Raven Magic

by Jennifer Willis

  Grace regarded him for a moment and then laughed—an honest-to-goodness old woman cackle. Rod’s smile dimmed as he tried to chuckle along.

  “You think this old broad gives up so easily?” She punched him in the arm, and Rod had to correct his balance.

  “Okay, but it’s getting dark.” He shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “And cold.”

  Grace dug again into her pack. She pulled out a bulky sweater of olive wool and tossed it to him. Then she reached in deeper and produced a pair of LED headlamps. “You’re good company, Hammerstein. Good for a laugh, anyway. And if we run into a bear, you’ll be a more tempting snack than these old bones.”

  Wide-eyed, Rod stared at her. He wasn’t sure if she was joking or not, and he held his breath just in case there might be a bear lurking nearby. After a long, uncomfortable silence, Grace burst out laughing and punched him in the arm again.

  Heart pounding in a mixture of relief and irritation, Rod held the sweater up. It was a couple of sizes too big for him, but it was thick and would keep him warm. He’d barely gotten his head through the neck hole when Grace tossed him one of the headlamps. Rod pushed his arms through the long sleeves, rolled up the cuffs, and then stretched the lamp’s yellow elastic band around his head.

  “Is there anything you don’t have in that bag?” By the size of it, Rod judged that her canvas rucksack shouldn’t have had room enough even for the sweater.

  “I have what I need.” Grace shoved her arms through the bag’s straps and clicked on her own headlamp. She turned, dug the tip of her walking stick into the dirt, and pushed herself forward.

  “Right.” Rod took a deep breath and tightened his grip on his metal cup. He watched Grace’s light bob up and down as she moved through the trees at a fast clip. Rod switched on his own headlamp and started jogging again to keep up.

  Sally paused and let her eyes roam over her candlelit ritual space. She’d filled the interior of her circle with the sigil she’d designed for this working. It was a complicated, repeating symbol, and drawing it in the dirt with her fingers probably would have gone faster if she’d remembered to bring along a proper ruler. She trusted the magick would forgive her wobbly edges and imprecise angles.

  A ring of Thurisaz symbols spun around the center to call in the power of healing. The next ring outward alternated Ansuz—for overcoming obstacles and the removal of bindings—with repetitions of the angled Kenaz, to light Freyr’s way through the underworld.

  She’d linked the symbols together with tiny scrawls of Sowilu, the spark of life and triumph. Sowilu still made her flinch sometimes; it looked too much like the logo of the Nazi Schutzstaffel. To be safe, she’d practiced some deliberate mind-clearing before drawing these runes, to ensure she didn’t unintentionally harness anything malicious.

  Additional Sowilu runes marked each cardinal direction, just inside the full chain of Futhark runes along the perimeter. Halfway between each cardinal quarter, she’d scratched the lopsided X of Nauthiz, as a reminder of fearlessness in the face of death.

  But just as she was ready to draw the final symbol, doubt nagged at her. Why not Eihwaz in the center? It will lend influence in the underworld. Sally shook the thought away. She was already skirting a shadowy line. She might be pulling in the energies of another realm, but she was not working necromancy.

  The circular pattern of her sigil took up her entire ritual space, save for the small patch of unmarked dirt at the very center. There, Sally used her branded thumb to trace the bull horns of Uruz.

  She opened one of her jars and poured the rich soil from the base of the Yggdrasil in a wide octagon around the Nauthiz and Sowilu symbols. The fragrant earth from the Oweynagat cave she spilled in a tall mound directly over the central symbol of Uruz.

  It was time for the last candle. Sally had made it herself, swirling white and black wax together with an infusion of frankincense, angelica, sandalwood, rose oil, sage—and the blood of the living Rune Witch. She’d prepared the thing in her parents’ kitchen, now that she could mix her potions and incenses at home without arousing suspicion. But she'd retreated to her father's tool shed to draw her own blood—the wrong word spoken by the wrong person at the wrong time might have tainted the results, plus her mother would have wanted to supervise the blood draw with sterilized needles and white cotton swabs, transforming Sally’s preparations into an hysterical medical procedure instead of magick.

