Chapter Text
Veronica rushed through the streets after exiting Heather Chandler's house, her walk on the verge of becoming a jog as her main priority was to get as far away from the murder scene as possible.
She didn't want to think about it. She didn't want to think about JD pouring drain cleaner into the cup. She didn't want to think about giving Heather the cup disguised as a hangover cure. She didn't want to think about Heather's chokes or her last words or her collapsing body or-
Veronica shook her head, attempting to clear her mind of the entire event. Sure, she was mad at her for what she had done to her oldest friend, Martha Dunnstock and, sure, she had momentarily wished for a life without Heather Chandler in it. But that didn't mean she wanted to kill her!
She rushed a little quicker as she felt the guilt practically eating her up. She was the worst. Rather than owning up to her actions, JD had convinced her to frame the murder as a suicide. She had written a note in place of Heather, knowing her handwriting all too well as JD gave his input on what to write. She wanted to fix this. To bring her back. To apologise.
But she couldn't take back what she's done. She killed Heather Chandler and there was nothing she could do that would fix that.
As she turned a street corner, she spotted a strange, unfamiliar shop from the corner of her eye. Out of curiosity, she stopped in her tracks and crossed the road to get a closer look at the shop. Looking into the windows, she saw a variety of objects perched on various stands. They had ranged from things Veronica had recognised – such as necklaces or bracelets – to things that seemed almost foreign, like an ancient artefact with a purpose that was extremely hard to guess based off of looks alone. Next to these objects were old and tattered books on display with several crystals surrounding them. Reading the titles, one book, in particular, caught her eye.
Necromancy Spells.
No, she wasn't crazy enough to believe that she could actually resurrect Heather Chandler. That was definitely not why she opened the door to the strange shop and walked in. She was just curious. Yes, that was it.
The bell chimed as she walked in, signalling her entrance as well as catching the attention of the small middle-aged man manning the counter at the front of the shop.
“Ah, welcome,” He clasped his hands together as Veronica made her way over. His voice was soft and friendly, “How may I help you, young one?”
Veronica didn't know how to begin to explain that she had just killed her best friend so she needed a book on Necromancy. So she left out the murder part and decided to ask, “That book in the window, the Necromancy one, does it work?”
The man rubbed his stubbly chin in wonder as he thought about which book the girl in front of him could be talking about. Seeming to have realised which book it was, although Veronica wasn't quite sure if that was it, he bent over, looking under the counter before standing straight once more and dumping the very book Veronica was talking about onto the counter for her to see.
“This one?” The man asked. Veronica was too astonished to speak, instead choosing to simply nod as the man continued, “Necromancy spells are very difficult for a beginner to use, but they do work.”
He then rounded the counter, strolling through his shelves, going through his stock in search of something. Veronica watched in wonder as he shuffled through some antique necklaces.
“Aha!” He swirled around and walked back to Veronica with one of the necklaces in hand. “While it is near impossible for a beginner like yourself to pull off this kind of spell without dying, this necklace can help with that.”
Veronica's eyes widened slightly as she yelled out, “Dying?!”
The man walked back behind the counter and placed the necklace on top of the book as Veronica turned around to face him, shock still apparent on her face. Even if this was real, was she really ready to risk her life to bring Heather back?
As the thought of Heather returned, the shock dissolved from her face and was replaced with a more determined expression. She's the one who killed her, she owed this much to Heather to bring her back.
“Necromancy spells tend to work by draining one's life source to provide to another.” The man explained, tapping the necklace as he continued, “Beginners tend to give too much of their life source, usually all, and so this necklace helps keep a cap on that.”
Veronica nodded in understanding. If magic existed, something like this would make sense.
“Regardless of whether they're experienced or not, Necromancers typically carry this gem of a necklace anyway. Not quite due to the capping but rather because it can give them more of a life source to give.” Veronica scrunched her face in confusion so The man explained further, “It allows them to give a person 100% of a life source without any problems.”
Veronica's confusion faded as she let out a sound of realisation while nodding once more. “Okay, how much?” She then asked, determined to at least try this method before truly accepting that Heather Chandler was dead for good.
The man shook his head. “I want nothing but this guilt of yours to fade. You're trying to do a good thing, resurrecting your best friend, I only ask that you return the book after you have finished.”
Veronica was about to question him but as she opened her mouth to do so, he simply said, “You should hurry before she gets found.”
And with that, she nodded and scooped up the two items and rushed out, in favour of quickly getting back to Heather Chandler's place.
