After this came a simple power chant, designed to raise whatever powers I had as well as to call the Goddess and the God. Whenever I had practiced this at Hunter’s, I’d caused something to explode, so I wasn’t sure what would happen now.
Morgan’s voice came to me in my head. Alisa, you’re doing so well.
I drew more sigils in the air and on the ground. Mr. Niall had explained these as being a kind of history, quickly describing who he was and who I was and whatever we knew about the power sink. Then I knelt back down. The first part was done.
I heard Morgan say that the first part had been perfect and to go into the second part. I stood up and took another breath, holding my arms out to my sides. I was aware of a cold, damp wind whipping my hair around, I knew that it was pitch-dark outside, but mostly I was aware within myself of the perfect, lovely form of the spell that Maghach had crafted. In my mind I could it see it all finished, done, its layers upon layers. I needed to focus and do it step by step.
The second part was the longest and hardest. Something in me started to feel anxious, as if I were running out of time. It was either Morgan or Maghach. I stepped quickly into the form of the second part, the limitations.
“This spell is to ignite on the thirtieth day of the first month of spring,” I began, my voice sounding thin against the wind. “The moon is full and on the wane. The length of the spell shall not exceed five minutes after igniting. It shall be contained within these barriers.”
Here I knelt and drew sigils on the ground, then runes that further identified the exact location, to within a hundred feet, of where the spell would have life. I began to feel an urgency, and I drew more quickly. Suddenly my mind went blank, and I stared down at at the ground and my unmoving hand. Another sigil? Another rune? On the ground? In the air? Do I get up now? An icy bead of sweat trickled down my back as adrenaline flooded my body. Oh no oh no oh no.
“Tyr,” came Morgan’s voice, calm and sure inside my head.
I almost started weeping with relief. I drew the rune Tyr on the ground with sharp movements. “Ur,” she went on patiently. “Thorn. Then Yr. Then the battle sigil, in the air.”
Yes, yes, I thought, following her instructions.
“Sigils for moon phase,” she coached me gently.
Yes, I know now. I thought back, recognizing my place once again. I walked in the circle in the shape of a moon, then drew its identity in the air.
“The spell shall have no other purpose than that described here,” I went on. “It shall affect no other being than those described here. It shall not exist or ignite ever again in perpetuity, except for the time described here. This spell is intended only for goodness, for safety, to right a wrong. My intent is pure. I work not in anger, nor hatred, nor judgment.”
On and on I went. The limitations of a spell are the most important part, especially for something like this.
This part took almost thirty minutes. I moved as quickly as I could and still be precise and exact, not skipping anything. Three more times I forgot what to do, and each time panic overwhelmed me until Morgan talked me through the next step. Her voice sounded strained but incredibly calm and reassuring. I was no longer aware of where Hunter was or what he was doing. I felt a dim outline of Maghach in my head. Sometimes I felt cold wind, or a heavy weight pressing on me, or was aware of leaves whipping around me. I stayed within my circle and worked the spell.
At the end of the second part I wanted to lie down and cry. The air itself was starting to feel bad, to affect me as if I were breathing fumes of poison. I felt exhausted and nauseated, and my head pounded. The third part was the actual form of the spell itself. The fourth part would be fast: igniting it.
“Keep going, Alisa,” said Morgan, a thin line of ice underlying her calm voice. “Keep going. You can do it. You’re strong. You know it. Now state the actual spell.”
I wiped the sweat off my forehead and turned to the east. “With this spell I create an opening, a bith dearc, between this world and the netherworld,” I began, my voice sounding shaky. “I create an unnatural tear between life and death, between light and dark, between salvation and revenge.” And on it went, sometimes in English, sometimes in modern Gaelic, which I had done a decent job of memorizing, and some in ancient Gaelic, which Morgan and Maghach had to coach me through, practically word by word. I walked within my circle, creating patterns, layers of patterns, layers of intent. I drew sigils in the air and on the ground. I drew sigils on myself and around myself. Suddenly I froze, looking at the billowing, oily black cloud roaring our way. It looked sickening, tinged with green, and it was getting so close. I felt like the breath was knocked out of me. Oh my God, this was real, and it was here, and I was really going to die.We were all really going to die.
Morgan started talking to me, but I couldn’t move. The closer it got, the sicker I felt, and the more Morgan’s voice sounded strained and weak. I barely felt Maghach at all anymore.
It’s over, I thought. I won’t finish in time. I looked around wildly for Hunter and saw him hunched over next to a tombstone.When he looked up at me, he looked like he had aged thirty years.
I had so much more to go, and the black cloud of destruction was almost upon us. Morgan’s voice in my head urged me on, and like a robot I started working through the last section of the third part, going as fast as I could. I was shaking all over: I thought I would throw up at any second, and basically I felt like I was standing there waiting to die.
The first blast of death, of darkness, was barely twenty yards away.
My hands trembling, I sketched an inverted pentagram in the air before me. I had finished the third part of the spell.
“Ignite it!” Hunter yelled, his voice sounding strangled.
“Ignite it!” Morgan screamed in my head.
Again I felt frozen with terror, shaky and stupid and ill. The dark wave was almost upon us, and I was mesmerized by it. In its boiling, choking clouds I could see faint outlines of faces, pinched and withered and hungry, eager. My body went cold. Each one of those people had once been someone like me—someone facing this terrible cloud. It was horrifying. The most horrible thing I had ever seen or even imagined.
“Ignite it! Alisa!” Morgan screamed.
Mindless with fear, I mechanically whispered the words that would set the spell into motion, that would let it spark into life, for good or for bad. Shaking so much I could hardly stand, I held out my arms and choked out, “Nal nithrac, cair na rith la, cair nith la!”
I felt a huge surge of energy inside me—it seemed to start in the ground, then it shot through me and out from my fingers and the top of my head. It was warmth and light and energy and happiness all at once: my magickal power. Then the faces were here, and the air and the earth ripped open in front of me, as if the whole world as I knew it, reality, were just a painting that someone had slashed. The gold pocket watch I had placed on the ground exploded, and the blast knocked me off my feet. I flew backward and my head cracked against a marble tombstone. Sparks exploded in my throbbing head, and I cried out. Ten feet away, I saw the dark wave suddenly rushing down into the rip, the bith dearc I had made. The ghost faces in it looked surprised, then horrified, then enraged. But they had no power over the spell I had cast. The whole wave disappeared into the rip while I stared. Then my vision went fuzzy, and everything became blessedly quiet and safe, black and still.