Flips through the pages growing aimless, Helen streamlined her thoughts in hopes of gaining direction. She had two goals: neutralize the hex and get L&E solvent. Meaning her best bet was to find a spell that could promise both.
Starting at the beginning of the book made sense, so she shut the volume with a thud, dust tickling her nose, and re-opened the cover.
After passing a few blank pages, she settled on the first viable page one, a table of contents broken up by six symbol headings. She tapped a finger on the one matching the spirit circle on the inside cover and opened to the first page attributed to that section.
At first, she skimmed more unreadable script, a mix of handwritten notes and inked calligraphy. Upon coming across a peculiar graphic, Helen stopped and studied. Crude stick figure etchings of bodies lying spread-eagle in the middle of circles filled a sheet. Additional sketches showed X’s and pentagrams overlaying identical human forms.
The sixth in a series depicted a double image—the splayed body in one circle next to an identical, empty one. Scribbled beside the drawing, the words “curse” and “transfer” loomed large on the page. Six drawings like this. Huh. Nerissa brought up the number six and said the book would answer all questions. So she had to be doing the right thing, researching.
Drowning in a sea of words beyond her capacity to decipher, she ferreted out a paragraph in English. Excellent. Progress at last.
Helen ran a short red nail down the page and read:
Curses of the flesh spring from requests made from a space of desire, and all crave a referent. These parasitic forces seek a host body to use as a vehicle or puppet, for they strive to move through the physical world with ease. Exorcism has proved unsuccessful or deadly for the practitioner, but transference spells may achieve success, esp. when used in accordance with personal talismans or charms.
A list of page numbers followed the directions, and Helen flipped to the first one. In Roman Numerals, it offered steps.
First, arrange charms or talismans into a circle of protection.
Alright. Helen shook the crystals onto the carpet and laid them in a circle around her body.
Next, practitioner utilizes personal charms to drop self into trance state. Once altered state of consciousness is achieved, practitioner travels astral highway and visits alternate dimensions in search of new host.
Recruitment and retention may entail visiting and manipulating dream states of others, bewitching target via hypnosis, seduction of a male, or psyche splitting. All require craft proficiency to execute.
Pinching her bottom lip, Helen eyed her circle of crystals. Though she’d chosen the Left Hand path, Nerissa had talked about astral travel as associated with the Right. Maybe she could mix Left and Right.
She sure as hell didn’t want to “recruit” any poor, unwitting person to be the patsy for this hex by infiltrating their dreams like some creepy succubus. Brian deserved to be saved, yes, but as good of a person as he was, his life didn’t warrant the sacrifice of another.
Helen pressed a palm into her forehead in hopes of calming messy thoughts. Her classes in ethical and utilitarian philosophy never covered conundrums of the magical persuasion.
Maybe once the spell got underway, answers would unfold. No way to gain craft proficiency unless she practiced. Helen pinned her stare on a crystal the color of rouge and speckled with garnet spots, allowing her mind to melt into its waxy surface and jagged edges.
She drew in a long, mindful breaths and took a crack at color magic.
Starting with a chakra meditation would lower her brain waves to a state necessary for meditative calm, so she focused on the lowest chakra, the red wheel of incandescent energy spinning at the base of the spine. Yogis associated this energy channel with safety, grounding, and security, so with any luck those traits would protect her and Brian from fallout while she hunted for answers.
Helen counted off seven seconds on the inhale and eight on the exhale. Soon, her head grew fuzzy and light, a floating balloon. Warmth enveloped her scalp, body melting into a weightless state. Her mind blanked. She was nothing but breath, in and out, moving through her energetic nodes and animating the whirling disc near her tailbone.
A shade of red so saturated the hue surpassed maraschino cherry flooded her mind’s eye.
She didn’t realize that her lids had closed until they opened to mysterious surroundings.
Though some facets of Helen’s condo remained the same—the full bookshelves, her patchwork couch made from upcycled clothing—others morphed. Walls bent and shifted, stretching into shadowy corridors. Her living room expanded, tripling in square footage as cream-colored carpet changed to tile flooring patterned like a chessboard. To her right, a wide staircase, marble steps crumbling and banister carved into ornate swirls, curled to a second floor.
She was aware but spacey, like living in a dream, and electricity buzzed up and down her spine as her activated root chakra engaged energetically.
This had to be some kind of astral shadow realm, so she might as well explore the alternate dimension. Her barefoot steps silent against the ground, she walked down a narrow passageway, tile cool against her soles and the foreign smells of dampness and musk in her nostrils. She went on for another ten or so feet until distraught moans and a mechanical screech like a dentist’s drill floated down the hall.
She ran in the direction of the commotion, opened a door, and stifled a squawk. Images bombarded her eyeballs in stabbing assaults. Concrete floor, stained a monstrous, sanguine shade. Runes and symbols painted walls black. In the corner, a temple stood erect. The chamber smelled of sweet smoke, a bit like incense and fittingly occult.
Some statue, a frightening mystery of loops and arrows and crosses forged in iron, served as a scary altar. Lodged in a circular depression near the apex of the shrine, the lost clear crystal glittered with diamond majesty.
At the base of the idol