Veronica soon found herself back in Heather Chandler's bedroom, stood just before the untouched fake suicide. She couldn't bear to look at Heather's corpse among the broken glass of the once intact table. She couldn't bear to look at the blue leaking from her mouth, forming a now-dry puddle on the carpet underneath her. She couldn't bear to look at the suicide she had written in Heather's place. It almost made her sick to her stomach.
As she chanced a glance towards the body once more, as if Heather was going to suddenly sit up and start mocking her relentlessly, the guilt bubbled to the surface once more. She looked down to the book in her hands. Right, she's got to do the spell before Heather's parents came home, or rather before they discovered the suicide - if they even bothered to come up to Heather's room that is. Veronica knew Heather and her parents weren't exactly close.
Whatever. That didn't matter right now. She had to act now if she wanted to try and resurrect Heather in time and, in the off chance that it happened not to work, she needed enough time to get things back to the way they were. But, hopefully, she wouldn't have to do that.
She gathered up some courage – she was attempting to bring her friend back to life. Of course, she needed to be absolutely ready for it – and opened the book up. It was her first time reading this book since she had gotten it.
Warnings and Side Effects.
Veronica rolled her eyes. Yeah, yeah, skip that. It wasn't like she didn't already know that there were going to be any side effects. She just figured that if she were to read any – say something along the lines of 'death' – there would be a small chance that she'd not want to continue with the spell.
She had to do this. For Heather.
She flicked a couple of pages ahead, ignoring the slight concern that began to stem from the long list of warnings and side effects, and found the first step.
If you have the victim's body with you, follow these steps:
Step one: Find the cause of death.
That was easy enough. It was drain cleaner. But was there really going to be a spell for something this specific? Maybe she should be vaguer and say 'cleaning product'?
With those questions present in her mind, she read the final step on the page.
Step two: Find the spell in this book according to the cause of death.
Veronica flicked through the book and found it.
Death by drain cleaner.
Well, fuck her gently with a chainsaw, it's there. She was stunned, but she continued to read through the spell.
Under no circumstances should you move the body after death. If you have done so and proceed to use this spell, dire consequences may arise. If you have moved the body, see page 109.
Fortunately for Veronica, both she and JD had left the body hadn't so much as poked Heather's body when she crashed into the table and fell . Veronica had been too shocked, too frightened to do anything but get away from the body to try and calm herself. It was a good thing that the hadn't though, otherwise, she'd probably have to do more work for the other spell to work.
Firstly, without moving the body at all, make sure that no sharp objects are within the surrounding area near the body. This is to ensure that you, yourself, will not get injured during the spell and when the victim wakes up, it will also ensure their safety.
Makes sense. Veronica placed the book onto Heather's bed and finally willed herself to turn around and look properly at the body, or, more precisely, at the surrounding areas. There was glass everywhere. Large shards, small shards, it was all over the area where Heather fell. This was going to take a while.
Veronica, with a small groan, immediately got to work.
“Where, oh where could I possibly find a...” She trailed off, not exactly sure what she should be using to clean the glass shards up as carefully as possible. “...Something... to clean the glass up?” She finished in false wonder.
She figured she may as well explore the house for some cleaning appliance or whatnot that may help her. If not, she'd probably have to suffer from using her hands and a piece of tissue. She exited Heather Chandler's room and explored the halls, hoping for some kind of cleaning closet. Rich people have those, right? Or maybe an entire cleaning room?
Eventually, as she expanded her search to the bottom floor of the house down the stairs, she had found what she presumed to be a cleaning closet. She grabbed a pair of rubber gloves, a dustpan and brush and a roll of paper towels then carried the items back up to Heather Chandler's room.
She knelt down a couple of paces away from Heather's body and got to work, putting the rubber gloves on first before using the dustpan and brush to sweep up the larger glass shards. It was a long and difficult process, but as she switched to a paper towel – dampening it first in Heather's bathroom – to collect the smaller pieces of glass as best she could considering the floor being carpet.
She gradually moved closer to Heather's body, triple-checking each spot before moving forward, and as she came to the point where she couldn't quite use the dustpan and brush without potentially moving Heather's body, she decided to put aside the cleaning equipment in favour of using her hands.