  The candle stood unlit and crusted with a resin of frankincense and blood, planted in the Oweynagat soil at the very center of Sally’s ritual circle.

  Dead center. Sally shivered.

  She had the last match poised against the striker strip. She was still lying—to her parents, to Frigga and Freya, to everyone. Even herself. Only in that last moment before she completed her work did she admit what had been in the back of her mind all along.

  She didn’t want Freyr to be dead.

  Well, of course not. No one did. But despite her deliberate focus and avoidance of distraction, she had to acknowledge the spark of hope that tinged the foundation of her funerary spell.

  She dismissed the thought. Nothing in her spell spoke to that hope, and it wasn’t like she had the power to raise the dead even if she wanted to.

  She moved to strike the final match, then stopped before she made so much as a spark.

  "Stupid, stupid," Sally muttered as she dug into her backpack. She’d almost ruined the whole thing.

  She pulled out a folded paper bag and carefully unwrapped a pristine black feather packed in four sprigs of dried sage. The feather was long, nearly thirteen inches from shaft to tip. Sally had hunted for weeks in Forest Park to find the perfect primary wing specimen. She grasped the feather by its pearly shaft, its dark barbs glinting in the candlelight.

  "Raven," Sally said aloud. Remembering the audience she had earlier, Sally looked up into the trees, but her black-winged spectator was gone.

  She rested the raven feather at the base of the unlit candle at the center of the circle, its shaft pointing East. The feather lay across both the Yggdrasil and Oweynagat soils, with the black tip touching the heart of the Resurrection Rune.

  Sally lit the dried sage in the flames of the South cardinal candle and planted the smoldering sprigs in the ground. Uruz throbbed on the pad of her thumb. She’d already given her blood to the raw frankincense and to the swirled candle, but the rune in her flesh wanted to be pricked again.

  Stalling, Sally pulled her Book of Shadows into her lap and paged through her spell from beginning to end. She hadn't missed a step. She rubbed at the scar on her thumb.

  Couldn’t hurt. She drew her athame from its velvet sheath and pressed its sharp tip into the skin at the base of the brand before she could chicken out. She caught her breath with the prick of pain. Blood welled quickly to the surface. She held her hand over the sigil and allowed a few fat drops to fall on the mound of Oweynagat soil. Then she pulled away and sucked at her thumb until the bleeding stopped.

  She closed her journal. There weren’t any words, sacred or otherwise, that would add gravity to her working. It was all in the symbols and elements she’d pulled together.

  Still, she felt inept for not having a profound statement or blessing ready on her lips. She cast about for some equivalent to "One small step for a man,” but she let it go. Any off-the-cuff remark might disturb the balance of the space.

  "For Freyr.” She struck the match and leaned toward the central candle.

  The moment the match touched the wick, Sally was thrust violently backward. She landed hard against her pack as a thick column of golden light pulsed up from the circle. She sat in the dirt, trying to catch her startled breath, and watched as each of her sigil symbols sparked with blue-white electricity and lifted up from the ground to shimmer in the air. The symbols danced and swirled together in silence, then flew upward like a bird taking flight.

  And then everything was dark.

  It took some time for Sally's eyes to ad
just to the forest at night. The four directional candles burned low to the ground, their energy spent. The ring of Futhark runes was intact around the perimeter of her circle, but everything inside was gone—including the black-and-white candle she’d only just lit. The ring of dirt from the World Tree and the small Oweynagat mound had vanished. No chance for a do-over.

  Sally crept forward, amazed to see that the raven feather remained at the center. A flicker of light rippled over the feather’s surface, then faded to black.

  Determined not to mar the outer symbols of her circle, Sally contorted into a frustrated down-dog position and scooped out the dirt that had slipped inside the waistband of her jeans. Then she waited for the white candles to extinguish themselves. It didn’t take long. First North, then South, followed by West. The East candle was the most stubborn, burning a full three minutes longer than the others.

  "East," Sally said to herself with a smile. “The direction of dawn and rebirth."

  She decided this was a good sign.

  The flame of the last candle finally burned down and winked out in a thin stream of smoke.

  "It's done.” Sally sat back in the dirt and said a quiet goodbye to her lost friend.

