The Psychic Next Door

Chapter 14: Ritual

On the last day of the month we returned to my apartment. It felt weird to call it that—my apartment—when I hadn't spent a night there in weeks. We had decided to do the spell here because it seemed most fitting. After all, this was where it all started.

As we prepared ourselves, I was even jumpier than usual, starting at every little bump and scuffle. In the days since we had miraculously found the lock of Luc's hair, we still hadn't been attacked, but I was sure that was bound to change. It felt like there was a timer ticking down, counting the seconds until we were finally ripped to shreds.

Polly was calmer, but not by much. Her hands trembled slightly as she took the candles I handed her from my bag, and I saw her struggling to arrange them into formation on my living room floor.

After she had completed the circle, she paused. "How many candles do we need again? There's—" she mouthed the numbers as she quickly counted "—fifteen. Is that okay? Is that enough?" She sounded almost frantic. "What does the book say?"

Seeing her agitation made my own anxiety spike sharply. Before it had seemed like a small, pointless detail, but suddenly I was terrified that the wrong number of candles could ruin the whole spell. I dug into my bag, sifting through the contents, searching for the spellbook. My fingers wrapped around a book's spine, and thinking I had found it, I began to pull it out... Until I realized it wasn't the spellbook, but one of Lillian's diaries.

I quickly shoved it back inside. Polly still didn't know I had even taken them; in the aftermath of finding Luc's hair, I had completely forgotten about it, and now was not the time to broach the topic.

"Well?" Polly snapped, sounding impatient and even more on edge. "Don't tell me you forgot the damn book!"

"No, no, it's definitely here," I said, but now that she mentioned it, another shot of fear gripped me. What if I had forgotten it? I pushed Lillian's diaries aside and dug deeper. But the fears were baseless because it was just resting at the very bottom of the bag. I pulled it out, triumphant.

Polly gave a big, relieved sigh. "Christ, you scared me there for a second."

I handed it to her and returned to my bag for the other items. I laid out the red ribbon, two long pins, and our doll — which had been crudely fashioned, as neither of us had ever been much for sewing. But it served its purpose, ugly or not. The bay leaves, salt, and the tell-tale black wavy lock had been secured inside, just like the spell required. I doubted whichever power we were asking favours of tonight cared whether or not the doll was nice looking.

"Ha!" Polly barked, reading over the spell. "It doesn't even mention a specific number of candles..."

I shook my head at the irony of it. We were getting ourselves way too worked up. Even though we had carefully prepared everything, actually starting the ceremony seemed daunting. We were both scared of what would happen if it didn't work.

Would the Beast know? Would it show up?

We fussed over the set up for a bit longer, but we could only escape what needed to be done for so long. The hands of the clock were creeping towards midnight, and then it would be too late. It needed to be done before the new day began.

No more avoiding it. It was time.

"So," I said shakily. "Shall we?"

"I guess so," Polly replied.

We stared at each other. I realized that I was expecting Polly to start, and she was expecting me to do the same.

"Rachel, we both know you're the one who needs to do this."