She stepped to the sectioned-off area where Noémi had stored potatoes and onions and her homemade wines, and where I had come upon boxes of desiccated roots and plant bulbs I meant to pass on to Belle. L’Runa paused, palms out and facing down again. She shut her eyes and hummed to herself while making circling movements in the air. “This room has its own curiosities,” she said, lowering her arms. “But I don’t sense anything relevant to the story we want to extract today.”
Closing the rickety door to the interior room, she reached into the bag I held open, felt for the wooden scoop and filled it salt, and began to describe the first circle. The L-shape of the room meant she would have to create three large circles—two in the front section and one in the back—and small circles in all of the corners. “Be careful to not step on the lines,” L’Runa warned. “Once I have the circles drawn, we’ll create openings where they overlap.”
I assayed the area. The final small circle had been delineated and the white of the salt glowed as if with its own light source against the matte brown of the dirt. “This looks more like sacred geometry than witchcraft.”
L’Runa brushed the last of the salt granules off the scoop and retied the bag’s closure. “Can you leave those outside the door, please? And you’re right, Calliope, about the geometry of what I’ve done here.” She crossed her arms and drew her sweater snug to her chest. “When we teach witchcraft, we begin with the basics. We want our students to master drawing circles and casting within the circles, so that when the time comes—and the time will come, rest assured—you can cast with other materials and shapes. It is the intent behind the casting that is of supreme importance. You create a conduit to your intentions through good old rote, boring repetition.” She laughed softly. “Hours and hours and hours of doing the same thing over and over again.”
“What’s the saying? Ten thousand hours to mastery?”
She nodded. “Since this is also a time for you to learn, we’ll use candles when we call in the cardinal directions. And to bring a little light into the gloom.” L’Runa ran her gaze over me. “I imagine this is hard enough for you without the added smell.”
“I’m able to ignore most of it, but that’s because you’re here.” Carrying incomplete stories of my mother, her sister, and Meribah was akin to wearing an article of clothing on my back that I could feel but never properly see. The weight of the invisible was becoming a burden I needed to share. “I’m looking forward to what you find.”
“What we might find and together witness, Calliope. You’ll be a part of this working right alongside me.”
A shiver ghosted over my skin as the younger me crouched deeper inside adult me.
L’Runa moved inside the curves outlined by salt and wiped away small sections of the lines until no circle was cut off from the others. She occasionally bent to take a handful of dirt and sniff it or bring it to her ear and shake it in her fist.
“Calliope, would you please unwrap my dolls?” she asked, once she’d moved closer to the corner farthest from the entrance. “They’re in my kit, wrapped in cloth.”
I followed her instructions. “All of them?” I asked, once I’d lifted the top two and seen two more underneath.
“Yes, all four.”
After untying the string around the first doll and unrolling the figure from its square of faded calico, I realized I had seen this doll before. The figure had been positioned on a shelf behind L’Runa’s desk during the video class where she delivered the first of her series of lectures on the uses of blood in spellwork.
I unwrapped the other three.
“Place one of those cloths at each direction and seat the doll on the cloth.”
“Which one goes where?”
“Trust yourself to know,” L’Runa said. She returned to dipping, feeling the dirt, and standing. She muttered at times, or held her hands close to her eyes, squinting in the dim light. By the time she finished a third circuit of the room, I had all four dolls in place.
L’Runa went to her satchel again and withdrew a thick bloodred candle. She handed the candle to me, then pulled out a blue glass apothecary bottle. Rolling the bottle between her palms, she turned in a circle, stopped in front of me, and unscrewed the black rubber top. “This is a combination of wormwood and valerian oils,” she said, slowly emptying a dropperful over my fingers. “Rub the oil into the candle. It’s fine if some of it drips onto the ground.”
“Why these oils?” I asked. I flared my nostrils to take in more of the scents, careful to not drop the candle.
“Valerian is used to soothe anxiety—yours, and that of those who might communicate with us. Wormwood acts as a conduit, inviting the living and the dead to see one another and interact.” L’Runa looked into my eyes, concern adding vertical lines between her eyebrows. I stopped turning the candle and cupped the bottom in my palm to hold it upright.
“I did not mean to infer this would be an opportunity for you to speak with your mother, Calliope.” The witch wrapped her strong hands around my oil-slicked, shaking ones. “Memory will speak through the four dolls, one per person. Little Calliope, your mother, your aunt, and Meribah.”
My throat thickened. I didn’t realize how much I had hoped to commune with my mother until L’Runa spoke those words. Tears rushed to flood my eyes. I held the waters back, forced myself to swallow.
L’Runa gathered an armful of smaller candles from her satchel and dropped a box of wooden matches into her
