Halloween Magic and Mayhem (3 page)

I grumbled to myself as I pulled on my fancy dress witch tights, but in truth I wasn’t massively bothered, I was getting used to the idea that he’d seen it all already.

Ten minutes later I twirled in front of the mirror. I was wearing a sexy little black dress, the black and white striped tights, and some black pointed heels. I had a witch’s hat ready and a broomstick for good measure.

The irony of my outfit struck me as hilarious. I’d bought it days ago, before I knew any of the inherited witch stuff. Now I almost wished I’d gone with the cat costume that had looked super sexy. Unfortunately I had decided that it was
too
sexy, it just wasn’t me, I’m much more a kooky witch than a sex kitten. We are what we are, I giggled to myself.

“You can come back now.” I raised my voice.

Peter floated back through the wall. He wolf whistled at me, which I appreciated, so I struck a pose for him. “Very nice.” He said approvingly. “So did you aunt have any advice on helping me cross over?” He asked, and I felt really selfish for making him wait.

“Sorry, Peter. She said it was pretty complicated. There’s something in my mothers Grimoire but I haven’t looked at it yet. She did say there was a witch in her Coven that might be able to help though.”

He nodded enthusiastically, “That’s great. When can you see her?”

I groaned inwardly. I really didn’t want to do this tonight of all nights, I wanted to go the party and see Sean.

“She’ll be at The Severn Sisters for a Coven meeting tonight…” I said slowly trying to think of a way out of it. “But let’s look at the Grimoire first, maybe there is something I can do.”

We both sat on my bed as I flicked through the pages.

“Here it is.” I found two spells, one for banishing a ghost and one to help a willing ghost cross over.

“Oh damn. Ideally we need your bones.” I was grossed out at the idea of touching bones even if Peter knew where to find them. I was certainly not going to dig up any dead bodies. “Oh,
or a ghost willing to stand inside a cast circle
, we have that! The tough bit, apparently, is that we have to connect, and it takes a powerful witch to do that.” I paused, not keen on telling him that so far I was pretty much a bust as a witch.

I heaved a sigh, I would have to give it a go, it was that or tell him I would rather go to a party than help him cross over.

I looked at the clock, it was only six thirty but it was already pitch dark outside. The autumn nights were really drawing in.

“We have some time. Let’s give it a try.” I said. “I’m only going to do a really simple circle, because I’ve never done anything like this on my own before, ok?” I got up and collected the white candles I had just been given by Iris.

I set four candles down in a large circle and turned off all the lights. My curtains were open and the room was now lit just by the full moon outside. I seated myself in the middle of the candles with a box of matches, some incense and an incense holder.

“You’d better come sit in here as well,” I said to Peter. “Apparently, once the circle is cast you shouldn’t be able to cross in or out. We mustn’t swear in the circle, and if I leave it, it will break, so have we got everything?”

Peter nodded, he looked worried but he came and sat down beside me.

I opened the Grimoire in my lap and began to put into practice what I had learned from my aunt that day.

I tried to remember where the sun rose each day so I would know which way was East.

I began to recite: “Watchtower of the East, Guard and Bless this Circle” I lit the first candle, “Watchtower of the South, Guard and Bless this Circle,” I lit the next candle and then repeated the words for West and North. When all four candles were flaming away, I lit the incense. I let the smoke follow me as I slowly turned round in a full circle and said “As above and so below.” Then I waved the incense a bit to make sure the circle was fully cleansed, before putting it in the incense holder.

I stifled the urge to giggle; I must look ridiculous, especially as I was wearing my full on witch costume. I bit my lip and managed to get a more serious look on my face.

I seated myself opposite Peter in the middle and held out my hands palm up.

“Do you think you could rest your palms on mine?” I asked him. He lightly put his ghostly hands over mine and I resisted a shiver as I felt him there.

“Ok, this is the tough bit, we have to concentrate on each other, like a Vulcan mind-meld.” I closed my eyes and tried to sense him without them. I was concentrating so hard I didn’t hear anyone come into the house.

