Granny's Porch

“Remember, always stir clockwise. You don’t want to bring any unwanted negative energy your way!” The words of Callista’s late grandmother rang through her head as she made her morning cup of tea. 

What a crazy old bat. Callista thought, shaking her head. That didn’t stop her unconscious mind from stirring clockwise anyway. Old habits die hard and all that. She stopped stirring, placed her used spoon in the sink, and made her way to the front porch. She passed her grandmother's old curio cabinet containing all the weird knick knacks she collected over the years. Sometimes Callista stood in front of the glass doors, just gazing at everything. Other times she opened the cabinet and removed some pieces for further inspection. Still other times, like today, she just walked past the cabinet like it wasn’t even there.

Today was hard for Callista. It was the anniversary of her grandmother's death. She usually spent this day with a cup of tea, on the front porch. Not really thinking, just sitting. When her grandmother was alive, this was their morning ritual. They would make a cup of tea together (always stirring clockwise) and sit on the front porch, watching the birds and other small animals in the area. But today felt different. Today, something was not normal. Today, Sebastian was sitting on the porch.

Sebastian is–was–her grandmother’s…assistant. Assistant was a weird word to describe Bast. He’s the same age as Callista (and easy on the eyes if she did say so herself), but preferred to spend most of his time with her much older granny. Callista never understood why. Sure, her grandmother had cool stuff in her curio cabinet, but come on, none of that “stir clockwise” stuff really works. Does it?

Callista hadn’t seen Sebastian since her grandmother’s death. It had been years. What was he doing here? 

She slowly opened the screen door that led to the patio.

“Bast.” She said in greeting.

He looked up, not appearing startled in the slightest.

“Liss, hey,” she blushed at the familiar nickname. “It’s been a while.”

“That’s a bit of an understatement.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.” he looked down sheepishly. She stood in the doorway, waiting for him to say anything else. When he didn’t she let the door close behind her.

Keeping her gaze on the scenery she said, “What are you doing here?”

He shook his head as if shaking off a physical thing. “Right. Straight to business. Can’t say I blame you.”

“Bast.” she looked at him.

“It’s Friday the 13th.”

Callista paled. As much as she didn’t believe how her grandmother lived her life, she knew Friday the 13th was powerful. She knew that it would only be worse now that her grandmother was not here. She knew that Bast was the only other one that knew how to protect her. She was suddenly very grateful for his presence.

“Right. Right. Okay. I-I-I need to sit down.” She sat down heavily on the porch swing next to Bast, her tea sloshing dangerously close to the brim of her mug.

“Easy now, it’s not like you haven’t helped with this before.” Sebastian reached out to steady her hand, then thought better of it and placed his hand at his side.

“Yeah, but Granny is gone this time. She always said the ritual would be much more difficult without her.”

“Well your grandmother was always a bit of an egotist.” Sebastian gave a little laugh, and Callista glanced at him.

“Meaning what? You believe we can perform it ourselves?”

“Of course. Don’t you?”

“Clearly not. I don’t even know anything about her lifestyle! All I know is what she used to say in passing. I never actively learned from her!” Callista was getting anxious and Sebastian could plainly see it. He reached his hand out again, this time letting it fall on her shoulder gently.

“Callista, listen to me,” his deep blue eyes burned into hers. “You have the blood of a very powerful woman running through your veins. Don’t try to tell me you don’t have the power to perform a ritual you have helped with many, many times.”

“But, I’ve never had to do it on my own before.” her voice dropped to almost a whisper. 

“You’re not on your own. You have me. You’ll always have me.”

Before Callista’s Granny died, she would perform a ritual every Friday the 13th. Every. Single. One. The first few times Callista didn’t even know what a ritual was, let alone that her grandmother was out in the woods in the middle of the night doing Gods know what. When she turned 13 she met Sebastian and her granny took to him right away. She asked if they’d like to assist her and Callista, being a fresh new teenager, quickly accepted. Sebastian accepted as well, but for his own reasons. The few times after that all she was doing was prep. Helping gather herbs, crystals, make moon water, etc. When she turned 16 she and Sebastian were asked to go into the woods. By this time Callista had decided she didn’t really believe in the same thing her Granny did, but she enjoyed spending time with the batty old lady (and Sebastian), so she headed out into the woods. It wasn’t until she turned 22 that she really understood what her Granny thought she was doing. According to legend, every Friday the 13th there was an overlap of dimensions. This overlap could cause beings that don’t exist in their world to cross over and change everything. Granny believed she was the only one in the area that knew about this and had the power to prevent it from wreaking havoc, until she met Sebastian. In order to do this, she would gather herbs, crystals, moon water, grave dirt, you name it, and head out into the woods where she believed the strongest overlap was, and chant till daylight. Sebastian became her official apprentice when he turned 24, and Granny stopped asking Callista to join them as often. She knew Callista didn’t believe as strongly as Sebastian did and that was okay. 

