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There wasn't very many cottages in Hatchetfield; it just wasn't that type of town. But there was one placed along the edges of the Witchwood Forest. And that cottage was occupied by witches. They'd lived in the cottage for generations, passing down their trade and skills through bloodline and friendships alike. Every new witch moving into the house when the other left to keep the gift alive.
Hatchetfield was filled with supernatural entities, if you knew where to look. Ghosts and spirits lingering in old buildings, fairies in the Witchwood forest's trees, angels hiding in church rafters. The witches in the cottage learned to be able to see these creatures and help them if the time came.
They also helped the occupants of Hatchetfield if they were approached. Though rarer now, Hatchetfield citizens often came asking for spells of protection and strength. The witches wouldn't take any regular payments like money in those days, just that the person brought the necessary ingredients for such spells. Something meaningful, herbs and spices, the like.
But as times changed, less people came to the Witchwood Cottage. Witchcraft was still shared to the next generation, though. Just in case, one day, people came to believe again.
The current occupants of the cottage was a small family. Husband, wife, and nephew turned foster child. The wife, Emma, was the current witch of the cottage. And she had been teaching her husband's, Paul's, nephew Richie the craft since he'd come to them at the age of five.
He'd taken to it like a fish takes to water.
---
Emma looked down at Richie from where they sat on the couch, the black book of spells laying on the coffee table in front of them.
"This is the book my mom gave me when I started learning." She smiled and leaned forward, opening the pages carefully. "It's been re-written more than a few times but the contents always stay the same. For every generation it's passed through." Richie's eyes seemed to sparkle in fascination at the worn pages, yellowing from what had to have been decades of use patchy in the grains.
The pages were written in script, cursive and round writing with notes dated and named from hundreds of years back. He looked at Emma with wonder. "Will I need to write like that?" He asked, hands curled into loose fists under his chin, elbows resting on his knees.
Emma laughed and scruffed his hair gently. "Only if you damage the book." At the ensuing disappointed look, she hummed. "Well. Maybe you can learn it just in case. I did."
---
He was six when Emma had told him how spells worked.
"You see, Rich." She started, over-exaggerating an 'oomf' as she lifted him to his lap. "Magic wouldn't work if we didn't dedicate it to anyone."
"What do you mean?" He rest his head on Emma's shoulder, staring up at her with big blue eyes.
She hummed. "You know how, when people pray, they pray to god?" Richie nodded. "Well. When we make spells, it's sort of like that. We always start with our chosen lord to help make the magic work."
"Is that like God too?"
"Sort of. God exists in many forms to different people. God is separate from our Lords." Emma nodded to where the Black book was placed on a bookshelf. "Our Lords reside in what we call the Black and White. It's a physical place that we could go to if we had the right technology."
Richie's eyes widened and a grin found its way to his face. "Really?!" He gasped.
Emma nodded, gently rubbing his back.
---
Emma had told Richie that she'd wished for Paul upon a star, holding something most important to her. The next night, the seven year old crawled upon his window seat and knelt in front of the darkened sky. The book was sat in front of him, opened upon a page that told him how to do it.
He'd taken the whole day before to think of his most important thing. It couldn't be the black book, he needed to read from that, it couldn't be his teddy bear or an item of clothing, he wasn't so attached to those. He'd almost cried, thinking he didn't have a most important thing. Then, he'd looked across to his drawers, and seen it.
A small, white, band sat there. He'd taken it in his hands and held it so gently. The only thing he'd gotten when his mother had died and he'd had to move in with his uncle Paul. Her hospital bracelet from when she'd given birth to him.
That bracelet was now being cradled in a single hand, careful not to crease it, as he turned the page of the black book. He'd found the spell he wanted. Richie read it, committing those instructions to memory. He blinked, before looking at a star that called to him.
His eyes stayed trained on the star as his other hand came to hold the bracelet too.
He began to whisper. "I don't know if I'm doing this right. But, Wiggog Y'rath, I want to ask for someone who will mean as much to me as Uncle Paul does to Auntie Emma. They've got to be strong willed, and determined. And they've got to be interested in what I like, even if they're not into them too. They've got to be able to stand up for what they believe in, and never fold for anyone. But they've got to be able to be open to change, and try something new." Richie trailed off. "I think that's it. Thank you."
In his vision, it almost looked like the star he was staring at got brighter. Hope rose in his chest and a smile grew on his face. He looked at the bracelet in his hand. He didn't pick the wrong thing!
---
Within the next few years, Richie meets who will eventually be his long term friendships.
Peter Spankoffski is first. And he offers to help Richie when he sees him struggling to poke a hole in his juice carton with his straw. He does it in one go and from then he always sits next to Richie at lunch time. Turns out, Peter's brother knows Richie's uncle.