This part of the cleaning process was the longest part by far, which frustrated Veronica but she was sure to remain patient in favour of not potentially accidentally nudging Heather and knocking the entire spell out of proportion and have some of those 'dire' consequences-
“Shit.” Veronica hissed as a shard of glass she failed to see caught on her arm and cut her. It wasn't a large cut, but even so, it was incredibly painful. “Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.” She cursed as she recoiled from the pain and eyed the culprit with a death glare. She lifted her arm to see her injury – as if it could be life-threatening – and breathed a sigh of relief when she had seen a small scrape of a cut that was barely bleeding.
“Band-aid or no band-aid?” She wondered aloud. Of course, she wanted one but did she really know where to find one in Heather Chandler's very large mansion of a house? As well as that, did she really have the time to look? Not really.
She shrugged it off and got back to work, being extra careful of any rouge shards that she may not have seen the first time around.
Roughly an hour or so had passed since Veronica began cleaning the glass and, as she checked over the area once again, she determined that the area was now safe enough to do whatever business the spell required her to do.
Standing up once more, she took off the rubber gloves and threw them in the direction of the ever-increasing pile of tissues sat atop of the dustpan. Without checking where the gloves had landed, she walked over to the bed to grab the book once more so she can quickly get on with the next couple of steps.
For this next part of the spell, you will need:
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4 Black Candles
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Yellow Candle(s)
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Blue Candle(s)
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Green Candle(s)
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Purple Candle(s)
The more candles you have, the stronger the spell will be, but it will work just fine with one of each colour.
Place the black candles at each corner of the squared area where you'll be enacting the spell. This will ward off any evil spirits that may end up sabotaging the spell – and thus living inside the body you've resurrected instead.
Next, in a square-like shape in between the black candles, place the rest of the candles around the area of which you will be enacting the spell. This is to make the spell stronger, as well as help guide the spirit to the body when the time comes.
Veronica internally groaned. Great. She had to find some coloured candles. Where the heck could she get coloured candles anyway? It's not like she knew any shop that sold any other candles but the plain kind.
If she was lucky, she could probably find some stashed away in Heather's mansion of a house but considering how long the cleaning had taken, it wasn't too long until Heather's parents came home and Veronica wasn't taking any chances. The house was far too big to even try to look by herself.
“Guess I'm going to have to head out to buy some candles, Heather,” Veronica remarked, despite knowing the corpse couldn't respond let alone hear her. Maybe Heather's spirit was still hanging around? Veronica pushed that thought aside, not quite wanting to imagine the ghost's frustration as Veronica took too long with the spell.
She placed the book back onto the bed, deciding that it would probably be best to hurry if Heather's spirit was there and currently cursing at her for taking too long since she probably won't be too happy when she gets resurrected.
Hurrying to the door, she turned back to the body and stated, “Be back soon to resurrect you and shit, okay Heather?”
Knowing that she wouldn't get an answer, she turned on her heel and left, closing the door behind her.
“I'm back!” Veronica called as she opened the door to Heather's room with a bag of candles in her hands. Seeing the corpse on the floor – which she had now grown accustomed to seeing despite her initial feeling to puke – she jokingly asked, “How have you been?”
“Terrific as being dead could be,” She imagined Heather's sarcastic voice in her head and gave a short snort, cutting herself off with another sarcastic response from Heather – that she, again, imagined herself, “You laugh like a strangled pig.”
Slightly offended at the insult that she came up with herself, she made her way over to Heather's bed and picked up the spellbook once more, which was still open on the correct page, and read through the step once more to remind herself of the instructions.
“Right...” She trailed off as she read. Once she finished, she continued, “I have to place the candles in a square around you.”
She dug into the bag hanging from her arm, in search of a specific candle set. Pulling the black set out, she said triumphantly, “Starting with the black ones.”
The candles were small, rounded and scented. They came contained inside their own little tin container so Veronica had figured that this would be a better choice – weight-wise and expense-wise - than getting the long, slender candlesticks that she had often seen in supernatural movies. Also, it was a whole lot easier to find the smaller, scented ones.
She opened the wrapping then threw it over to the growing mess of tissues - from the glass cleaning fiasco – that she still hadn't properly put in the bins. Having the four candles now opened, she walked over to where she had decided her first corner would be and, after kneeling down, she placed down the first candle.
Doing the same with the other three black candles and adjusting them all slightly in order to try and perfect her square shape, she attempted to shoot up a conversation with the corpse once more, “You know, Heather, finding coloured candles wasn't as hard as I thought it'd be. It could be fate.” As she finished making the final adjustments on the final black candle, she snorted and added sarcastically, “As if.”
She stood from her knees, fully observing her makeshift square of four candles and, clasping her hands together with newfound determination, she exclaimed, “Alright, next is the other coloured candles!”
