something that it doesn’t believe is possible. It’s the same thing that stops adults from believing or perceiving things that kids instinctively know as possible. Children are often sensitive to the occult, mostly because they haven’t been taught by life not to be.
All the spells we do, the runes we draw, the words we say or sing are just methods of mental accounting. Focus methods to trick our brains into doing what it already knows how to do.
I have clear memories of my mother telling me that a skilled witch, a truly well-trained Crafter, doesn’t need words or symbols, but can create complex results with just her or his mind. That was how she’d taught me, avoiding as many crutches as possible. So I really just ever used a few runes to add structure to my spellcraft. Which was maybe what I needed now.
A quick and very painful exploration of the drawers in the little medical cabinet in the corner turned up a black ink pen; one of those gel pens that write really well and are pretty cheap.
Pushing up the ward bracelet on my left wrist, I was able to get to the pale skin under my wrist. Cen, aesc, eoh, and sigel overlapped each other. Torch, Ash-tree, Yew, and Sun.
On my right wrist, I drew the same symbols but in reverse order. Now when I pressed my arms together, the runes matched up, like-to-like. Instantly, there was a connection, like a circuit being completed. Those four runes represented knowledge and Craft to me, to my unconscious mind. The simple ink symbols formed a link, not in reality, but in my head, which was where a good witch forced reality to bend and change.
I started slow, using my own internal reserve of magic or mana or whatever you want to call the energy we use. Maybe it’s chi; I don’t know. All I know is it formed a circuit from the core of my power, two inches below my belly, up my torso to my right shoulder, down my arm, through my wrist, across the gap to my other wrist, up my left arm, back down to center. Just a trickle in the beginning, but as my mind confirmed that it was working, I upped the amperage. A glance at the bands showed the visual twisting to be harder, more violent, more stomach churning. But that too was just a trick of the brain, a way for my mind to interpret what my eyes were showing it. So I forced myself to keep looking and upped the flow yet again. And again. The bracelets fought me, but my personal reserve is deep, even deeper now than a few months ago when I had shivered and froze in a warded holding tank deep underground. Practice since then had pushed my fuel tank to new limits.
The exercise became easier as it started to reinforce itself, the circuit flowing faster and stronger, the stream of power wider each time through.
I felt a snap, an etheric pop of something breaking, followed by a second one, and the bracelets ceased to twist my vision, becoming just bands of copper and bronze.
The door to my room was locked, but there are very few things crafted of metal that refuse the will of a skilled Earth witch. Finding the outer room empty, I slipped—well, let’s be honest—I staggered out the door and into the main floor hallway. It was quiet; the sun streaming in the windows of the dining room as I entered told me that was the middle of the school day.
The dining room staff looked at me a little oddly as I grabbed an entire quart of chocolate milk and a couple of straws, but no one said a word. Two painful flights of stairs later and I was in my own room, the door locked and warded behind me. I sucked blessedly cold milk through a straw and fumbled in my dresser till I found the deerhide bag my aunt had given me on move-in day. Inside it, among the little ziplock bags of herbs, crystals, and powders were three un-dyed cotton pouches that looked a little unfocused to my eyes. I squeezed one hard, pictured the rune nyd or need in my mind and shoved the little charm under my shirt against my bound ribs. The dorm-standard bed had never felt soft and comfortable before, but it was a cushioned nest as I fell into it, fully dressed, letting the world slip