Hex

by Kali Emerson

  There was no way to tell if it would work. The only thing I could do was try it. I closed my eyes and pictured the card floating in the air, similar to how I do my spells normally. I focused on what I wanted to happen, so that it would happen. My feet were bare against the cold wood for grounding as I closed my eyes visualizing the card on my hand, gently lifting itself up.

  Then, the card shook and I felt electricity tingling on my hand. The card rose up and floated in the air in front of me.

  “ALEX!” He looked away from the TV and stood up when he saw the card.

  “What the fuck?” A wide smile spread across his face.

  “Are you making it do that?”

  “I was, but now I think something else took over.”

  The card started to spin violently. I almost dropped it, then I noticed gold writing starting to appear on the card. It spun faster and faster until it was a blur of white and gold. I felt the heat under it as it spun out of control. It flew up and to the side, slicing and sticking itself into the wall with it’s edge, right next to my head.

  I turned to look at the card to see the gold writing up close. It read ‘Orbis’ which meant ‘summon’ in Latin. The ground started to shake slightly, enough to rattle the dishes in my cabinet. Alex glanced at me and tried to keep his balance as the shaking started to get more violent and he tried to stand up.

  Two shadowy figures started to appear in the wall where the card hung. They looked like they were walking. Getting closer, without actually getting closer, just walking in place while getting larger progressively.

  Until I saw a shoe pop out of a ripple in the plaster, and a person emerged in my living room. A few seconds later, another person was standing next to them. I recognized the man on the left as the grey haired from my dream and the restaurant. The other was a taller dark woman, with short dark brown hair that coiled tight to her head.

  “How did you get into my apartment?” I shouted, still exasperated from the excitement of new magic.

  The old man took a step forward, as I took one back mirroring his step in the opposite direction.

  “The card was imprinted with a summoning spell that activated when you used your powers on it. You wouldn't have been ready for this without them.”

  He grabbed my arm, and I pulled back trying to get out of his grip but I couldn't. Alex just stood there and watched. Then as the man pulled me back from where they came from, Alex willingly stepped in next to the woman.

  “Let’s go.” The man’s voice was distorted and then disappeared altogether. It all happened within a half of a second.

  10

  We were gone someplace else, faster than I could blink. I didn’t have time to comprehend, let alone fight back. They had taken both of us with such ease, we wouldn't have stood a chance against them even if Alex had resisted. My head began to feel muddled, I wondered why Alex just went with it and didn’t try to stop them from taking us. He even looked right at me as the grey haired man took my arm, launching us into a portal where we didn’t know the destination.

  I felt for Alex's hand but it wasn't there. I couldn’t see anything, because the buzz of static filled my vision. The scent of pine trees filled my nose, it was fresh and clean. Nothing like how Boston smelled. My eyes scanned the trees searching for Alex's silhouette somewhere. I had started to fear that I was alone. Maybe he had been deceiving me, and he knew this would happen the whole time. My head was racing with phantom thoughts of abandonment and fraud. Had I been stupid? Or was he just curious by nature.

  Then I saw him, crouched down on the forest floor touching what was left of the free forest floor. Most of it had turned brown and mushy from living under several snowfalls. I stumbled toward him, tripping over sticks and plants that were dead on the thick winter floor.

  “What are you looking at?” I bent down to his level, forgiving the fantasy that destroyed every hopeful vision I had of him.

  “Listen.”

  I stayed quiet, listening. I heard birds chirping in the distance. Listening closer, and recognizing the caws as seagulls. We were near water, but it wasn't in Massachusetts. I heard another bird. It was a low caw, similar to a crow but deeper, and it lasted longer.

  “A raven.”

  “We're in Maine somewhere.”

  “Maine? How the fuck…”

  “Yes…actually we're in Northern Maine Woods.” Alex and I turned around fast, standing up in the process, to see the grey haired man, alone.

  “It was a portal we went through."

  “Get away from us!” I yelled and jumped back like I could defend myself at that point.

  “We don’t even know who you are.”

  “Gideon. My name is Gideon.”

  “It's becoming more obvious we haven't even scratched the surface about what magic can do.” Alex was much more relaxed than I was. He was welcoming, even.

  “You have not.”

  When I looked at Alex, he was so intrigued, so I lowered my stance.

  “It was going in a direction that we thought you would back out of. So instead of staying, trying to convince you, and coming back we just brought you here. It wasn’t our intention when we gave you the card.”

  “You kidnapped us!” I pressed my eyebrows together.

  “Technically yes, but it was for your own good.”

  “No. No way, we’re going home I changed my mind. I don’t want to hear what you have to say anymore.”

  Alex shrugged his shoulders.

  “We’re already here.”

  We stared at each other a long time. I never wanted to yell at him before, but right then I wanted to scream. I wasn’t used to being so out of control, I didn’t know what I was going to do. The only option I did have was to follow Alex. I shrugged my shoulders back at him, letting him know I would accompany him through this off the road magic quest. My blood was still boiling as we started forward.

