Page 104 of Big Little Spells

Georgie builds an altar in the center. She asks Jacob to bring her earth from outside. She has Ellowyn scent the air with the incense she makes with her own herbs. She sets out a clay bowl and asks Zander to magick in water from the river. Then she has Emerson light a thick candle.

Once that’s done, we all join hands and sit in our circle.

“Listen carefully,” Georgie says. “We’ll call in the elements the way we always do, but we’re going to do it in a very old way.”

And one by one, we invite the elements to join us here. Earth, air, water, and fire.

But the invitations are different. The words we use, in heavy German and thick Latin, make me shiver. And the elements they invite into our circle aren’t the ones I know. These are their older cousins, from times when they were gods.

I can tell we all feel it.

And you don’t compel gods.

You ask. Nicely.

And very, very carefully.

As our Summoner, Ellowyn is the one who reaches out to the spirits, the beings of light, those that protect us. Nicholas once called us the chosen, and I have to believe him.

In words I hardly know, my best friend speaks to the spirits. And we all repeat their replies.

I take a small stone from my pocket. Last night, at the stroke of midnight, I dove down into the confluence, where the three rivers come together and nearly took my sister’s life two months ago. I asked for a talisman and the rivers gave me this.

Tonight I take it and I place it in the earth Jacob brought in from his fields.

Together, we ask the earth to hold the wearer of the stone, to keep him solid and whole.

The stone begins to glow. We feel that glow go through us. I feel it all over me, like light.

I take the stone to the incense and bathe it in the scent, the air, murmuring the spell Georgie taught me to make it dance in the smoke until it seems to suck the smoke inside its gleaming surface.

And so, too, do I feel it fill me up.

I look around and see my friends breathe harder, as if fighting the smoke. Surrendering to it.

We ask it to take away any negative energy that might surround the wearer, to blow it away like the wind clears smoke.

And when we can breathe again, the stone grows brighter.

That, too, I feel inside me.

We repeat the same ritual with the river water and feel drenched as we ask it to nourish him and drown those who might come for him. Then we burn as we ask the fire to fight off his enemies and purify him.

And when we are done, the stone glows so bright it nearly blinds us all.

Then the glow fades, and it is only a stone again. We are only people once more, and there are no gods here. Only a candle sputtering on a makeshift altar, an incense cone smoking its last gasp, and two bowls of muddy water.

But this is the magic I loved. The magic I missed.

It doesn’t have to look like anything to change everything. That’s what makes it so powerful. And it’s always better done with my oldest and best friends.

I pick up the stone we’ve made into a talisman and turn it over in my hand.

“It doesn’t feel complete,” I say, frowning down at it. There’s the problem of getting Nicholas to carry it, of course. Without him being suspicious. I’m still waiting for inspiration to hit on that one.

But it’s more than that. It’s something...just out of reach.

“Maybe it will feel complete when it’s needed,” Emerson suggests brightly. “We’re protecting him on Litha, so maybe it needs Litha.”

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