A Summoning

Laura stood before the door at the end of the hallway. She had stood there many times, countless times in the past year, never making a move to open the door. Only standing there. Each time she stood before the door she cried, no matter how hard she tried to hold them back. Tonight was different though, tonight she had no tears. She had anger and hope and uncertainty driving her.

Laura had not slept much these past few nights. Sorrow and fear played tug-o-war with her dreams and she tossed and turned in a cold sweat. The days were not much better, even through the warm heart of August. It had been one year since Jason’s murder, but it still felt like she was reliving it every day, the pain and fear crippling her. Jason, the love of her life, had been killed in their home. The nightmare constantly replayed in her mind:

She closed the trunk of her car, bracing the grocery bag against her hip. She was four months along in her pregnancy, but stubbornly trying to resist the onslaught of heartburn and back pain. She had made a quick trip to the store for some dinner ingredients, as well as her coveted TUMS. She thumbed through her keychain and came to her house key in time to reach the doormat. She started to reach out toward the lock when she stopped, her hand frozen inches from where the lock should have been. She had not noticed that the door was standing open about two feet.

This made no sense at all to her, she very clearly remembered closing and locking the door behind her. She had left Jason in the nursery, tediously trying his best to recreate an elephant on the wall in gray paint. There was no reason for the front door to be open.

She blinked herself back into action and proceeded through the front door and into the living room.  

“Jason?” she called out. “Did you know the front door was wide open?”

She turned around and closed the door behind her then proceeded to the kitchen. She placed the grocery bag down on the counter, no response.

“Hello, Jason? Did you hear me? The door was open. I could have sworn I closed it behind me, did you go out front and forget to lock it or something?” She was speaking much louder now. Still no response.

She abandoned the bag on the counter and looked out into the backyard, maybe he had gone out the front and went around through the gate. No, he wasn’t in the back. Where was he?

“Helloooo, where are youuuuu?” she sang. He must be hiding from her, always the jokester.  

She made her way to the hall and poked her head into their bedroom. Nothing. She took a few steps and looked in the guest room across the hall. Nothing. She walked into the bathroom and poked her head around the shower curtain. Nothing. Back in the hallway, she faced the partly closed door to the nursery. She could hear Yellow Submarine playing and started to hum along. A smile spread across her face as she envisioned him tucked behind the door, ready to jump out at her once she walked in.  

In her best performer enthusiasm, she pushed the door open and exclaimed “Gotcha!”

Confusion instantly slowed her mind as she could not understand what she was looking at. Where there had previously been a whimsical monkey, she now saw a large red smear. It was vibrant and shiny in stark contrast to the muted, matte pastels behind it. Then her skin prickled into goosebumps of realization: blood. She turned to look at the rest of the room and saw more shiny smears of blood until her eyes landed on the dark pool in the corner. Jason was lying in the center of it and it was actively growing before her eyes.

Snapped from her trance she flung herself at her husband.  

“Oh my god, oh my god! Jason!”  

Their eyes met and his eyes mirrored hers, wide and frantic. He gasped, his mouth forming soundless words. She held his face, tears falling onto his cheeks.  

“What happened?” She was having trouble breathing and her hands were starting to shake.  

An extended breath left his mouth and she watched him deflate. His eyes never left hers, but she watched in horror as they went from seeing her, to seeing nothing.

“Jason?” It was only a whisper.  

The sudden sound of footsteps furiously running from the bedroom across the hall and toward the front door meant nothing to her, nor the sound of the front door being opened. It was once again left wide open. 

Laura took a steadying breath and closed her eyes.

 “One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, four one thousand, five one thousand.”

She opened her eyes again and felt somewhat better than she had moments ago. A year of therapy only held her together so much, and this door usually wore her threadbare.  

But tonight was different. She was on a mission, albeit an unknown mission that made her feel like a crazy person. Laura had spent the last year trying any method of healing she could muster, all of which left the hole in her heart wide open. Yoga was ok, painting worked until she started using reds, but support groups were a joke. She wished more than anything she could blast that corner of the house right out of existence, yet there it was, greeting her every morning on her walk from the bedroom to the bathroom.

