Ritual

Chapter 13

I've already asked the gravediggers to take mother's dead body from the grave and put it on the table in the alchemy room and demanded that they keep it secret. I instructed the castle workers to do outdoor work for the day so that the inside of the castle was empty and free of witnesses from two men carrying the former queen's dead body across the halls.

Her body lay there, covered in white cloth. Her presence made us all feel uncomfortable, and it gave the room a more gloomy feeling. The thought of having a dead body among us within the four walls of a room gave me chills, and my nerves acted up.

We stood still in the alchemy room, all the six of us, preparing ourselves for the ritual and standing as far away from mother's corpse as possible. I placed the book on the center table and flipped it to the page where the instructions for the ritual were written.

"OK," I said. "Here it is, the instructions."

"Yes, uh, let's start," Trystan said, facing the book towards him.

The bones were wrapped in a fabric, as well as the skull. He unwrapped them carefully, the soft and velvety fabric unfurled like a flower, revealing the grim contents inside.

Mr. Farko went and filled up the cauldron with water using a water-filled pot gathered from the sink. Once the water had reached above the cauldron's widest curve, he stopped and started the flame beneath it.

The fire burned brightly and wildly, and its heat propagated throughout the entire room. The bright flame contrasted with the alchemy room's dark environment, and we waited until the water started bubbling and boiling.

When the first signs of steam rose from the cauldron, Trystan looked at me as permission to start. I nodded to him, and he proceeded to pick up the broken arm bones, split into two. he walked into the cauldron and dropped it in the boiling water. Anticlimactically, particularly nothing happened.

Trystan picked up the whole leg bone next and added it to the mix. When he dropped it, the cauldron made a shrill, frizzling noise, and it startled all of us, causing us to jump backward with a mixture of gasps and yells, including the two guard knights, who immediately collected themselves.

The next ingredient that Trystan picked was the rose petals. He opened the jar and sprinkled it all around the mixture. He picked up the big wooden spoon and mixed it around. He picked up the vial of hybrid blood next and poured the entire content onto the cauldron.

Bizarrely, the liquid mixture gave a mystic red glow. I took a step closer and saw that the liquid had thickened like magma, as well as the bubbles forming and bursting on the surface, it had turned red completely.

Trystan looked at me as he stirred. "I can't even feel the bones anymore," he said. "It's like they've melted quickly, which is impossible."

I stared at the mixture, fear starting to come inside of me in its full form. "Let's keep going," I told him and grabbed the last ingredient, the amethyst necklace.

I held it before I'd tossed it in the cauldron. It was one of mother's things, and it felt like such a crime to destroy it even though it was for her sake. I picked one stone off of the necklace and tore it off. I held the one piece of amethyst over the cauldron and let go of it, making a tiny splash of the mixture, and the amethyst floated for a little while before sinking below.

We stood back, waiting for something to happen. Thick smoke rose from the cauldron, and all our eyes were fixed on mother's dead body lying down. In my head, I pictured mother slowly rising from the table, still covered in white cloth, back from the dead, and it terrified me.

Trystan picked up the book and looked at the strange symbols again. "Ok, now I need to chant these words," he said and cleared his throat.

"Whykkli ceormm esat habbliorr, carontis Szarek iphon rinthos!" Trystan chanted aloud.
Minutes have already passed, and the last interesting thing the cauldron and spell have done was the mystifying cloud of smoke rising from it. Aside from that, nothing happened. Mother hadn't risen from her deceased state. Trystan read the chant again and tried to chant it another time, but there was still no effect.

"What was supposed to happen?" I asked.

"The smoke from the spell should have retrieved Queen Elisabetta's soul from the underworld, and brought it back to her body," Trystan replied, studying the book.

"Maybe we did something wrong. Maybe one of our ingredients was incorrect." Mr. Farko suggested.

"Those were rose petals," I said.

"And those were real bones. I've inspected them before we gathered the necessary parts." Trystan said.

"The blood was hybrid, I'm sure of it. I gathered it from the pool of blood the hybrid left after he ran away." I said.

"And the amethyst is... Amethyst, yes?" Mr. Farko asked, and we all turned to face Esmee.

"What? It is amethyst, look at it," she said.

I inspected the necklace which I held in my hands, and it's true, it was made of crystalline purple gemstones.

"May I have a look at it, Your Majesty?" Trystan asked, holding out his hand for the necklace, and I gave it to him.

He went in front of the fire so he could see it clearly, and examined the necklace deeply so that his face was only inches apart from it. He felt the amethysts all over by gliding his thumb gently over them, and then he proceeded to scratch one of the gems against the stone walls.

"Oh dear," he said. "Your Majesty, I'm afraid this is not an amethyst gem," he said.

"What do you mean? What is it, then?" I asked.

"Amethysts are purple, yes, but it's a hard gemstone, it shouldn't easily be scratched. But this gem, a mere stone wall could make it lose its polish. It's not amethyst, unfortunately, it's fluorite, and they can be mistaken for amethysts, you can see why. It's in the striking resemblance and color."

I took a deep sigh. "Ok," I said. "We're going to the jeweler and find a real amethyst. The rest of you, stay here until we come back."

"I'll help," Esmee said and didn't wait for any reactions. She headed out of the door, and we followed behind her. There wasn't any time to waste, we were so close to bringing back mother, and as much of a showstopper a gemstone can be, it wouldn't stop us from doing this.