Chapter 43: Violet

I inspected the markings. They looked similar to runes that witches would use, but not exactly. It was as if it was written in a language that was just off but could get an idea of what they tried to accomplish. “They look like runes but none that I have seen before.”

“Really, I guess the witch who did it knew different ones.” He looked at his own tattoos.

“We don’t have different runes. Witches use the same ones for different things.” I said as I twisted his arm to look at the other ones under his arm. “What did you want to accomplish?”

“My grandma brought me to this witch to get these tattoos for protection.”

“Hmm.” I continued to inspect them. “Yeah, these aren’t for protection for sure.” I continued to twist his arm and inspected each ruin. “After you got these, did you feel cloudy?”

I took my eyes off his arm and looked into his eyes. He nodded slightly.

“Did you feel like bad things would just find you, wherever you went?”

He nodded again.

“You’ve been waiting for something, but it hasn’t shown.”

He nodded.

I was now holding his hand and looked at him. I was lost in his eyes. He looked confused, as if he couldn’t understand what I was getting at.

“The witch that put these on you didn’t know what she was doing. She put something on you that was close but not right. But the thing about it is if a spell isn’t exactly right it will backfire.”

“Well, fuck,” he said softly.

“I can fix it!” I said to him, a little more excited than I wanted. His eyes sparked as soon as I said that. “If you trust me, I would be honored to fix your runes.”

“You would do that for me?” He said now holding my hand back as if it was natural. My stomach did another flip.

“Of course. It’s easy.” I hopped up. Swayed a little from how quickly I stood and probably a little form the wine. “Sit tight, I have to grab my book.” I ran up the stairs to the loft where I left my familiar book of spells. It would have everything that I needed. I ran down the stairs, two at a time, and laid the book on the coffee table. Being careful not to knock over the wine.

“What’s that?” Simon asked and pointed at the book on the coffee table.

“That’s my spell book.” I said as I opened it and flipped through the pages. I stopped to read random pages.

“That doesn’t look like English.”

I looked at him. He had a look on his face as he tried to concentrate on what was on the pages. “You can read this?”

“I mean if it were in English I could. That looks like it’s in Greek,” he laughed. “I can read you know.”

I stared at him in disbelief. He wasn’t supposed to be able to even see the inscriptions. They were only meant for familiar witches. He wasn’t a familiar witch, let alone a witch. “That’s not what I was saying. This is a special book that only familiar witches are able to see and read.” I continued to stare at him.

“Huh, weird.” He continued to look at the page, he ignored that I stared at him.

“That’s a little more than weird.” I was unsure of what that meant. He took his eyes from the page; he stared at me and gave me a half smile. “It’s in Latin.”

“Probably why I couldn’t read it.” He laughed. “You can read Latin?”

“Among other languages.” I continued to thumb through the pages.

“How many languages can you speak?”

“Well, six. Ok, twelve.” I stopped on a page. “This! This is what you want.” I read over the page. It was a marking spell, to permanently mark those with a spell of our choosing. I could curse him or protect him.

“Are you sure you can fix this?” he asked and pointed to his arm with the false runes.

“Are you doubting my powers?”

“No, no. Not at all! I just am not sure how it is supposed to work.”

“First, I need a sacrifice to offer to the devil. And then fire.” I made a joke to Simon. His eyes widened as he tried to think of what to say next. “I’m kidding. Witch joke. Jeez loosen up a bit.”

He laughed at my joke uneasily. “I am loose.” He shook like a dog would dry off. “See.” He said and smiled.

“Oh yeah super loose.” I roll my eyes at him and look over the spell, the supplies it states that is needed. I jump up and walk around the cabin looking for the items. “To cast this spell, we need a white candle, a lock of hair from the person that is changing and a small sacrifice to set the spell.”

“Oh yeah, right. What does it really ask for?”

“I’m serious. We need these things.”

“What type of small sacrifice?”

“Probably just a drop of blood. Since this is a small request, it wouldn’t take much.” I grabbed a linen smelling candle that was purchased from Target and a pair of scissors that were in the kitchen drawer. I grabbed the lighter that was next to them and a pin. “I need some of your hair.” I sat next to him and put the items in front of me and lit the candle.

He pulled his hair down from the bun that sat on top of his head. His hair was a dark brown but became more golden as the color transitioned through the length. The hair was wavy from his bun and sat just below his shoulders. I had a strong urge to run my fingers through his hair.

“What?” He said and looked at me, questioningly.

“You have longer hair than I do.” I said and laughed at him as I tried to bring my attention to the task at hand. I leaned closer to him, grabbing a lock of his hair and snipping the end off. Being so close to him, his scent washed over me. The smell brought me to the forest with a bonfire raging in the middle. It reminded me of the camping trips my parents would take me on. My heart ached a little, missing them.

“What’s next?”

“I need a drop of blood.” I say grabbing the needle and the lighter. I flicked the lighter to life and held the needle over the flame cleansing it of germs. I pulled his hand in my lap. Electricity shot up through my arm as I held his hand. My stomach fluttered as his hand lay in my lap. I quickly jabbed his finger with the needle it caused a droplet of blood to surface. I took his hair and pressed it against the blood causing the strands to turn red.

Simon just watched as I worked my magic. He sat there with his hair flowing down, he looked like a Norse god. He was beautiful.

I held the hair over the flame and let it darken. Once each strand was darkened, I pressed it between my hands and rubbed them together, the palms of my hand turned black with his hair.

“Give me your arm.” I said as I held up my hands. He held out the arm that had the runes on it. I placed my hand at the top of his arm and closed my eyes, I concentrated on correcting the runes there. I opened my eyes and looked as the runes shifted, corrected. I continued down his arm until all of his runes were corrected.

“Holy shit.” Simon said. He stared at me and not the magic that happened to his arm.

I averted my gaze from his arm to his eyes. “What?”

“Did you know that your eyes were glowing when you did that?”

“Hmm, no I did not.” I was just concentrating on what I was doing. I never knew of a witch who’s eyes glowed when they did magic. I put my hands in my lap and looked at him. “How do you feel?”

He stood up and walked around. Like he was trying on shoes. “I feel great!” He bounced from foot to foot. “Like a giant weight has been lifted.” He did a couple high jumps. “Like I could fly or something.”

I just laughed at him. I stood up and walked to the kitchen sink to wash off the blood and hair residue. I dried off my hands and turned. Simon stood a few paces away, he stared at me like he was going to eat me. “What?”

He smiled and shook his head. “Nothing.”