CHAPTER NINE: NOT ALL LOVE SPELLS ARE EQUAL
MARIE
The heat made the sweat gather beneath my breasts, slicking my thighs together in that uncomfortable way that made everything sticky. The day had not gone as expected, from the moment I was accosted by Nicu’s presence early in the morning, right up until Julian demanded to ‘talk’ with me privately in my tent.
But now that I was encased in the safety of those white canvas flaps, I was blessedly alone. How many of my grandmother’s people had come up to me, begging me to fix their problems with a simple spell - to look upon their children and determine their fates? How many problems were brought to my attention through the tugging of my sleeves and tapping on my shoulder?
Is this what my grandmother endured on a daily basis? What sheoffered these people?
Hours after denying Julian access to my tent, I still lay awake, the darkness of my tent encasing me in a way that seemed to soothe the ragged parts of my soul. The festivities had finally died down, but I was certain that people still lingered, awake and unable to coax sleep to the forefront when the dawn only brought forth the funeral - a stark reminder that we had lost one of our own.
The memory of the dark-haired girl tugging on my sleeves, begging me for my help kept flashing forth in my mind's eye, and I didn't need a psychology degree to understand why. She was fighting with her mother - had argued that she wished to travel before settling down with a boy in the village. Her mother had blamed Instagram for her thoughts, yelling at her about how she had lost her way and the way of her people before giving the girl the cold shoulder.
And so she came to me, asking for my help - my spells.
The girl’s eyes - her pleading - her desperation niggled at my mind, until I could no longer simply sit there in the quiet of my tent. I slid out into the night in nothing but my slip, sliding on my black ankle boots at the last minute, an idea quickly formulating in my mind.
With my knife in hand, I picked an apple up from one of the carts as I stalked my way through the field, weaving between the tents of sleeping participants - of the people I somehow felt obligated to protect.
I hated that I felt that obligation - knew that I needed to extinguish that idea immediately, but still the need to help this one girl knocked at my brain persistently.
The walk was quick, my body seeming to know what to do - where to go, as I made my way down to the river bank. The moon was blanketed by clouds, not even offering a peep show. But even in that darkness my feet were sure-footed as if the Mother herself was guiding me to the wild banks that I sought.
As I walked through the brush, my footfalls were somehow silenced and I knew that something else was afoot because as sure-footed as I was, to walk across a pathway strewn with twigs and leaves in silence was an impossibility.
And for the first time my footsteps faltered as I took in the image of a man crouched in the darkness, muttering words that seemed to make no sense.
I took another step forward, straining to make out the vision before me. And another. Until the cloud cover shifted, the moon shining down a sliver of light upon the man before me and coldness seeped into my bones - the type of hollowness that could only be felt due to a sense of betrayal.
Because crouched before me was Julian. He hadn’t noticed my arrival yet, too focused on the plate before him - a spell I recognized all too well. The three candles stood tall in a plate of water - one that I knew was filled with honey, rainwater, and fennel seeds, and even if I couldn’t make out the exact color of the candles, I knew that each one would have been a different color, representing the outcome he sought: red, white, and pink. I forced myself to remain silent as I listened to him butcher the spell, repeating the words incorrectly, stuttering as he went along.
To cast a love spell over a Witch herself was deemed a transgression in my community. In truth, I was surprised that Julian even had the balls to attempt this - to attempt binding me to him through Magick.
That was the thought that solidified my decision, striking me numb, because even after everything we had been through - everything we had done, he had not changed. He was still the selfish boy that I left so many moons ago who assumed the world - our people - Magick itself, owed him something.
“You have transgressed against a Witch.” I spoke the words softly, but the silence of the woods allowed Julian to hear me perfectly. Even the rapids of the river seemed to silence themselves in the wake of my discovery.
“No.” Julian’s wide gaze pivoted to mine as he shook his head in a staccato that was always our melody because we were never fated for one another. I allowed the apple I had plucked from the cart to fall silently to the forest floor, tightening my fingers on my knife as I took a step towards Julian.
“You have transgressed against our community.”
“No.” This time he shouted the word, grappling for the lame justification I knew he would present. But the laws were straight and simple, and no amount of justifications would change that. “I was only trying to correct our wrongs -”
“You have transgressed against the mother herself.” I cut off his ramblings with a delusion of my own before I stepped into the sliver of moonlight that bathed him, knife in hand.
It took him a moment too late to recognize what was happening, and then I was on top of him, my movement knocking the plate over, spilling its contents, inadvertently offering it back to the soil.
I pinned him, straddling his chest for better leverage. Julian thrust and struggled beneath me, and still I held firm, bringing the knife closer to those cheekbones that I once thought were so pretty. He thrashed his head violently, making it impossible to get a good grip on his face. He knew what I was doing - some may argue that this was a fate worse than death, but Magick didn’t follow linear lines of ruling that always made sense, and once the thought had struck, I couldn’t relent.
I didn’t even question the appearance of the Demon as he stepped between the shadows - as he crouched down before me, holding Julian’s head in place as the boy thrashed and screamed, cursing both myself and the Demon. I ignored the loud thud that seemed to knock against my chest at his arrival, ignored the pool of desire that seemed to ignite my system, and instead focused on the task at hand: ruining Julian.
“You sure about this, little Witch?” The question was almost taunting, forcing me to think upon ramifications I didn’t want to think on.
“Just hold his head.” It was a command, one that the Demon followed as I sliced deeply into Julian’s pretty face, carving out the sigil that marked him as a traitor to our people - a traitor to me and my Magick.
Soon his cuss words turned to sobs as he shook beneath me, his shoulders curving inwards as he begged for mercy. But to Magick, mercy was a foreign concept, and as I was her wielder, I had none to give.
The blood rose to the surface swiftly, obscuring the image I was attempting to carve, but I persisted, refusing to give him an inch. The bastard tried to twist the hand of fate, attempted to cast a lovespell encasing both him and I together.