Veronica dipped her hand into the bag, which was still hanging from her arm, and pulled out a random pack – yellow – and tore open the packaging. They were the same brand as the black candles but scented differently. Maybe lemon? Veronica hadn't really read the scents on the packaging before she tore it to shreds and threw it in her makeshift rubbish pile.
She had settled on buying four of each since they all came in packs of four as well as the fact that her budget wasn't quite in favour of buying any more. Also, if the spell happened to not have worked, she would have blown a lot of money on candles – and cleaned up the crime scene, making it very obvious that it was staged, but Veronica didn't want to think about that.
She got to work, placing one of every colour on each side of the square with large enough gaps so that it would have been equally spaced enough to cover the entirety of the area.
Once she had finally finished adjusting the final candle in order to make the line of candles as straight as she could make it, she tossed away the bag – which she had only used to be able to easily transport the candles around – and picked up the spellbook once more to read the next instruction on the list.
With the candles now in place, put on any magical enhancements – such as a necklace or bracelet – If you have any and then recite these words to make the person go into a more coma-like state as their spirit gets guided into their body once more:
Come back to me,
Reawaken from your slumber,
This kiss will be the key,
And now you will awaken.
And then kiss them to pull them out of their coma-state and to complete the spell.
Veronica's eyes widened as a hint of a blush rose to her cheeks. Kiss her? Kiss Heather Chandler? What kind of fairy tale was this spell trying to copy? She began to unconsciously pace around the room as her mind was running. It wasn't fair. She couldn't just kiss Heather Chandler. Heather fucking Chandler.
Also if this spell didn't work, she would have just kissed the dead body of Heather Chandler and that would be creepy as fuck – but that was besides the point. If the spell did work, she would probably be dead.
She chanced a glance towards Heather's corpse. There wasn't really too many excuses as to why she shouldn't. She's in too deep now to the point where if she were to back out, she'd probably be in serious trouble – because it was obvious that the suicide was staged at this point. As well as that, Heather's face was angled in a way where it wouldn't be completely impossible to kiss her. Just a little bit difficult but far from impossible.
If she wanted to bring her back she was going to have to do it. Unless she'd rather Heather potentially try to make her life a living hell in ghost form, which, considering it's Heather, she would absolutely do that if she could.
She gulped. She was going to do it. She was going to resurrect Heather.
She grabbed the necklace that she had received from the shop and put in on swiftly. She felt a little tingly once the necklace was secured around her neck, but she excused it as her imagination. Then, with a steady pace, she walked over to Heather's body once more and knelt in front of her.
Her slowness was only delaying the inevitable, but it gave Veronica enough time to calm her nerves.
Looking down at Heather's face, she realised that, in the current position she was in, it was probably going to be a little awkward and difficult to perform the next part of the spell. Reading over the spell once more in an attempt to memorise it, she placed the book to the side and laid down onto her side next to Heather.
She was so close.
“Come back to me, reawaken from your slumber, this kiss will be the key, and now you will awaken.” Veronica recited the words from the book. As she had done so, she noticed that the blue that once stained her lips – as well as part of the carpet – was disappearing. Maybe this was a sign that the spell was working? If it was working then that would mean that Heather was currently half alive, which would make this whole ordeal a whole lot less creepy.
Hopeful once more, she became much more confident as she leaned into Heather, being careful to not move her as it could corrupt the spell. Their lips soon connected.
Kissing a (presumably) dead body sure wasn't how Veronica had planned to spend her day.
But oh boy were Heather's lips soft.
And warm.
How long was she supposed to kiss her? The book had never given a definite time, or even any time at all actually, so Veronica figured that she would just carry on until Heather showed any signs of being alive again, which would presumably be her pushing Veronica away faster and angrier than Veronica could even process. Or she would carry on until she ran out of breath, whichever came first.
Her mind went blank after that as she simply just decided to not worry about the consequences for now and just fulfil the spell.
It had been a minute too long when Veronica had finally pulled away. Heather wasn't moving at all and Veronica was running out of air, so she assumed that the spell had been a failure. As she sat up, not even bothering to look at Heather to see her failures, a frustrated, but breathy voice sounded in the room.
“Finally. I thought you were never going to stop kissing me.”
Veronica snapped her head towards the girl next to her and found Heather, sat up in all her resurrected glory and looking right at her, her face filled with irritation.
“Y-you're alive.” Veronica stuttered, stunned.
“Well, no shit, Sherlock.”