Peter mentions that he lives with his brother because his parents ran off. Richie makes a makeshift protection eye by finding a circular piece of sea glass and using the paints at school to give it the eye's appearance. Richie slips it into Peter's backpack pocket when he's in the bathroom the next day. He hopes it's enough to give the lord Bliklotep enough of a reason to protect Peter.
Ruth Fleming literally crashes her way into Richie's life by half falling onto him when he's sat by the play equipment in the school playground. She doesn't apologise, and her hair looks like she hasn't brushed it in weeks, all wild and curled and knotted with sticks and leafs inside it. She does, however, compliment one of the pins he's started collecting on his backpack, and asks him if he can reccomend any animes to her.
Ruth is a foster kid, like him, but she doesn't have any home. She tells him she's fine with it but Richie can read people better now than ever. He tells her that she doesn't need to pretend to be fine with it if she doesn't feel like that. Ruth goes home with a bracelet made from flower stems that he asks the Lord Pokotho to bring some unity to her life with. He tells her that when the bracelet breaks, she should come and visit him in the Witchwood Cottage and he'll make one that lasts longer. She tells him that she will.
Stephanie Lauter doesn't become his friend, but she sits with him and reads with him when he gets detention for being late too many times in a row. Richie knows that her dad is in the running to become Mayor, and he makes a wish on another star using a bookmark she gives him after the detention to Wiggog Y'rath so that she will hopefully stay happy no matter the results.
Every spell and wish Richie makes goes in a notebook he buys from a corner store so he knows if it comes true or not. He always writes in cursive in it, and never messes up a word so he has to cross it out.
---
Someone pushed the door to Richie's locker, pressing him against the shelves of its interior as the door came to close him in. He fought against the force after a second of surprise. Richie yelped as it came back to try again. As he whirled to face the reason for his new pains, he came face to face with none other than Max Jägerman. Any sense of fight fell from his tongue. Anyone knew that fighting with Max was just stupid. He wasn't going to back down, no matter what you said or did.
"What's that shit in your locker, shit-lips?" Richie turned back to the glass eyes and herbs and spices in his locker. He really should have a box or something to put them in.
"It's nothing, Max. Can you please stop trying to-" the locker door bounced off his arm as Max pushed it against him again. "Do that?"
"What was that, fuck nugget?" He sneered, almost seeming proud of himself for the unremarkable and unoriginal nickname.
Richie sighed. "Nothing." He grabbed the book he needed, grabbing the door to his locker and shutting it, removing it from the surprisingly light grip of Max. He began the walk over to his next lesson.
Richie had considered, multiple times in the years of knowing Max Jägerman, placing a hex or curse on him as payment from the bullying. But he'd had that desire squashed from his soul from a young age. Emma had been sure to teach him that those sorts of magic were unacceptable in her cottage.
So he'd resolved to not do it.
No matter how much he'd gotten on Richie's nerves.
Richie was stopped by a hand on his shoulder, spinning him back around.
"Don't just walk away from me, shit-lips. I want to know. What was in your locker." The hand on him tightens and Richie cringed as it starts to sting. He wished he was wearing his backpack right now.
"Just a hobby." Richie realized that he'd probably seen the herbs and thought it was weed or something.
"Right. Sure." Max didn't look that interested. Something shifted in that moment and when Max's hand loosened, Richie pulled away and bolted in the direction of his next class.
He was ready late as it was anyway.
---
Max falls to his death the day after their win against Clivesdale their senior year.
Some party the football team were having at the Waylon Place went wrong and Max fell three stories through some rotting floorboards. Emma suggested they went to light candles to help him cross over. Richie declined. He didn't explain why to her. But sue him, he was bitter over the bullying that had slowly gotten worse over time.
Privately, once he'd calmed down Richie had lit a candle on his windowsill. It would have been too late for safe passage, but the least he could offer was serenity.
He thinks Emma knows, because she dropped the topic altogether for a while.
---
Richie gets the cottage to himself when he turns twenty. Emma and Paul move out to live in retirement, and Emma leaves him with the assurance that he'd find somebody to fill his place when he knew it was time to move on.
Richie continues the gardens growing fresh herbs in the back, tends to the flowers outside the front, and still hangs glass eyes over doorways and in front of mirrors when he gets the feeling that the day will be unlucky.
One day, a black cat with big blue eyes finds her way into the garden and never leaves. Richie feeds her and - after checking for any signs of a collar and chip, both coming back negative - decides to let her in. He names her Luna. If anyone asks, it's because of the moon, even though it was really because of Sailor Moon.
He removes the plants in his gardens that are harmful for cats and learns the substitutes for them in spells. She sits in the patches of clovers when it turns summer, bathing in the light all day.
It's almost a fluke when they're walking past the old Waylon House and she runs inside like she's following something. Richie follows her without a moments hesitation, she's proved her worth to him in her ability to sense the supernatural.
