Lifting my hands above my head, I put my index fingers together and my thumbs underneath, forming an open triangle. Keeping my arms straight, I lowered them before me. I imagined the light of the moon shining through that triangle and onto the third-eye area of my forehead. I wanted Theo to live. I wanted to undo the damage done because of me. I focused on those goals, seeing my will like a blue spiral and my emotion like a red spiral; they slithered, entwining and undulating, joining and forming, until I had one purple spiral.
Straightening the spiral into a glowing violet rod, with the force of my mind I shot it like an arrow at the lunar surface, visualizing it landing in the presence of the goddesses I called on, being passed hand-to-hand as each aspect of the Goddess examined it and considered my plea.
As I held on to perfect trust in divine will, the violet arrow shot back to me, through my triangulated fingers and into my third eye.
Suddenly my body vibrated from within. My throat opened. My mouth opened. I began to sing.
The words weren’t mine, weren’t even my language, but they came in my voice and the melody rose and fell in crescendos along musical scales that were foreign to my ears, yet beautiful.
In some religions, people speak in tongues—glossolalia, mystical unintelligible utterances that sound like fluent speech—and this singing must have been something akin to that. But how was I going to conduct the ritual if I couldn’t stop singing?
After struggling with this, I decided to trust in the goddesses I’d invoked. The song felt good and right. Maybe the odd words were Akkadian—a gift, conducting the spell in its original language.
Turning to face the group and letting my voice fill the room, I continued with the ritual as if this were how it was supposed to be. Though I stepped closer to Theo in preparation to release the moon-energy, I channeled it upward to flow deosil at the ceiling. Drawing a hexagram in the air above Theo, I invoked all the elements at once. The gritty earth energy scrubbed abrasively over my body like a sand bath to join with the moon energy. The heated breath of air rose next, followed by the churning, nibbling fire energy and, finally, the buoyant current of water.
Menessos suddenly commanded, “Imagine what energy you will offer to this rite, imagine it forming like an orb between your hands!” He glanced at Goliath, who readily took a deep breath. He focused next on Beverley and the doctor. Both looked to Nana. She signaled her approval of this with a single nod.
“Rub your hands together to warm them,” Menessos demonstrated. “Feel the tingle and imagine it growing with the energy you’re releasing.”
In sub-alpha, I could see golden sparkles emanating from between Nana’s hands and smaller sputters of light as the doctor and Beverley summoned energy. Goliath formed a nice round sphere as if he did this every day. The vampire’s orbs were a brassier color. Beverley’s orb—pure white—grew suddenly.
Menessos instructed, “Now, everyone, lift your hands up.”
It was awe-inspiring, seeing the alpha-enkindled glow of these energies.
I pushed my offered energy out like fireworks trailing from my fingers, while still holding the triangle shape. Then the flow began to pull on me. It was as if my energy was a kite caught in a wind current, tearing more and more string from the spindle. Fighting against it, the flow from me slowed.
“More, Persephone. For a full transformation, you must give more,” Menessos whispered.
His words drew out of me a sum of energy that I knew was unwise, but I could not deny the spell or Theo’s need.
Arms of light shot out of the swirling mass above our heads, capturing the energy offered up and pulling it into the mix, blending and kneading it until the top swirled and deepened to form a spiraling funnel, an upside-down tornado. This cone of power, unlike any other I’d ever raised, appeared like a galaxy of shining solar systems spinning. Every imaginable color flashed sporadically within that cone. I couldn’t tear my eyes from it.
“More.”
I resisted.
“More!”
My focus wavered. The flow of my energy sputtered.
“You need more to turn her! You know where it is! You must call to it! Take it!”
Mentally, I reached out to the wards surrounding my home. The energy, once set, reawakened. It leapt to my spirit hand, and the strange heat erupted inside my arm. Immediately, I yanked this energy up into the room. It rose through me and out with my voice, swirling into the flow. The tingling-burning overwhelmed me for a fraction of a second, but now it faded.
The energy above sang back to me, a sustained high note, beckoning, daring me to sing that note with it. But I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. It would surely call to the ley line again, and I wanted no more power searing through me, no more risk of losing my focus.
But that insistent call carried on, slipping beyond me anyway, beyond the circle. I felt it reaching, crying, begging for more.
Beyond the cornfield, in the little grove…the ley line answered.
The ley pulsed and fell into a steady thrumming beat. Enticed, it reached across the field toward me as I had reached for it to power my wards. With each pulse it drew nearer. I could feel the enormity of it, crackling all along the line and arcing forward. I tensed.
I’d dared touch it with my fingertips, and—out of dire fear and need for safety—I’d dared to dip my hand into it. That handful had given me a taste of the immense power and the rush that mortals are rightly meant to fear…but this was searching me out, answering the need of the ritual, the need inherent in my song. And I could not stop it from finding me.
“Now!” Menessos whispered.
The energy of the ley line leapfrogged. A bolt jumped to the ward-circle, then into me. It wanted to fling itself outward through my voice, to fill the room and spill beyond as I sang that note…but it couldn’t filter through fast enough. I sang an octave too low.
In that instant, my body numbed. I could feel nothing—not the vibration of my vocal cords, not the floor under my feet. It felt as if I didn’t exist. The energy took me and became tangible—touching, running, roiling inside of me, searching for its purpose so it could have a task and a form. But I could not speak, could not command it; my voice was taken by the song, and I could not keep from singing; I fought to no avail.
Through it all I heard Menessos whisper, “Give in, Persephone. Now!”
I stopped fighting it. My voice rose higher, a flurry of notes rising soprano-high. When the peak tone was hit, when I matched the note my swirling wards had created, it held.
Finally unblocked, the ley-line energy shot out of me and joined with the energy we’d each given.
Menessos stepped forward, hand lifted, and shouted the command:
“Partake of this energy, elements four,
Swallow it down and return to us more!”
The swirling mass split into four arms reaching from the center. The arms reached down, blue and red, yellow and green, touching the candle placed at each compass point. The arms swirled and lowered, stretching until the circle was a cage of colored energy being consumed by tiny candle flames.
Above us, the center exploded. The colored arms shot into the candles like the length of a metal measuring tape recoiling with a snap. But my note did not end.