Playing With Fire

by Adrienne Woods et al.

  Since Dad refused to do anything but Blood Magic – the magic we were born with, the magic that coursed through our veins – and he even called it ‘tainting our magic’ when we did anything not-directly related to Blood Magic, like the dull, everyday spells aunt Aileen and I used on the hex bags we sold at Hexagon, the majority of the funds we did have, came from aunt Aileen’s trade; I was sure of that. Not that Father would ever admit it, but if not for aunt Aileen’s help, we would have long since perished.

  Father grunted and gave me a cold look before focusing back on his meticulously-cut sandwich. Despite his annoyance, he knew better than to utter it out loud.

  “Okay, that’s settled then,” Aileen said while she looked back and forth between Dad and I.

  “Just make sure you don’t run into any trouble.” Dad ate another bite of his sandwich, chewing it slowly.

  “Don’t worry.” Aileen pushed her chair back and got up. “Trouble is our middle name.” She winked at me before she left, and I smiled at her, silently grateful that at least she always tried to cheer me up.

  Chapter 4

  Hexagon, the black market of magical and cursed items, was located underground. In the catacombs of our town, built centuries ago for the purpose of smuggling goods from one location to another. Some of our witchy brethren had decided to start selling their wares in the underground complex already several generations ago.

  The catacombs were damp and clammy, but they provided a perfect hideaway since there were only a few ways one could access them—meaning only a few entrances had to be spelled in order to protect us.

  Only people expressly looking for Hexagon could enter and stumble upon our black market of witchcraft and spells. People who wanted to go adventuring into the catacombs, would never find a shred of evidence of a witch market.

  Aileen loved going to Hexagon, although my parents were not too pleased with her going, let alone dragging me along. But telling someone like Aileen that something was bad, and she shouldn’t do it, worked like holding a red flag in front of a bull—it made her all the keener to do exactly that what you had told her not to.

  As usual, Hexagon was buzzing with life. Witches, ranging from young teenagers to the elderly, were stalling out their wares all around us. Witches with abilities mostly pertaining to one of the elements, witches who could read tarot cards and predict the future, witches who were particularly good at protective spells, or who were specialized in curses, you got them all here.

  While our town was an epicenter of witchy energy, and had been so for centuries, several of the witches present here today came from neighboring towns, and some had even travelled quite a distance to reach our town. Every witch worth their hide knew of the infamous Hexagon, the largest black market on this continent. And it wasn’t just witches doing the trading either; sometimes it was humans, too. If you had something particularly nasty that you couldn’t sell anywhere else, like a monkey’s cursed claw or some cloth of a mummy, chances were high you would find a buyer here.

  As Aileen was busy setting up our price sign, I organized our hex bags on the table. Hex bags had a wide variety of uses, such as cursing people, healing them, offering protection. Made from animal hide—the most potent ones required human skin, but we refrained from selling those—they held a few standard ingredients like sage and herbs. The key to activating their power lay in the blood used on them: our blood.

  This was what made our hex bags more valuable and desirable than the hex bags presented by the witches three tables next to ours. They offered a variety of items, like wind chimes and dreamcatchers, which they tended to sell a lot more of than the hex bags they also offered. The two witches, a mother and daughter duo—I was friends with the daughter, Jadis—were specialized in warding off bad spirits, but even though so, their hex bags could never be as powerful as ours, because they didn’t contain the blood of a blood witch.

  The rarest kind of blood. Black, wicked blood.

  I shivered, thinking about how I had given it out so freely, this blood that was supposed to be a great gift.

  “You look like you’re on a different planet.” Aileen frowned at me. “Still haven’t recovered from last night?”

  “Uhm…” I fidgeted with the hem of my shirt.

  “I remember back in the days my friends and I sometimes went out for days on end,” Aileen reminisced. “Where we got the energy, I’ll never know. If I tried that now, I would be exhausted for a year.”

  * * *

  My friend Jaris walked in our direction, after having spotted me. “Hey Keiran, nice to see you’re here too today.”

  Despite having gone to Hexagon for years, my aunt and I didn’t really mingle much. Jaris, who sold tarot card readings, dream catchers, and the like, along with her mother, was one of the few people I had gotten to know over the years.

  “Want to come over for a reading before things get crowded?” Jaris asked. She had often predicted my future for me, in the past. In fact, that was how we had become friends in the first place.

  I looked at Aileen, who said, “sure,” and then followed after Jaris.

  Jaris and her mother were seers of some sort. Tarot card readings were peanuts compared to some of the other things they could do, but I liked the occasional glimpse into my future although, as Jaris often said herself, “the future is volatile and can change at any given moment.”

  My only witchy friend had bright red, curly hair, and eyes so green they reminded me of a leprechaun. She was about my height, and her personality was similar to Camille’s: bubbly and outgoing, and a far cry from my own rather held-back personality.

  I followed Jaris to the table where her mother had already displayed their various dream catchers. Seeing the dream catchers brought back memories of the one and only time I had used one… To be able to speak to my recently deceased grandmother, Evangeline, in a dream.

