Davie
I had six and a half hours on Friday between when Meditation class ended at ten-thirty and Magickal Healing began at five o’clock. I spent most of that time with my copy of the circle instructions. Markston hadn’t been exaggerating about these circles being unusual.
I wasn’t admitting to Isaiah I didn’t know what this circle was, or how to cast it. I’d spent four hours in the Library, only stopping to grab a quick lunch in the Dining Hall. I was now sitting on a bench in the Agora.
The OTA campus was laid out in a series of concentric circles. The inner circle, called the Agora, was basically a big park, with trees, gardens, walkways, an outdoor stage, and a couple of ponds. The Cardinal Buildings sat around the outside of the Agora like the points on a compass: the Library, the Student Building, the Administrative Building, and the Infirmary. Behind those were a ring of classroom buildings, then the student housing. Beyond that was staff and faculty housing, and the farms that supplied much of our food. The outer areas were mainly forest, mountains, and sea.
And did I mention the whole thing was in an another dimension? OTA existed in its own pocket dimension that we, its inhabitants, referred to as “the Bubble.” It was tethered to the Earth plane in the American Midwest, near a suburb of Barrow City called Greenvale.
At the center of the Agora sat a round building called the Portal House, named for the thing it contained: the main portal in and out of the Bubble. We had pretty much everything we needed inside the Bubble, but it was nice to get out sometimes.
Right now, the only thing I needed wasn’t available inside or outside the Bubble, and that was an explanation for this weird-ass circle. It wasn’t anything like the circles I was used to casting. Markston had said she was giving each pair something outside our usual wheelhouse, and I was pretty sure Isaiah was Wiccan, like me. This wasn’t a basic compass round from Traditional Witchcraft, either. I thought it might be something from Ceremonial Magick, but my knowledge there was too thin to be able to jump straight to the relevant information in those books and make much sense of it.
I was still reading when I noticed a shift in the light. I pulled out my phone to discover it was a quarter to five. “Shit sandwich with a side of fries!” I was going to be late for Healing class.
I took off running, stuffing the circle instructions into my messenger bag as I went. Being a top student, I could get by with being late occasionally, but I didn’t become a top student by missing chunks of classes.
I might have managed not to be overly late, had the heel of my boot not caught in a crack in the sidewalk. I wiped out, books and profanity flying. When I sat up, the heel was still stuck in the crack, no longer attached to my boot. I’d have probably sprained, if not broken, my ankle had it not given way, but that would have healed. My six-hundred-dollar boots, by contrast, were pretty much done for.
As was my dignity. I fumbled around on the ground, gathering up my books, papers, and tarot deck and stuffing them back into my bag. I was extra careful to be sure my circle instructions were there; I had no trouble imagining Isaiah refusing to make me another copy if I lost the first. I made a mental note to make myself a backup.
Once I had everything gathered up, I pried my heel out of the sidewalk and shoved it in the bag, too. I walked as fast as I could on one heel the rest of the way to class, hoping the blood from my scraped knee didn’t get on my skirt and ruin that, too.
I hobbled into Healing class a good fifteen minutes late. Dr. Lang looked up to acknowledge my arrival but, as expected, she didn’t bitch about it. I slid into a chair in the back and dug through the chaos in my bag for my digital recorder.
Lang’s lecture was already well underway. “This spell is one of the most important for a healer to have in their toolbox. It isn’t much use for major wounds, but it’s excellent for stopping bleeding in small to moderate cuts and scrapes.”
I found the recorder, a notebook, and a pen at last, and looked toward the front of the room, hoping Lang had written the name of the spell she was talking about on the board.
“Davie,” she said, catching my eye. She was smiling, but there was something smug in it, too. “Come up here, please.”
I almost fell again when I stood up, having forgotten momentarily I was missing a heel. I held up a finger, signaling give me a second, then pried the boots off. I walked, sock-footed but stable now, to the front of the room.
“Looks like you had a difficult trip to class,” she said.
I wasn’t sure whether the pun was intended or not, but I decided not to acknowledge it. “Kinda,” I said, understating the matter.
“Want that scrape fixed?”
I looked down to see my knee was still bleeding.