“Emily? What time are you planning to leave tonight?” It was Duncan’s voice right outside my door. The doorknob turned and the door began to open.

“Don’t come in!” I shrieked, I threw my hands out towards the door and there was a blast of yellow energy. The door, which was now half open, slammed shut again, knocking Duncan back through it and into the wall of the hallway. The candles flared up for a moment and then went out.

“Oh no!” I scrambled to my feet and opened my bedroom door. Duncan was sprawled out in the hallway completely unconscious and there was a massive crack in the wall where he must have hit his head.

“What just happened?” I asked Peter desperately.

He shrugged. “Some pretty strong magic? Is it supposed to come out of your hands like that?”

I looked down at my hands, expecting some evidence of magic but they looked normal. “I don’t know, but I don’t think so.”

I slapped Duncan’s cheek lightly trying to get him to wake up, but he didn’t react. I felt a bump on the back of his head and there was a matching red mark on his forehead where the door must have really whacked him.

“Help me drag him into my room, quickly, before the parents get back.” I said over my shoulder.

Peter gave me a look and I remembered he couldn’t touch anything. So I dragged Duncan by his ankles through my door, he weighed a ton.

“I need help! I’ll be in so much trouble for this. They might not even let me go to the party.”

I switched on the lights and scrabbled in my bag for my phone. I tried to ring Iris, but got no answer. I was starting to panic when inspiration hit me. I went over to the window, opened it and yelled, “Bob!”

He was there in seconds, a black shape appearing against the moon. I stood back and he flew in.

“Yes Mistress?” He looked sleepy and I wondered if birds went to bed as soon as it got dark.

“I need you to find my aunt and tell her I’ve knocked Duncan out. By
accident
. “I added as Bob tipped his head at me questioningly. “I was casting a circle and he came into the room, I sort of blasted him.”

“Blasted him, Mistress?”

“Yes,” I held my hands up to Bob, “Like this, and some kind of burning light came out of my palms and hit the door and it knocked him out.”

“You didn’t say any kind of spell?” Bob looked intrigued.

“No, is that normal?” I already knew by the look on his face that it wasn’t.

“Were you pointing your wand at him?” Bob seemed to be trying to comprehend what happened as well.

“No. I already told you, it came out of my palms. Look, never mind that. Can you find Iris or not?”

“Yes of course Mistress, I’ll be as quick as I can.” He gave me one more speculative look and then flew out the window.

I went into the bathroom and ran a flannel under the tap and then returned to my room and applied it to Duncan’s forehead.

“Do you think I should ring an ambulance?” I asked Peter.

“How will you explain it?” He asked sensibly. “He’s only knocked out. I’m sure I saw a spell in your book when we were looking through it earlier, to ‘Revive’ a person.

“Oh, great idea. Though I doubt I could make it work, lets have a look.”

I retrieved my Grimoire from the circle.

“Yes! Here it is. Oh pants, it’s pretty complicated. I need a load of stuff.” I went round the room collecting what I had.

I had to run downstairs to get an apple, a glass of water and a bowl of some earth from the garden, but then I was ready.

I sat back down inside the candles and grimaced at Peter. “Wish me luck.”

I cut the apple in half with my Athame on a mirror to double the strength of the spell and reading from the Grimoire I said “I offer this apple to the goddess and ask for the power of the full moon to fill me.”

I removed one seed from the apple and cradling it in my palm I said “Seed of life, I give you air,” then I blew on it. “Seed of life, I give you earth,” I planted it in the bowl of earth. “Seed of life, I give you water,” I watered the earth. “Seed of life I give you fire from the father sun and light this candle to guide you,” I lit a red candle and stood it in the earth. Then I picked up my wand, pointed it at Duncan and intoned:

“By earth, air, fire and water, let the power of the elements reside.

In perfect love and perfect trust, this man I want you to revive.

This is my will, hear my plea, as it harm none, so mote it be.”

Once again nothing happened at all. I gave a wail and dropped my wand. Storming over to Duncan I shook him hard. “Revive, Revive, Revive!” I sobbed in frustration.

