Survival Of The Fittest

The more, the merrier, but all the more difficult to manage. Everyone had very different energies in this group of friends, even though they all on some level aspired to the same goal of witchiness. Still! A misconception was arising, and one that Violet felt like she needed to clear up early, because banishing rituals were central to any serious practitioner's arsenal—Violet specifically had memorized the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, and would likely perform it without any instruments in just a few minutes.

"Oh, no," Violet clarified, "it wouldn't, uh, banish like, kick them out of our friend circle. The lesser banishing ritual would just get all of the bad energy out of the space in which we conduct our spell, and prevent any unwanted or chaotic energy thingies from entering. It would probably be a good idea to do that when, um, everyone's here."

She glanced up and outside. Gosh, was it getting dark. She squinted out into the darkening dusk, scanning to see if anyone was on the approach. Maybe they should put out a lantern or arrange some candles or something so that their friends could find them?

Dolly took another sip of tea and sighed out an "Ah," of understanding as she finished. "I see, I see. That would be good to do sooner rather than later, then." Order over chaos, at least where the unknown as concerned. That was as close as Dolly came to adhering to any philosophical path here. Often enough, the act of symbolically driving out negativity had as good a result as any.

In other circumstances, you called that a placebo. Here, it was fine for it to be magic.

"At any rate, I think I'm here to follow rather than lead, unless something comes to me. I'll go along with whatever you want to do."

“Bad energy needs to go away, yeah!” Amelia half-shouted, shaking a fist in the air dramatically as if she were going to fight away the bad energy herself.

She cracked a big smile and laughed heartily at her own foolishness, even if she knew she was mostly just entertaining herself. She took another sip of tea to try and stifle her own laughter, but ended up laughing as she drank and coughing a bit as the liquid went down the wrong pipe. She patted her chest and settled herself down, looking over at the other girls with a bemused grin. She knew she was a bit odd, but it was good to be around people who didn’t seem to mind it.

“I agree with Dolly. You’re in charge, Violet! I’ll follow you wherever you say!” She made a big gesture of attempting an extravagant bow, but it was quite hard whilst kneeling, so she instead just looked a bit like she was going to fall. She straightened herself upright and giggled.

“But if we find any aliens I call dibs.”

Violet nodded at Dolly's newfound understanding, and giggled at Amelia's peppiness. Their bright and cheery faces could light up the dark on their own. She felt warmth in her chest as she reached over to her bag and took out her high-powered flashlight. She clicked a button on the handle and it lit up the structure brightly; pointed up at the roof, the light bounced off of the canopy and back down onto her friends. Violet made a small space in the middle of the snacks for it, and set it on its bottom with the light facing up just so. That would do well to alert anyone else who was invited that they were here and raring to go.

"The flashlight isn't part of things," Violet said, "but, uh, it's getting a little dark. I have candles but, um, this is just for right now."

Next, she took out one more item that she felt was the bare minimum necessary to perform the ritual to its absolute fullest degree—a purple robe. She stood up and put it on over her day clothes, which, though sub-optimal (her jeans were a little tight, specifically), were necessary in these conditions.

"Okay," she breathed, moving towards the center of the play structure, "here goes."

Violet had used the compass on her phone earlier to determine the cardinal directions of the play structure. East was, fittingly, the stairs leading up into the structure. Violet faced in that direction and half-closed her eyes, letting them flicker between states of opening.

She felt the Earth below her as a small sphere, herself a figure towering above and casting no shadow. Below her, people of all backgrounds went about their daily lives, talking, trading, fighting, loving, and all sorts of other verbs-ing each other. They were engaged in Earthly things because they were Earthly people, and that was fine. That was their place to be right now, because they are here and not on any other plane, Violet thought. She, however, currently rose above. At this moment, Violet felt herself to be the center of the universe. At any given time, she was at the very least the center of her own, with rings of attraction and repulsion rippling around her as she shifted from realm to realm of perception. Her fluttering gaze turned upwards, and she perceived a ball of white light descending into the top of her head.

With her right hand, she pulled the light down to where her forehead was.

"Ah-tah," she mumbled, letting the word vibrate on her lips.

Slowly, she dragged the ball of light down across her body, letting her index finger where the light was balanced run over her throat, her chest, her belly, and lifted it from herself just as it reached the end of her torso, hovering above where there was nothing to touch. The light she dragged down formed a shaft, a rod running through the top of her to the bottom of her, right along her spine. It did not stop with her, but ran through her, stretching on for eternity.

"Mahl-kuth," whispered she, a slight smile playing upon her lips.

She moved her hand to her right shoulder, grasping it tightly. The shaft extended one of its arms outwards, penetrating her shoulder and shooting out into space. She did the same with her left, the shaft extending outwards to become a cross, a plus-sign floating in inter-planar space.

