Chapter Text
Aradia’s hands are covered in more chalk than the floor is, but at least the symbols are finally right. She checks the lines, studying for any blip or wobble in the solid design. The star is even (she’d taken the time to measure it just to make sure) and the circle around it as steady as she’d been able. She’s gone over the symbols to make them nice and thick, smoothing out the edges with the tips of her fingers.
This is the weirdest thing Aradia has ever done in her life. She can’t think of anything weirder, anyway, not even from that week in Jamaica that she only remembers due to photographic evidence. (How she managed to get painted up like an exotic bird and have donuts on top of the Pork Pit’s sign alongside a hottie with the body, she’ll never know, but it did land her going steady for two months with a hand model named Jennifer. Sollux will never let her live that down.) Aradia has had an adventurous life. So, when she thinks this is pretty weird, it’s pretty weird. She feels a little silly but she’s never been one to run away from a challenge! And this isn’t so much challenging as… Well, something else. Silly?
It’s not the dressing up that makes her feel silly. Honestly, she’d wear fancy cloaks and hoods everyday if she could get away with that. She likes the way the fabric flares when she bounces around. Even the face paint doesn’t bother her, though the swirls are starting to tickle a little as they dry. What really is getting her goat is the words she’s about to say. Aradia knows a lotof latin, a boon from her early school days before her parents realized no private girls’ academy was going to tame her spirit, and while she prizes her ability to muscle through perverted latin poems, it’s a little silly to recite satanic psalms in a dark, abandoned shed near a run down cottage in the middle of the woods.
“Come on, get it together.” She checks the altar set up one last time, glancing at one of the dusty tomes she brought along. All her chalk lines are straight and her symbols perfect. She’d practiced them just to make sure because she is not losing this bet due to some technicality. Nudging the main purple candle just a bit closer to the northern point, she finally decides that she’s ready and takes a picture of the whole set up for posterity.
Aradia feels a little like a horny teenager in a horror flick. Which is stupid, of course, because she hasn’t been a teenager in years. Plus, horror flicks have no bearing on reality. She’s in more danger of finding a tick on her ass than getting ripped apart by a ghost monster serial killer doll thing. (Idly, she thinks maybe it’s been too long since she and Sollux had a movie night. He does the best screams.)
She checks her watch and then shoots a glance out the window, but there’s no way to track a moon she can’t see. She studies the stars instead, tells herself she’s not stalling, then realizes she is anyway and, well, can’t have that.
Aradia begins the ritual. She lets the honey-sweet words flow out as she lights the main candle and then the silvers and the reds. She anoints her space with pinches of carefully sprinkled salt and drops of holy water from the vial she’d gotten when she agreed to do this. She knows it’s tap water. She pretends not to.
Incense comes next and the mixture of herbs tickles her nose. The fact that she doesn’t start sneezing up a storm is surprising enough, but that she actually likes the scent is even odder. Aradia’s never been much for aromatherapy but right now, as the herbs mix with the heating oils she anointed the candles with, she finds herself growing more and more relaxed. Like every worry she’s ever had is just slipping right away into the void. Note to self, remember this for later, when I get closer to the deadline for my next paper.
Firelight flickers along the dips and ridges of the skulls decorating her altar. As she continues to speak, they seem more and more to be staring right back at her. Her eyes lock on the main skull, studying the sharper edges around the eye sockets like she’s looking for something, but she doesn’t know what. She thinks about stopping. She doesn’t.
The incense gets thick enough to almost choke her but now the words are coming out steady and strong and Aradia’s not even looking at the book anymore. It’s like her body is going on its own now and she’s just along for the ride. Like the words are taking control. She’s swept up in this now; all she can do is finish. As the last word leaves her lips, something clamps down on her throat.
Oh, you’re stupid.
Aradia tries to suck in a reflexive breath but nothing comes through. She tries to scream. The pressure increases around her neck, around her entire body, like the shed is filling with something denser than air and she’s caught. She can’t breathe.All around her feels like touch, like blasts of air without wind. It’s like a voice yelling words she can’t hear. The sheer force of it leaves her powerless, stock still. She can’t even twitch her fingers.
How could anyone. Be this stupid?
Colors flash behind her eyes. Terrible, abhorrent colors, wrong in every form or fashion. Colors that make her feel small and terrified and weak. Her feet lift off the ground and she can’t even struggle. Her eyes flash wildly about, trying to find some source, some reason, but only the altar sits before her. Aradia throws everything into trying to move, fighting and screaming within herself.
Are you kidding me?
She’s crying, raging, and the voice in her head only begins to laugh. Abruptly, Aradia’s thrown to the ground. She tumbles to the edge of the chalk circle and hits an invisible barrier that burns until she manages to roll away from it. Laughter fills every crevice of the shed, echoing and bouncing around her to come back louder every time. She covers her ears, desperate to escape the torrent of noise, but it hits her like something real, something tangible. Gets in her skin and burrows deep. It’s inside her.
Pressure builds around the circle, around the altar, pressing so tight that sparks light the air around her. Her ears pop and then clog only to pop again as the pressure fluctuates wildly like a living thing. It pins her down to the floor and digs into her back like rocks piling higher and higher, almost crushing her.
This is the best joke I didn’t tell myself.
Red light flickers in the empty sockets of the skulls. And then everything goes dark.