The last few years, as Granny’s health declined, Callista’s presence was requested at the ritual’s more and more. Granny insisted that Callista had what it took to quell the “potential evil” even if she didn’t believe it herself. Granny repeatedly told Callista that, “one day, you’ll have to do this without me.” But Callista didn’t think that day would come so soon.

“Okay, you’re right. We have each other. We’ve done this before. We can do it again.” Callista got a determined look on her face and she took a big gulp of her tea. She winced, “too hot.”

The two old friends made a list of supplies they would need for the ritual and split up to procure them. Sebastian headed into town while Callista raided the curio cabinet. Inside she found the crystals Granny always seemed to use, along with the herbs labeled “F13 RITUAL.” Convenient. She placed the supplies she found in a picnic basket and waited for Sebastian to come back. 

He arrived back on Granny’s porch close to nightfall, his hands full with jars and candles and matches and small pieces of wood that Callista recognized as palo santo. 

“Got enough stuff?” she laughed.

Sebastian smiled, “You can never be too prepared. Let’s go.”

They put what they could fit into Callista’s picnic basket and made their way out to the spot in the woods. It took close to an hour to reach it, but when they did it looked exactly like Callista remembered. A ring of trees created a clearing, in which a circle of sticks lay surrounding a tree stump. An incredibly old tree stump, as told by the rings. 

Sebastian looked at the sky and said, “We’re right on time,” as he started setting everything up. Candles on the tree stump, crystals surround them. Herbs burned on the stump and palo santo smudged around the clearing. The jars went around the circle of sticks. These contained various things that Sebastian felt would protect them from whatever attempted to come through the overlap. 

Once everything was set up, the two took up their positions on opposite sides of the tree stump. Callista had only done this part once or twice, but the confidence Sebastian had in her was enough to keep her going.

“You can do this, Liss,” he would say. And, “Granny is with us. Can’t you feel her?” Callista couldn’t, but she didn’t say as much. She stood her ground and recited the chant they had previously agreed upon. As they stood there, the sky grew darker and more electric. Looking around the clearing, Callista could see and feel the energy shift. It was almost time. She closed her eyes and prayed to her late grandmother. She asked for strength and confidence she didn’t have (which she knew was a problem. Granny always said, “no confidence, no magic!”) and when she opened her eyes something was different. She couldn’t put her finger on exactly what, but something was suddenly not the same as every other time. She looked around, trying to find the source of her unease, when she saw him. Sebastian was breaking the jars around the circle of sticks. He looked like a madman. She didn’t understand. It was dark too, partly because of the sky, partly because he had seemingly blown out the candles sitting on the tree stump as well.

“Sebastian!” she called, not feeling steady enough to move. “What are you doing?!”

He whirled around, his face a mask of mania. “What Granny asked.”

“What-” she was interrupted by a lightning bolt striking the tree stump and knocking her off her feet. She flew backwards, landing at the edge of the stick circle and fell unconscious.

She came to less than a minute later to see her Granny standing, no, floating, above the tree stump, looking lovingly at Sebastian. Callista didn’t understand. Her Granny was dead, what was she doing right in front of her? She staggered to her feet, needing to get closer, needing to understand what went wrong.

“You’ve done so well my dear. You’re even stronger than I anticipated.” Callista heard Granny tell Sebastian. 

“Thank you Gran, I couldn’t have done it without Callista.” Both turned to look at her, her Granny looking surprisingly alive. Wind whipped around Callista’s face, blowing her hair in her eyes. Strangely enough, the wind didn’t seem to be affecting Bast or Granny. 

“Now now dear, don’t look so surprised! If only you had the desire to learn more, this could have been you I was praising, instead of dear old Sebastian.” Granny had to raise her voice to be heard over the wind. “Alas, you’ll have to do as my vessel instead.”

“Vessel?! What are you talking about? We were just trying to protect the town from the overlap! Just like always!”

“Oh, poor thing. You really believe that don’t you? No, all these years I’ve just been prepping you as a vessel for me once I die. And this clearing has never been an overlap of another dimension. It just has incredible energy for just this sort of thing.” she gazed at Callista with pity in her eyes.

“So all these years, it’s all been a lie?” Callista was crying now.

“Uh, yeah.”

Callista was stuck in a wind tunnel, tears flying, hair whipping around her face, but all she wanted to do was lie down. So she did. She lay on her back, blinking through her hair and her tears at the stars one last time. She knew she wasn’t powerful enough to counteract a ritual she didn’t know had been happening for her entire life. She was powerless.

“Remember, always stir clockwise. You don’t want to bring any unwanted negative energy your way!” the words of her not-so-late grandmother floated through her head one final time, and then Callista’s world faded to black.