Southern Charms

The Witching Hour

A prince of hell.

A prince of hell.

A prince of... I grabbed my hair and pulled the ends before my brain could finish repeating Ash's words for the hundredth time since I'd crawled into my bed. I kept hoping the more I thought the words, the less weight they would carry.

Sometimes words were like that. The more you said something, the more you mulled it over, the more you realized language was strange. How did we come to associate the word dog with adorable fluff balls and wagging tails? And if you reiterated dog over and over again, it started to not mean anything. It was just a sound.

But it wasn't working. Each time the phrase flitted through my mind, the words grew heavier. Every syllable inciting fear and horror in my gut.

A prince of hell.

I knew the magical world wasn't all light and sparkles. There were spells out there so dark and dangerous, it was forbidden to even speak of them. Spells of death and destruction. Black magic. Magic that corrupted souls.

And then there were other supernaturals. Sinister creatures who lingered in shadows, waiting for the unwary to cross their path. Monsters with fangs and claws perfect for shredding fragile flesh. Heck, I worried about them more than most around here. I couldn't arm myself against them the way other witches and warlocks could.

But there was a difference in knowing and experiencing, and someone out there was trying to bridge the gap between the two. Which meant, if I was smart, I'd wash my hands of this. There were others- far more capable than myself- who could continue this investigation.

"Rats," I muttered, pushing my comforter back and throwing my legs over the side of the bed.

It took two minutes to shimmy into jeans and a sweatshirt. Shoes followed. Bed head hair went into a knot on the top of my head, and I wiped the bits of crust from the corner of my eyes. Dark spots on my fingertips revealed I hadn't washed my face as well as I thought, and there was a very good chance I resembled a raccoon as I hurried down the stairs. All the better to blend into the night.

I stopped in the kitchen to scrounge up a flashlight. There was just the one we kept on hand for power outages. For me, of course. No one else would bother with such pointless impoten technology. Not when they could conjure light with a simple spell.

At least, I didn't have to be quiet. Mabon was still in full swing, and everyone had left for the parties and rituals hours ago. Before leaving the kitchen, I paused, sniffing the air. The door to Mama's workshop was cracked. It let in the scent of sage and rose. And something else...maybe sulfur?

With a shrug to the empty room, I decided a detour wouldn't hurt anyone. It's not like I had a schedule. Not even sure I had a real destination. All I knew was I needed to be doing something besides lying in my bed feeling powerless.

Mama's workroom was as it always was. Somehow chaotic and organized at the same time- just like she was on most days. Energy hummed in the small space, purposeful and powerful. Her workbench was clean save for a few scattered pieces of something purple and pink- perhaps rose petals? Nothing in my line of sight gave away the source of the burnt smell.

I ran my fingers along the jars in the wooden cubby on the back wall. There was something here I needed. The thought prickled in the back of my mind. Unusual. Mama would call it intuition, a magic everyone could tap into, but I'd never given it much leeway before. It was too much like a consolation prize. Like someone said, 'here you go. Sorry you can't cast a spell to make a broomstick fly, but here's something that'll make your stomach twist and your head ache until you figure out what it is.'