This time the light burst out of me in like a ring around a planet, and then it slowly grew and grew, until whoosh it exploded outwards. Out of the window I could see the light fill the garden and beyond, and then everything went dark again.

My bedroom light flickered and then came on again.

Duncan sat up, the mark was gone from his forehead and he looked fine. I slumped in relief.

“Who the hell is that?” Duncan asked, looking over my shoulder.

I turned my head and gasped. Peter wasn’t a ghost anymore. I’d ‘revived’ him too. He was now a handsome sixteen year old boy, standing in my room, and that suit I had been unable to place? It was a pair of striped pyjamas.

I don’t know which of us looked more shocked. All three of us were pretty stunned. Peter was pinching himself as if to check he wasn’t dreaming and I was gawping at him with my mouth open. Only Duncan looked confused rather than surprised.

“Um, this is Peter.” I told Duncan, whilst trying to come up with a good excuse as to why there was a boy in my bedroom wearing only his pyjamas. Actually forget a good excuse, any excuse at all would have done. I came up with … nothing!

Peter recovered quicker than me. “Hi Duncan, isn’t it?” He gave Duncan a smile. “I know this looks really odd, but I had a massive row with my father last night, he got kind of aggressive and then he kicked me out of the house. Emily was nice enough to offer me her floor for the night. We’re old friends and I just didn’t know where else to go. I’ve been lying low because I don’t want my dad to know where I am until he calms down, you know?”

Duncan nodded sympathetically. “Oh right. Bummer.”

I was taken aback by how easily he accepted the decidedly ropey story. But it did explain everything, even Peter’s clothes. I supposed that Peter must have had a lot of time on his hands to think up his tall tales.

Peter kept his focus on Duncan. “Um, now that you know I’m here, I don’t suppose I could borrow some clothes off you could I? We’re about the same size.”

I never thought Duncan would do something as selfless as lend his clothes, I mean, he went mental once when I borrowed his coat just to bolt to the car and back in the rain to fetch my school bag. But he just nodded again and got up, slightly unsteadily, and left the room.

“I think he’s got concussion.” I muttered, looking at the door Duncan had just exited through, “He must have, to accept that story!”

Peter shook his head. “I knew he’d understand, after all, his own dad is the same.”

“Huh?” I was confused. I knew Irene and Duncan didn’t see his dad, but I’d never heard he was aggressive or anything.

Peter gave me a look. “I hear things hanging around this house. Duncan’s had it pretty rough from his dad, maybe you should cut him some slack?”

I blinked a few times, realising that I had never asked or cared before. Maybe I should have.

“Whatever,” I mumbled, “can we deal with the fact you appear to have come back from the dead?”

Peter’s face lit up. “Yeah! You are one righteous witch, Emily Rand! Bringing back the dead. That’s got to be major league magic?”

“I don’t know,” I said, “I didn’t mean to do it!”

We both jumped as Bob tapped his beak on the window. “Oh thank heavens.” I said letting him in. “What did aunt Iris say?”

Bob gawked at Peter. “Holy Hemlock,” he chirped. He looked at me, “She’s coming now, in her car. But you’ve got big problems, Mistress. I don’t know what you’ve done, but there are a load of, uh,
dead bodies
, heading this way.” He jerked his head at the window and Peter and I rushed over to look out of it.

From the window I could see right down the hill to the common. It was really dark outside, but there was definitely something moving slowly over the common in this direction.

I felt sick. “What are they?” I whispered.

Bob looked worried. “For want of a better word, I would say ‘Zombies’. They all bust out of their graves a few minutes ago. I assume you didn’t call them on purpose?”

“No.” I clutched my head, trying not to wet myself from fear. I mean I’ve played Resident Evil on my PlayStation, and zombies are no laughing matter.

“Are you sure they’re coming here?” Peter asked.

Bob nodded. “The spell came from here. I felt it. In fact, I saw it. Big yellow light? Pretty hard to miss. It went over the cemetery and then all these bodies started coming up. Only men though, which is weird.”