  We walked a few hundred feet, trailing close behind Gideon so we didn't get lost. The birds had stopped chirping and cawing. All I could hear was the soft crunching and sloshing as our shoes skated across the forest floor. Every few seconds there was a slight breeze that would rattle and shake the leaves, pushing out of their winter stumps. We were surrounded by the sounds of nature, it was calm and cohesive. Each element, sound, and animal of the ecosystem coexisting.

  Further away I heard the rush of the ocean, and I caught a piece of home. The anger subsided as I relished the natural state of the world we were walking in. A clearing started to appear in the distance. It was a large meadow with a strange wave of energy, it must be a protection spell. But what would they be protecting in such an open space?

  “Revelare '' His voice boomed, and I heard a crackling noise while tiny lightning bolts exploded across the sky. I looked ahead and started to see a small village emerge. I stepped one foot into the clearing, ahead of the other two in amazement. Along the forest tree line, there were three or four small cottages. There was a large row of thin cypress trees, in front of the fourth building and I couldn't tell exactly what the structure was.

  To the right there were two rows of several shops that curved around making a half circle. Brick pavements connected the shops, and there was a small fountain at the start of the main sidewalk. I couldn't read the signs to see what kinds of things they were selling, but if it were some kind of witch village I would have assumed they were shops for witch things.

  To the left there was a towering, two story colonial style building. It was dark brown with white trim around the windows. There were a handful of people walking in and out of the large building, toward the shops and some stopped to wave and greet us as we walked by. But no one went toward the cottages in the back. There had to have been about two-hundred witches in total. They ranged from infancy to elderly.

  Gideon kept walking forward, past me, and met two women who walked out of the front of the taller building on the left. One in a knee length cream colored dress, with a light denim jacket over it. Her hair gl
owed red, it was long like mine. But she had it pulled up in a ponytail. Her face was broad and her features were small. She resembled a character in a cartoon, rather than a real person. The other, was the woman that came with the grey haired man in the portal.

  “This is Morgan.” She put her hands on the shoulders of the red headed girl, standing behind her like a guardian.

  “Hello." Her voice was timid, and airy. I managed a nod and a smile in her direction.

  “Callie, show the guests the way.” Gideon motioned toward the far tree line.

  She nodded her head.

  “We live in that cottage there.” She pointed to the structure on the right. I could see the small areas of dirt where they were clearing out areas for a garden next spring. Once we got closer I realized the cottages were all quite different. The one Callie pointed to was smaller than the rest, probably only having two or three rooms. It was a rounded building, the only one in the row. The windows rounded with the building, each having a soft glow from flickering candles. The roof came to a point at the top, like the highest point of a castle.

  Suddenly a small orange tabby cat appeared in the window. It looked like a curious cat, one that liked to lay on laps and play with long hair that dangled down to it’s paws.

  “That's Monica.”

  “Monica?”

  Morgan smiled to herself, giving no explanation to the strange cat name, or the cat.

  “Olivia and Gabriel live in the house to the left.” It was the one covered by the cypress trees. The cottage was two stories, and square. On the second floor was a large balcony that sat on the roof of the first floor. The massive French doors appeared to go into just one room, a bedroom.

  There were lights hanging from a wooden pergola and a round table with chairs, perfectly placed on the balcony.

  We approached the cottage next to Olivia and Gabriel's. It was a medium size, and rectangle. The cottage itself sat low to the ground, so it was most likely one story. There were two windows in the front, on either side of the purple door. They were made of wood, and had a thin glass that separated the outside from inside.

  There were three steps leading up to it, old and wooden like the window frames. In the front yard there were the remnants of a flower bed. What used to hold vibrant life was a graveyard for an abandoned hobby.

  A large sigil was painted on the door with black paint.

  “Whose house is this?” Alex asked. He hadn't spoken until then. Only in the woods. He was taking in everything silently, making a judgement.

  “It's yours.” Callie turned back to show a smile at us.

  It was all too much and everything was so sudden. I hadn’t felt the full effect of what was happening because my body was still in shock from suddenly being thrown into a witch village in the middle of the woods in Maine.

  I had to have been dreaming. Magic was real, I knew that. But to the level it was happening in front of our eyes it was too much and I didn’t know how to process it. Those people practically kidnapped us and I wanted to run, but I didn’t know how far away we could get or where we were in the woods.

  I tried to judge how Alex was feeling by the way he was standing, but he looked too relaxed. He was someone who always had a plan, and liked things to be in order but when I needed him to be like that the most, he wasn’t. I wished our gift had come with the ability to read his mind, because it would have been really beneficial.

  As we got closer to the sigil I realized I recognized it from somewhere. I walked up, passing the group to touch the sigil. I felt immediately drawn to it, and I couldn’t quite figure out where I had seen it before, but I knew I had seen it. I outlined the curves and the angles with my finger tips. Whatever it was still had power and it radiated through my finger tips.

  “I know this symbol.”

  “You should. You wrote it.” Callie said from the group.

  It didn’t make any sense, we had never been there before. They stood back, and motioned for us to go inside. Everything inside of me screamed not to do it. I’d seen too many scary movies to fall for the trap I knew we were walking into.