  The sun had disappeared completely while she’d been busy with her magick, and the forest was almost black with darkness. On her hands and knees, she felt around for her pack, fumbled with the zippers, and tried to remember where she'd stowed her headlamp. Her fingers brushed the familiar curve of plastic, and she stretched the elastic band over her head and turned on the headlamp.

  In the stark light of the LED, the remains of her magickal circle looked eerily like the shaky found footage of a doomed documentary crew uncovering the remnants of a Halloween seance. Sally ran her fingers over the raven feather. Under her touch, the spine shimmered silver with lingering magick.

  She looked up at the sky, past the trees illuminated by her headlamp, and tried to catch a glimpse of a star or two. But her stomach rumbled uncomfortably, and she remembered that she hadn't eaten anything since breakfast, before her soak in the hot springs. She dug a protein bar out of her bag and unscrewed the lid of her water bottle. She leaned back against one of the trees that bounded the clearing and bit into the peanut-butter-chocolate-crunch goodness. Her body relaxed as she imagined the tree boughs enfolding her like a blanket.

  Sally hoped Opal was all right—and not royally pissed. Maybe Opal had been given her own magickal task to complete, and they could swap stories when their solos were over. If Opal was instead sitting and waiting for Sally to return from one more grand adventure, it wasn’t going to be pretty.

  Sally felt suddenly alone. She missed her cat and wished Baron was in the woods with her to curl up in her lap, help keep her warm, and give her someone to talk to. Baron was always a good listener, no matter how ambitious or jumbled she got.

  Then she wondered if Moon might have been secretly observing her this whole time. Sally swung her head around and let her LED light up the surrounding woods. If there was something lurking out there in the dark, Sally couldn’t spot it.

  With the buzzing rush of magick finally drained out of her, Sally was suddenly cold. Her bare feet felt like ice against the dirt. She pulled out her sleeping bag and wriggled into it, fully clothed. She munched on the rest of the protein bar and watched her breath condense on the cool air.

  “Why did Moon want me to do this spell?" she asked the trees sheltering her. She had been so disoriented—as to her location and by Moon's changing moods—that it hadn't occurred to her to wonder why things had worked out so perfectly. In Sally’s experience, nothing was ever perfect.

  An owl hooted in reply. Sally was too tired to engage in a metaphysical debate with the local wildlife. She took another drink of water, clicked off her headlamp, and nestled into her sleeping bag. With her pack as an uncomfortable pillow, she closed her eyes. The magick had taken more out of her than she'd realized, and she drifted easily to sleep.

  Heimdall raced through the woods after his wolf-dog. He kept calling out for Laika to stop, to slow down, to turn around—anything but continue her pursuit of the Fenris Wolf. But her prey drive had been triggered, and there was little he could do to call her off.

  She was faster than he was. Heimdall struggled to keep his feet beneath him while she sprinted ahead. He had no hope of catching her. The best he could do was to keep her in sight. The Fenris Wolf was faster still, and Heimdall could see the black wolf pause and glance back to make sure Laika and Heimdall were still following.

  They were being led deliberately astray.

  The last time Heimdall had seen Fenrir was at the Battle of the White Oak Yggdrasil. Tasked with killing Odin, Fenrir had set his sights on Heimdall as well. Only Loki’s smooth talking kept his Warg son from tearing out Heimdall’s throat.

  Remembering the feel of Fenrir’s teeth and the foul stench of his breath, Heimdall coughed and nearly vomited as he ran. Why was Fenrir here? None of this made any sense. Fenrir couldn’t have orchestrated the fake guides, but Heimdall couldn’t shake the feeling that Fenrir’s sudden appearance was no coincidence.

  “Laika!” Heimdall shouted again, his throat hoarse from yelling and panting. He felt like he’d run a full marathon through the trees and dry brush, but the black wolf lured them deeper. Even if they stopped now, Heimdall imagined it would take most of the night to retrace their steps. Any hope of picking up their trail again was pretty much gone.

  Laika yipped as she leapt over a fallen tree. Joints stiff with exertion, Heimdall tumbled over the log and hit the ground with his elbows and knees.

  Laika whined in excitement. Did she think Fenrir was playing?

