Davie
I stood back and took in my handiwork. “I don’t think Thomas is gonna be able to handle you.”
Sofia smiled and rolled her eyes. “It’s good?”
“It’s good.”
She got up and went into the bathroom to look at herself. “Wow,” she said. “I didn’t know I could look like this.”
“Gorgeous?”
“Glamorous. I’m not glamorous.”
“You are tonight,” I said. “Get into your dress. Time for the whole package.”
She closed the bathroom door to put on the dress that was already hanging on the hook in there. While she was busy, I opened my closet and looked at my own dress. It was white, very short, with long sleeves and a low neckline. Too bad it probably wasn’t going to get worn. Fucking circle. Fucking Isaiah Lewis.
“How do I look?”
I turned from the closet quickly. “Goddamn.”
“Is that a good thing?” she asked. Even looking like a movie star, she was her same, insecure self.
“It’s a very good thing,” I assured her. I’d had to pretty much force the dress on her. I understood. It hadn’t been cheap, and people are trained to feel guilty about accepting gifts. I’d always found that stupid. I had access to all the money I wanted, courtesy of my father, who was the CFO for a tech company. He’d never question the expense of buying Sofia a new wardrobe and all new makeup. Even if he asked, I didn’t think he’d care. I might have gotten a lecture about not letting people grow to depend on me or whatever, but if I spun it as a project, he’d have been fine with it.
“It isn’t too much?” she asked, looking over her shoulder into the tri-fold mirror on the back of my closet door.
The cowl back of the dress was low, dropping almost to her tailbone. I’d styled her long, brown hair in an updo, but left a curling trail hanging down her back, accenting the bare space.
“Definitely not,” I said. “You look amazing. Go get your nerd and let the world see you.”
“Thanks,” she said.
“I told you, money isn’t a—”
“Not just for buying the dress,” she said. “Though thanks again for that, too. But for the hair and the makeup and…” She turned back to the mirror one more time. “Everything. I never would have had the confidence to even try a look like this without you pushing me.”
“Anytime,” I said. “Now go.”
She picked up her purse, a small clutch I’d picked out to go with the dress, and headed out the door.
“You did a very good job not getting hair all over auntie Sofia’s dress,” I told Pye.
He meowed his agreement, then rolled over and went back to sleep on my bed.
When I was sure Sofia hadn’t forgotten anything and wasn’t coming back, I got down to work. Every crystal had several potential properties. Those benefits were always available but, to get the most out of a stone, you had to charge it. Charging a crystal drew the specific property you wanted into stronger focus, pushing the others to the background.
I took the crystal over to my own side of the room, where I’d already prepared my supplies. A small, cast iron cauldron sat on my desk, filled with black sand. On top of the sand sat a disk of compressed charcoal, about an inch in diameter. Using a candle lighter, I held a flame to the edge of the charcoal until it caught, then watched as a thin line of sparks made their way across the disk.
I crushed a little bit of dried white sage onto the disk. In a normal college, this might have alerted an R.A. to come running; white sage, when burned, smelled a hell of a lot like weed. At OTA, though, the scent of white sage was both common and fully recognized.
My first step was to cleanse the crystal. I held the necklace by its cord and dangled it over the burning herb. I visualized the smoke breaking up any unwanted energies in the crystal, including the mind-shielding charge I’d added myself a few weeks earlier, disintegrating them. I lifted the quartz from the smoke and blew on it gently, this time visualizing blowing those broken-up energies away. I added some more crumbled sage to the charcoal, ran the crystal through it again, blew on it again. I did this one more time, then decided it was enough.
I moved from my desk chair to the floor. I held the newly-cleansed crystal in my right hand, and closed my eyes. After a few deep breaths, I called up energy from the Earth, feeling it come in through my root chakra, where my tailbone connected with the floor, and moving up my spine.
I concentrated on stopping the upward movement of energy at my solar plexus, feeling it gather and build at the chakra there. Once there was a good-sized ball of pure energy collected, I turned off the flow from the Earth. I concentrated on the ball of energy at my center. While it swirled there, waiting for instructions, I imagined Isaiah and I casting our circle successfully. I wasn’t sure what the circle was supposed to look like, so I just imagined us happy and proud, our circle solid and perfect.
Once I had that image clearly in my mind, I spoke to the crystal in my hand. “Tourmilated quartz, I call upon your powers to strengthen a circle cast between the worlds. I charge you, quartz, to reach out into the planes, allowing access to other realms. I charge you, black tourmaline, to anchor to the Earth plane. Together, black tourmaline and quartz crystal, you will facilitate the casting of strong, powerful circles. As is my Will, so mote it be.”
