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Morgan paced up and down their kitchen holding Grandma’s sending stone in their left hand. "Comeoncomeoncomeon,” they muttered under their breath.
“Hello, Darling,” came a voice behind them. Morgan span round to see the familiar slightly fuzzy figure of their Grandma in the doorway.
“I think I killed my best friend!” said Morgan the words racing out of them.
“Okay… congratulations?” replied Grandma slowly, she took in Morgan’s panicked expression. Oh, not congratulations, accident or change of heart, Darling?”
“Accident!” exclaimed Morgan. “They got caught in a death trap.”
Grandma fought to hold in laugh. “Who dies in a death trap?”
“Help me, please!” asked Morgan.
“Alright, Darling. We can work this out, don’t worry. Now, where is the body?” she asked looking round the kitchen.
“In the other room,” said Morgan gesturing through the doorway that Grandma was ‘stood’ in.
“You’re going to have to walk me in there, Darling,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”
Morgan took a deep breath and walked back in to the lounge.
“Oh, a bear trap, and a lot of blood. Well, obvious what happened, you really do have a gift, darling,” said Grandma.
“The ambulance is on its way, but I think it’s… too late,” said Morgan quietly looking anywhere but Alex.
“There’s still a thread of life,” said Grandma. “But not enough, not nearly enough.”
“Oh,” said Morgan. “Can you… can you… fix it. You know? With magic?”
“Darling, that kind of magic is beyond forbidden, for good reason,” explained Grandma.
“Since when does that stop you?” asked Morgan.
Grandma chuckled. “That is true, but I can’t do anything, trapped in this dimension. I mean… you could let me out?” she suggested.
“I… I can’t…” said Morgan unconvincingly.
“Oh my,” said Grandma. “You would wouldn’t you? To save this one. Even though you know what I would do? Huh…. But sadly we don’t have time for that. Of course, you could do the spell.” Grandma’s smirk spread into a grin.
“Me?” asked Morgan with shock. “I don’t do magic.”
“You could, you have my bloodline, and you certainly have will enough,” said Grandma. “And it’s not a difficult ritual. Forbidden? Certainly. Dangerous? Of course. But not difficult.”
Morgan glanced at Alex’s face. “What would I need?”
Grandma gave Morgan a long assessing look. “Firstly I need you to know, there is an above 50% chance that your friend would return without a soul. That would be… unfortunate.”
Morgan shrugged. “I mean, they are pretty evil already…”
Grandma sighed. “Darling, evil is not the same as soulless. Trust your Grandma on this, soulless is much, much worse. For everybody.”
“Well, they do have a spare soul, I guess,” said Morgan hopefully. “I mean, would that work?”
Grandma’s face went completely blank. She blinked twice. “They have a spare soul?”
“A woman thought they were a demon, so she sold them her soul,” explained Morgan.
Grandma blinked again. “That would… make things easier. Do you have something of hers?”
Morgan thought for a second. “Oh! Yes, she gave them a lock of her hair. They kept in in the ‘memories’ box.”
“Okay,” said Grandma. “We will need the hair, a knife, two long needles or pins, a bowl of clean water, two clean rags, and something white to write on the body. If you’re sure, you want to do this?”
“Yes,” said Morgan jaw setting into a determined position, that Grandma thought to herself really made you see the family resemblance to Chad.
Morgan gathered the required items quickly. “Okay, what now?” asked Morgan.
“Pop the hair into the water, soak a rag in your friend’s blood and drop that into the water too, then… what’s that?” asked Grandma pointing to a can of spray cream and looking confused.
Morgan glanced over at it and shrugged. “You said something white to write on the body.”
“That… would work. It’s ideal, actually. Good thinking,” she smiled at Morgan. “You’re a natural. Now, draw a pentagram with the cream on the chest.”
Morgan tried to get Alex’s t-shirt out of the way but just ended up just cutting it off with the knife.
“A little off centre, but not a bad job,” commented Grandma as Morgan finished the pentagram. “Now this is the part that most people find a little distasteful. Pop those pins through the eyeballs.”
“Eyeballs?” asked Morgan horrified.
Grandma nodded, “You know how people say ‘eyes are the windows to the soul’? Well, in this instance ‘people’ are correct. If you skip this step we will, at best, be raising a zombie.”
Morgan just about manged to complete the task without throwing up.
“Very good, darling. I knew you would be good at this! So you need to focus on the surface of the water. Hold the knife in your right hand, that’s it. Now repeat after me.”
