'Blessed be the lord, blessed be the lady, who gave me life and takes my pain.'
She sat in the centre of the circle, crossed her legs and made herself as comfortable as she could, given that the floor was old, creaky and full of woodworm.
'I make this offering for you to hold, it?s part of me and my soul.' Then she took a bundle of posies from her bag pulled of the petals scattering them around her, chanting as she did so,
'Take my pain, take my enemies, help me through this dark time.' She repeated this chant many times over until after a while she was swaying back and forth as though in a trance. Then?silence.
For an hour she was motionless, the wind was no longer howling and the old tree outside remained still. She opened her eyes, but instead of her deep blue eyes she had fierce green eyes, tinted with blood. Taking a deep breath she stood up and walked towards the window. Standing on tip toes she looked outside at the still world and said,
'I can feel you inside me. You have cured me of my pain. It worked!'
As she turned to collect her things from the floor she let out a blood-curdling scream. She was still sitting in a trance on the floor where she had been for the past hour and a half. She walked over and watched herself breathe in and out. How was this possible? She was here but she also wasn?t her. She was sitting down in a trance and yet she was standing up and watching at the same time. Holding her head in her hands she fell to the floor. What had she done? Was she dead; was she alive? She didn?t know, but she did have the feeling that time was slipping away and that if she didn?t find away back into her body soon, she would remain like this for the rest of eternity.
She paced up and down in front of herself in deep thought. How could a simple binding spell have gotten so drastically out of hand? She wanted protection and had received separation from the world.
Deep in thought, she sat down and looked carefully at her own face; she could feel her warm breath against her icy cold cheeks and watched as she went into R.E.M (Rapid Eye Movement).
Going to touch her shoulder, she saw that her hands were slightly see-through. Quickly she drew back her hand and examined it. Hundreds of thoughts were running through her hear, the last making as much sense as the on before. With a sense of no hope, she closed her eyes and bowed her head.
She looked up from where she was sitting, the clouds were above her head and she was outside. It had all happened in an instant, she was sitting in the hall and now she had been transported to the rectory graveyard, amongst grotty, old tombstones, and mouldy inscriptions, which had lost their readability many centuries ago.
Standing up she glanced around and shuddered. It was as though a cold frost had touched upon her shoulders. As she looked towards the abandoned rectory she noticed a little girl skipping by the door. But there was something strange about this little girl she had a hollow voice, almost ghost like. She walked carefully towards the girl and said,
'Hello.'
The little girl giggled, dropped the skipping rope and ran off. She followed her as the ghost girl ran laughing through the graves, beckoning her to follow
'What?s your name?' She called as she ran after the ghost girl.
';Emilia Jones!' The ghost girl called back.
She followed Emilia into a small forgotten park, which had a rusty swing; a broken slide and bits of glass splintered everywhere. She watched as Emilia took off her shoes and socks and ran across the glass onto the swing. Blood was dripping from Emilia?s feet, but Emilia hadn?t noticed. Then as if she had aged a hundred years within a minute, skin started to flake off her face and legs. As she wandered over to Emilia, she let out a blood-curdling scream. Emilia?s hair had fallen out and her scalp had withered away to show blood leaking into her brain. Emilia was happily swinging on the swing, not noticing, as her blue dress became redder and redder as it became soaked through with blood. She then noticed that a bone was sticking out of Emilia?s leg. Backing away she said goodbye and turned around.
'What?s your name?' Emilia asked. Her voice was as sweet as her laugh. She turned around and saw that Emilia?s dress was back to its original freshly washed blue, her hair was perfect and her leg was no longer broken.
'It?s Delaine.' Delaine answered, looking at the girl with a face full of astonishment.
'What?' Emilia asked. 'What are you staring at? It?s rude to stare'
Delaine stopped staring and said, 'N-nothing. Are you ok?'
'What a strange question! Of course I?m ok! Why shouldn?t I be? It?s not as if I?m under a spell!' Emilia asked as though the thought that she was not Ok was absurd.
'A spell? Oh mi god!! I need your help. You may not believe me, but I?m trapped outside my body and can?t get back; I?m in the old hall over there. Will you help me?'
Emilia?s face lit up and she said,
'Of course I will. I like the sound of this game!'
*
Delaine and Emilia ran into the hall. Delaine was still sitting in the centre of the circle cross-legged in a deep sleep. But there was something different. As Delaine went over to sit in front of herself, she noticed something horrifying. She has aged fifty years within the last half an hour. Another twenty minutes and she would be dead. Her skin was dry and pale and her hair was falling in clumps off of her head and into her lap. Every now and then her leg twitched and a bone would snap as her skeleton became more and more brittle.
Her eyes were open now, but they were not seeing, just an icy blue exterior with nothing inside.
Weeping, Delaines knees buckled and she fell to the floor.
'Help.. Me' She cried through a mask of tears. 'Please, get me back inside there. I need to live. I want to live."
"How do you think I ended up here delaine? I was like you, a girl who thought she knew the best way to solve all her problems. There?s no way back in and I was nine when I died. The doctors found my body in the rectory early morning time. Said it was witchcraft that did it. True, but I had done it to myself. There was a big witch-hunt, but they never found the ?culprit?. I watched as my mother and father killed hundreds of innocent people. I screamed at them and threw things across the room to get their attention, but it didn?t work. By the time I had been dead for three years three hundred people had been burned or hanged." Delaine lucked up as the little girl in front of her in the pretty blue dress and hair done up in ribbons calmly explained how she had witnessed all the evils of the world.
"But when you are on the swings." She said, forcing herself to go further, to question what already seemed like a trip through the looking glass. "I could see inside your head, and your dress?. How come that happens?"
Emilia giggled, "Oh you saw that? Well, I have no control over that but it?s completely painless. Doesn?t win you many friends though!" Emilia walked over to where Delaines body was withering away. "Not long now."
There was something crooked about Emilia and the evil smile she had on her face that made Delaine feel nauseous.
"No there is a way back, through the book. I can do it myself." Delaine told Emilia.
"FINE!" Emilia stamped her foot and clouds of dust shot into the air. "Be like that then. But if you get stuck her with me, don?t expect me to be your friend. So you watch out- cause when you die an old, frightened lady alone in your bed, I?LL COME AFTER YOU AND PULL YOUR ANGELIC WINGS OFF." And Emilia ran away laughing into the graveyard.
Delaine looked down at the book. She found the page and recited the incantation
"Lord and lady, I invoke thee
Listen as I speak of freedom
To have freedom boundaries must exist
To have peace you must prepare for war
I have experienced death and have not yet lived.
Give me my chance to live.
Let me back inside my body
Restore me."
Delaine waited and waited. Still nothing happened. Then suddenly the whole room started to whirl around Delaine, furiously spinning her until her ghost form was being sucked into the vortex and in to her body.
*
Delaine woke and looked at her alarm clock. The numbers flashed "8:05"
It worked! Delaine was back to normal. Had it all been a dream? She looked down at her feet; she had cuts from the glass of the playground in her feet. It really happened.
"Well," thought Delaine, "today is when I start living."