It doesn't come as a surprise that Luna may have found a ghost in the Waylon Place. Richie can feel the air shift colder as soon as he walks in, the hairs on the back of his neck raising. None of the ghosts have ever made their presences known to him in his twenty years of life, but Luna seems insistent on following something inside.
Old, moth eaten, curtains hang on rails over shattered windows. There's a decrepid beauty to this old place that Richie never really took the time to appreciate. High ceilings and large oil paintings of rich folk he couldn't name if he tried hanging on those walls. A thick layer of dust lays on every surface and dust mites scatter as he steps, glistening in the light peeking through the holes in the curtains. A draft whistles in through the woodwork, almost luring those exploring the halls of Waylon to follow the source like a siren.
He was subtly aware that he was following that whistle by following Luna. The cat seemed to have an uncanny understanding of the layout of the Waylon Place, navigating it's halls like second nature. Maybe it was. Richie didn't know where she'd lived before she'd shown up in his garden, peeking behind thyme and rosemary in the early hours of the evening.
Luna stopped, sitting in the middle of a hallway with no doors, staring expectantly at Richie.
"What is it, Luna?" He asked, frowning in confusion. The air around him suddenly grew colder than the rest of the house and he turned around quickly, expecting someone to be there. "What the fuck?"
His heart rate picked up and he suddenly felt like he was in need of air. His eyes focused and unfocused. This wasn't an asthma attack. In the corner of his vision, he saw a figure. Fuck. This was a full on ghost encounter. Emma hadn't taught him about this, properly. Her general rule was "don't fuck with ghosts. But if we can help them, we do", so he'd tried to stay as far as he could from them from as long as possible.
He looked around, hand against his chest. "Hello?" He blinked, a tear rolled down his cheek. "I'm sorry. I don't have any means for communication with me. I-" he looked around helplessly before looking back at the ambiguous space he'd found himself in. "Can you make a noise, or something?"
Richie waited. A few seconds later, a dull tap was heard.
"Was that you?"
A tap.
Relief flooded Richie. "Okay. Okay we can work with this."
Unexplained tears were filling Richie's eyes and he slowly lowered himself to the ground, sitting cross legged. Luna curled into his lap and he gently pet her as he looked at where the noise was coming from.
"So. You're a ghost, right? Oh right. Yeah. One tap for yes, two for no."
A tap, and then after a long pause, another tap. Acknowledgement, and an answer. Richie smiled. He could do this.
"Do you need help?" He needed to get this out of the way first.
A single tap.
"Do you want to cross over?"
Tap. Tap.
"Do you want closure?"
Tap. Tap.
Richie was getting nowhere. "Do you know what you want?"
Tap.
Helpful.
Richie hummed before pulling his phone out, quickly downloading the first highest rated 'ghost communication' app on the app store. He didn't have much faith in it working, but it was something. He opened it and placed his phone down on the floor, screen up.
"Are you able to talk with this?"
The spirit box app made fuzzy buzzing noises before a "...yes..."
Richie hummed, skeptical. Before he could think of a question, the phone buzzed again.
"...rich-ie..."
His eyebrows flew up, blinking in surprise. "You know who I am?" He didn't know if he should be frightened or not.
"...yes..."
"Would I know you?" Richie frowned.
"...yes..."
At that, Richie relaxed. Who did he knew that died here? Oh.
"Are you Max Jägerman?"
"...the...o-ne...only..."
Richie laughed, taken aback. "Sorry. I didn't expect to be talking to you. Or really, I didn't expect to be talking to anyone." He trailed off slightly.
"...help?..."
Richie sighed. "I don't have anything with me right now. Um." He shifted where he was sitting, petting Luna again. He debated what he was about to do. "Fuck it. Just..." He cautiously removed the bracelet around his wrist, brown twine knotted around a glass eye. "Come with me." The presence in his brain caused him to blink and he quickly attached the bracelet on again. "You in there?"
He monitored his thoughts carefully as he stood up. Years of mindfulness built into his brain finally made themselves known.
"I think so." The sound reverberated inside his scull and doubled with his phone's speaker. Richie sighed and turned off the app.
"Good."
"Wait what?" Frantic tapping was heard.
"Dude calm down, I can hear you." Richie stated. Luna started to leave the house again and Richie followed, watching for uneven flooring.
"What do you mean?"
"It means I can hear you. Now follow me if you want help." Richie sped up his walking, dodging the uneven slats of wood and going with his gut on which ones were rotting.
Luna jumped over a large patch and Richie swore. He could have sworn this wasn't here, or they didn't go this way to get in. Richie gave a stink eye to Luna, who just stared from where she was sat on the other end of the patch.
"What're you waiting for?" The voice intruded in his head and Richie tried not to flinch.
"That wood is rotting. Luna jumped over it and I know that if I stepped there I'd fall." Oh. Right. "Sorry."
The last thing Richie needed was to die with another presence in his head. Best case scenario, he'd just die. Worst case, Max would possess his body and slowly decay as the body tries to live on as the wrong consciousness resides within it.
