(ON HOLD) Spellbound (BxB)

Chapter 19 : Séance

He wished he'd seen Logan. He wished he'd dreamed Logan. He wished he'd smelled the cheap strain of pot Logan bought from a grower on the outskirts of town. He wished he saw his own reflection in those sunglasses or caught scent of the chemical stain of his hair dye after a fresh touch-up.

Jackal wanted Logan back. But it was always like Jackal Riley to want the things in life he'd never have.

Through the crack in the basement door, he could see the elders circled around a ring of candles—the vial that supposedly held Logan's soul sitting sacred in the center of them. This was one of several rare times in his life that Jackal had seen his father and the other prominent witches wear their ceremonial headpieces—crowns made from the carcasses of their familiar animals. Sebastian Riley wore the tiny skull of a cat.

Within the cellar walls, a ritualistic aesthetic dressed every inch of the candle-lit room, from the hand-sewn robes they all wore, to the lines drawn on their face by mud, heated over fire and dried to a crackle to signify the four elements. In all aspects, their traditions seemed occultist and ominous, until one was reminded that the skull crown Sebastian wore was purchased by a taxidermist-turned-jeweler on Etsy, and the white candles littering the room were part of Wanda's old MLM hobby that never quite paid out.

They were normal people, the Rileys. They just forgot it sometimes.

"What are they doing?" Asher asked, popping up below him to peek through the crack. The tops of his curls tickled against Jackal's chin. He put a hand on Asher's head to crush them down.

"Nothing, get away."

"I want to see too."

"No."

"Why not?"

Jackal pulled him away from the crack of the door to look at him—face dark in the shadowed basement with only moonlight from a tiny window to illuminate the edges and corners of him. "Because I don't reel like playing exorcism with you tonight."

"You're not my fuckin' dad, you know," Asher said.

"Did he have to drag you out of the ocean too?" asked Jackal.

"No," said Asher. "The bathtub."

Jackal would've laughed if it wasn't so cruel. If he wasn't so wrought with frustration and helplessness. He wanted to break down the cellar door and see what they were doing with that vial. He wanted to know why he was an adult and still not allowed to witness the rituals of the coven he was about to inherit. He wanted to tear Asher's hand off his arm because it seared like fire. He wanted to shove him against the wall and kiss him, feel his warm skin against the cold stone. He wanted to break the thousand-dollar bottles of wine on the top shelf behind him. Wanted to punch, wanted to hurt. Most of all, he wanted to prune the flowers in the sun room.

The door to the kitchen opened from above and light washed over the shadows of the basement. Asher jumped conspicuously and shielded his eyes from the light. Jackal slouched at his mother's silhouette in the doorway, expecting her verbal lashing might be milder given that they had company over. Jackal was not meant to spy on his father's business. It was dangerous, and Wanda Riley didn't fuck around with danger.

Surprisingly, his mother only gestured them upstairs with crooked fingers. "Boys," she said, "help me set the table."

Asher floated upstairs, always moving swiftly to her beckon call. He was something of a slave to Wanda Riley and a happy one at that. Whatever Jackal's mother asked, Asher complied. Probably, Jackal assumed, it was only a thing boys with dead mothers did. If only they'd been born brothers, life would be easier for them both.