At those final words, I allowed the energy I’d gathered and charged at my solar plexus chakra to flow upward again. It moved through my torso, then down my right arm and into the crystal. Keeping my eyes closed, I visualized the crystal glowing with a bright, white light as the charged energy entered it. When it was finished, I could feel the crystal buzzing in my hand. The charge was complete.
I stood and dropped the long cord of the necklace over my head. I checked the time. It was about six-thirty; I still had a few minutes to put on some makeup and do something with my hair, just in case we finished in time to catch the end of the ball.
Once I was as ready as I had time to be, I used a small spoon to bury what was left of the charcoal. The sand in the little cauldron would choke it out, so it wasn’t burning unattended after I left the room.
I checked the contents of my bag one last time, making sure I had all the supplies I’d need, stepped into my shoes, and headed out. I looked at the floor the whole way out of the building. Davie Melon wearing casual clothes and workout shoes the night of the Samhain Ball was not something I felt like explaining fifty times on the way to the woods.
Isaiah
“So, you’re really not going to the ball?”
“Does it look like I’m going?” I asked, indicating my old jeans, Glass Animals tour shirt, and purple Converse All Stars.
Cabot didn’t spend time taking in the clothes. “It’s harder to believe Davie isn’t going.”
“It was her idea.” I shrugged. “She says if we manage to get the circle working in time, we can change clothes and still go late.”
“We, huh?”
“Not we. Just… both of us. Or just her, I don’t know. I thought it was an okay idea, going late, so I figured I would, too. But it’s not like…” Now that I thought about it, had she said, “we?” If we did get done in time and I changed clothes and went too, would she think I was intruding? Worse, think I was trying to be her date? I definitely didn’t need her thinking that. I considered the suit hanging in my closet, put together and ready to go, just in case we… “It’s not like we’re going to the ball as each other’s date or anything. We just might both go. Later. If we get this circle shit figured out.”
“Okay,” he said, smirking.
He looked in the mirror on the front of his closet door and cocked his head. “Do I look okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. To be fair, it was the first time I’d seen him wearing anything other than jeans and a T-shirt with something like Chewbacca on it since… well, probably since last year’s Samhain Ball.
“I’m still not used to the new glasses,” he said, adjusting them on his face. They were wire-framed, the lenses thinner, less chunky and conspicuous overall than his old plastic ones.
“They look good,” I said. I wanted to say they looked less nerdy than the old ones, but I wasn’t sure he’d see that as a good thing. “Sofia’s gonna be very happy with how you look. Assuming you ever go meet her, that is.”
“My hair’s okay?”
I was already running behind schedule if I wanted to beat Davie to our meeting spot. “Your hair is fine,” I said, since there wasn’t any help for the floppy mess anyway. “Has Sofia left yet?”
He glanced at his phone. “She texted she was leaving about a minute ago.”
“Better hurry, then.” If Sofia had left, Davie was done helping her get ready.
“Yep. See you later, maybe.”
“See ya.” I pulled my notebook out of my bag and sat down at my desk with it. I used a Sharpie to carefully copy the Janus Key from the notebook onto two sticky notes. I put one in the front pocket of my jeans, and the other in a back pocket. The one in my back pocket would be moved to the ground once I got to the site, assuming I got there in time.
I managed to beat Davie to the site, but I knew she could show up any minute. The space was as she’d described, close to the edge of the woods, no grass, dirt soft and loose enough to draw symbols in.
The trick was burying the sigil in a spot that would definitely wind up under our circle, but wouldn’t get accidentally exposed by the awl while we drew the symbols in the dirt. I had a solution for that, though.
I pulled a trowel from my backpack and dug a hole, a few inches deep, at the approximate center of the bare patch. After another quick check to be sure Davie wasn’t approaching, I pulled the sticky note with the sigil on it from my back pocket. I placed it inside the hole, sigil-side up, then piled the dirt back over it. I stamped my foot, packing the dirt down, then smeared out my footprints.
I tucked the trowel back into my backpack and pulled out two tent stakes, connected by a length of rope. I returned to the spot where I’d buried the sigil. I placed the tip of one stake right over the spot, and pushed it in.
“What are you doing?”
I jumped, startled, cringing internally at how guilty the reaction made me look. “Setting up,” I said. I held up the second stake, gesturing to the one now buried in the ground. “Compass line.”
“How far were you going to get without me?” She raised an eyebrow. Her hair and makeup were done, but she was dressed down, not even wearing high heels.