She had me sit on a tall stool, with my foot on another, so the knee was elevated for the class to see. Lang placed her palms together for a moment, then pulled them apart. She used her index finger to trace a symbol onto the palm of each hand, then aimed both palms toward the broken skin on my knee and held them there, about an inch shy of touching me. She repeated a short incantation at whisper volume, over and over.
My knee felt warm, then itchy, then like nothing. When she pulled her hands away again, there was still a smear of blood on my skin, but the scrape was gone.
She used a warm, damp towel from her podium to wipe the blood away, leaving my knee looking like nothing had ever happened. “How’s that feel?”
“Good,” I said. “Can you fix my boot, too?”
That got a laugh out of her, and a smattering of appreciation from the class. “I’m afraid the spell only works on living flesh,” she said. “You can go back to your seat now.”
I returned to my seat with my newly healed knee, and resumed taking notes for the rest of the lecture. The spell was called Lipson’s Knitting, named for the healer who invented it. Like a lot of healing spells, it was based on a foundation of Reiki energy healing, with an extra layer of more deliberate magick added in.
“This is one of the easiest spells you’ll learn in this class,” Lang said. But there’s a catch.”
She paused, waiting for someone to ask her what the catch was. I was a good student, but I didn’t tend to be the person who responded to cues like that. It seemed sycophantic somehow, buying into the performance of it. Or maybe I was just a bitch. Probably the latter, all things considered.
“What’s the catch?” asked Sylvan.
“You have to care.” She paused, giving the class a moment to consider this. “You’ll all see what I mean, because it’s time to practice. Everyone pair up.”
Lang’s classroom was set up like a science lab in a normal school, with two-seater high-top lab tables. I looked for Farrah Ming, who I usually partnered with, but she was already sitting with Roger Schilling. I looked around the room, until I made accidental eye contact with Ravi Gera, who was sitting alone as well. Seeing I was on my own, he gestured to the stool next to him, inviting me over.
I could not wait for this shit salad of a day to end. Baffling project from Markston, broken boot, humiliating wipe out in the Agora, late to class, and now I had to be partners with Ravi? Fuck this whole week.
I nodded to Ravi, but made him come to me, unwilling to parade around the room in my footie socks again. “Bet you already know this spell, huh?” Ravi asked as he settled in, used to my usual, high-level class performance.
I shrugged noncommittally, not willing to admit I’d never even heard of the spell beyond one short paragraph in the textbook. Lang appeared at our desk, set down two small boxes, then moved on.
“I’ve given each table a box of lancets and a box of alcohol wipes,” she said, once she’d returned to the front of the room. “You’re going to take turns pricking your finger with a lancet and healing each other with the spell. I know some of you are going to be squeamish about the lancets; prick each other instead of yourselves if it’s easier.” She reminded us to use each lancet only once then to drop it into the biohazard bin built into each lab table.
“You want me to go first with the lancet?” Ravi asked. “They don’t bother me.”
“Sure,” I said, regretting the response immediately. Letting him go first with the lancet meant I had to go first with the spell. I always went last if I had any choice; that way, I had a bar to clear.
Like most people, Ravi seemed to take me letting him go first as a favor. Idiots. He cleaned his finger with an alcohol wipe, then unwrapped one of the little weapons and jabbed himself with zero hesitation. He squeezed his finger until a single drop of blood welled up on the tip.
I followed the steps Lang had demonstrated and written on the board. I placed my palms together in what people tend to refer to as prayer position, though it had nothing to do with praying. I focused for a few seconds on the space between my palms, centering myself, getting ready to invite the healing energies to flow through me.
Next, I used my index fingers to draw the spell’s symbol, an X inside a circle, onto the palms of both hands. My palms tingled, though I wasn’t sure whether that was the flow of healing energy or just because drawing the symbols tickled.
Hoping it was the former, I held my palms about an inch over Ravi’s bleeding finger and visualized the energy healing the tiny cut. I repeated the spell’s incantation, the word enono, at whisper volume, the way Lang had. The tingling sensation faded after a few repetitions of the incantation.
I stopped, hoping the short duration was because it was such a tiny wound. Ravi wiped the blood from his finger with an alcohol wipe, then squeezed again. Another drop of blood appeared. Smaller than the first one but there, nonetheless.