"Yeah maybe don't die, then."
He'd forgotten about that. "I'll try."
Richie took a few steps back and ran forward, leaping over the patch of rotting wood just barely. He crouched, hands on his knees, as he panted. Luna walked around his legs, purring as her head rubbed against his shin. He glared at her.
"You did that on purpose."
Luna just flicked her tail at him before walking off in the direction of the exit. Richie followed, once again minding his thoughts. He locked away the parts he didn't want Max to see behind a big door, nondescript to the untrained eye but so important to him.
The walk back to the cottage was uneventful, save for when it came to view and Max remarked "what're we doing here? Don't those freaky witches live here?"
Richie just plainly responded, "I live here." And unlocked the door.
Chimes tinked as the breeze blew them, and Luna rushed inside to lounge on the couch's throw pillows. Richie went into the kitchen and made some tea for himself, picking up the black book from the couch as he passed it to try and find the correct recipe. Once he did, he started to make the brew and carefully sip it once he'd made his cup.
The brew pushed Max out of his brain and into a physical, though spectral, form. He relaxed against the counters with closed eyes and took another sip, not thinking until he felt Max leave his head entirely. Once the presence was gone, Richie opened his locked door and eyes and looked at Max. He smiled, something that Richie from two years ago would never have dreamed of doing at Max Jägerman.
"Let's try and fix this little issue, then." He grabbed the black book and closed it with a snap.
---
Richie was helpless. He had looked through every page of the black book and his own notebook and the only thing he'd come up with was sacrificing something to the Lord T'noy Karaxis to fuck with time so Max would be given his life back, but Richie wasn't too fond of sacrifices or fucking with time. It had been made immediately clear that Max was not wanting to pass on and actually wanted to be brought back to life.
Richie placed his head in his hand as he finished his tea. He muttered a curse word under his breath.
"So you're the witch?" Max had asked at some point. And Richie explained that yes, but he was following in the footsteps of his family. He'd ask Emma to help, but he would feel bad for bringing her out of retirement so soon.
Richie's door knocked and he sighed, opening it. Ruth and Pete were stood on the poarch. Richie had forgotten about their coming today. Ruth grinned, hugging him tightly.
"Richie!" She pulled away, walking into his house. Richie was very glad that he was the only one able to see the ghost currently haunting his cottage. Ruth looked at the table, books and paper scattered across it's surface. "You doing some witchcraft?"
Richie sighed, collapsing on the couch after Pete walked in himself. "Trying to. There's a spirit I'm trying to reinstate into life but it's difficult to do without the cliche sacrificial offering. And Tinky isn't the easiest lord to get to bless your spells."
He was aware of Max's staring at him. But then Ruth grabbed his notebook, turning to one of the first pages.
"Ooh. 'Wishing for a love'." She read. "I thought you didn't do love spells or potions, Richie?" She wiggled her eyebrows. Richie's cheeks warmed, grabbing the book from her hands.
"Yeah because they don't work like that, I've told you. And this-" he gestured to the page. "Was a stupid idea made by a seven year old child."
"You wrote like that at seven?" Pete asked, eyeing the page. Despite being friends for the better part of a decade, Pete and Ruth hadn't ever read the books he used for magic. And he had intended on keeping it that way, but now they'd seen his most embarrassing spell, the only one that hadn't worked, so really, what was the point in hiding it.
"Yeah." Richie stood up, moving to put on a pot of camomile tea. He needed to calm down. He was being haunted, his friends had no idea, he'd let the ghost into his mind, not to mention that the ghost in question was his ex bully. Ruth and Pete cooed at the spell in his book. Richie leant across the kitchen counter, he rolled his glass eye bracelet around his wrist as he waited for the pot to boil.
Ruth called back to him in the kitchen. "Did you have anyone in mind when you wished for these people?" Richie walked back in, hot tea in hand.
He hummed. "No, I don't think so. I think I wanted someone like Paul was to Emma but..." He took a sip. "That just hasn't happened yet, so I think I did something wrong." He looked over the slightly faded ink on pages only just over a decade old. He didn't see anything glaringly wrong with it, but maybe that was just childish and foolish hope still burning alongside his heart.
Ruth rolled her eyes dramatically enough that her head rest against his knee from where she was sat on the floor in front of the couch. "I'm just saying. If you're desperate. Love potion." She grinned at him. Richie sighed.
"Absolutely not, Ruth. We've had this conversation too many times."
"Bah... Doesn't matter anyway. Your words clearly describe one person, and it's way too late for that to happen." Ruth grins at the way Richie pauses when he's raising his mug to his lips. The hairs on the back of his neck raise and he's suddenly aware that Max is still in the room, watching them, listening to everything. Richie wonders if he knows only Richie can hear and see him since neither of his friends had drunk any tea.
His eyes dart to Max's presence for a second before looking back to Ruth. His mouth suddenly feels very dry. "What do you mean?"
