The Summoning

“Rhiannon, are you sure this is a good idea?” Bathsheba asks, pulling on her pigtail. “We could get in so much trouble.”

Rhiannon rolls her eyes as she finishes drawing the inscription in the summoning circle. She turns to her friend and perks up her eyebrow.

“Come on, Babs, have I ever steered you wrong before?” Rhiannon gave a small pause before she continued, “now help me light these candles.”

The look that Babs returns seems to deem the previous statement false, but she says nothing as she lights her half of the candles without the same panache as her partner. They each go to the opposite ends of the circle and sit, crisscrossed.

“I nearly forgot the book!” Rhiannon shoots up and grabs a heavy leather-bound manuscript from the table.

When she finally has the ancient text on her lap, she pulls the crimson bookmark and lets the book fall open.

“Creepy,” Bathsheba murmurs as the book pulses, the reverberation flickering through the flames.

Minutes pass and Rhiannon still hasn’t moved. She couldn’t believe that this was finally going to happen, she was finally going to cast her first summoning spell. Her eyes begin to water as she feels for the spell, her hand hovering above the flipping pages. When the pages stop, she can barely decipher the text.

She wipes her eyes and peers at the page. She still doesn’t understand it. The text was not in Latin, as she had expected. She isn’t quite sure what language it is in but it seems familiar. She knew too many languages and sometimes they just got muddled together. She just needed a minute, hopefully.

“Babs, we may have hit a bit of hitch.”

Bathsheba let out a small giggle, her creased forehead smoothing out. “Can’t do the spell then? What a shame!”

A second passes before the smile returns to Rhiannon’s face, but as soon as it does, the creases reappear on Bathsheba’s face.

“Just needed a tic,” she says and winks, “I figured it out. The book is in Sanskrit, not Latin, as usual. Not my best language, but I know enough to get this done. Shouldn’t be too hard.”

This did not ease Bathsheba, who begins to twist her pigtails violently. She opens her mouth to speak, but loses confidence and shuts it with a snap.

“Let’s get started, shall we?” Rhiannon reaches beside her and pulls out a bowl filled with some herbs and a small rodent’s skull. From her pockets, she pulls out two vials, one filled with a putrid green liquid, and the other filled with dark dust. She empties both into the bowl, now placed in the middle of the circle. She gestures towards the knife next to Bathsheba.

Bathsheba grabs the knife but hesitates to give it to Rhiannon. Her lip is stuck in between her teeth and she shakes her head. “Rhiannon, are you sure about this?”

“Babs, the knife.” She shakes her already outstretched her hand for the knife.

Bathsheba sighs and places the hilt in her palm, and Rhiannon grips it tightly. She couldn’t believe she finally was going to do this. She had dreamed about it for so long.

With the knife in one hand, she positions the other above the bowl. She says her prayer as she slices her palm, the blood dripping into the bowl. She squeezes her bleeding hand, letting some of the blood drip on to the summoning circle.

“Now repeat after me,” Rhiannon says after bandaging her cut and joins hands with Bathsheba. The spell begins to spill naturally from her lips but then, she slips, and the mistakes begin pouring out, like a song she’s only just learned. She slips up here and there but she hopes it won’t affect the spell.

Wasn’t it the feeling that caused the magic, not the words? Bathsheba follows along as best as she can, but, alas, her effort is still mediocre at best. But Rhiannon feels as though she has enough feeling to pull them both through.

When they finish the incantation, the room seems too quiet. She can’t hear the chirping of the grasshoppers outside or the natural sounds of the city’s night.

“Did it work?” Bathsheba asks, her mousey voice breaking the tension.

It seems evident that the spell had, in fact, not worked. Nothing had appeared within the summoning circle. Everything was just as it had been before.

But something prickles at the back of Rhiannon’s neck. She turns toward the dark corner behind her. Something was calling to her, pulling her closer.

Rhiannon…..

She peers deeper into the corner but all she can see is inky black darkness.

Rhiannon…..Come closer…. Come… I’m here…

The voice was so alluring, like honey or poison, who knew. But she doesn't seem to care, doesn’t want to. Rhiannon just has to follow, so she does. She inches closer to the darkness and she begins to feel soft caresses along her face, dark inky tendrils.

Rhiannon… Let me in…

Something in the pit of her stomach told her she shouldn’t listen, that she should turn around and ignore whatever was talking to her. But there was another part of her that could feel the power the voice held and that part held her body hostage.

She was surrounded by it, the tendrils brush her flesh.

Let me in…

“Yes,” she whispers and before she can take another step, darkness fills her mouth. It tastes like ash and all she can think about is the time she learned to ride a bike and her father screamed at her. The pain of the road rash and the embarrassment of disappointment. It weighed her down and choked her.
She regrets her decision the second she makes it but it is too late now, her body is no longer hers.

“Foolish girls.”

The voice that came out of her mouth was nothing like the voice that called to her. It was not sweet or alluring. No, it was rough and menacing, the sound of war and death.

“I must thank you, I was getting quite bored down there.” It cackles and turns its black eyes towards Bathsheba. “Why, hello.”

“Rhiannon? What’s happened to you?” Her voice raised with every vowel, her fingers twisting her hair.
Rhiannon wanted to scream at Bathsheba to run, get out of there, but it was like she was locked in another room, watching from a screen. She was helpless.

“She’s upgraded, darling,” it flicks its stolen wrist and Bathsheba is flung into the circle, the flames growing, spreading everywhere. Destroying everything in its path. Everything, except Rhiannon. “And we’re going to have so much fun.”