Work Text:
Your teeth hurt.
Wind against skin and skin against sky, you wake up on a beach which yields to the most beautiful set of coastal rocks you’ve ever seen.
Imprinted into its arches are your marks.
They glow gentle. It pulses with each cresting wave of the ocean.
In your right hand, which is different from your left, is a book. It’s pages are split and charred by fire, crusty with dried seawater.
There is a startling absence of blood.
In your left, you do not hold a knife. Those days are now behind you, as you say,
but they took him anyway
Instead, the white chalk cracks and crumbles under your grip.
Chunks of it fall below to the ground, soak up the colour, turning pink, and you fold to the ground. Your eyes are wide open.
STEP 1:
Find a body.
When looking for help, you might be tempted to dig up old bones and put them to use. Subjects for this matter rarely come crashing into open arms.
Refrain; they belong to the earth,
the skies will not take well to your offering.
You may find yourself looking at your oil-ridden palms and wondering if the earth has claimed you anyway.
Memories you have are oft set against the backdrop of a loved basement, a cave, a lab.
Fret not, my dear. There is more to this than the whim of a great, vast sky.
STEP 2:
Make peace.
It is both important and respectful to pay your respects towards the subject.
The dead love lavender, but the dying are only enraged by it: check your local custom to ensure the right kind of flower gives them passage.
Things are made much simpler with a living subject.
Ensure that grime and other dirt is cleaned from the skin. A state of relaxation must be induced at most eight hours from the ritual date, as to ensure purity. The authors recommend a warm bath with related scrubs and symbols that link themselves to cleanliness in the relevant culture(s) of your target.
Of course, these are all but suggestions. In your state, it is much better to simply do what you can.
STEP 3:
Passage
We both know you were never really good with chalk and prayer, but give me an excuse to see it anyway.
Around the subject, carve three intersecting rings with a generous central cross. This is where you may place your subject should difficulties involving keeping the subject still arise.
The composition of the chalk and the matter upon which it rests will all affect the result of the ritual.
Specific symbols (as referenced in prior chapters) can be used to both appeal and repel various forces and or alignments of entities beyond the veil.
Of course, there’s no need for you to bother with any of that.
Draw me a poem.
Give me drawings pinned to fridges,
give me your happiest memories, give me your grief.
Give me the secrets between you and a friend that you swore never ever to tell anyone.
Scribble them out with what you can provide.
I want your to-do lists, your scavenged goods, your notes on apple pie.
I want the saltwater from your lungs.
I need your flesh. I need your teeth. Tear one with the other and allow yourself to drift.
I lay no claim stronger than the one who loves you. Just lean in.
STEP 4:
Answers
Once you have received the advice or other from the entity you have brought through, it is imperative to banish it with a similarly meticulous process. To begin, simply wiDASH THE CIRCLE.
Carve a gorge in it wide enough to lay in. Let me make a home in you for a little while.
You’ve done enough of the carving in your own time, taking a knife to flesh like some kind of dollmaker. The pieces of yourself still stuck in your teeth won’t make anyone whole, least of all yourself.
I love those you love. I revel in your misery, play with it, heal it, keep it close to our chest. You may not know it yet, but he is mine as much as you are.
Show me the world as you see it, tangible and raw. Show me where he left you. Show me the ocean.