“Goddammit,” I said, shaking out my hands to clear the energy that apparently wasn’t flowing anyway.
“You want to try again, or want me to go?”
“You go,” I said. I needed to confirm he couldn’t do the spell either, then we could start over. I wiped off my finger, then unwrapped a lancet. The idea of using the lancet hadn’t been particularly disturbing, and Ravi had made it look even easier than I’d expected. But once the thing was in my hand, I felt slightly nauseated by the idea of using it. I’d had blood tests via lancet at doctor’s appointments before, and knew it wasn’t a big deal, but doing it myself was too much. I hesitated long enough for Ravi to notice, adding sprinkles to the crap cone that was my week.
“Want me to do it for you?” There was no judgment in his voice, but he sounded too confident for my liking. I was the superstar here; other students were supposed to be intimidated by me, not offering help.
“Yeah,” I said, extending my finger. Motherfucking balls.
He pricked me with the efficiency of a nurse, giving the finger a squeeze like he’d given his own. “Sorry,” he said. “Habit. I don’t suppose this spell requires I squeeze the blood up.”
I tried to shrug, which was hard with him holding me by the finger. “Confirms the cut is there, I suppose.” Why was I trying to make him feel better?
I watched as he prepared to do the spell. Once the symbols had been traced onto his palms, he held them over my finger and closed his eyes. As he chanted the incantation my finger felt warm, then tingled, then the sensations faded. When I looked, the wound was gone.
He opened his eyes. He wiped off my finger and squeezed. No blood. He looked delighted; I felt nauseous again. I’d just been upstaged by Ravi Gera on a new spell.
I looked at the clock. There was time. “Let’s go again.”
We each took three more turns with the spell. By the third round, I at least had the tits to stab my own finger. I still couldn’t manage the spell, though, while Ravi did it every time. The second we were dismissed I was out the door, stomping up the hall, boots in hand.
When I got to the exit doors, I discovered it had rained while we were in class. Now I was going to get to walk back to the dorm in wet socks. The perfect end to a perfectly shitty week.
Isaiah
Engrave ye a moste strait line, running from the Nor’easterly corner to the Southeast.
I forked a whole ravioli into my mouth without looking up from the page beside my plate. The circle instructions for Markston’s project were an indecipherable mess, written in a strange, archaic dialect, and appearing to have been typed on an antique, manual typewriter. The formatting was bad, the wording was dense and terrible, and the circle itself was the weirdest thing I’d ever seen. I had to figure it out before Davie and I started working together; there was no way I was admitting I didn’t understand the assignment.
“Room for two more?”
I looked up to see Cabot and Sofia, dinner trays in hand. “Sure,” I said, my eyes going straight back to the baffling pages.
Commencing at the Southeast, engrave a similarly strait line ending at the Southwest. Make ye a line from the Southwest towardes the Nor’west. Engave ye a very strait line from there to the Nor’east.
The instructions were saying to draw a square inside the circle. I thought. It was way too many words, written in way too strange a fashion to be sure. Stupid project.
Take ye the length o’ one foote, from the Northernmost edge and towardes the direction of the South, and engrave ye a strait line in parallel situationment with the firste.
I looked up, needing to see something besides the ridiculous pages for a while. “Cabot,” I said, surprised to see him. “Hi, Sofia. When did you guys get here?”
Sofia raised an eyebrow.
“You talked to us when we sat down,” Cabot said. “Like five minutes ago.”
“Oh.”
“What are you working on?” Sofia asked. “It must be pretty interesting.”
I sighed. “Not sure ‘interesting’ is the word I’d use.”
“Is that the project Markston paired you with Davie on?” Cabot asked. He sounded way too amused.
“How do you even know about that?” Another conversation I’d forgotten having?
“Davie told me,” Sofia said. “Well, maybe not told me so much as slammed things around the room yelling and cursing, but I was able to glean the general idea.”
“Sounds about right,” I said.
“What’s Markston got you two doing that’s causing Davie to throw tantrums?” Cabot asked.