  I shivered, suppressing the memory. Not that it had been an unpleasant dream, far from it, but I didn’t want to dwell on sad memories at the moment.

  “Sit.” Jaris gestured at the seat opposite of the one she had just sat down on.

  I sat down, and then touched the cards she offered me. Closing my eyes, I focused all my energy on the pack of cards, letting my energy influence the cards and their outcome.

  When I pulled my hand back, Jaris began shuffling the cards. Then, after about a minute, she put the cards down, asked me to touch them again, and then showed me the first card.

  The ten of swords.

  We were off to a good start. I knew enough about the tarot to know it was hard to interpret this card as anything cheerful.

  “Hm.” Jaris frowned while she looked at the car. “You’ll feel powerless. Victimized. Betrayed. You might even hit rock bottom.”

  “Nice. As usual, predictions of the future are all doom and gloom,” I said sarcastically.

  “Don’t insult the cards,” Jaris warned me, while she reached over to grab the next one. “I already warned you that never ends well.”

  She flipped over the second card, showing it to me.

  Death.

  “We’re on a row here,” I commented dryly, even though I was starting to feel nervous. A ten of swords and death?

  “Death means a life-altering changing, not the end of a life. You don’t need to take the cards that literally,” Jaris said, but even she didn’t look very comfortable. “But it does mean that this change is impossible to fight. It’s going to happen, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  “Sounds ominous and foreboding.” I was still trying to sound humorous, but my palms were getting sweaty and I felt very warm, as if the walls were closing in on me, despite Hexagon being held in a large, underground complex.

  “Last one.” Jaris licked her lips and pulled the last card from the deck.

  The Hermit.

  “The hermit is… well, he’s a harbinger of bad things. But bad doesn’t always mean that they won’t turn out good in the end. Sometimes you need
to hit a rough patch to get through it stronger.”

  “You’re just trying to make me feel better,” I told Jaris, smiling at her. “And it’s okay. Thanks for trying to cheer me up, but the cards aren’t really playing in my favor today.”

  “Sorry,” Jaris said as I got up from my chair. “I hope the spread is better next time.”

  “Sure. I’m not that much of a believer in future-telling, anyway. As you always say, the future is volatile.”

  Jaris nodded, but she still seemed a bit distraught, fidgety. “Yeah, sure.”

  “Anyway, have a good day.” I waved at her, ready to walk away.

  “Kieran, one more thing.” Jaris stood up, shoving her chair backward. “I know I always say that these readings are just indicators of possible futures, and they’re all good fun, but… I have a bad feeling.”

  “About?” I furrowed my brows.

  “About you. Like something bad is going to happen to you. Like what the cards are saying is right, and you’ll be forced to make a choice no one should make.”

  My frown deepened, and my palms grew even sweatier. “I have to go.” I turned away from her, back to my own table.

  She was right, though. I felt it too. The moment those cards had been drawn, I knew that they were showing me the future as it would unfold.

  Something wicked was coming, and there was no way I could escape it.

  Chapter 5

  A few hours later, Aileen and I had sold quite a few hex bags already, and I had managed to put the not-so-cheerful message from the tarot cards to the back of my mind, right until someone said,

  “You’ve got any with human skin?”

  The raspy voice sounded like nails on a chalkboard. I resisted the urge to put my fingers into my ears, in a desperate attempt to block out the agonizing sound.

  “No, we don’t sell those,” I replied while I had my back turned towards the speaker, as I was rummaging through Aileen’s bags trying to look for more healing hex bags as we had just run out of those.

  “Are you sure?” The croaky voice pressed on.

  “Quite sure,” I snapped while I turned around, annoyed that the person in question kept asking about it while every witch alive knew hex bags made from human skin were borderline black magic, and borderline forbidden.

  My breath got stuck in my throat as I saw the person who had spoken, and I felt all the blood draining from my skin.

  With long, grey hair reaching to the floor, an enormous, hawk-like nose, and a thin, bony figure, the person in front of me was the fairytale epitome of a witch. But she was a lot more than that. Her very presence made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on edge. My blood practically froze in my veins in awe at the sheer power radiating from this seemingly ancient woman.

  Counting the wrinkles on her face would take hours, no doubt. Her leathery skin seemed like parchment, and she bent forward on the cane she was holding, her back arched like the hunchback from the Notre Dame.

  The withered woman sniffed the air around me, scrunching up her nose. “You could do it, though?”

  Despite the power pulsating all around her, I wanted to tell her ‘no’, and that we didn’t sell such wares. She scared me, like the boogeyman or the wicked witch from a fairytale. All my senses told me that I shouldn’t trust her, shouldn’t even communicate with her and better yet, stay as far away from her as possible.

  Where was Aileen when I needed her? This woman was exactly the type of customer I didn’t want to deal with on my own. “Uhm…” My gaze slipped beyond the crone, to the young girl tagging along after her. She couldn’t even be my age; she looked barely sixteen years old. Malnourished, with the bones peeking through from beneath the thin fabric of the haggard dress she was wearing. She reminded me of Cinderella, and this hag in front of me was the wicked stepmother. The girl’s dress was patched together so many times you could no longer make out the original fabric it was made from.

