Forged in Fire

Forged in Fire

           I knocked on Blake’s door, dancing back and forth from foot to foot and silently cursing myself for not bringing a jacket. The last day in October was cold in Massachusetts this year.

Blake swung the door to his bookshop open and cracked a smile that to me looked quite comical considering the cotton ball beard and pointy hat he was wearing that matched perfectly with his royal blue with yellow star robes.

“You look dashing.” I told him as he let me in and closed the door behind me.

“I see you didn’t bother with a costume, Greta.”

“That’s not true.” I told him holding up a tiny dustpan brush I had picked up at the dollar store on my way over. “See it’s a broom. I’m totally a witch.”

Blake rolled his eyes, but his lips twitched into a smile.

“Besides,” I continued as we moved deeper into the shop past tomes of years gone by. I could hear the music and sounds of partially drunken laughter emanating from the backroom now. I tugged down the hem of my black dress that was just a bit too short, “I wouldn’t dress up for just anyone like this.”

At this Blake gave me an appreciative grunt. I felt my spine tingle. Two years out of college and still I was stunned by him. I internally chided myself.

I was an adult. We were all adults now, not some stupid kids who thought it fun to play in the basement of Blake’s dad’s bookshop. This was just a party between friends.

I would have fun, I would not be stiff as a board. I would enjoy myself.

“Greta!” Chorused the other three people in the room as Blake led me in.

“Hey guys.” I looked over their familiar faces and I felt a pang of sorrow. It had been a long time since I’d been here with these people. My best friends in the whole world.

“It’s been a hot minute, hasn’t it?” Cassie asked. She had a small witch had pinned on top of her blonde locks and orange and black thigh high stockings. She patted a spot next to her on the ratty sofa that was older than I was.

I sat.

“Yeah. It so good to see you guys.” I looked over the assembled faces and Oliver smirked at me. He was wearing an odd combination of green cargo pants and a clashing Hawaiian shirt.

“Nice of you to grace us with your presence. We were starting to think that you were so far off the grid with that farm of yours that you’d forgotten what high society was really like.”

I smiled so broadly my cheeks started to hurt, “Oh high society now are we. Says the guy in cargo pants.”

“I’m a jungle explorer.” Ollie protested. Jane put her black lacquered fingernails on his shoulder and he leaned into her touch. She had cat ears perched on her head, they were pink, to match the highlights in her brown hair.

“We know you’re a tough guy Ollie.” She soothed, and then handed me a beer. I cracked the top.

“To friends, to good times and to coming together.” I raised my bottle and my friends saluted me with their own.

I was just starting to get giggly when Blake disappeared to return with an old book bound in worn leather.

“Do you guys remember this? It’s that book my dad always kept locked in his desk.”

That got my attention, the book was forbidden. When we had been kids it had been off limits even when nothing else had been. Of course as with all kids told we cannot have something we had tried to get the book, but alas…

Now.

I shifted in my seat to sit up straighter. Blake was running his finger down the book’s spine lovingly. “When my dad…when I got the bookshop I found it where it always was. You are never going to guess what’s in it.”

“Is it your dad’s dirty picture collection?” Ollie slurred. He as considerably drunker than the rest of us.

Blake frowned down at the leather, “No, it’s a spell book.”

My train of thought ground to a halt, “What? As in like magic?”

Blake nodded and then flipped the book open to a random page, “Yeah…like this one here is a…” He bent double the tip of his nose almost touching the page, “I don’t know, I can’t totally make it out, but maybe something to do with memory or passage.” He shook his head.

“We should do it!” Cassie squealed, also more drunk than I was.

Blake and I exchanged a glance, I felt the heat rise to my cheeks and I looked away.

“Yes…Oh my G.O.D that would be so cool. Let’s try a spell. Come one guys it is Halloween and we are in Salem. It so perfect.” Jane agreed and I was starting to wonder if I was the only sane person here. The afore mentioned reasons were precisely why we should not be attempting magic.

Okay, I wasn’t superstitious or anything. I didn’t walk the other way if a black cat crossed my path, I didn’t avoid cracks in the sidewalk or anything like that, but playing with the forbidden book felt dangerous.

“I don’t know guys.” I protested, but Cass knocked her shoulder into mine.