“We’re supposed to be casting a circle together, but it’s the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen. Markston said she gave us all circles outside our usual traditions and experience, but this is just…” I trailed off, suddenly remembering Sofia was Davie’s roommate. I wasn’t sure how well they got along, but they talked. I couldn’t have Sofia telling Davie I was having trouble figuring out the circle. “It’s weird.”
“Have you worked on it with Davie yet?” Cabot asked.
I shook my head. “Not yet. We only got the assignment yesterday. I’m trying to fig—” Again, I caught myself before admitting confusion in front of Sofia. “I’m trying to work as much out for myself as I can first. I’d prefer to spend as little time as possible working with Davie Melon.”
“You wanna try it with me?” Cabot suggested.
Cabot had recently discovered his primary talent was magickal arts, not psychic arts, but he hadn’t switched tracks yet. “But you don’t—”
“I haven’t taken any magick classes yet, no,” he said. “But maybe that’ll help.”
“How?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes the best way to learn is by teaching. Explaining to me will force you to break things down.”
It sounded to me like a good way to slow things down, but it wasn’t like I was making any progress anyway. Cabot and I had missed our usual Thursday night movie this week due to his party; I supposed we could use some roommate hang time if nothing else. I shrugged. “Okay. When do you want to do it?”
He turned to Sofia.
“I’ve got plans with Daniel after dinner.”
Looking at me, he asked, “How’s now?”
Davie
I paused outside the door to Earth House to pull off my nasty, wet, muddy socks. I walked into the building barefoot, and headed straight for my room. I dumped the filthy socks into the hamper, and let my broken boots drop to the floor beside it. I’d get the heel fixed at some point, but right now it was too much to even contemplate.
I went into the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror. I was Davie Melon. I was the star pupil, the trendsetter, the super witch. Why did I feel like the loser new kid with a bad haircut and weird clothes? I turned away from the mirror, not even wanting my own reflection to see me cry.
I indulged my frustration for maybe five minutes, sitting on the lid of the toilet and crying out my shitty week into a big wad of toilet paper. When I heard Sofia come into the room I stood up and wiped my face. I hadn’t expected her back so early, dammit.
I looked in the mirror again, checking myself for obvious signs of distress. My eyes were bloodshot, and my whole face was puffy. I washed my face, hoping the lack of makeup would distract from the real reason I looked like a mess. Now that she’d learned to control her telepathy and stay the hell out of people’s heads, I just needed to keep her from noticing my red, swollen eyes and I might be good. “I thought you were hanging out with Daniel?”
“I did. He just wanted help dying his hair. What’s with you? You look miserable.”
So much for my face-washing ruse. I wasn’t interested in talking about my fee-fees, and I’d have probably burst into tears again if I’d tried to recount my shit-monster of a week in any detail. So instead, I deflected. “This week sucked. It’s Friday. We need to go out.”
“Out?” Out where?”
I could tell what she was thinking. We had pretty much everything we needed inside the Bubble: food, shelter, books. But there wasn’t much in the way of entertainment, at least not the non-educational kind. There were parties, and public social events from time to time, like the guest lectures we had every Wednesday, and the Samhain Ball coming up in a little over a week but, for the most part, well, it was school. We needed to go out-out. I needed that more than I could explain. “We’re going to Changeling.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a club, a little past Greenvale.”
“Like the Bean?”
The Blessed Bean was a combination coffee shop and bar on the main strip in nearby Greenvale. “Oh, no. We’re going dancing.”
She made the exact face I’d expected. It was bad enough I’d been saddled with a roommate after a month of having a room to myself; did the Universe really have to give me an introvert on top of everything else? “N—”
“Yes, we are. You need an excuse to wear some of your new clothes anyway.”
“I’m wearing them now,” she argued, gesturing toward her jeans and lightweight orange sweater. It was nothing fancy, but better than the beige bullshit she’d come to school with. I’d dragged her out and forced a whole new wardrobe on her last week, and I was damned well going to call in that uninvited favor now by making her wear some of the nicer things.
I went to her closet and pulled out a short, red skirt and a long-sleeved cream top. A black camisole would have looked better than the cream top, but I knew I’d have to baby-step her into wearing things like that in public. I shoved the clothes at her, hangers and all. I dug out some sparkly tights and a pair of black heels I was sure were too tall for her. “Get dressed,” I said. “I’ll do your makeup after.”