"V'ge-booh-rah," she said at the right, and "v'ge-dooh-lah," at the left.

Finally, she brought her hands towards her chest, clasping them together as if she were praying. She let the energy burn on her finger tips, bouncing off of each other, points of light touching points of light.

"Lay-oh-lahm, ah-meyn," she intoned, before opening her eyes all the way. She stood there for a little while, feeling the energy of the cross within her. Maybe it'd be good if her friends did the ritual, too, but as for consecrating the space, that was basically all that needed to be done. Still...

"Um," she said, turning around to face Amelia and Dolly, "that was the first part. It's called, uh, the Kabbalistic Cross."

Her smile slid into sheepishness.

"There are two more parts."

The hairs on the back of Dolly's neck stood up and a smile spread slowly across her face as she watched Violet step into the role. This was it, the thing beyond friendship that kept her coming back to these times and places again and again. The little moment when she believed.

It was the same feeling she got when her family attended Mass at Christmas and Easter, and reminiscent of when she got engrossed in a really good book. Someone, something, taking her elsewhere for just a little bit. She wasn't sure what exactly went on in Violet's head during these moments, and it never felt quite right to ask. Most likely it was a bit more profound than Dolly's thoughts, enraptured in the performance more than the substance.

She sat with her spine straight, one hand curled loosely around her opposite ankle and one absently twisting in the hem of her skirt. Her eyes stayed fixed on Violet until the last word was spoken. It would have felt improper to look away for even a second.

"Go on," she almost whispered once Violet had concluded the first part and informed them that there was more. It felt improper too to raise her voice now. It wasn't her turn to speak.

Amelia sat quietly and listened intently as Violet began her incantation. The words felt mystical, and the entire mood of the night seemed to shift to become more fantastical than ever. It was hard to keep the grin from her face. It was as if there was electricity in the air, the words of Violet’s prayer breathing magic into the area around them. Amelia felt goosebumps prickle up on her arms, and a slight chill as the night’s breeze rustled over the three girls. If there was any time that she felt truly connected with the spirits around them, now was the most blatant.

Amelia turned to look at Dolly, and reveled in the fact that she looked just as engaged as Amelia felt. Violet’s words seemed to trail off, and she focused her attention back on the girl taking the lead. Amelia’s knuckles were turning white she was gripping the hem of her sweater so tightly. Violet looked at them and gave some exposition. Amelia couldn’t speak, feeling it wasn’t her place to break the mood of the spell. From beside her she heard Dolly urge Violet on in a hushed tone, and Amelia simply nodded to the other girl in agreement.

The words of encouragement from her friends re-assured Violet and made her feel very, very good. Their wonder had been captured by her performance, and though they looked a little bewildered, they also looked like they liked it. She nodded back at them, and turned out to face the stairs once more. It was time for the second part of the ritual now.

With her finger she traced a large pentagram in the air, imagining it glowing with blue flame, hanging suspended in the air. Looking at it for a moments, Violet then straightened out, standing so that her feet were shoulder length apart. In her head, she counted to four several times; one, two, three, four, like a metronome ticking somewhere in the distance. On the offbeat of two, she stepped forward with her left foot, with such force that she rattled the metal floor below her. Her hands thrust out like Superman's, pointed straight ahead, and she lowered her head between them, eyes pointed out into the world.

"Yohed, heh," she intoned, louder than her prior mumblings, "vahve, heh."

Then, she stood up straight once more, putting her index finger to her lips. The pentagram, in her mind's eye, continued to burn. She placed her middle finger in the center, and visualized a white dot at her finger tips. If the stairs were East, then South would be roughly where Dolly was sitting. Violet nodded, moving in that direction, the white dot drawing a line connecting this pentagram to what would be the next, and then the next after that, and the next after that, until all four cardinal directions had pentagrams pointing outwards. She did not tell Dolly to move out of the way—the sign of silence performed, Violet felt weird talking, even if it didn't really mean that she couldn't say anything—instead electing to move around her, mindful of her legs.

Facing South, she repeated the ritual, this time speaking the word "ah-dah-neye."

Facing West, she did the same, with the word "eh-hay-yaiy" emanating from her lips.

And facing North, the final pentagram was drawn, with the word "ah-gah-lah" dripping from her teeth.

Tracing the line back to the East, Violet looked out upon the blue flaming pentagrams. In her perception, they all looked fine. Dolly and Amelia couldn't see them, probably, but she knew they could maybe feel their power, like Violet did. They pulled, somehow.

"Now," she said, backing up to the center of the circle, still facing East, "I shall call the Archangels."

This was the part that always had her feeling the coolest. Not because it was the end of the ritual and everything came together, no, but because this was the part that should could actually understand, with English words instead of what she was 99.9% sure was Hebrew but would never say was Hebrew with absolute confidence because someone could get offended or something if she was wrong which was not something she really wanted happening under any circumstances.