"I mean..." She drawls, picking up the book to show him. "That you've described basically one person. Your first point, here? 'They've got to be strong willed, and determined'? Who does that sound like? And the third one? 'Stand up for what they believe in, and never fold for anyone'? I mean, come on. Have you ever looked at this wish after you made it?" He hadn't. And he was starting to see the other points too. He knew exactly what Ruth was hinting at, and he didn't like the implications too much.
"Okay. How about we stop this, now." Richie felt his cheeks redden slightly, grabbing the book from Ruth. Pete gave him a concerned look.
"What? Who's she implying?"
Of course, Peter hadn't known about a certain crush Richie developed slightly before freshman year. Ruth did, she would rather die than not know every last detail about their love lives. So when Richie started leaving cinnamon sticks in his locker, Ruth had noticed immediately. Yeah, he'd had a stupid crush on Max Jägerman when they were younger teenagers. But that was absolutely not because of some shitty wish to Wiggly. It was because he'd just realized he was into men and he realized how attractive some of the people around him were.
That crush had died easily when he'd started getting bullied - it was just aesthetic based - but Ruth had clearly just torn back a curtain on something he hadn't even realized.
She seemed all too eager to explain this to Pete. Richie couldn't even stop her to save himself the future embarrassment of the spirit of said topic of conversation in his house.
"- and that's how Richie accidentally wished for the one person he can't be with because he's dead." Ruth grinned. Peter looked concerned but less confused. Richie wanted to die.
He looked at Ruth. "I changed my mind about Tinky. I'm gonna let him put you in his box."
"Tinky? More like kinky." Ruth smirked. Richie grimaced. Even Pete looked away awkwardly.
The rest of their hangout went mostly without large event.
Richie cleared up his books and mugs he hadn't realized he'd acquired, and they played video games. All the while Richie felt Max's presence grow restless in his peripherals. It was weird being haunted, he felt on the cusp of being cold constantly, and he had to try with most of his efforts to not look at the ghost in the corner of his eye.
---
After Pete and Ruth had left, Richie looked back at his books again. All joking aside, there had to be a better alternative to sacrificing something to Tinky to rewind the clocks on Max's last two years of existence.
Speaking of Max.
"So. Was what that girl said true?"
Richie sighed, expecting this to come eventually. He looked up at the figure in front of him. Still dressed like the day he died, Max almost looked pitiful if he didn't give him the instinct of fear when he was in sight. "One. That girl is Ruth. Just because she got her headgear off doesn't mean she looks that different." Richie placed his pen down. "And yes. She was right. I did. In the 8th grade." Despite how bluntly he said it, Richie would rather this not be a conversation he was having at all.
Max seemed lost in thought, and Richie turned back to his notebook, writing down potential solutions. It was unlikely any of the other lords could help them.
Blinky was mainly a watchful lord, that's why his eyes were placed everywhere around the house for protection. Unlikely that he'd do anything but watch their situation from afar.
Pokey brought unity to all that he was placed upon. He valued everyone maintaining the same mindset as one another. Richie didn't like pokey because he felt like he had a higher tendancy to go overboard. He didn't want to ask Pokey for Max to return to life, only for his body to come back to live in whichever hole it was buried in.
Nibbly was all about consuming and greed. Any of the spells made to nibbly often have to be related to consumerism in some way. Money, greed, fame, food, power. If it was gained through occult means, it was obtained through a wish to Nibbly. His force wasn't related to their situation at all.
Wiggly is the most powerful of the lords, with a little bit of all of their powers, but his prices often required higher values. Both monetarily, and sentimentally. He had a feeling that if he tried to bring Max back to life through Wiggly, that he'd be told it was an eye for an eye, life for a life situation.
The only being Richie wasn't too familiar with was the Queen in White, only known as Webby.
Richie had never actually asked for anything through Webby. But Emma had told him stories of when she'd performed spells to her. All of them required spider silk, and more often than not some flower that never grew native to Hatchetfield but always seemed to sprig up in her garden whenever she'd needed it.
Richie's eyes widened at the memory. He stood up, suddenly, probably startling Max but he couldn't care less right now. He knew for a fact that he hadn't grown any white flowers in his garden.
As soon as he stepped out into his garden, he turned. The once mostly clear, slightly mossy, wall of his house was now covered in bright white Jasmine climbers. His eyes widened, a smile spreading across his face. He'd gotten a sign!
Rushing back inside, Richie grabbed the black book, flipping through it's pages as quickly as he good. His brain was rushing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
A groan of irritation bubbled in his throat but he held onto it. Restlessness simmered under his skin as he grabbed his phone. He called Emma as soon as he could. She picked up.
"Aunt Emma. I'm so so sorry to ask you something like this so suddenly and I promise I'll explain everything when it's sorted but when consorting with Webby, what do I need if the other parts are spider silk and white Jasmine?" Richie paced, making a physical note of everything in his notebook.
