Love Potion

Sugar Circle, Mystic Door

I woke up knowing the shift hadn't worked.

But that was until I felt a wand against my chin and I looked up to see  Killian Viper standing over me in his pyjamas.

*

It had been a wild night before. Me, Beth and Mathilda had a sleepover at Tilda's. I wasn't allowed out, but I didn't want to waste my teenage years because of strict parents; these experiences are worth more than getting told off by my mother.

So, Betty and Mathilda had waited for me giggling outside my window as I made my daring escape. One of the wine bottles in my bag smashed on the way down, but we still had four more.

They emptied quickly as we horsed around Tilda's bedroom, playing all sorts of silly girlie games that silly girls play: twenty-one truth, kiss marry kill, spin the bottle... it came to more than that when Tilda suggested we try and teleport to Greamelts.

Greamelts was a magical school from the popular book series, Greamelts, following the adventures of Ermis Bell, a boy who never knew he was the son of Prospella, the most powerful and evil dark wizard, and Hwelpum, the Greamelts headmaster. And we, like all girls who've read the series, had a crush on Killian Viper. Killian Viper wasn't a main character; he was Ermis and his friends' bully. Yes, in the series, he was actually downright mean and a big jerk who never got a redemption ark, but relating to him, we liked him a lot, in between his flaws.

The boys we knew were disappointing, as most boys are. You're obsessed with them for a while, and then when it comes to get to know them you discover that they aren't very interesting at all. After a while the only boys you have crushes on are fictional characters, and you realise they've made your expectations of men impossibly high: not that that's a bad thing.

So, yes: we did perform the said ritual in the non-existent chance that we would teleport to Greamelts and become students and learn magic and make friends with the characters we'd followed on their adventures. Particularly Killian Viper. Who knew? Maybe we would even get to spark his character development. We knew it wouldn't work, of course. But we did it anyway - it was fun!

"For the ritual you will need: eleven bleeding candles!" Tilda had cried with a torch from under her chin and reading from a blank piece of paper - everyone knew the ritual. Tumbling and giggling, me and Betty had gone around the house, collecting candles and then melting them so wax 'bled' down their sides. 

"Place them in a circle!" Tilda demanded in her ghoul voice, "But do not light them yet, lest you rupture the mystic doorway! First, you must collect blood crystals and put them in a goblet..." me and Betty had taken a generous gobletful of sugar (Tilda had bought the goblet especially) and mixed red food dye and wine and a drop of each of our blood in it until it made 'blood crystals' (people online said this was what they had used), "and sprinkle them in a circle from around your candles! You must not sprinkle from within the circle of candles, or the mystic doorway will not let you through!" Me and Betty had done so, chanting as we did "blood crystals from us sinners you bleed, create the magic doorway we need!", for Tilda ordered us to. 

Then, "Now!" she cried, "Tell the doorway what you crave! Tell it where you have to go, and who you will be! Be thorough in your script, and write it on a piece of paper in ink green like venom!" For this, we took our pre-scribbled pages: we had spent hours writing one for us each, describing ourselves, the people we would be to sink into the magical world and not be exposed as imposters, and, our wishes to make friends with the characters, Ermis Bell and Erik Dusttrap and Troy Pingle and most importantly, Killian Viper.

"And lastly!" Tilda bellowed, "Roll up your pages tight, and place them in a bottle, air-tight! The journey through the mystic doorway is dangerous, and you don't want any words to escape your bottle until you reach the other side..." She cackled witchily as we carefully rolled up the paper and stuffed it into an empty wine bottle, cramming its cork tight. 

"Place your vessel in the stark centre of the circle..." we put the bottle in the middle of the circle of sugar, "light each of the bleeding candles with a single match, anticlockwise - and do not disturb the blood crystals or be haunted by their spirits for eternity!" Betty went carefully left around the circle with a singular match, almost burning her fingertips at the end, "Then sit before the circle and gaze upon the vessel without taking a breath for exactly 49 seconds..." the three of us gave each other giddy looks and giggles as we sat around the circle, and Betty prepared a timer on her phone, "and on the fiftieth second, breath out and say immediately, 'sugar circle, mystic door... I offer my mind this night to take me to...' and then say the place of which you wish to shift. In our case, Greamelts." 

Tilda grinned. We all looked like phantoms in the gloom, with the red candlelight flickering and tickling our chins and faces. "Then, one of us takes the bottle, falls asleep with it, and when they wake up..." We looked at each other sillily. "They look into the eyes of Killian Viper." We had to force ourselves not to explode into giggles and shrieks, lest we wake Tilda's parents and ruin it all (or much worse, disturb the circle of sugar). I was extraordinarily excited. I mustn't've had that much fun in my whole life.

After sharing a look and nod, Betty started the timer, and we all held our breaths and stared at the bottle. The story it held immediately went playing in my head as I started at the green words through the green bottle - I was getting very hot and flushed and my mind was foggy. I had drank so much wine.

I did most of the writing, so we agreed that I was getting the bottle first. I knew it wouldn't work, but my wine-blurred mind was clumsy and stupid and hopeful and whispered "what if?" and "what if?" and I was positively giddy.

I remember the sudden playing of 'Stayin' Alive' from Betty's phone, which was her alarm, and I blunderingly breathed out and yelped with them, "Sugar circle, mystic door, I offer my mind and this night to take me to Greamelts!"

Then, I grabbed the bottle, and we all piled into Tilda's bed, me in the middle with the bottle clutched tightly around my breast. I thought I would never get to sleep, with the fantastical idea of waking up to the magical castle school of Greamelts, with Ermis Bell, and more importantly Killian Viper, and Tilda and Betty giggle's echoing all around me, but I must've pretty quickly, for I didn't remember much of it, and my mind was sluggish.

I don't remember anything after that.

I think it's all happening now.

I expected to wake up in Tilda's bed with her and Betty still snoring beside me.

Not this.

I did not expect this.