WitchBite

A Glamour

 I burst through the soft wooden door of my home, grateful that it was heavy enough to close on its own, and made for the stairs, ignoring the calling voices of a few individuals in the other room. I couldn't be seen. Not like this. I needed to be alone.

Scrambling up the steps, occasionally stumbling on to all fours, I was thankful that I didn't encounter anyone else. My hands were shaking too much, as they slipped, slick with blood and sweat, on the brass door knob to my room; I could feel the tears beginning to bubble at the back of my throat with a hurried sense of panic.

Finally I fell into my room. Closing the door, and locking the latch. Breathing heavily, my voice whimpered through gurgled sniffles as I rested my head on the wood. It began to settle, to dawn on me the events that had transpired.

A sticking agony began to crawl its way around my jaw and the entire lower half of my face. Pathetically limping towards the circular mirror that hung from my wardrobe, a part of me hesitated. I didn't want to look at what had happened. I didn't dare. What if it was horrible? It felt horrible, growing worse and worse as the adrenaline began to slowly drain from my body, no longer numbing the pain.

I peeked. My face was swollen and bruised, reddened, cut, and bleeding. The bruises were shaped like grasping fingers, spidering out from my lips and shadowing the swollen red of my cheeks with tinges of purplish green. My mouth was bloody, and sticky. A number of my teeth having pushed into awkward angles, or squeezed out entirely.

I cried. Although sobbed would be more apt. Each heaving of my chest only brought another tingle of pain to add to the hurt of my now disfigured face. What was I going to do?

It took me a full hour of weeping before any sense came to me. Whether I stopped because I simply ran out of tears, or I stopped because I had no other options, I don't know. But I stood up, shakily taking deep breaths as a wave of exhaustion overtook me. I felt weak. Helpless.

My sheets and pillows were stained a brownish red, that caused a lump in my throat to go down painfully. I squeezed my fists tight in an attempt to strengthen my resolve, they too were stained with mud and blood, before approaching the wooden cabinet I kept in my room, hearing it click as I pulled it's doors open.

I pulled out the large container of salt, a candle the colour of dusk, a stick of incense, and a metal bowl. My breathing was strained, and tired, as I began to cast the circle around me. Drawing it with the salt, by pivoting on my heels, in a manner I had practised since childhood. A gesture with my hand and the candle sparked into a steady flame with a short hiss. Then the stick of incense, anointing five directions as I called. My chest heavy, my heart tired, and my eyes sad; I sat down, crossing my legs and keeping the incense stick in my hands.

I placed the palm of one of my hands on the surface of the water that had filled the metal bowl, barely making a ripple as I did so; I leaned forward as I could feel my limbs start to tingle. Starting from my shoulders as it snaked its way up my arm and into the bowl that only reflected the fire from the candle.

My reflection lay in the water. The one I wanted to see. My normal, uninjured face, and I felt a rise of panic within me as the curling smoke of the incense coiled it's way around my head.

"Allow the face to reflect the sight. Make my features easy to hide. The mask I cast, and the mask I see. Shroud the eyes that may lay upon me. So mote it be."

Taking a deep breath, I pushed my face into the still surface of the water, the crackle of tingling up my spine, I could feel the heat from the candle but a few inches from my head, and how it flared excitedly. The gentle fingers of incense smoke slithered into the water, stinging my eyes.

I stumbled to the mirror, shaking the jitters from my body, as I gasped for breath. A muted, purple, smoke rolled from my face and I allowed myself to smile in success. A small victory as I hissed in pain from my attempt to feel what was hiding beneath this visage. A glamour should keep from people asking questions, healing would have to come later when the moon was full. Unless Auntie Janet could help, which she could. That woman could heal almost anything.

But I was safe, and alone for the moment. I'd no doubt that the reality of what just happened would sink in sooner or later. I'd watch someone die, hell; I'd almost died. Murdered at the hands of a Vampire of all things, whom, as far as I can tell; just wanted to for the fun of it. To prove she could. I shunned a naive part of me that thought her reasoning could be more complicated, and I hated how I'd probably spend too long trying to figure it out.

Getting through this was going to be difficult.