“I wasn’t going to start casting by myself, if that’s what you mean,” I said. “I just figured I’d get the compass line set up while I waited for you.” I chose my words carefully, putting ever so slight an emphasis on the word wait. Putting her on the defensive would keep her distracted from things I didn’t want her noticing. Like sigils buried in the ground.
“What did you bring?” she asked, gesturing to my backpack.
“The usual. Athame, wand, incense, censer, and lighter. I brought some candles, too, but I don’t suppose we’ll need them. And, of course, the compass line.”
“Is the line measured to the make the right size circle according to the directions?”
“Of course.” What did she think I was, new?
“I brought camp lanterns,” she said, dropping her own bag on the ground and squatting to dig through it. Her jeans had a floral pattern embroidered across the butt and down one leg. I didn’t think I’d seen her in jeans the entire time I’d known her. “So we can see without starting any forest fires.”
I registered shade; I’d said we wouldn’t likely need the candles, hadn’t I?
While she placed the battery-operated lanterns around the area, we made our decisions regarding who would do which piece of the circle. She was the only one with an awl, so she got to draw all the symbols. I drew the circle itself, using the compass line. I’d do the pass with the athame, she’d do the wand, then I’d do the incense.
We got the basic circle put together easily enough, as had been the case with every practice. The real test, as always, was the activation of the symbols inside the main circle.
We took our places at the ends of the line of symbols, me with my athame in hand, and her with her wand. We each aimed our respective tool at the outermost symbol and started sending energy.
I visualized the symbol before me absorbing the energy channeled through my athame. To my surprise, after a few seconds of visualizing the symbol glowing, it burst into life for real.
I heard a surprised intake of breath and glanced over to see Davie’s first symbol had also begun to glow.
I moved on to the next symbol. I sent energy into it, while still focusing on keeping the first symbol glowing. Soon, they were both alight.
I moved on to the third, and the fourth, working my way toward the center. Each time, I concentrated on activating the new symbol while also holding in my mind the image of the others, still glowing. Rather than becoming more difficult as the number of items I held in my mind grew, it got easier with each new symbol.
We reached the center at the same time and aimed our tools at the X. It burst to life, glowing even brighter than the others. We traced the line together, starting as a vertical through the center of the X, and moving toward the O at the center of the circle. By now, I could see the energy flowing out from my athame as clearly as the glowing symbols. I no longer had to make an effort to visualize; I could see the energy pouring from me and radiating from every part of the circle. It was actually, finally, working.
We reached the O at the end of the long line, at the very center of our circle, directly over where the Janus Key hid, offering its secret help.
Which is when everything changed.
Davie
By the time we reached the middle of the strip of symbols, which I’d carved into the dirt flawlessly, the blue-white energy flowing from my wand and Isaiah’s athame was not only visible, but brighter than my camp lanterns.
We drew a line of brilliant energy from the X in the middle of the line of symbols to the O at the center of the circle. A burst of light filled the entire circle, exploding out from the center point and filling the space with light.
I was mentally rehearsing all the things I was going to say about it having been my idea to work outside when I noticed a strange ripple in the air, just above the line of symbols. I barely had time to wonder what it was when it opened wide and something burst out.
Or, I should say, someone: a girl, about my age, tall and blond. She was disheveled, her eyes wild, her face smudged and smeared with the gods only knew what. She wore a long, red dress made of some rough, heavy fabric. There were twigs and leaves snarled through her long, wavy, blond hair and her bare feet were bruised black in places.
She rushed toward me, not stopping until her nose was an inch from mine. She stared into my eyes, though hers seemed a bit unfocused. Then, weirdly, she poked me. She jabbed me with a finger once, then again, her eyes growing even bigger and, if possible, crazier. She grabbed onto my upper arms and yelled. “Silence!”
“I didn’t—”
“Silence!” she yelled again, as though she couldn’t understand why I wasn’t getting it.
Then she turned and ran full speed across the grass, heading toward the Agora. She continued to shout “Silence!” into the night periodically as she ran.
I turned to Isaiah, who looked as confused as I felt. We stared at each other for several seconds before we both realized the same thing at the same time.
The circle dissipated and stopped glowing as we crossed its shining boundary, plunging us into the relative darkness of the lanterns.
“Where the unmitigated fuck did she come from?” I asked as we ran. Fuck, I hated running.
“No idea,” Isaiah said. I’d started running first, but he was already ahead of me.
“Who is she?”
“Davie, will you hurry up?” Isaiah’s lead on me was growing.
I put on a burst of speed, not willing to be outdone by him. If I didn’t die from the exertion, I was gonna be so fucking sore in the morning.