"Are you alright, Rich? This is a pretty powerful being to be going to." Emma sounded concerned and guilt settled in his gut.
Richie nodded. "I'm okay. I'll call you as soon as what I mean to happen has happened, okay? You'll get the full story."
Emma hummed. "Okay. Be careful, twerp. Love ya."
Richie returned the sentiment before hanging up the phone. He looked at his notes. Time to get this started.
---
Richie had cleared a space in the main room. In a small pouch, he held spiders silk, petals from the jasmine outside, cinnamon sticks, and a single chopped up chilli pepper, stems and all. Richie knelt in a small circle, symbols drawn around him and candles placed on each one.
"You know. When you said you were a witch, this is more what I expected." Max remarked. He'd been surprisingly silent about the whole eighth grade thing, and hadn't even made one scathing remark at his expense for what Richie realized must have been the entire time he'd been here.
Richie looked at him uneasily. "Well, it's going to be something new for me. So. Let's hope for the best." An inner voice, that sounded an awful lot like Ruth, remarked that saying anything while on his knees was bound to be taken sexually. His response would have been that there is no reason for anything he says to Max to be sexual. The voice that sounded like Ruth only seemed to find that maybe he hadn't lost all of those feelings in the first place.
Richie sighed, closing his eyes and clearing his head.
He placed up those doors to his brain again, uncertain what this Webby could do.
As he cleared his mind, he slowly rubbed the bag in his hands, grinding the pieces together until it felt right.
Richie inhaled, opening the top to the pouch.
On the exhale, he tipped them onto the ground.
What he couldn't see, was that those grounds had instantly disappeared into the floorboards.
Richie felt himself slipping further and further from reality, but as he did, he felt a presence walk to his doors and open them one by one, like he hadn't even locked them in the first place.
Richie felt himself tilt, and suddenly he was falling back into the endless abyss of white.
---
Turns out, there was an end to the white abyss.
Richie stood - or was he floating - in the emptiness. He felt like his soul was spread out around him, even though there was nothing.
The space around him dimmed slightly, and a figure appeared in front of him in the blink of an eye.
She wore a long white dress, with white hair that fanned out like she was suspended in water. All eight of her eyes were pure white, with almost a dull glow to them. Richie was stunned into silence. She had six limbs - two legs and six arms - and they idled at rest.
She smiled at him, kind and soft. "Hello, young one." Her voice had an airy tone, like the chimes outside the front of his cottage, twinkling in time with the swaying of her hair.
Richie felt like the ability to speak was robbed from him, a force dampened any anxiety that would have shot through him. Artificial peace settled in his bones like an anesthetic and he breathed.
He'd never seen any of the lords in his time practicing.
The Queen in White crouched so they were roughly on the same level, brushing hair out of her face with one set of arms as the other two rest on her knees and thighs. Her skirt pooled around the inconceivable floor and Richie's eyes widened. "I'm sorry, this must be very confusing for you. I'm Webby." Her face smiled easily as her hand carefully lifted Richie's face to look at her. "What's your name?"
"Ri-Richie." He felt like his throat was empty. Webby seemed pleased.
"What brings you to my plane then, Richie? I don't get many visitors." She stood up again, looking down at him. Richie inhaled. Why not. This couldn't get much worse.
"Well. I've been trying to help someone come back to life. And the only solution I could find for a while was to sacrifice to T'noy Karaxis because he has holds over time. But I don't really want to sacrifice anything or anyone so I was looking for other options and I remembered that my aunt, Emma, told me when she'd ask you for things and that it was always kick-started by white flowers appearing in her garden. And so I went to go and see if there was any flowers in my garden because I don't grow flowers, I'm mainly herbs and spices and things like that. But when I looked, there was all of these jasmine flowers all over my wall and. Yeah. I performed a ritual and. Now I'm here." Richie breathed.
Webby looked at him with a caring smile. "And who is this spirit we're trying to bring back to life?"
Richie frowned. "I don't... Do you mean his name or, more metaphorically?"
Webby laughed, and the void around them seemed to brighten. "His name."
"Max Jägerman."
Webby extended a hand, and spider webs extended from her fingers, knotting together to form intricate shapes. When she let go, they snapped into a vertical position. She crouched again, placing the palm of one of her hands in front of Richie.
"Step on. Let's see what we're dealing with here."
Richie hesitantly followed, sitting cross legged on her palm. She brought him up to level with the web that, now he was up here, looked like a window. Webby snapped her fingers and the window between the webs had an image in it.
Displayed in it's surface was Max, around the age of ten years old. He was kicking a soccer ball around in the playground of a school with some other boys. Neither Webby, nor Richie, said anything, just letting the memories play.
He was smiling so widely, laughing with the other boys he was playing with. Richie saw himself in the background, watching them enviously. He'd always wanted to try and play with others, but he never fit in with them. Ruth and Peter were probably better friends anyway, in hindsight.
