The Ritual

Scarlett, beautiful young witch extraordinaire, sat cross-legged in front of the fireplace in the small house where she lived with her parents. She was covered only by an ancient blanket her great-grandmother had woven. She was staring into a dying fire, counting her breaths. When she reached five hundred, she stopped and turned around.

“Ready for the ritual?” Scarlett asked her familiar William, a dark-brown weasel with shining, black eyes.

As a response, the animal nipped her ankle and actually drew a few drops of blood. Scarlett bent over and wiped the blood off her skin with her finger and then licked it. The weasel looked up at her with angry eyes. Scarlett bent down again and managed to squeeze out a single drop. This she rubbed some more blood onto the same figure and held it in front of William. He licked it off in a hot second and squeaked in delight.

William had a history of his own. He’d appeared on the day Scarlett began her courses. Just after MaWit, her mother, had finished explaining it all to her, there’d been a scratching at the front door of the house. MaWit had gestured with her head for the girl to go to the door. Scarlett had opened it, and there the weasel had sat.

“Who is it?” MaWit had asked.

“It’s William,” Scarlett blurted out without realizing what she said.

“Well all right!” MaWit said, this being the last nice thing Scarlett ever remembered her saying.

“That’s one ugly familiar,” PaWiz had opined, he never having said anything nice to her in her whole life.

“Okay," Scarlett said to her familiar. "So don’t give me any BS. “I want this over fast. MaWit and PaWiz will be back in an hour, and I don’t want to get caught.”

Scarlett opened the back door and stepped out into the yard, and into the spring night. The yard was the edge of a small forest. Standing silent in the light of a half moon, the trees back there were larger and older than any others around the neighborhood. Likewise, the brush was thicker, the chirping of the crickets was louder, and the mating sounds of the frogs in a nearby pond were at a near-manic level.

Followed by William, Scarlett walked into the woods. In a few minutes, she came to a small clearing maybe five yards wide. In the center was a ring of six standing stones, each about a yard high. She had set them in place over the past year, always at night, always alone. Far away, Scarlett heard a wolf howl or maybe it was a coyote barking. She shuddered as she kicked off her sandals, her blanket and stepped naked into the ring.

She knelt and with her hands, scooped out a hole about eight inches deep. Then she planted the rather scraggly sapling she had brought with her. Soon the plant was well placed and its roots were covered with dirt.

From a locket around her neck, Scarlett took out five strands of her mother's brown hair and five of her wonderful, red hair.

She wrapped them in a spiral around the stem of the plant a few inches off the ground. As she did this she chanted a spell that was old when a Fifteenth Century alchemist wrote it down. She watched as he hair sank into the plant in spiral grooves.

“There now!” Scarlett said to William. “It’s going to be a lot of fun when she goes for a sonogram in a couple of months, and she has to start learning to count to five!”