She readjusted the basket tucked under her arm and took the doorknob in her hand. With one last breath she inhaled all of the resolve she could muster and opened the door. She walked in and closed the door. Slowly she turned to face the room and let out her breath in as controlled of an exhale as she could muster. The room looked like an old acquaintance, familiar but also aged and different from how she remembered it. Her brother had repainted the room after the mess had been cleaned up. It was a pale yellow now, far from the soft greens and blues of the forest mural it had been in the process of transforming into a year ago. The room looked bigger than she remembered. She could imagine it glowing in the daylight, a source of light in itself from the happy yellow paint. It glowed now in what was left of the setting sun. Laura and Jason had picked this room specifically for the nursery because of how bright it naturally was. Instead of the giggles and lullabies that should be filling this room today, it stood silent and bare. Instead of stuffed animals and wooden blocks littering the floor, there were dust bunnies and unknown bits of earth along the moldings.

She turned to face the far corner where she had lost Jason. It was a completely unsuspecting corner to the naked eye. But her mind unfurled an overlay of that night and she saw two images simultaneously. The bare yellow walls as well as his limp body and the glowing red pool of blood.  

She closed her eyes again and counted to five.

When she opened her eyes she was again in the empty yellow room. Alone. Good.

She took a step towards the ominous corner, afraid of getting too close. Slowly she took a few more until she stood before the spot where Jason’s feet had been. She knelt down to the ground and sat on her feet. Turning to her basket she began to remove each object and place them on the floor before her.  

A large kitchen bowl filled with black rose petals.

A jar or ground cloves from the pantry.

A tub of Morton fine ground sea salt, also from the pantry.

A bundle of rosemary and sage she had wrapped earlier that morning.

A box of matches.

Three small votive candles.

One large red candle.

And a small dish of ash from the fire pit out back.

Her eyes began to gloss over again, so she closed her eyes and again performed her steadying ritual.

One one thousand. Two one thousand. Three one thousand. Four one thousand. Five one thousand.

With a controlled exhale she opened her eyes.

She placed the basket off to her left and took stock of the objects aligned before her. Was she really going to do this? Was she crazy? Desperate, yes, but crazy? At this point she would try anything. If it didn’t work then just add it to the list of things to talk about with the therapist. The latest grasp at invisible straws that Laura kept searching for but never found. Nothing would ever bring Jason back, she would never hear his voice again.  

But she could get revenge. Or try to, at the very least. It was a fool’s attempt, but she felt she had nothing to lose and would welcome anything to gain.

In her search for answers and healing, she had tried the clinical route as well as the more…shall we say ‘earthly’ approach? She had tried and abandoned both prescription antidepressants and herbal concoctions, mantras and grievance counseling. She was tired of searching, and she was ready to try anything. Even witchcraft.

She felt a pang of embarrassment nagging at the back of her mind looking down at the simple household goods turned pagan, but she pushed the thoughts aside. She wanted to give this everything she had and hoped for the best. If it failed she could always have a good laugh about the futility of it all someday.

She took the bowl of black petals and rose again to her feet. She walked to the north wall and crouched to the floor. She took a large handful of petals from the bowl and began to mark out a curving line on the floor, ending on the east wall. The black rose, which in actuality is a deep purple, was said to represent death and despair, hatred and revenge. She continued with her petals, following the wall to the corner and back to where she started her curve. She used the extra petals to fill in any sparse spaces until she held an empty bowl in her hands.  

Straightening, she looked down at her work. It resembled a large slice of pie, with the ghost of Jason’s body laying in the middle flashing behind her eyes.  

Before her eyes could prick with tears she turned back to her collection and exchanged the empty bowl for the tub of salt. She popped open the sliding funnel from the salt, and with her other hand picked up the dish of ashes. Very carefully, she poured a layer of salt over the ashes until she could not see the black anymore. She closed the salt and placed it on the ground again. She then took her index finger and mixed the contents of the bowl together, and when she was satisfied she removed her sooty finger. She turned and retraced the sweeping curve she had made from the north wall to the east, pouring a thick line of salt between herself and the rose petals, skipping the edge of the wall. The salt was to repel negative energy and act as a barrier against negativity, to keep her safe from evil. Black salt was supposed to be even more powerful than plain table salt, so she took the extra step to look up how to go about making black salt. The corner of the room was now cordoned off behind the line of salt.

Now she retrieved the candles. She placed the three votives on the floor inside the black slice she had made, spacing them strategically in a line about four inches apart. Each candle represented a name. His name.  