A little over an hour later, we were on our way. She’d checked in with Cabot, probably hoping he’d give her an excuse to stay home, but he had plans with Isaiah and told her to have fun.
There was a line at the Portal House. I looked around at the walls as we waited. Alongside the mundane light fixtures and a couple of security cameras hung posters for the upcoming Samhain Ball, as well as the standard reminders to be careful with library books taken out into the world and the chart giving sunrise and sunset times for inside and outside the Bubble.
When it was our turn, we entered the main room at the center of the Portal House. Two columns and a connecting arch stood in the middle of the room, nearly as tall as the domed ceiling high above. Within the arch, the air appeared to ripple, blurring and obscuring the view, so the other side of the room wasn’t visible.
We stepped forward, walking under the arch. I felt Sofia tense a bit beside me as we went through; she hadn’t been at OTA long enough to be used to this. To be fair, it was a weird sensation, like the drop of going down an unexpected, steep hill while driving a bit too fast on a country road.
When we emerged on the other side we appeared to have merely crossed the room, but that wasn’t the case. We were now in the other portal room, the one inside the Terrestrial Building, which sat at the center of the Terrestrial Campus.
We left the building, passing a security guard at a desk near the main doors and stepping out into air a good deal chillier than what we’d left behind. There were plenty of students present, but rather than milling around and socializing like they would on a real campus, everyone here was moving in one direction: out.
Sofia and I walked through the big, copper gate and continued along the narrow road. A few people drove by in cars. Not many students had cars, but every time I made the trek into the ‘Vale I thought about it. It was only half a mile, but that was more than far enough with the kinds of shoes I tended to wear. I hadn’t made the trip often in my first year at OTA, since things were still a bit dicey from the pandemic. This year, though, I expected to be going out more and more, and I preferred not do so on foot in high heels.
I wasn’t the only one thinking along these lines, it seemed. “Are we walking all the way there?” Sofia asked, tripping over a crack in the sidewalk.
“Oh, hell no. Once we get to the ‘Vale, we’re taking the bus.”
The bus stop was on the edge of the Blessed Bean parking lot. I considered stopping in for a latte for the trip, but I didn’t want to waste the time. The bus only came out this far until a little after one o’clock and, in my experience, the few ride share drivers willing to come this far north that late at night weren’t people you wanted to get into a car with. Unless we wanted to walk about three miles in high heels, we needed to get there early enough that leaving an hour before closing time wasn’t a goddamn tragedy.
“So, what’s this place like?” Sofia asked as the bus lurched into motion.
I smiled. “It’s awesome. Huge dance floor, great atmosphere. I’m not sure the music is anything you’re used to, but I think you’ll like it. There’s a theme to it all, you’ll see.”
She looked at my outfit. I wore a simple white dress, short and light, with a daisy chain belt and a long, flowered scarf. Another chain of silk flowers ringed my head, while still more were clipped here and there throughout the length of my long, straight, brown hair. I’d gone with bright colors in my eyeshadow, bright yellow spike heels, and a watch with a daisy for a face. “What’s the theme?” she asked. “Come hither, hippie?”
I laughed. Come hither, hippie was a pretty good description of my everyday look, albeit with a designer leaning. “Not quite. Faerie.”
From the look on her face, I knew what she was thinking.
“Not like that bitch, Tinkerbell. Real faerie. You’ll see.”
Several minutes later, the bus slowed and pulled into a parking lot. “That… doesn’t look like what you described.”
Ivy covered a good seventy percent of the slightly listing building. It looked kind of like the Blessed Bean, but smaller and older, made from rough-cut wood and grey stones. Behind it, a high stone wall extended out well past the building itself in both directions. “Trust me,” I said, smirking and standing up to exit the bus.
Isaiah
“This is cool!” Cabot said, looking around.
“You’ve never seen the practice rooms before?” The empty room was about twelve feet square, with a narrow shelf running around the walls and a closet containing a few basic supplies. Each of the four walls had a single letter painted on it: N, S, E, and W.
