To Be Burned

Chapter 3

"The Hell is all this!?"

"You said to come prepared!"

"Yeah, mentally prepared!" The contents of Willows bag which she so kindly deposited on my bed, surprised me, to say the least, "What- What is this? Is this a clump of hair? Whose hair is this?"

"Uhhhh..."

"Oh my god. Did you steal rip this off of Josh's head!? What is wrong with you? Is this- is this a vial of blood? What the Hell, Willow? Where did you even get this? It better not be human."

"Well, you see I- Well, I. Um. It's not. Human. I think. Well, I don't think it's human."

"What? How do you not know?"

"I got it-"

"I don't want to know." I held up a hand. This chick was seriously loco, "All of this stupid stuff is just superstition about voodoo. You really don't need any of this shit. Oh great! Just great, you brought some ugly ass doll. Wait- There are multiple doll. What did you think we were going to be doing?"

I'm not quite sure why I agreed to teach Willow, but I did and I was already regreting it. Voodoo really was a simple practice. Everybody thought that you needed all this ridiculous stuff, but really, all you needed was your candle. And a ball.

"Look, Willow. You want me to teach you, OK. I agreed, but we do this my way. First there are a few things I need to explain," She looked up at me eagerly, "Voodoo is an art. Harder then singing or painting and honestly, I don't think you will be able to do it," 

Willow frowned, then smiled, "Vyri, you have no idea what I'm capable of. I'm sure I can handle it."

"OK, I'm sure you'll try. Right now I want you to promise that you won't try anything without me there, until I think you're ready."

"I promise."

"When I think you're ready. It doesn't matter whether you think you're ready or not. I need to think- no, I have to know that you're ready. Do you understand?"

"Yes," She replied, exasperated.

"Next, you need to know that voodoo isn't fun. Voodoo is what killed my mother."

She stared at me with her big eyes, "I- I didn't know that."

"That's fine. I- I'm over it,"  She saw right through me. No one ever gets over the loss of a parent. Even the children who never knew their parent gets haunted by it. I know both sides of it. I'm haunted by memories of my mother and the absence of memories of my father. Sometimes the 'ifs' just pile too high in my head and I have to stop. You know just stop everrything for a moment and reset.

"Alright, that's not really important right now. Just know that voodoo isn't for fun and games," I sighed. I wasn't really sure how to begin to explain what I needed to. It was just so complicated.

"Willow, voodoo is dangerous and hard, but all you really need is a sphere and a candle. Your candle. I took the liberty of getting you a candle," I showed her the candle I had bought. It was exactly the came as mine, "And a sphere for you to use, though you can use another one if you want."

I glanced at the candle and sphere in my hand. It wasn't too late, I knew. I could stop it all. I didn't have to show her. Honestly, I'm not really sure why I said yes anyway, but I had. Still, as I haned her the items I held I couldn't help but feel as if it meant so much more. As if I was giving away a piece of myself.

I sighed. It had to be done. No going back. 

“Alright Willow, now, light your candle.”

“What?”

“You have to light your candle to make it yours. To attach it to your life force.”

“Ah.” Willow grabbed a box of matches from her junk pile on my bed. 

“You brought matches?” I was incredulous, “Of course you brought matches why would you not, well you can’t use them.” I told her as I grabbed the box of matches from her hand.

She pulled out a lighter.

“You brought to different ways to start fire? Why?”

“In case something happened to the other one. Like if some psycho witch stole them away and told me to use flint or some other shit.”

I sighed, “You can’t use that either, Willow.” 

“See? Now you’re gonna give me some stupid-ass rock, that I don’t want to have to deal with.”

“No. You don’t get a rock either.”

“So I’m supposed to light the candle with what? My mind?” She saw the look on my face, “Wait, seriously? Awesome. How do I do it?”

“Just do it.” 

“You’re not going to show me how?”

“Nope.” I really, really hoped that I was doing this right and not just messing it up. If I screwed up now, she’d never be able to get it. 

She gave me the middle finger, “Fuck you, Vyri. So you’re not gonna actually teach me anything? Fuck. You.”

“Light the candle, Willow,” Normally I didn’t let myself get angry, but I did now, “Light the candle.”

“I can’t.”

“Focus, Dammit! Just do it.” My hand came down on the table. I hated getting angry like this, but I had too or else it would never work.

“I. Am. But I can’t do it. This is not fair.”

“Get over it and light the damn candle.”

“Vyri, for fuck’s sake, I’m not just gonna sit here and take this. I can just go!” She stood angrily. The tension in the air from both of our anger hung in the air. Until I started to laugh.

She looked at me as if I’d gone insane, but I merely said, “Look behind you.”

She turned to stare at the happily dancing flame atop her candle, then looked back at me, “Fuck you,” But she sat down again anyway, “So you just wanted to get me really angry?”

“No, no,” I replied quickly, “You don’t just need to be angry to light the candle, we aren’t like that. Voodoo isn’t about vengeance, never has been and never should be. It’s about what’s right. What’s fair. So it can’t be plain anger. It has to be anger about injustice, about unfairness.”

“Like some idiot who refuses to teach you anything?”

“Yes, but at least you knew what you were trying to do and what it was about. When my mother did it to me she just trapped me in a room without telling me anything and told me to light the candle. At least you knew the point,” Maybe I had taken it too far. Maybe I should have found another way, but that was how my mother did it for me and I didn’t know any other way. I just hoped that for Willow to learn I didn’t have to be as entirely bitchy like my mother was.  

“OK, that sucked, I really hope it’s not all like that,” She paused awkwardly and glanced around the room, “So, what next?”

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Author's note: I'm trying to update every Wednesday from now on. So if I don't I want to to spam my wall. And if I say I was busy with no specific reason I'm probably lying and I was just lazy. So make sure I do.