- Jessa Lucas
- Jan 7, 2021
- 9 min read
Chapter One
No Common Séance
There comes a moment in every young witch’s life when she must choose what kind of witch she will be: a good one or a bad one.
Now, I still don’t know how that moment is going to pan out for me, but tonight is at least definitive proof that I am heading in the wrong direction.
“Are you sure you wanna do this?” Sabbath asks, the candlelight guttering across her face in the room we’ve shared since we were ten. “I mean, I just have this feeling it’s a really bad idea.”
“Of course it’s a bad idea,” I retort.
The last of the salt granules crumble from between Sabbath’s fingers, landing in her perfectly formed protection circle. Her eyes slant toward me, and she reluctantly hands me the smudge stick. Maneuvering a quick sign in the air, I invoke a small flame and watch as it eats away at the edges of the sage leaves, an earthy smell drifting into the room.
Step One: To perform a séance free from dangerous paranormal activity, one must first cleanse the room by banishing all negativity.
Sage prevents any spirits with resentful intentions from accidentally seeping into our realm, which is definitely a concern tonight, considering we are holding this totally unsanctioned séance with the sole purpose of communing with one of the most nefarious villains in witching history.
(Bad witch, here I come.)
With a quick breath, I blow out the flame and watch as the smoke curls up into the crevices of our vaulted ceiling. The wood floor groans as I move about our room, my hand waving to and fro with dramatic sweeps to encourage the smoldering sage to work its magic. Literally.
The wisps of smoke hang lazily in front of the tapered cathedral windows, where just beyond, the Eiffel Tower sparkles behind the dense silhouette of Stillwood. We’ve lined the window sills with a thick bar of salt, too—just in case we happen upon some spirits who’re particularly eager escape artists tonight.
Probably, if I were being honest with Sabbath, this is one of the worst ideas I’ve had in my short seventeen years on Earth. Two seventh-year witchlings with not a single successful summoning to their names, trying to harness the powers of the ancestors on All Hallows’ Eve?
Sure. No biggie.
On the other side of the room, she frets. “I’m really not sure, Mika. There’s just so much power tonight. We’re probably better off trying—”
“This is the last Samhain we have before the Claiming,” I cut her off before she can protest, which is not what best friends are for, in my opinion. “It might be my only chance to get answers. And you know nothing else has worked, Sab.”
It was true.
Not the tea leaves, not the truth spells, not the part where I’d tried to muster the courage to have a real conversation with my dad.
Not even the last two séances under the haughty, overrated gaze of the full moon. In fact, I’d spent most of my last year at Spellfall Academy of Enchantment trying to half-heartedly dredge up the past, asking questions I’ve spent my entire life stuffing into the recesses of my mind. There in the depths, a repressed imagination conjured a doorway to my history that I never dared touch.
Except now, time is running out. That door will be forever sealed after the Claiming. At the end of this year, we’ll sign away authority over our powers to the High Council, inherit a large portion of communal magic, and become official members of international witching society. Proper, theoretically respectable “Witches of the Covenant.”
This would be fine and everything, if the growing sense of urgency hadn’t gnawed away at my resolve to ask zero questions.
Unfortunately, the people who wrote the history books didn’t really tend to be all that sympathetic toward treachery. It seems now that the only viable option left is to have a little post-mortem chat with the one witch responsible for the shifty side glances and salacious whispers my presence has caused for the better part of my existence—Pandora Kathrynn Carrow.
Known affectionately as Kat to her former friends, and re-characterized as “Pandora” in all the history books—appropriately so, because boy did she open up a box of something—the formidable witch we mean to contact tonight had once, long ago, simply been known as “Mom” to me.
With the room cleansed and the protective measures in place, Sabbath and I sit cross-legged, just outside the ring of salt. Fortified by a fortress of books, she locks eyes with me from across the other side of the circle.
Leaning forward, I place the final candle. Three candles for three souls—mine, Sabbath’s, and mother dearest’s.
Assuming my mother has a soul left, of course.
Previous experience, however, leads me to believe that her spirit is not to be reached unless we have an army of a thousand ancestral souls with us to greet her at the gates of Hell. Thus, while it is exceptionally idiotic to try this hard to get kicked out of school before it’s even started, tonight is my last chance.
So, yeah. Talk about a cauldron of worms.
Looking at me uncertainly, Sabbath breathes in deeply.
“You’ve read all the books,” I remind her. “We’ve done everything according to your three different historical references,” I point at the assembly of textbooks that have been swept open, instructions poured over a hundred times.
“I’ve performed exactly zero effective séances, Mika.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” I shrug. I know I should listen to Sabbath. She’s the thoughtful to my reckless, and despite her caution, she wants me to have the answers I need. She wants the answers, too.
“I’m on your side, you know.” She smiles weakly. “I’m just really nervous. You know I don’t do this.”
“Same,” I swallow. It’s a different kind of “same”—but similar. Sabbath doesn’t do magic that’s suspicious, and I don’t ask questions about my mom. Tonight, we’re both out of reach of our comfort zones.
Taking a deep breath, I confess, “And I’m nervous, too.” My voice is raspy with the admission. I’ve spent so long anticipating the contact won’t work, that the idea it actually could is just now hitting me. “I have no—like, no idea—what she could even say to make it better. What I could say.”
Sabbath’s lips tilt up in a gentle smile. “You don’t have to know. Your reaction isn’t going to hurt her. She’s dead. So, just be you.”
Step Two: Place an item of special significance in the circle’s center, so that when the spiritstorm begins, the soul you wish to meet will enter.
Gently, I push the old music box between the candles. I’m not sure if it had any meaning to my mother, but it’s the one thing of hers that my father hasn’t destroyed. I saved it, before it burned like the rest of her things.