“I haven’t, no. Do we get to draw on the floor?” The most useful feature of the practice rooms was the chalkboard floor, perfect for drawing circles, symbols, or whatever you needed for your working.
“Yep.” We dropped our bags in a corner, and I took a box of white chalk and a coil of thin rope from the supply closet.
Cabot watched as I knelt down in the middle of the room. The rope had a metal tip, like the end of a shoelace but about two inches long, which I inserted into a small hole at the center of the floor. I slipped a stick of chalk through a loop at the other end of the rope, creating the perfect compass for circle-drawing.
I uncoiled the rope to its full four-and-a-half foot length, then went to my backpack to retrieve the instructions.
Cabot looked at the pages over my shoulder. “Are circles always this complicated?”
“No,” I said. “If it’s part of a religious ceremony, like a Wiccan ritual, there can be a lot of scripting and theatre, but that’s not what this is. This is ten full pages of detailed instructions; I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“What’s different about it from a regular circle?”
I hesitated. “How much have you read about circles so far?”
“Not a lot,” he said. “I know they’re cast for working magick inside of, and I get the impression that’s for protective purposes, but nothing I’ve read yet has gone into much detail about them or has given any how-to.”
“Time for a quick one-oh-one then. You’re right, circles are cast for working magick, and one of their purposes is protection. Different traditions and disciplines use them for different things, though. I grew up in a Wiccan family, so my main experience with circles is in religious rituals. There’s a certain amount of protection there, but mostly the circle is cast to establish sacred space and to hold energy until it’s released.”
He didn’t interrupt, but I could see the questions on his face.
“In this context, sacred space is an area that’s been purified and dedicated, either temporarily or permanently, to sacred purpose. Christians build churches; Wiccans cast circles.”
“So where does protection come in?”
“A typical part of a Wiccan ritual is raising energy together, which the circle contains until it’s released at the end of the ceremony. Some people believe that energy can attract unwanted entities. I’m not sure how often that actually happens but, if and when it does, the circle can provide a protective barrier.
“Some magicians, though, deliberately call up some pretty scary stuff in their workings, and they need the protection. For them, the circle really is necessary as a protective barrier. The way I understand it, once a ceremonial magician starts a working, that circle barrier is the law to them.”
“It’s not to Wiccans?”
“Not especially. We try to keep it to a minimum but, for example, if you’re about to start the ritual and the High Priestess realizes she forgot the wine, she can use her athame—that’s a ceremonial knife—to cut a doorway shape in the circle and walk right through. When she comes back, she redraws it the other direction, and seals the circle right back up.”
“So, why even do the doorway? Is it too solid to walk through?”
“No, the circle is just energy. But if you walk through, it pops the bubble and the energy dissipates. Cats and little kids seem to be able to come and go, but adult practitioners break the circle if they walk through it.”
“Why can’t you just jump over the edge?”
I’d left out an important piece of circle basics. “Because the circle drawn on the ground isn’t the actual thing. We call it a ‘circle,’ but it’s really a bubble of energy, shaped sort of like an egg. When a circle is drawn on the floor, it’s to help with visualization while casting, and to let people see where the edge is. People casting circles in their homes or dorm rooms, places where it isn’t possible or practical to draw on the floor, don’t even bother.
“More elaborate circles, like ceremonial magick ones, involve a bunch of symbols, writing, sometimes additional shapes, and those are all part of the casting. With those, the writing on the floor is necessary, but it still isn’t the circle itself. They’re all bubbles of energy that the witch or magician works inside of.”
As I talked, Cabot flipped through the pages Markston had given us. “So, this one is a ceremonial circle of some sort?” he asked.
I shrugged and made a noncommittal noise.
“It says at the end if it’s cast properly, it’ll be visible. Is that normal?”
“No. Some people with a lot of psychic talent can see a circle, and a well-cast circle will sort of mute light and sound in both directions, but it isn’t a solid thing. I’ve never heard of a circle being objectively visible the way these instructions suggest. You ready to try it and see what happens?”
He was.
I reached into my backpack and pulled out my athame, wand, a few sticks of incense, and a lighter. I placed them on the floor in the middle of where the circle would be.