  I glanced down—the girl wore no shoes. Her hair, brown and long, looked like it hadn’t been combed in months. She also didn’t smell too good, and I wondered how long it had been since she had been able to take a bath, or even wash herself.

  “Don’t look at her,” the crone said, snapping her skeleton-like fingers at me. “The girl is nothing. Answer me. You can make one?” She came so close I could smell her foul breath.

  But the girl. My gaze was pulled back to her, and despite the witch’s orders, I couldn’t resist. The chain leading from the girl’s neck to the woman’s wrinkled hand made me squirm. Was the old woman holding her captive?

  The crone grabbed me by the collar, the movement so swift I never saw it coming. Despite her obvious age, her reflexes were lightning-fast. She pulled me closer, her lips nearly touching my ear when she spat out: “I said: don’t look at her.”

  “Kieran.” Aileen’s voice from behind me sounded like the chant of a thousand angels. I breathed a sigh of relief when the hag let go off me.

  “I’m sorry,” Aileen said. At first, I thought she was directing that at me, saying she was sorry she had left me alone for so long to haggle with a hedgewitch on the price of some plants, but when I glanced at her, she looked straight at the old woman who had just grabbed me.

  What in the world…?

  “Please accept our apologies, Baba Yaga.” Aileen continued to ignore me, her full focus on the… On the Baba Yaga?

  The freaking Baba Yaga?

  My mouth dropped open and I blinked, her words barely making sense.

  Baba Yagas were the most powerful witches in the world, and there were only three of them. Three sisters, as old as time itself, if the lore was to be believed. Judging by her looks and the power oozing all around her, this woman certainly fit the bill but… What in the world was a Baba Yaga doing here?

  They usually resided in swamps in the middle of nowhere, far away from civilization. That one of them turned up at the Hexagon was like finding an elephant in a China shop.

  The witch huffed and let go off me. “You’ve got any with human skin?”

  Aileen hesitated for a second; I felt her freeze next to me. Making hex bags from human skin was not expressly forbidden, but it was a borderline scenario and was, in any case, frowned upon. Still, saying no to a Baba Yaga wasn’t that easily done either.

  “We don’t have any at the moment,” Aileen said eventually. “But if you need one…”

  “I do,” the witch snapped. “Urgently.”

  “Then we can prepare it for you.” Aileen shot me a look that said I better not state anything to the contrary. “Is a random donor—”

  “The girl,” the Baba Yaga said before my aunt could finish her sentence. She gestured at the slave-girl she was dragging along. “Her skin will do.”

  Aileen seemed to hesitate again. She did a good job hiding it, but I felt her tense as she was standing next to me.

  No, Aileen, no, I wanted to tell her. I know we can’t deny a Baba Yaga her wishes, but this girl already looks maltreated enough. The girl didn’t agree to this!

  But I didn’t say anything. Instead, I stayed mute and stared at the young girl who hadn’t spoken a word so far. Could she even talk? How long had she been under the influence of the old hag?

  I searched for the girl’s heartbeat and found it instinctively. Its beat was surprisingly strong—I would’ve thought she’d be weaker given her condition.

  Aileen’s heartbeat, on the other hand, was as fast as a freight train. It was a good thing Baba Yagas—as far as I knew—didn’t have our ability to sense heartbeats, or the old harpy would’ve realized how terrified my aunt was of her.

  “All right,” Aileen gave in, her voice trembling ever so slightly. “Do you want us to perform the ritual here?”

  The Baba Yaga turned her gawking eyes from my aunt to me. Her gaze lingered on me, scrutinizing me from top to toe, as if she could look straight through me and uncover all my dark secrets.

  In particular, the darkest one of all.

  “No,”
the Baba Yaga said eventually. “In my hut, tonight. No prying eyes.” But while she spoke, she kept on staring at me—did she mean me when she said ‘prying eyes’? Even though I felt bad for potentially sending my aunt alone into the lion’s den, I would be lying if I didn’t admit I would also be somewhat relieved at not having to perform the horrific ritual on this poor girl myself.

  I had performed the ritual and variations out of it countless times before, but on regular hex bags, never using human skin. And to take it from a living, breathing human who didn’t even consent to it, made my stomach churn.

  “Walk into the forest and cast these.” The crone dumped a purse on the table—its contents sounded like chimes when they hit the table. What was in that purse? “They will show you the way.”

  She was talking to me, her piercing gaze boring into mine. I felt the strength of the command behind it.

  I swallowed hard. Don’t show any fear, Kieran. Don’t show any weakness.

  I had learned a long time ago that the world wasn’t just good and evil. Witches had been deemed evil by history, burned at the stake or crushed underneath boulders, while the majority of witches were good, or at least somewhat good. Baba Yagas on the other hand were ambiguous at best, downright malicious at worst. If you trusted a Baba Yaga, you might as well summon a demon at a crossroads and sell your soul to the Devil himself.

  “I will be there,” Aileen said, glancing from the Baba Yaga to me. I could sense that she wanted the witch to divert her attention to her rather than me, but the beldam wasn’t biting.