After staring at it a moment, I pop the lid open, the haunting melody dissolving into the air with a sort of eeriness that’s only roused by the pang of forgotten nostalgia. It’s been a long time since I heard the trill of these notes, underscored by that grating churn of the revolving cylinder. I’ve spent a great many nights dreaming of it, though.
Sabbath’s soft brown eyes burn in the golden light like molten honey, but they’re full of worry.
“It’ll be okay,” I say certainly, just as a shiver creeps up my spine. A warning against making promises I can’t keep.
“It’ll definitely be fine,” she agrees.
It’s just a séance, after all. It’s not like we’re advanced enough to summon any version of a spirit solid enough to reach out and touch us. The salt is a precaution.
“You ready, Mika?” She’s breathless, her coiled curls back-lit by the stars.
I nod, clenching and unclenching my sweaty palms, rubbing them against my thighs. Carefully, I steady the words hanging on my lips, fearful they’ll be a poison to me if I speak them aloud.
Why did you kill them, Mom?
The question hangs over my entire life, like a noose trembling unassumingly in the breeze, waiting for me to mount the scaffold and walk toward an end I’ve never understood. It’s these five words that seem to crawl up my throat, always halting on the edge of my tongue.
And tonight, I’m finally going to ask them.
“Step Three,” I recite, having practically memorized the directives dictated to me by Sabbath. “With lights dimmed and candles bright, think on the soul you wish to contact this night.”
Taking a deep breath, I grab both of Sabbath’s hands. My fears are reflected in her eyes. Will I be terrified of my own mother, like I was in those last awful moments? Or will she smell like cinnamon and feel like candlelight, the way I remember she had in the fleeting moments I bother to remember her at all?
“Answers, and then pumpkin spice lattes. Deal?”
“Answers and pumpkin spice lattes,” I echo with a weak grin.
The infamous Pandora Carrow and her secrets might be my first biggest weakness, but my second is pumpkin spice flavored caffeine, and I don’t care who knows it.
Once Sabbath’s eyes blink closed, a deathlike calm comes over the room. Even the writhing flames seem to still their dance. The space grows cold and the air stagnant, pulsing with the beginnings of magic.
It’s just us, the ritual, and our best intentions.
The instructions crawl across my mind silently.
Step Four: To invoke a spirit, use sure words when you call out. To greet a thing beyond death, you mustn’t have any doubt.
“Spirits of our forbearers,” Sabbath begins, her voice low and commanding. “We ask for you to draw near to us tonight, on the Eve of Samhain—our holiest night—to honor us with any measure of power you desire to grant us as we appeal to the world beyond. We call upon the spirit of Pandora Carrow—”
“Sabbath,” I interrupt with a hiss. “Should we… I mean, should we call her Kat? It’s what my dad called her.”
“Ah. Yes, you’re right,” she nods, eyeing me carefully. I swallow as Sabbath closes her eyes again, resuming her performance. “We call upon the spirit of Kat Carrow, asking her to leave behind the darkness of death, and come commune with us in the light.”
I wait for a great gust of wind or a stirring of power. After a moment, I blink one eye open. “Is it work—”
Sabbath hushes me, eyes still closed, her chin tilted up as she sits with perfect posture, a portrait of witchly elegance. “Spirit of the unliving, come and move among us…”
The words emerge from me slowly, working to sync up to Sabbath’s. “Ghost of the lost, from death we call you thus. Spirit of the unliving, come and move among us...”
The cadence sparks with an indescribable potency, energy sweeping into the room. My magic is being pulled taut, shuddering as if plucked, and I feel it in the deepest parts of me—terror.
The truth is, I’m terrified of my mother. I’m terrified of her answers. Terrified of who she was, and what that means for who I am.
Because Pandora Carrow is dead, and the whole witching world is grateful.
“Ghost of the lost, from death we call you thus. Spirit of the unliving, come and move among us.” My tongue grows heavier as the chant turns stale in my mouth. The doubt I’m not supposed to have crowds in on my mind.
The magic, though—the magic is totally working.
“Mika...” My name comes on the breaths of ghosts, and my eyes flash open. Goosebumps crawl up my arms as the spirits coo my name in layered, aching moans. “Mikaaaa. Mika!” Somewhere in the melange of sound, I’m certain I hear my mother’s sing-song voice.
Beneath me, the floors begin to tremble. The books on my nightstand jostle as the shuddering walls thump up against the furniture. A picture frame wobbles on its hook, and the smash of glass when it falls tears Sabbath from the incantation.
I can see them now—faces, poking through the veil. Washing in and out of our world, haggard and hungry. One wears the face of my mother and my heart stops, but then the face is gone, swallowed up in the sea of leering eyes and gaping mouths.
A fist beats loudly on the door. “What are you guys doing in there!” It’s Cecily, the suck-up of a dorm mate we regretfully share, and if she walks in on our whirlpool of wraiths, she’ll definitely tell on us. “It sounds like someone’s dying! Open the door!”
It is in the next moment that I know something has gone terribly wrong.
My gut lurches as the supernatural chafes against my magic. Tugging, stripping, siphoning.
Lifting from my hand like a second set of skin, a wispy essence peels away from my body and I realize in horror that it’s me. Like, my soul.
The hands of a thousand apparitions lunge at me, yanking my magic back and forth. Waves of nausea crash into me, a sticky cold sweat beads on my brow. Sabbath seems so far away, and my cry drags through my throat like sandpaper. When I try to call out to her again, there is no breath left in me to give.
I can tell, with absolute certainty, that the black abyss falling over my eyes like the hood of an executioner is not mere unconsciousness.
It’s death.
The last thing I remember before falling into the void, is the glimpse of terror I see spread across Sabbath’s face.
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