Page 60 of Witchlore
“Sounds good,” I say with a smile and a nod.
October 25 comes around much too quickly for my liking, but I wonder if there’s ever a good time to conjure a hellhound. I read up on the old ghost stories about the Black Shuck from before it was exorcized. Like Professor Wallace said, it was certainly a menace, a grim portent of death, said to murder anyone who looked it in the face. As the days pass, I get strange flashes while I’m riding the tram or getting dressed, cruel imaginative visions of angry eyes and slavering teeth.
I’ve not really seen Bastian since the incident at college, but I wonder if that might be because he’s buckling down to keep on top of his college work while he’s suspended. We’ve been messaging almost every day but I realize quickly how easy it is to be lonely without him studying beside me in the library or getting a quick coffee with me in between classes.
On the night of the new moon, I follow Bastian’s instructions to wait until it’s truly dark to catch the ten o’clock tram into town. I huddle inside my peacoat and think about the blue plaid coat that Elizabeth wore last winter. It’s suddenly bizarre that the seasons are turning and Elizabeth isn’t seeing the leaves fall. It’s a lurch of feeling, like I forgot something, but it doesn’t stab me between the ribs like it used to. Counselor Cooper once told me that recovery can be held back by fear: the fear of moving on, of being happy again. Tonight, with my breath steaming the cold window of the tram, the black night rushing by, the seasons themselves are reminding me of it.
The weather is anticipating winter, wet and blustery with adeeper chill in the air than usual. As I walk past the town hall and through St. Ann’s Square, there are paper pumpkins hung in the trees, their little faces catching the light from the streetlamps. It’s a particular experience, walking through a wintery city on a weeknight before Halloween. Decorations stand inanimate and unwatched, waiting for human eyes to bring them to life, and there’s an eerie aura to the quiet city. The cold weather is keeping everyone at home, tucked up warm.
When I walk into the empty cathedral square, the building glows with titian spotlights illuminating the astonishing gothic facade, turning the pale sandstone rust colored. The ancient tower looms over the square, its turrets twisting up into the black night, lost from view. This is where the Black Shuck has haunted and hunted for generations, and I shiver, my eyes catching on shadows. Bastian is standing by the huge metal gates in front of the door and when he spots me, he smiles so widely. I try not to notice the pleasurable churn in my chest, despite the rising anxiety in my legs.
“Hey,” he says. “It’s been ages.”
“It’s been eight days,” I scoff, but that only makes him smile more.
“You counted.”
I ignore him and point at his eye.
“This doesn’t look too bad.”
It’s no longer as swollen or red. There is a nauseating yellow tinge to it and a little splurge of brown broken blood vessels that look to still be healing, but it’s better than Carl’s, which honestly still looks purple as hell.
“Oh, yeah.” Bastian looks sheepish. “I have a really good recipe for a bruise paste.”
“Handmade?” He nods shyly and I grin. “You just have to be the smartest person, don’t you?”
Bastian shrugs but I can tell the compliment has sort of flustered him.
“Are you ready to meet the Black Shuck?” he asks. I can’t possibly answer that positively so I nervously nod at the chunky padlock on the cathedral-gated door.
“We’re not breaking in here, are we?”
“No, there’s a spot down here behind the wall we can use.” Bastian holds out his hand expectantly. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
I slowly withdraw a hand from my pocket and take his. It feels so natural to be pulled along by him and I can’t stop myself imagining what we’ll look like to anyone who walks past us. A pair in a relationship, maybe. A gay couple on their way home from the village, or two men on a first date. Or in love. That last thought gives me a thrill, deep in my gut, and I can’t help squeezing his hand. If he notices he doesn’t say anything.
“Here,” Bastian says, choosing a shadowy spot on the cathedral grass between two trees, away from the streetlights. Hidden by the wall on one side and the cathedral on the other, hopefully no one will see us. He drops my hand and starts to unload everything we need out of his satchel. I bend down and open the library book to the spell Bastian wants to use. He’s pulling a jar of something dark and red out of his satchel: the blood necessary for forming a conjuring circle.
“Rank,” I mutter. Just looking at it makes me queasy.
“It’s only pig’s blood.” He pulls the lid off it and brings out a paintbrush, beginning to sketch a pentagram on the grass. “There’s salt in my bag. Can you do the containment circle?”
I pull out a bottle of sea salt and pour it in a circle, just like I’vebeen practicing over and over. Conjuring like this requires corresponding shapes, the pig’s-blood pentagram inside a pentagon to act as a portal and the salt circle to contain it with the specific markings inside it. Having something to concentrate on quiets the steady thrum of unease running through me. But still, when I’m finished, it hits me again:Holy hell, are we really doing this?Bastian has finished the blood pentagram and is standing inside my circle, the book open on the grass in front of him.
“There’s a pair of tweezers in my bag,” he says. “Can you get them out?”
“And what are these for?” I pull them out of the pocket. They’re sharp, long, and vicious looking.
“They’re for you.” Bastian is holding his hands in front of him in the preparatory triangle. “Once I’ve conjured it and trapped it, you’re going to pinch some fur from it.”
“I’m going topinchsome fur?” I repeat, staring at him. For all we’ve talked about conjuring the hellhound and making sure we send it back safely, we’ve not discussed the actual hair part. I suppose I assumed the hellhound would shed, like a golden retriever, or something. But now I have to face interacting with a murderous hellhound rather than just observing one and I don’t know if I can do it.
Trepidation rises in my throat. This is exactly the kind of thing Kira warned me about, exactly the kind of thing that Bastian got in trouble for at college. I wonder if it’s worth it and then I want to stab myself in the leg with the tweezers, because how can I think that anything wouldn’t be worth having Elizabeth back and fixing what I broke? How can I justify being so cowardly when Bastian is standing here, ready to do this, risking himself, too, and doing all the spellwork? Yet I can’t help it; this hellhound has a real bodycount and my fear is tingling in the soles of my feet. Bastian must see something in my face because his expression softens and he reaches for my arm, stroking it gently.
“Look, I’ll try to be as quick as possible,” he says. “Just get the hair. Like plucking your eyebrows, but on a bigger scale.”
“Do you pluck your eyebrows?”