“The spell to revive.” Peter looked at me, “You said ‘this
man
’ in the spell. It also worked on me, do you think it worked on all of them? There must be hundreds of dead men buried in this town?”

“Just this town?” Bob said, really not helping my nausea, “How do we know how far the spell went?”

“What do we do?” I whispered. I slumped down to the floor, still unable to face looking at the zombies again.

“Another spell?” Suggested Peter.

I wailed, “But I don’t know what I’m doing! This is a nightmare!”

With his usual sense of crap timing, Duncan came back with some clothes for Peter. Bob dived under my bed to hide, and Peter and I looked at each other, both thinking the same thing, we had to get Duncan out of the way.

Duncan held out some clothes for Peter and said, “These should fit. Are you coming to the party tonight? Because if you are then I might have a spare costume if you wanted?”

Despite the zombies on their way here, I took a second to wonder if Duncan had always been so friendly and I’d just never given him a chance.

Peter nodded and said, “That would be fantastic, can I come and look?” He practically pushed Duncan out of the door. On his way out he said under his breath, “Don’t worry, I’m sure you aunt will know what to do.”

Of course! Iris was coming, I ran back to the window. The zombies were at the bottom of the hill, they moved very slowly, I figured I had a few minutes. Where was Iris? The whole road seemed deserted despite the fact it was now only about half past seven.

Then I saw her headlights. The zombies reached the road about the same time she did. Her car stopped for a second and then sped up exponentially and screeched up the hill.

“Keep an eye on them,” I called to Bob as I ran downstairs and let her in.

“There’s something very odd going on.” She sounded breathless, “Maybe its just kids, but I swear I just saw grown men dressed as…”

“Dead people?” I asked giving her a shaky smile.

“Oh my stars!” She slapped her forehead. “I knew it felt wrong. What have you done?”

I dragged her up to my room, shut the door and quickly explained.

“Wait a minute.” She held up a hand. “Lets get this clear. You say energy came out of your hands?”

“Yes, and then out of my whole body when I did the Revive spell.” I spoke fast, anxious about how much time we had before flesh eating zombies tried to kill us. “Iris, can you do a spell,
quickly
?”

“No.” she said calmly. “I don’t have the power.” Then she looked almost excited as she said, “But you do. I just knew you’d be special. Emily, you’re a
Natural Witch
!”

I looked confused, obviously.

“Ok, never mind right now,” She stroked the crystal around her neck thoughtfully. “But it’s a rare type of witch. You’ll need some specialist training.”

“Iris!” I almost shrieked at her, “I don’t care. We’re about to be attacked by the walking dead! What should we do?”

“Oh,” She looked surprised. “They won’t attack. You called them. They’ll await your command.”

“Are you serious?” I was giddy with relief.

She nodded and opened the window. “Tell them to wait in the garden, out of sight, we don’t want them traipsing mud in the house.”

I leaned out fearfully. An awful stench hit my nose. The first of the zombies was just entering the garden, hundreds more behind him.

“Uh, listen up zombies.” I called out nervously. “Could you all wait in the garden, or the neighbours gardens? But stay out of sight, get off the road please.”

I was thrilled and amazed as they blundered about trying to do exactly as I had instructed.

“What I don’t understand,” Iris frowned, “Is how you managed to revive them too. Didn’t you cast a circle before you did the spell? It should have been contained within it.”

“Yes, I did, but…” my voice trailed off as I looked at the candles on the floor and remembered leaping across the room just after I knocked Duncan out. “I broke the circle.” I finished lamely. “And I didn’t recast it before I did the revive spell.” I hung my head.

“Why didn’t Bob remind you?” Iris shot Bob an irritated glance.

“She didn’t call me.” Bob huffed his little shoulders and gave us both a cross look.

“Emily,” Iris scolded me, “You must never do magic without your Familiar. He will act as your second pair of eyes, he will keep you grounded, and once you have bonded, his presence should add greatly to your magic.”