“Don’t worry Greta it’s not real, it’s just a game. Like when we were kids, remember. We used to pretend we were magic and that we could cast spells.”

“Mostly for my annoying sister to go away.” Ollie mumbled and I knew I was out voted. I nodded reluctantly.

“Okay, but if I end up with a second head or something I blame you.”

I looked at Blake again and he offered me a tight smile his brow furrowed as he squinted back at the book. “It says here that all we have to do it sit in a circle, light a candle in the middle, hold hand and chant the words, memoria praeteritorum oblivionem mitte pervenit usque mane.”

“Dude that is not English.” Ollie said.

“It’s Latin.” Blake explained, “Something to do with memory and oblivion maybe? My Latin is a little rusty.”

Jane had gotten a candle and lit it in the center of our loose circle, “Well come on. Get into a circle and link hands.”

Blake put the book on the floor in front of him as we sank to the floor crossing our legs as we held hands.

Blake started the chant and the rest of us picked it up. The Latin didn’t sound so foreign as the words poured from my mouth. Sweat dripped down the back of my neck.

The candle spluttered weakly as our combined breath hit it.

We stopped chanting.

Cassie laughed her hand still in mine, “That was fun, but what was supposed to happen?”

“I think we were supposed to remember something.” Blake mused.

“Like what? Some famous event from history or something?” Oliver asked raising his and Jane’s clasped hands to rub his nose.

“Like the Salem Witch Trials?” Cass suggested and my gut lurched violently.

“No!” Blake and I shouted at the same time. The candle went out.

The silence that followed pressed on my eardrums like they were stuffed with cotton. Then as suddenly as it had gone out the flame sprang back into life and jumped three feet in the air. I tried to scramble away, but I was frozen.

Black smoke started to fill the air. Jane was screaming wordlessly.

My heart pounded in my chest as I lost sight of my friends in the smoke. It invaded my lungs and I coughed. My eyes stung and watered. The world started to spin. I lost hold of Cassie and Blake’s hands.

It was entirely black. I may have lost consciousness, it was hard to tell.

Then it all stopped. Something switched on the light again and I fell four feet to the ground. I groaned and squeezed my eyes tightly shut as my stomach heaved. I could hear someone retching beside me and that alone convinced me to open my eyes to make sure I was not in the line of fire.

The bookshop was gone. The five of us were laying in the dirt of what looked to be Pioneer Village. It was morning and the actors were giving us strange looks as Oliver threw up all over the ground.

“Where is it? Where is it?” Blake was muttering as he crawled across the ground frantically searching for something.

I got to my feet and dusted off my dress, pulling down the hem self-consciously. People just stared. “Um…Hello, I don’t suppose you could tell us what just happened can you? We were just in the bookshop and…”

A woman in a long dress screamed and dropped her basket of apples before running off.

Okay then, I didn’t think it was an unreasonable question.

A gray haired man with a black buckled hat raised a gnarled finger, “Witch!”

The word reverberated in my gut, “What? Aren’t you guys taking your jobs too seriously? These are just costumes we aren’t real witches.”

“Witch, witch, witch.” The rest of the assembled crowd took up the chant. My legs quivered.

“No! Stop, aren’t you listening. Please!”

The crowd surged forward. I screamed, but it didn’t do any good as hands grabbed at me and I found myself bound with rope and herded away.

This was not happening. This was not happening. There was no way this was happening.

…

Cassie was sobbing quietly in the corner of the cramped jail cell. The walls were roughhewn stone and there was water dripping from somewhere. The smell was the worst though, it smelled of human excrement, unwashed bodies and fear.

It stank of fear.

I sat huddled on the floor beside Ollie who was just staring at the opposing wall blankly. Blake was pacing the floor in front of us causing the other prisoners to flinch back as he passed.

They were mostly young women. They kept praying to a god that was obviously not listening. I was half tempted to tell them so, but what was the point really?

Blake had lost his hat, his starry robes were in tatters now showing his black jeans beneath. His lip had been split and there was still blood on his face.

“I lost the damn book.” He muttered over and over again. I was also sorely tempted to tell him to shut up, but…well it wouldn’t matter anyway.

Jane stood by the window staring up into the limited view of the street it offered, “What is this place do you think?” She asked suddenly turning back to us.

