are. I’m one of you.”

  There was a crackle of leaves and a thump in the distance, maybe a hundred yards away. Aysel was not sure whether to run toward it or away from it.

  It was about then that the moon came out from behind the clouds for an instant—or maybe the clouds just thinned enough for some streak of it to come through and stick to Aysel and her magic. Aysel felt the low shiver in her spine and the cramps. It was starting. The air was chilly and her hair frizzed and stuck to her face. She spat to keep it out of her mouth.

  Aysel could not keep track of her thoughts or which way they were spinning anymore. The moon radiated through her, transforming her up and out. Fur grew in billows from her forearms and thighs. Aysel forgot the things she had been worrying about before, and her mind cleared as if a cold wind was blowing through it. Everything became about the fur, the teeth, the claws, the hot blood in her boiling and transforming. Aysel cried out with something that was almost joy as her ears grew and her skull stretched into something alien. Her tongue grew long and the elated cry became a keening howl that was not human in tone. She rose up in the moonlight and then collapsed.

  It felt like a bonfire burned through her brain and then yanked her backward toward the road and town. Everything was distorted but Aysel could swear she saw light leaving from her body and moving away, flooding like water down a drain toward the river below. The river was Z. Make them okay, Aysel thought.

  Aysel lay on the ground longer than usual after this transformation, trying to grasp at her human mind. The wolf’s thoughts were almost completely dominant, but some strain of the girl remained. Gradually, as she caught whiffs of other creatures on the breeze, Aysel the wolf became aware that she was not alone.