  Heimdall had warned her about Fenrir before, but he couldn’t be sure she remembered. Even the smartest wolf could have a short attention span.

  Far ahead, the massive Randulfr leapt into the air, teeth and eyes flashing as he urged Laika forward. Heimdall could barely feel the cold rubber of his legs beneath him, but he pushed on. His lungs burned and his vision was starting to dim. He was trying to track a black wolf at night without infrared goggles. It was a wonder he hadn’t impaled himself on a tree.

  His heart skipped a beat when he heard the sharp sound of growling. He slowed his pace and tried to approach more carefully, but he couldn’t see what was happening. He recognized Laika’s voice as the snarling and snapping continued. She certainly wasn’t playing now.

  Heimdall stumbled over a rotting log and found himself in the unlucky position of standing between Laika and Fenrir, posturing and preparing to fight. Laika had her tail high in the air, waving back and forth in warning. Fenrir crouched low, ready to spring forward. Both bared sharp teeth as they growled at each other.

  Coughing and out of breath, Heimdall lifted his hands in cautious diplomacy. He hoped his body language could slow things down a bit while he tried to regain his voice.

  “Let’s just hold on a minute,” he panted, struggling to remain upright while his body wanted to give into gravity and rest. He stepped back far enough to keep both animals in sight while still making himself an obstacle to an actual fight. Standing between two battle-hungry wolves was not his idea of a good time on his best day, and Heimdall had to call on his deepest reserves of personal fortitude to maintain his cool. “This doesn’t have to happen.”

  Mirroring Fenrir’s posture, Laika dropped her tail as she lowered her body. She pawed at the ground and curled her upper lip to show her sharp teeth as she snarled.

  “Laika.” Heimdall kept his voice calm and tried to catch her eye. But she was focused on Fenrir, her ears flat against her skull and the hairs on the back of her neck standing straight up.

  “Laika,” he said again, still not getting her attention. “I want you to stand down, girl. You don’t want this fight.”

  Laika’s pupils dilated and the muscles in her hindquarters twitched. Heimdall figured he had mere seconds to prevent his wolf-dog’s certain death. He turned to the black wolf, who was easily tw
ice the size of his natural cousins. “Fenrir!”

  The Randulfr glanced quickly at Heimdall, then trained his eyes back on Laika.

  “Fenrir! Stop this now!” Heimdall shouted, knowing he had no real authority over him. He also knew he sounded like an exasperated kindergarten teacher, with about as much hope of pacifying an unruly paranormal beast. “Do you hear me?”

  Turning his back to Laika, Heimdall advanced on Fenrir. It was a calculated risk. Laika might still dart around him to get to Fenrir, and Fenrir might just as likely spring forward to take down the greater prize of Heimdall. But Heimdall hoped the Fenris Wolf would understand that he was trying to shield him from Laika.

  “I’m not kidding around!” Heimdall kept yelling, raising his voice above the raging growls. “You’ve made your point. You’ve pulled us off our hunt and into your trap. Enough of this. Just tell me what you want.”

  Fenrir lifted his fierce blue eyes to meet Heimdall’s gaze, then retreated a few paces. Behind Heimdall, Laika yipped in excitement.

  “No, Laika!” Heimdall raised a hand and motioned for her to be still. “Just stay back.”

  Fenrir shook himself hard, releasing his tense muscles and raised hackles. Then he dipped his massive head and in a smoky blur, the black wolf transformed into a small, solidly-built man covered in thick, black hair. Heimdall had never witnessed the transition before; the speed and seeming ease of it was unnerving. He wondered briefly about conservation of mass, but he decided this was not the best time to engage in a discussion on the practical physics of shapeshifting.

  “I don’t want to fight,” Fenrir told Heimdall as he gestured toward Laika. “I didn’t mean to get you so upset.”

  Laika whimpered in confusion at the sudden change in her adversary. She cocked her head to one side and then the other. She looked to Heimdall for help as she stamped her front paws in consternation.

  Heimdall sighed in relief. His heart was still pounding in his chest, but at least the immediate danger seemed to have passed. “It’s okay, girl. Just lie down and be quiet, okay?”