The image changed to Max at home, clearly a young teenager. This looked like it was around when the bullying had started, so it was probably their freshman year. Maybe a little bit before. Richie felt like he was watching something he shouldn't, eyes moving from the screen. He was thankful there was no sound, especially since Max's dad had just appeared on screen.
He'd known about the rumours of the Jägerman household. Of course he had. It was difficult not to in a town like Hatchetfield. But hearing about it, and seeing it were entirely different things.
The screen changed again, and Richie watched himself be pushed into a locker door. He knew he got a cut from that, the scar still slightly bumped on his skin. It itched at reliving it. Obviously, the person that had pushed him was Max. He had said something abbrasive and pushed him again before walking off.
What followed, Richie could only describe as a montage of the years that Max spent bullying him. Every bump, scrape, push, shout. It was all displayed between those webs. He couldn't tear his eyes away despite knowing what had happened. When you added it all together, it really was a lot.
The screen stuttered to a pause and Richie stared at his image. It had paused on a moment when he was seventeen, curled against the side of a locker as he was being kicked.
"Why do you want to help someone like this?" Webby broke the silence that had grown in the emptiness.
Richie frowned, sighing. "I don't know. It just felt right. Luna, my cat, led me there that day. She'd never done anything like that before, so I had followed her. And she led me to Max. And it just." Richie furrowed his eyebrows. "I worked on instinct. I haven't even really taken the time to think about why I'm doing it."
Webby hummed, smiling. "I think you have a very kind soul, Richie." She lowered him back to the ground. As he touched the floor again, the white space around them shifted to a comfy looking living space, still entirely made of white. Richie watched it in fascination as the webs making the screen fell away like ash.
Webby smiled at him still, letting him take a moment to take in the change in environment. Richie looked at her. "I still want to help him."
"I know." She smiled, almost placatingly. Webby lowered herself to sitting on the floor in a kneeling position, Richie followed her example. "And I will help you. But first, let us talk."
---
Max really didn't know what was going on.
Like, one minute, Richie - it was weird calling him his actual name but even Max could recognise it would be weird to still call him insults - was just kneeling in this weird fucking circle. And then he'd tipped his head back and fucking fainted? And Max had tried calling him, but he hadn't budged. And then he'd tried to poke at him, but these weird fucking web things had risen around the circle to stop him getting in and, at this point, Max was having more questions than answers.
But at this point, he was a fucking ghost. It couldn't get much weirder.
Richie's house was freaky enough as is. There were eyes everywhere, and that book he was looking through gave him a bad feeling. And look, Max was fine with all this witchy shit. But that book. Something was wrong with it. It wasn't the first time he'd felt something like that. And he'd steered clear of all of that bullshit as much as he could when he was alive.
But then Richie had to go and have those things in his locker.
Max wasn't as stupid as he used to be. Death had given him a lot of time to think. And yeah maybe he had been interested in the shit Richie had had in his locker, or he'd looked up that anime stuff after figuring out how to spell it, but he knew that was because of a very obvious reason.
He had wanted to be Richie's friend.
Max hovered through Richie's house. He'd quickly found out that he couldn't leave the house, not even into the garden. So it meant that he had nothing to do.
It was a shame, really.
The most exciting thing that had happened to him since he died was Richie showing up in the Waylon Place. Now he was just. In the same situation but in a different, smaller, place.
The circle around Richie started to glow and Max's head snapped to it. The white chalk outlines were glowing a brighter light, and Max almost couldn't look away from it despite how badly it made his eyes itch. Spiderwebs spilled from the chalk like it had been pushing against the inside for longer than possible, ballooning out in messy cocoons that messed at Richie's hair and clothes but clearly stayed away from his body.
Whatever was happening was far beyond Max's extended sense of reality. The spiderwebs were starting to freak him out, though.
Richie sat up suddenly, eyes wide and white, faintly glowing before returning to his usual blue. He was panting and staring at the ground. His head snapped to Max and he grinned. Max was still reeling from the initial jolt of panic from Richie sitting up out of nowhere.
"I know how to bring you back."
---
Webby was inside his head. Richie expected he'd get a very long lecture about letting not one, but two, entities inside his head from Emma but he figured this was probably better than the alternative.
His internal doors were shut once again and he stood up from the circle, picking up the pouch from the floor as he did so.
"You'll find Chrysanthemums in your garden. That's where we'll need to be."
Richie wondered if Max would need to be with them, since he knew he was only able to roam the house itself. There would be more than a few issues if Max needed to be with them.
"He does not, don't worry. Bring some rosemary and juniper berries, too."
Richie nodded slightly, going to his kitchen to grab what he was told he needed. Max followed him.
"What? Really?" He asked. Max seemed happier than Richie had ever seen him. "That's great!" Richie smiled at him as he passed.