Grandma started a chant in a language Morgan didn’t recognise. They suspected it wasn’t a language from earth, or at least not the mortal plane. The first few times through Morgan tripped over the unfamiliar sounds, but soon repeating them over and over felt as natural as breathing. The air around them felt like it was getting thicker, the mere idea of moving from this spot, this moment, felt impossible. Grandma’s voice felt both like it was coming from miles away and impossible to ignore.
“Reach out with you mind, let in all in. Very good, Darling. Well done.”
Morgan could feel the other people in the building. It wasn’t a sound, but it felt like the bass line in a song. It resonated through their chest.
“Cut your other palm, with the knife,” said Grandma slowly. “Let three drops fall onto the water, but only three. Okay, that’s important. Just three.”
Morgan’s awareness of the living people in the building shrunk as the blood dropped into the water. Until all they could feel was themselves, Grandma wasn’t really there, and it was obvious now in a way it wasn’t normally. And just there, on the very edge of their awareness, if Morgan concentrated really hard, was the flicker of what used to be Alex. What could be Alex again, they realised, all it needed was a boost. Morgan felt themselves try to push energy into the flicker.
“That’s right, Darling, you’ve got it. But don’t pull from yourself, pull from the water.”
Morgan felt rather than heard what their Grandma was saying. They realised the bowl was full of a flickering silver energy, it was hard to get hold of and it didn’t seem to want to mix with Alex’s energy but Morgan was determined and manged to make it fit. Soon the bowl was empty and the thin thread of Alex’s life was more like a river of light.
“Come on back now. Darling. Your hand hurts, yes? You cut it, can you feel the pain of that?”
Suddenly all in one moment the pain in Morgan’s hand, that had been niggling in the back of their mind rushed to the front, encompassing everything. The air was thin again and Morgan realised they could breathe, they hadn’t even realised that they’d stopped.
“Fuck,” said Morgan. Using the second clean rag to put pressure on the wound. “How long was that?”
“For you, several hours. In reality, less than a second. You were in the space between two breaths. You’ll need to remove the pins from the eyes,” replied Grandma.
Morgan winced but did it quickly, trying not to look as much as possible. As soon as they were completely removed Alex drew in an unsteady but deep breath and continued to breathe, the breaths becoming more even and steady.
“They’re breathing!” said Morgan relieved. “But they’re still unconscious.”
“They lost a lot of blood. They are still going to need medical attention, but they won’t die any time soon. Thanks to you, you were excellent, Darling,” Grandma smiled. “You need to clean up before the ambulance gets here, all this can be difficult to explain, and you don’t know any memory charms.”
“What do I do with the bowl of…” he gestured to the mixture of blood, hair and water in the bowl.
“Oh, down the sink will be fine, I imagine. How do you feel?” asked Grandma.
“Tired, but kinda wired too, like I drank a lot of coffee,” replied Morgan.
“Go to the hospital with your friend, I know you will want to. But, and I really mean this Darling, you will need a good meal, and twelve hours sleep.”
“Okay,” said Morgan far too easily.
“I mean it Morgan!” said Grandma sternly. “You will regret it if you don’t recharge yourself.”
“Thank you, Grandma,” said Morgan.
“Anytime, Darling,” she said as she faded from view.
**
“Hey, buddy! The Doctor told me you were awake how are you feeling?” asked Morgan. They had managed a sandwich and few hours’ sleep in the waiting room. That would probably be enough right?
“Like I stepped in a bear trap and my roommate let me bleed to death,” replied Alex deadpan.
Morgan tried to swallow down the panic in their throat. “’Bleed to death’ is such a strong series of words,” said Morgan, trying to not think about how accurate they were. “Like, it was just… mostly death. Your fine, your fine, its fine.”
There were probably not going to be horrible consequences for using forbidden dark magic, right?
**
Eleanor Goodman was a witch. Not a hugely successful one at first true. None of her spells seemed to work, and several other witches when she first started had tried to take her to one side and gently explain that Eleanor had about as much magical talent as a pebble. But they were wrong. Eleanor knew they were, she once summoned an actual demon! Sold her soul for power. Now she could do all sorts of things. Call objects and people to her, sometimes she had so much power she’d forget to even do the ritual and just summon things! It was amazing.
Who even needs a soul anyway?
Eleanor Goodman died suddenly one day. (At the exact second Morgan pulled the pins from Alex’s eyes, not that she knew anything about that.) She collapsed at home, when the body was found and the examination done it was a mystery as to what caused her death. Eleanor was deathly pale, blue lips, her liver, in fact most of her vital organs had just suddenly failed.
One doctor said it was almost as if she had bled to death. But of course was wasn’t missing any blood.