“Well, I didn’t know that. Sorry Bob.”  I reached out and stroked his head with one finger.

“So without the circle, how far has the magic gone? Have I revived all the dead men everywhere? Or just all the dead in England or what?” The thought sent shivers down my spine.

“Oh no, it’s highly unlikely you’ve even covered the whole town. Definitely not beyond.” She seemed confident and I sighed with relief.

“Well that’s something anyway.” I looked out the window again. Zombies were still arriving, but there were definitely no more apparently on their way.

Peter came back into the room, he was wearing a Onesie with a skeleton motif on it. “It seemed appropriate.” He laughed as I raised an eyebrow.

Iris coughed, trying to catch my attention subtly.

“It’s ok,” I told her, “Peter knows everything, he’s my ghost.”

“She revived me too.” Peter explained as Iris looked disbelieving.

“Oh dear.” Iris sighed, “We have an awful lot to do tonight. Your spell only worked on Peter and the, uh, zombies, because it’s Halloween. The veil between the living and the dead is very thin tonight, but come midnight the veil will drop down again and they will all return to the way they were.”

I thought about that for a second. “But isn’t that good? The zombies will go back to being just dead bodies?”

“Yes, but in your garden! We have to get them back in their graves. And what about Peter? Tonight is the best night of the year to get him to cross over, he could be stuck here for another year whilst you learn what to do.”

“Aw, really?” Peter said. “Do I have to go tonight? I was hoping to take the old body out for a spin. Get out of this damn house, maybe smooch a few ladies.” He waggled his eyebrows at me.

“But then you would become a ghost again at midnight.” Iris reiterated. “Do you want to stay here another year until the veil is this thin again to pass over?”

Peter shook his head. “I don’t think so. No offence Emily, but if I have to listen to your music for another year I’ll go crazy.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my music.” I huffed. Though I suppose I do have an unfortunate habit of singing along to musicals, which no one was ever supposed to hear!

Iris clapped her hands to get our attention. “We can try a reversal spell. I can write a spell, but Emily will need to provide the power.”

“How do I do that?” I asked.

“What did you do before?” She said.

“I don’t know! It just sort of happened.”

Iris sighed, “Oh dear. This is the problem with Natural Witches. Your powers are attached to your emotions. You can’t just invoke them with words, you have to do it with feelings.”

“Well that’s easy then,” I waved my hands at the window. “I definitely feel that I want the zombies to go away.” I aimed my palms at the window. Nothing happened. I shook my hands like you might shake a faulty toy, still nothing. I blew a long breath of irritation out of my cheeks.

“It’s not working.” I stamped my foot in frustration and my bedroom light flickered again.

“You aren’t focussed enough.” Iris said looking up at the light with concern. “I’ll write the spell, it might help.”

She pulled a pad off my shelf and a pen from beside it and began to write. “There.” She said handing it to me.

I read aloud from the paper:

“Undo what I have done,

Return the dead from where they come

In their graves undisturbed peacefully

This is my will, so mote it be”.

“Try saying it three times,” Iris suggested when still nothing happened, no bright light, and the zombies continued to moan quietly outside.

I did, we still had nothing.

“Right, that settles it,” Iris said, “I’m taking you to my Coven meeting, right now. When a Coven adds their magic together it can get pretty powerful. You can use our magic to enhance your own.”

“Yeah, ok.” I should have known I would end up going. Too bad about the party, I thought feeling defeated.

“I think you had better bind Peter to you before we go, just in case.” Iris nodded to Peter who was flicking through one of my magazines.

“How do I do that?” I asked.

“I’m afraid the quickest and simplest method would be a blood bind. As Peter is currently corporeal it should be easy.” Irish handed me a needle. “Both of you prick your fingers please.”

We did. “So do we press them together?” I held my bleeding finger out towards Peter’s.

“No, I’m afraid you have to ingest it. Suck the blood from his finger and vice versa.”

“That’s just revolting!” My stomach turned.

Peter was less bothered. He grabbed my finger and put it in his mouth, holding his own out to me. I gingerly sucked it.