"Don't celebrate too soon. I've never done this before." Richie turned back before the door to the garden. "And. Sorry. But apparently it needs to be outside."
"How do you know how to do this now?" Max frowned.
Richie laughed slightly, almost nervously. "I've got an Eldrich Goddess in my head."
Max blinked, jaw dropping slightly. Richie shrugged and stepped outside. It was dark. Had the day ended so fast? It was almost unreal how before this morning, Richie hadn't even known that Max was lingering in Hatchetfield, let alone that he'd be the one to help Max return to humanity again. Laughter echoed around Richie's head as he found the chrysanthemums, kneeling in the dirt in front of them. He felt Max watching him from the cottage, and he tried to put a block in front of it. He didn't need any distractions.
"Okay, Richie. Dig a small hole underneath the main stem."
Richie placed the berries and rosemary beside him, carefully, before slowly making a small hole in the dirt with his hands.
"Now crush the berries and rosemary together, before burying them in the hole."
Richie followed Webby's instruction, juice slipping through his fingers and into the dirt hole. Rosemary sprigs separated easily as his fingers rolled them, dropping one by one into the hole in the ground. Once it was all done, Richie slowly scooped the dirt back to fill the hole.
"Thank you, Richie."
Richie closed his eyes, mud drying under his fingernails. Webby was now seen, behind his eyelids. She smiled at him warmly.
"When you open your eyes, I'll be gone from your mind. Thank you for trusting me with this." Webby's hands joined one another over her torso.
"Thank you for doing this." Richie thought.
"Of course."
Richie opened his eyes, watching as the flowers disappeared into glowing white light, almost like formless fireflies. His internal doors opened as he sighed.
Richie took a moment to sit there. The lights floated around him, easing him back into reality. He looked at his hands, dirt scruffing them up and parts of berry skin still clinging to his own.
Richie stood up slowly and walked back into the cottage. He figured that, if Max had been given his life back, he would have left by now. He wasn't exactly certain how long he'd stayed kneeling in the dirt as the lights flickered around him.
The sink faucet rushed as he turned it on. Richie washed his hands, fatigue finally settling into his limbs as he caught up with himself. He'd brought back a ghost today, probably. He had faith in Webby. She was different to the lords. She didn't ask for personal things, or sacrifices, or whatever.
Richie sighed, elbows resting on the countertop as he bent over it, hands pressing against his forehead.
Footsteps walked into the kitchen and adrenaline coursed through Richie's spine. He shot up, standing stock straight, eyes burning a hole into the kitchen doorway.
Max walked through it. He had changed, slightly. He looked like he'd lived those two years he'd been dead for, his clothing had even changed. Richie held his breath, blinking and furrowing his brows. Why was Max still here?
Max gestured to himself. "I guess it worked." A shocked laugh found its way out of Richie's mouth before he covered it slightly with his fingertips. Max smiled back at him.
---
There weren't too many cottages in Hatchetfield.
It just wasn't that type of town.
But the one placed along the border of the Witchwood Forest is rumoured to be haunted. This is a lie, of course. Spread as an inside joke between the couple living within it's stone walls.
With time, the residents of Hatchetfield had heard of the witchcraft being performed within the walls of the Witchwood Cottage. Children would make the small walk from town to the outer wall, ringing the chimes on the doorstep, and waiting for the witch of the cottage to come and help them. The black cat would watch from between stems of sunflowers, the eye dangling from her neck almost watching them as well.
Sometimes the witch in the cottage would be sat on the stoop, beside his boyfriend. They'd both have a thermos beside them, filled with tea, and often the witch would be weaving bracelets of glass eyes or tying pouches of herbs for spells.
He'd never turn away a wish for love, and always gave the bracelets to every child that turned up at his door. The witch would help as best he could. Even if some things aren't able to be fixed with spells.
Names sometimes got referred to social workers, or teachers for extra tutoring. Sometimes an extra place would be set for a meal, or an extra two or three. There would be no limit to the age of belief in his skills. Everyone got what they needed, even if it wasn't a spell.
---
Richie was sat on the stoop of the Witchwood Cottage, Max beside him, and Luna between their legs. A mug of tea warmed Richie's hands as he stared at the darkness of night. A star shone brightly overhead.
He leaned against Max gently, a comfortable silence passing over them both. Something was different tonight. More spiders seemed to show themselves in the corners of their cottage, with more intricate webs. Richie hadn't asked Webby for anything since Max was brought back. But she'd definitely made her presence known as a protector of the house.
Richie was brought from his thoughts by the rattling of the gate outside the front of the cottage.
A child stood, holding the metal gate tightly in one hand, and a crushed flower in the other.
Richie blinked and sat up straighter, placing his tea beside him as Luna immediately approached the child and sat by their feet, blinking up at them.
"Can you help me?" The child stuttered out, and Richie knew that this is what Webby had been getting more active about.