There wasn’t going to be much for Cabot to do, but I figured I’d try to find places where he could help. I used the chalk line to draw the outer circle, then set the rope on one of the shelves along the walls, pulling the chalk out of the loop and bringing it back with me.
I read over the first section of the directions again, which wasn’t any different than a normal circle. I picked up the athame and stood at the edge of the chalk ring, facing the wall marked E. I visualized energy coming up from the Earth, through the floor, and into me. Pointing the tip of the blade toward the chalk circle, I sent the energy up, through my right arm, and out through the athame. I walked, clockwise, around the circle’s edge, creating a ring of energy.
Once I reached the spot where I’d begun, I dropped the tip of the blade, cutting off the energy flow. “Can you see that?” I asked. The discovery that Cabot had magickal talent had involved the awakening of a natural ability for metamagick, which meant he could literally see magick.
“Yeah.”
“What’s it look like?”
“You can’t see it?”
“Nope. I’m visualizing, so I know where it is, and I can feel the energy shift in the room, but I can’t see magickal energy like you can.”
“It looks like… This is going to sound weird, and I’m sure there’s a better way to describe it, but it sort of looks like gel toothpaste.”
“Huh?”
“Like I said, there has to be a better analogy, but it’s sort of that color, shiny blue-green. Not as solid, and it’s bigger, about…” He held out his hands about a foot apart, indicating a round shape. Like you’ve squeezed out a ring of glowing gel toothpaste from a giant tube.”
Interesting. “Okay, then. Next step.” I set down the athame and picked up the wand. My wand was old school; a stick from a hazelnut tree, just under a foot long, and naturally twisted. I’d worked copper wire into the twist, wrapping it along the shaft, ending in a tight wrap that covered the connection with a simple quartz point at the end. That was it. Nothing fancy, but cool looking and quite functional. I’d never seen Davie’s wand, but I assumed it was some commercially-produced thing that looked like a movie prop.
I returned to the East wall, this time aiming the tip of the wand at the glowing ring of magickal toothpaste I couldn’t see. I made another circuit, using the wand to direct the energy into shape. As I walked, I visualized the energy spreading up and over, as well as down under us, on the other side of the floor, enclosing us in a bubble. Once my second pass was completed, I returned again to the center. “Now what’s it look like?”
“It’s all around us now, kind of smeared-looking. You ever go through one of those drive-through car washes?”
I had.
“You know how it looks when the foam is squirted on, so the windows are covered with it? It’s sort of like that. It’s all over, but not evenly distributed. And it’s still the same color, but lighter now that it’s spread out.”
That tracked with the step we were on. I picked up three incense sticks and the lighter. I lit the tips of all three at once. I stuck the lighter into my pocket while they burned for a few seconds. Once the tips were all glowing bright orange, I gave them a hard shake to extinguish the flames and again returned to the eastern edge. I made a final trip around the circle, this time visualizing the smoke from the incense filling in the gaps, marrying the energy and solidifying the circle.
“Wow,” Cabot said without being asked.
“Yeah?”
“It’s smooth and flat now, all one color, and glowing. It’s amazing. You’re gonna ace your project.”
“Unfortunately,” I said, sticking the ends of the still-burning incense into the hole in the floor at the center of the circle. “This isn’t the whole project. This is just the outer circle, and there’s nothing special about it.”
He continued to look up and around in amazement. “This isn’t anything special?”
I shook my head. “This is the same type of basic circle I’ve been casting since I was thirteen.”
“So, what comes next?”
I picked the instructions back up. This was where things got weird. “I don’t understand the rest of it at all, and the instructions don’t explain it. Let’s see what happens, I guess.”
I picked up the chalk and walked to the spot halfway between the East and North.
Engrave ye a moste strait line, running from the Nor’easterly corner to the Southeast.
I drew the straightest line I could manage, from left to right. Then, continuing to follow the directions, I did the same along the South, then West, then North, squaring off the circle. I directed Cabot to stay inside the square part now, as I continued to follow the words on the page.
I added a second line to the eastern edge, about twelve inches inward from the first, creating a long, narrow rectangle. This was where it got tricky. Inside this foot-wide strip, I was supposed to draw a line of detailed symbols I’d never seen before.