  I pushed on the door, swinging it open with ease. My foot hit wide planks of original wood, with visible nails in each board. It was familiar too, I had been there before but not in my current lifetime. I knew then, we had to have been someone else before and maybe they weren’t there to kidnap us.

  Alex followed me close as I walked further in. He reached his hand out and squeezed my waist adjusting himself to be standing next to me. The place smelled musty and there was a lot of dust everywhere, no one had been here for a long time.

  There was a large stone fireplace to the right, and in front of it sat a deteriorating couch. The fabric used to be a milky white, but was strained grey and black from age. Though, the wood remained dark and shiny under the dust. The frame of the couch was probably still viable, although I wouldn’t sit on it.

  “This place is familiar." They had all followed us inside, so I turned to look at them.

  “Born 1898 as Cassandra Berg, and Oliver Emmett born 1897” Gideon's voice echoed through the house. Suddenly my head went blank, and a whirlwind sent me into a vision.

  A girl that had long blonde curls that gracefully spiraled down her back, was moving books around on the book shelf spanning the entire back wall. She effortlessly moved each book from its place, and rearranged it another way. It was almost mesmerizing observing her.

  The vision flashed forward and I saw her levitating in the meadow just outside of the cottage. She was only slightly off the ground, but she looked like she was practicing. A dark haired boy with olive skin, was watching her with amusement. The sun shone, as the grin spread across his face. In unison, as if the smile caused the sun beams to liquify against their skin and across the grass.

  I wanted to see more of their life together. Alex turned toward me, and our eyes met. He had seen everything, too. They were us, and they had our powers but stronger. I was right. But I was surprised that the cottage held such a memory. We had lived there in a past life, and the vision was triggered by Gideon’s words. It was strange, and I questioned the authenticity of what we saw. I had been cynical my entire life and wasn’t going to change for the strangest situation I had ever been in.

  “Did you see the memory?” He knew what we would see when we entered, that was why they brought us there. They knew they couldn't convince us, so they wanted to show us that we already trusted them. Alex was convinced. But they still didn't tell us what they wanted from us, or why they were so welcoming. Even if our past selves lived here, how would they know? We had clearly forgotten until recently. None of them would have been alive at that point in time.

  “What is my power, actually?” Alex turned away from them, fixated on the power aspect of all of it.

  “You have the ability to control the elements. All four.” Alex uncrossed his arms and fidgeted with his hands. He liked that answer. Being able to control the elements was an extraordinary power and it was flashy. Alex was reserved most of the time, but was also a charismatic socialite. He didn't like to be the direct center of attention, but he liked when people knew he was good at something.

  “You have the ability to control energy. All energy in every form."

  I knew that already, it seemed to be the most obvious explanation for what had been happening to me my whole life. They just answered it out loud for me, and it confirmed some deceit from Maria.

  “You're the only witches I've ever met to have those abilities. Most of us can do smaller things like, see into the immediate future or move things on a small scare. While there are rarer abilities like controlling different aspects of energy particles to make fire or produce other materials.”

  Alex walked away into what looked like it could be a kitchen.

  “We will be able to help you expand your powers, and turn you into intensely powerful witches. You are prophesied to be the most powerful.”

  “We know.” Alex said from the other ro
om

  “Do you know of your fate, then?”

  “No one knows what we’re here to do.” I touched the edge of the couch and felt a small jolt of energy.

  “We do.”

  My eyes shot up and looked at Gideon standing in the doorway.

  “You are meant to change the world as we know it. But the prophecy didn’t end there. The book was stolen so long ago, and the page was ripped from its existence.” He took a step up.

  “It was changed. The ending told of the two powerful witches exposing us to the world. The Council thinks that is a bad thing, so they continued to leave it out. We believe it’s a good thing.”

  “You want to expose us?”

  “More or less. We shouldn’t have to stay hidden in a world that was so clearly made for us. There are more people who are capable of magic than there are people who can’t. It's been mixed in blood so many times. We live in a magical world, but non-magic people have been suppressing us for so long.”

  It made sense, what they were saying. I didn’t like the idea of staying hidden, I wanted to be able to do my magic freely without having to worry about getting caught by The Council, and executed. I thought about my dad having to log my name after it happened, and that usually prevented me from doing anything really stupid over the years.

  My thoughts churned, bubbling over. I knew what Alex wanted, and I didn’t know if he would follow me if I tried to walk away.

  “We know you won’t believe us right away.”

  I still stood in the first room, with my arms crossed.

  “Take these home with you. They’re yours, we kept them for you to look at in this life.” Callie handed me a large box that was full of papers and photographs, some of the couple we’d seen in the vision and some that looked familiar but I didn’t know them.

  I didn’t look through them right away, because I didn’t know what would happen when I touched them. Alex and I looked at each other and agreed that we would wait until we got home to do it. If the box was truly filled with memories, it would be something of an intimate experience for us. It would allow us to know each other deeper, look into the past of who we were to develop better who we are.