Caleb Adams Denney.

Now she took the large red candle. Red for fast, absolute resolution, passion and anger, destruction. Red for the fire god. Red for the full moon. She placed the red candle on the floor between herself and the salt.

Now she took the ground cloves. She dumped a bit into her palm and dragged it in a line across her chest. She had read that cloves were one of the most powerful protective herbs, and if she succeeded in her ritual tonight, she would need all the protection she could get. She replaced the lid and set the jar on the ground next to the basket. On second thought she picked it back up and placed it in her pocket. Better safe than sorry.

The rosemary and sage she would save and use after the ritual to cleanse the room to remove hostile energies and spirits, so she placed it to the side with the basket.  

The sun outside had set and the moon was now the star of the sky, bursting with light. It sat just over the horizon and took up the entire bedroom window, casting the yellow room in an ominous glow. Laura sat in a pool of white light, mirroring the pool of blood left by Jason’s memory.

Now she was ready to begin.

She struck her first match and watched the flame settle at the tip of the match. For the last time, she counted to five, and with a steady heart she opened her eyes. She touched the flame to the fresh wick of the red candle until the nylon caught fire. Not quite sure of herself, she began to speak:

“I light this candle to bring my wish into fruition. To compel it forward in due haste, for I cannot bear to dwell on the pain much longer. God of Fire, help me seek vengeance for my lost loves, child and husband.” She whipped the match back and forth to put it out and placed it into the dish of what remained of the black salt. It hissed briefly then went silent.  

She took another match from the box and struck it hard. The flame danced again just like the last one, settling as she held the match steady in front of her. She leaned forward across the lines of sale and roses to the three candles.

“Caleb.” She lit the wick and extinguished the match.

She reached for the second candle with a fresh match.

“Adams.” Another match in the dish of ashes.

“Denney.” A fourth match joined the dish.

She lit another match and held it before her.

“May you suffer, and bleed, and die a horrible death. May your pain be so vile, so strong, that death itself will not give you reprieve. You ripped my heart from my chest, and I pledge the same insurmountable suffering unto you. Caleb Adams Denney, I will forever know your name, and you will forever know my fury.”

She felt a surge of strength she had not felt in a long time built up inside her. The flame was near the bottom of the wood and she waved it out, dropping it into the dish. With conviction she lit another match and continued.

“God of Fire, God of Wrath, God of Vengeance and Destruction! I call to you to exact my revenge upon the man that destroyed my life! Take him from this mortal world and make him burn. I cannot continue to live while he draws breath.”

She felt as if she were in a trance, speaking words she had not rehearsed in a voice she didn’t know she possessed. All trepidation left her, extinguished like the matches. A spark had been lit within her that she had thought long lost but now roared to life. She grabbed at a new match and aggressively swept it across the box.

“Kill him!”

The flame flicked towards her and a wave of air blew across her face. She sat in complete shock, unsure if what had just happened, actually happened. She felt like a halted train, the effort to pick back up and continue at full speed utterly daunting. Before she could fully compose herself a shadow fell across the room. She looked up to the moon and it continued to glow, but the light came to her dimmed, as if it had to pass through a veil. She returned her gaze to the corner and to her horror she realized that the light from the moon touched the line of salt, but the petals were in darkness. A darkness she had never experienced before. A bottomless darkness, deeper than a well or the heart of the ocean. She couldn’t even see the walls, or the floor, or the three candles mere inches from her. It was a void.

She sat in silence to catch her breath. She closed her eyes in preparation to count. She inhaled and before she could say ‘one’ she paused. She heard the sound of the matches rustle in the box, and the unmistakable sound of a match being struck. Her stomach turned to stone as she opened her eyes.

Before her were two large orange eyes, an angular nose, and a mouth stretched thin. They came from the darkness, but were part of the darkness itself. The lips parted in a sickening grin, and a row of glowing white, sharp teeth sparkled in the flickering light of the match. In a voice like liquid nails hardening into smooth glass, the thing before her spoke:

“Assss yooou wisshhhh.”

The match extinguished in a puff and the sound of the voice trailed away with the smoke. The light from the moon began to glow again, the muted veil lifted, until the room was once again filled with the pearly light from the window.

As if snapped out of her trance Laura grabbed the bundle of sage and rosemary and with as much control as she could muster, she cleansed the room.