In her mind's eye, she saw again the Kabbalistic Cross, the energy intersecting her. She pointed with her index finger down at the foot of the stairs, her left arm extended to catch the northern ray of the cross.

"Before me," she said, "Raphael."

Violet felt the tickle of the air under her nose. She held both of her arms out to the sides now, tilting her head slightly upwards, feeling moisture on her back. Her palms were upturned towards the heavens.

"Behind me, Gabriel."

She looked to the right. The palm of her hand felt hot.

"On my right hand, Michael."

She looked to the left. The palm of her hand felt tense and rigid.

"On my left hand..."

...oh no.

She was forgetting the name of the last one. This wasn't supposed to happen. She had done this so many times that it felt up to this point like riding a bike. Now, all of a sudden, her foot had slipped from the pedal, and she would have to push off of the ground in order to keep her balance. Violet's face scrunched up in concentration, looking for the most appropriate name. The one she settled on started with an 'A', and sounded vaguely familiar, but she didn't know what he stood for. Only that he would probably work, and if he didn't, then they were maybe a little less safe but mostly fine.

"...on my left hand, Azrael."

Now, she looked east. For some reason, she felt like she could feel something staring back at her. Maybe that was just her shame talking, her embarassment at not having done things totally correctly, but it wasn't like Dolly and Amelia could tell or anything. The shapes and stars burned around her all the same.

"For around me shines the pentagram," Violet said shakily, "and, um, within me, shines the six ray star."

Then she did the motions of the Kabbalistic Cross once again before she plopped on the ground feeling a little drained.

"Phew!" Violet said, looking at her friends, "I didn't think I'd be that rusty at it."

Dolly should have drawn in on herself more, perhaps; she hadn't realized that she would be in Violet's way, having not watched this particular ritual performed before. Instead, she tried to make herself as unobtrusive as possible when Violet came her way, wary that any unexpected word or movement would disrupt the ceremony.

She knew the archangels, of course. Her family was nominally Catholic, and Dolly had attended Sunday school for a few years before her parents slowly drifted away from their interest in actively participating in the church. She had always liked learning about the angels, even moreso when she discovered that they weren't merely pretty people with feathered wings, but vast, almost incomprehensible bastions of knowledge.

That, really, represented to Dolly what a higher power ought to be.

She bit her lip when Violet seemed to stumble and hesitate, but Dolly still refrained from interrupting. It would be rude to point out, anyway. "It was quite impressive, rust or no," she said, once Violet finally dropped down and spoke to them directly again. She wasn't just saying so to make Violet feel better; the minor hiccups made the whole thing a little more authentic. Less show, more a shared experience.

"And now?"

Amelia sat in wonderment as Violet continued with the ritual. It all felt so magical and otherworldly to her. Honestly, she was having such a fun time with these two girls that she couldn’t think of any better way to spend her evening. In the moment, this was even more interesting and fun than stargazing, and that was really saying something for Amelia! She had to take a deep breath because it felt like she kept forgetting to breathe she was trying to stay so still as everything unfolded in front of her. She peeked over at Dolly, and saw that she looked completely enamored in Violet’s ceremony, just as much as she herself was. Amelia returned her attention to the main event, and gripped the hem of her shirt so tightly the whites on her knuckles began to show.

And then it was over, in a flash.

Dolly congratulated Violet on her performance, and Amelia nodded enthusiastically in agreement. She felt like they could have been sitting here watching Violet go for hours, even though it was probably more along the lines of a few minutes. Regardless, Amelia was loving everything about tonight.

“That was so awesome! You’re so awesome, Violet!” She cheered, smiling widely at her friend. Dolly seemed to want to know what was next, and Amelia nodded in agreement.

“Yeah what do we do now?”

"Hmm," Violet murmured, touching her index finger to her chin and looking off thoughtfully into the distance. She was hoping that other people brought some stuff that they wanted to do, but if they couldn't come up with anything, there was a bunch of stuff she had that they could try. Summoning a demon probably wouldn't work with an uneducated group (come on, only speaking the truth here), and larger spells had a lot that could go wrong. The best thing to do in the light of the moon was probably divination, but then the question arose of what kind to perform.

She had some stones, so Geomancy was on the table, but she never had the greatest grasp on those concepts so she didn't want to give anyone a bad reading. Which she was fairly sure is what would happen. And she left her tea leaves at home, so those were not in the cards—

The cards! Yes, the Tarot! That made the most sense, and she figured it was what the most people here had some level of familiarity with. It was the best way to get other people involved, as well. This was good. This was very good! Violet smiled and felt nice, coming up with such a smart idea, even if it was obvious from the start that this was (all) the night would be.

"I have my Rider-Waite," she said, "and Shadowscapes, if we want to get a bit weird."