I copied the unfamiliar symbols as faithfully as I could manage. The final symbol was to be drawn at the center of the narrow rectangle, an X with a vertical line through it. That vertical line was then to be extended to the center, ending in an O. I drew the little circle around the hole in the floor, pulling out and pocketing the leftover stick ends from the incense, then stood up to take in my handiwork. “So, what did that look like?” I asked Cabot.
He shrugged. “Nothing.”
That was disappointing, but not a surprise. I hadn’t been doing anything deliberately magickal that time, just copying drawings from the pages. “Okay,” I said, scanning the next page. “Time to activate these symbols, which the instructions say takes two people. I know most of what you know is just theory, but let’s see what we can do. Stand at the end of this rectangle thing. Be careful not to step over the edge of the circle and pop it.”
He nodded, taking his spot by the opposite end of the narrow rectangle of symbols. I handed him my athame, keeping the wand for myself. I stood at the opposite end of the rectangle. “Okay, now, aim the point of the athame at the first symbol inside the rectangle.” I did the same at my end, using the wand. “Have you practiced raising and sending energy?”
“I’ve tried.” The uncertainty in his voice wasn’t encouraging. “My instinct is to use already-existing energy, since that’s how metamagick works. Raising energy of my own doesn’t come as naturally, but I’ve read the theory and practiced a bit.”
“Good enough,” I said, though it probably wasn’t. I really wanted to know what I was doing with this circle before practicing with Davie. “Try it now. Bring up some energy from the Earth, visualize it moving through the floor and into you. Imagine it moving through your body, through your chakras, and then down your arm and out the tip of the blade.” He’d know about chakras from his Psychic Arts classes and from Meditation class; I hoped switching to a magickal context didn’t throw him.
He nodded, seeming to understand.
“Send the energy into the first symbol. You might be able to see it glowing for real but, if not, visualize it. Do the same with the second, then the third, and so on. We’ll meet in the middle.”
He did as instructed. I went through the symbols on my side of the circle, sending energy into each, visualizing it glowing, then moving on to the next. When we reached the X in the middle, I said, “We’re both aiming for this final symbol together. Once it’s glowing, draw the tip of the blade along the line toward the center of the circle.”
“What’s supposed to happen then?”
“I have no idea.”
We did the final step, aiming the energy at the X, then moving along the line towards the O around the hole in the floor. “Is it glowing?” I’d avoided asking throughout the process, but I couldn’t resist this time.
“Sort of,” he said. “The symbols are flickering a bit, but it’s nothing like watching you cast the outside circle. Which… shit.”
All of a sudden, the temperature in the room dropped a few degrees, and the air felt lighter. I could hear the noise of people walking in the hall outside, the mechanical hum of the building’s ventilation system.
The circle was broken.
“I’m so sorry,” Cabot said. “I think that was me.” He looked behind him and, indeed, his foot was halfway across the chalk line.
“It’s okay,” I said, once I thought I could speak without barking at him. “It’s your first circle, and I distracted you by talking. This is what practice is for. You feel up to giving it another try?”
He did. I cast the outer circle again, careful not to smudge the inner symbols lest I have to re-draw them all. If I could avoid that, the second try would be a lot quicker.
I managed to get the circle cast without messing up the symbols, and we started activating them again. We’d only gotten halfway to the center symbol when the circle broke, this time with no apparent cause at all. The third time I stepped on the chalk symbols halfway through and smeared them, causing the whole thing to fail yet again.
“Okay, I’m calling it,” I said. “Thanks for helping, but I’ve had it.”
“Sorry,” Cabot said.
“No, no, it wasn’t you.” Not just him, anyway, but I knew how that would come out. “We got a lot of practice in. It was my first try with this weird-ass circle, and your first time with any circle. Let’s pack up and get out of here. We’ll watch a movie or something.”
“Sounds good.” Cabot said. I put all the tools and supplies I’d brought back into my bag and returned the rope and chalk to the closet. I grabbed a mop—really a big eraser on a long handle—and cleared away the circle and symbols from the floor. “How about—”
“You’re not picking the movie,” I said, cutting him off.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not in the mood for Star Wars.”
“I was gonna say—”
“—Or Lord of the Rings.”
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