Gray is Wendy’s best friend and one of the Graham siblings who provided Wendy with additional information about the shadowy entity haunting the forests. Though investigating the supernatural isn’t in Gray’s wheelhouse, Wendy can’t help but wish she were here, if only to provide her down-to-earth no-nonsense perspective.
Vito’s face becomes animated as he blinks back to awareness. He looks at Wendy and shakes his head no. “I don’t see him, sorry. But there is this black oiliness around his body.”
Wendy looks at Dr. Rademacher. “Okay, we’re ready. Thank you for waiting.”
Dr. Rademacher folds the sheet down, revealing the man’s head and upper shoulders. He doesn’t appear to be that old, maybe late thirties or early forties. His hair is white, or seeing his eyebrows, a blond so pale that it looks white, and his skin is the ash grey of death. Matching the pictures, no abrasions nor contusions are apparent on his face, neck, or shoulders. Nothing looks off with the body at first glance, but something feels tainted. She needs to warn the sheriff and doctor.
“Dr. Rademacher, both Vito and I feel that something is awry with the body. I suggest that a cleansing ritual be performed on the body. There are some in the Catholic faith that will work well. Even the Christian ritual of the cleansing the feet can be applied to the whole body. If he is of another faith, there are many rituals to choose from. In addition to the suggestion, I have an odd request. May I breathe on him? It may reveal something that cannot otherwise be seen.”
“Well, that’s a new one. Would breathing on just the face be okay?”
“Yes, that should be fine. I am just seeing if there is something shrouding or clinging to him, like a residue.”
“Okay, go ahead.”
Wendy steps away from the body. She clears her mind and focuses on expanding her lungs with deep breathing. Wendy’s primary ability is healing, she mainly works by creating charmbags filled with healing herbs or making charms infused with goodwill and soaked in herbs. She learned to infuse her will from her grandmother, though her ability with herbs is more advanced than her grandmother’s. Less often, Wendy can directly heal a body through focus and touch. She basically takes over the person’s immune system and directs it against threats she can sense. This is what she ended up having to do with the children that originally brought her and Sully here.
Some PsyWitches are conjurers, they can entreat a spirit or a ghost to appear for protection. Wendy’s grandmother was a conjurer who helped to banish bad luck. Her grandmother claimed they were descended from Hwanjile, High Priestess and Queen Mother of her people. Hwanjile was a very powerful woman of West Africa in the mid-18th century. However, Wendy supposes if they were descendants, it didn’t provide much protection as they’re more recently descendants of slaves. Her grandmother also said that Wendy and Sully’s father was a distant offspring of Doctor John and that’s where Wendy gets her healing and herb lore from. This wasn’t completely impossible, Doctor John had fifteen wives and a plethora of children. Wendy thinks it’s more plausible than claiming to be related to Marie Laveau, but she doubts the veracity.
Her grandmother taught her various types of Breaths, saying as it was will-based, it worked for conjuring and healing equally. There is the Breath of Life, the Breath of Death, the Breath of Silence and many others. Wendy is preparing to expel the Breath of Revealment. Taking one last deep inhale, Wendy steps up to the man’s face and breathes out. Her blue-green translucent breath travels out and hovers over the man. First, the Breath becomes opaque then the colors blacken and sag as if weighed down. The spell only lasts a few seconds before dissipating, but it’s enough to have the sheriff and doctor step back from the body.
Wendy and her grandmother are examples of PsyWitches using their ability for good. But having the will doesn’t dictate how it’s used. A more sinister application of conjuring would be summoning a demon or capturing a soul. And if one could heal the body, a darker aspect would be to cause bodily harm. The opposite of a charm of goodwill is a curse with ill will. And Wendy just confirmed this man was cursed. But it wasn’t a curse of the body, those Wendy is unfortunately familiar with and would’ve been able to spot with no Breath needed. No, she believes the curse is feeding off his soul. Things just got complicated.
CHAPTER FOUR – Diego
Diego feels the bite in the air through his layers of clothing which says something about the cold. He’s wearing a ribbed tank top under a hooded thermal, then a flannel shirt and a thick coat on top. He wears compression leggings beneath his cargo pants as he doesn’t like thermals. Add a knit cap and he should’ve been warm enough. However, the frigid wind and flurry of snowflakes beg to differ. Next time he sees Wendy, he’ll take up her offer of a warming charm, this weather is ridiculous. Her charms will affect his body’s reaction to the weather rather than rely on his ability to change the weather and thus neatly avoid a rebound event.
He knows he’s trying to make light of the situation. Rather than ridiculous, the weather is riled up. Diego can feel something pressing down on him, trying to strip away his will. His nerves are throbbing as if they’d been scraped raw, and he feels lousy like he