We reached the Agora and paused, looking around for the girl. The lamps along the walkways provided some light, but I struggled to make out much detail in the distance.
“Oh, shit,” Isaiah said, spotting her before I did.
My eyes followed his finger, pointed straight at the Admin Building.
Isaiah started running again. Heading toward the Admin Building, tonight, meant she was running straight into the Samhain Ball.
There weren’t many people in the Agora. A few moved along the walkways, on their way elsewhere, and there was a couple here and there on a bench or in the grass, too wrapped up in each other to notice us. I was grateful for this, both because we didn’t need witnesses to this girl’s presence and because I still didn’t want anybody seeing me running around in jeans on ball night.
Two guys making out on the ground near a tree definitely noticed, when the girl tripped over them. She went flying, bouncing onto the ground in an ungainly heap. We slowed our pace and watched. The guys sat up. One of them asked the girl if she was alright, while the other looked at him, offended. I’d have been offended, too, if my boyfriend had checked on the stranger who’d assaulted us before he checked on me.
The girl didn’t answer him. As she got back onto her feet, the old fashioned dress hiked up, revealing her feet weren’t the only part of her that were bare. The dress fell back down once she was standing, and she seemed unaware she’d just given everyone a clear view of everything she had.
As soon as she was upright, she was running again.
We resumed our chase. She regained her lead as we changed our trajectory, giving the guys, collecting themselves now and dealing with the tragedy of seeing unexpected girl parts, a wide berth. The last thing we needed was for someone to see us chasing her and ask us why.
That thought led to another. “Isaiah?”
He ignored me.
“Isaiah!”
“What? Will you shut up and run?”
“No, I fucking won’t. What are we gonna do if we catch her?”
He stopped running with no notice and I plowed into him. “The fuck?” he growled.
“Use your turn signal next time.”
“I didn’t turn.”
I rolled my eyes, unwilling to get into an argument over the semantics of my sarcasm. “Why’d you fucking stop?”
“Because… yeah. What are we gonna do?”
“Well, we’re about a hundred feet from the Admin Building. We can’t grab her and drag her back across the Agora, kidnap-style.”
“No, but she’s going inside. We can’t just—” And he was running again. He really needed to share his thoughts more. I took off after him.
The ballroom was situated on the main floor of the Admin Building, but you had to get past the lobby first. The lobby was much more heavily populated than the Agora, people taking a break from the noise and heat of the crowded ballroom milled around, drinking punch, flirting, fanning themselves as they cooled down from too much dancing. It wasn’t a dense crowd, but it was enough to see an obvious swath where the disheveled wild woman was shoving her way through. Isaiah and I followed, as I prayed to whatever gods cared about fashion and social status that nobody would recognize me.
We reached the ballroom doors just after the girl. She burst onto the dance floor and then repeated her bizarre cry. “Silence!”
And that’s exactly what she got. Everyone turned to look at this strange person who’d appeared in their midst. Even the music stopped, the band members staring at her in as much confusion as everybody else. If it had been later in the evening, the band’s set over and the DJ working instead, we might have gotten an actual record-rip noise. I snickered at the mental image.
Isaiah shot me a disgusted look, but it only made it harder not to laugh. I returned his look with one that said, This is me dealing with stress, asshole.
The girl stood in the middle of the dance floor, while everyone else stepped back, giving her room. Her eyes darted around, like she was looking for something. I wondered whether she was even seeing the ballroom, or something else entirely. What might her mind, addled by drugs, insanity, magick, or some combination of the three, be showing her?
We hung back, looking in from the doorway. Whatever we might have thought to do when we gave chase, it was too late now. Whispers started to build, as people speculated about what the hell was going on. She seemed to hear them, but I don’t think she understood what they were; she swatted at the air, as though the voices were gnats flying too close to her face. She shouted, “Silence!” again, then she ran back out of the ball the way she’d come in.
She pushed past Isaiah and me, and I stumbled into Professor Cooper, who’d been standing with Doctor Lang near the doors. “Sorry, Profess—”
But he didn’t even notice. He was staring past me, in the direction the girl had gone. He was always a fair-skinned guy, a few freckles notwithstanding, but at the moment he was stark white, the blanch in his skin noticeable even in the deep U of his receding hairline.
“—Are you okay?” I asked.
Again, he ignored me, though he did speak this time. He continued to look in the direction the girl had gone. “Kiara?”
© 2026 – Between the Worlds. Shared for preview purposes only, all rights reserved. You may print or save this post for personal use, but you may not re-post, re-share, or re-publish it it any way.