“I don’t think it’s where we should be asking, but when.” I said putting my chin on my knees.

“Hey you.” Jane addressed one of the other women in the room who looked at her like she really was a servant of Satan. “What year is it?”

“In the year of our lord 1962.” The woman croaked timidly.

Ollie swore loudly and I flinched.

“It’s the witch trials isn’t it?”

Blake nodded absently and Cassie sobbed harder.

“And they think we’re witches.” Oliver continued.

Blake nodded again more glumly this time. He stopped pacing and dropped down in in front of us. His lips were quivering. “I’m sorry guys. I don’t know what happened to the book.”

“Do you mean this book?” A new voice asked.

Blake shot to his feet and turned to stare at the man who could have been his older brother. If his older brother had been a puritan that is. In his hand was the spell book.

Blake reached for it, but the man snatched it back.

“That’s mine.” Blake snarled, but the man just shook his head.

“It will be yours, but right now it is mine.”

I stood up slowly and walked over to stand beside Blake. “What do you mean, it will be his?”

The man’s green eyes sparked, “I mean in the future it belongs to him, I will pass it down to my son who will pass it down to his and so on.”

“You’re a witch…wizard. You know what I mean.” Blake stuttered and the man cocked his head to side.

“Something like that, but listen close. You and your friends are not supposed to be here. You are messing with the fabric of time.”

I opened my mouth to object, but the man cut me off.

“Yes I know it was a mistake. In a few hours you are going to stand before a judge who is going to convict you of witchcraft. You need to plead guilty. He will sentence you to death by hanging, you need to ask to be burned at the sake.”

“Are you mad?” Blake hissed, his hands shook as he clenched his fingers.

The man just shook his head, “They did not burn witches during the Salem witch trials, but the spell you used to get here was a fire spell. It needs fire to reverse it.”

“So you’re suggesting we burn alive?” I was outraged, the man’s eyes sparked again.

“No,” He said in the tone of someone explaining something to a child, “I suggesting you use the same magic that got you here in the first place, the only way you burn alive is if you do it wrong. If you are gone by the morning light history will not remember you, it will be as though it never happened.”

“You know a lot about all this.” Blake narrowed his eyes. The man laughed.

“It’s magic, it’s the language of the universe.” I blinked and he was gone.

Blake grunted in surprise, “Did he just?”

I nodded mutely.

“Who knew the language of the universe was Latin.”

I laughed despite myself. It wasn’t even that hysterical.

…

We pled guilty and when the judge told us we were to be executed at dawn at the gallows we asked to be burned at the stake. That was the single hardest thing I have ever said aloud.

I did not want to burn at the stake. There was no way I wanted to burn at the stake, but the universe spoke in the voice of Blake’s great-great grandfather.

Sleeping was really hard when contemplating your eminent death by burning in the morning. I sat my shoulder touching Blake’s as we silently watched the passage of stars across the sky.

It might have been romantic if not for the smell.

“This is not how I thought our reunion was going to go.” He whispered and I just sighed leaning into him.

“I’ve heard of worse.”

Blake chuckled.

We watched the sun lighten the horizon and listened to the clinking of keys in the lock.

My hands shook despite my promise to be brave.

…

A crowd had gathered around a large stake stacked with firewood.

Cassie stumbled as we climbed up and linked hands around the wooden pole. The guards tied us in place. The crowd was silent as the torches crackled in the weak morning light.

“For the confessed crime of witchcrafts and consorting with the devil the good people of this town sentence you to die in fire.”

I closed my eyes and squeezed Blake and Cassie’s fingers tightly.

The pyre was lit and my eyes flew open to find Blake’s ancestor. He was just watching with shining eyes. His lips were moving silently and I suddenly understood.

I started chanting as the smoke filled my nose.

Blake took it up next and soon we were all chanting.

“Memoria praeteritorum oblivionem mitte pervenit usque mane”

I started to choke, the fire was so hot now.

I want to go home. I want to go home.

“I want to go home!” I shouted and a log hissed and spit.

The fire rose higher.

Jane was screaming.

The smoke surrounded us, but we couldn’t move.

The world was spinning.

I was burning.

Everything went still and silent.

The flames danced in front of my eyes for a moment.

The blackness consumed me.