Finishing cutting the sacred circle into the air with her knife and drawing down a cone of protection, Roselyn knelt and rubbed the oil - a mixture of sandalwood, patchouli and myrrh, along with some less pleasant ingredients like ammonia and kosher salt Girl had suggested - on the black taper candle with her gloves. She couldn't feel comfortable using black candles, but that was the ritual required and she didn't imagine now would be the proper time for improvisation. She went through the angst-fueled stage that she thought so typical of young Wiccans where she used almost nothing but black candles as they matched her wardrobe and intentions. While black was still one of her preferred hues of garb, the darkness of the candle hearkened to the likewise dimming of her teenage soul and she shuddered.
The candle thoroughly anointed in a clockwise fashion - witchcraft had its specific demands - she picked up the bag of objects she had acquired from the dorm walls. It felt heavier that it should, which seemed completely reasonable given how important Girl made them seem. She could hear the clink of the old thermometer against the metal and worried that it would break, though Girl assured her that the items were sturdier than that. She loosened the cord holding the red velvet bag closed and considered individually anointing these objects. She ran her glove over the outside of the bag once more and decided that it had a good run. She poured the remainder of the dram bottle into the bag and swished it about in her hands. She did not bother removing her heavy gloves she was wearing as she shook the bag. Peering in again, the frozen objects glistened the streetlights glow overhead. "There," she assured them, "you are anointed. So mote it be."
From a plastic baggie in her purse, she removed a small white doll. It was crude, but it would have to be. The extent of Roselyn's sewing skills to this point involved patching up her torn dresses, which always left a telling scar. Fortunately, she could wear serially sewn clothing without looking trashy. She lifted it to her nose to smell, hoping that time and the winter air would have dissipated the smell of graveyard dirt and various herbs she had sewed up inside of it. Graveyard dirt was not how it sounded, any more than dragon's blood oil was more than palm resin. At least, she hoped this was the case. The woman at The Goddess Within, the nearest witchy shop, gave her a lingering glare before producing it from behind the register and warning Roselyn not to "goofer" anyone, whatever that meant. Anything that cost under $10 couldn't be that terrible of an ingredient, even if it successfully smelled of rigor mortis and decay.
She wished again she were not alone tonight. She tried to remind herself that she was the thing that lurked in the night and that other things should be wary of her, an old mantra that served her well attending school in the rural community of Red Hook. It was true then that she was undoubtedly the scariest thing one could run into on a summer's night there, or the best depending on one's appreciation for girls in corsets. The mantra could never be the same for her now that she knew that every monster her parents assured her didn't reside under her bed had some concrete foundation in reality, or even her art class. She didn't have Shane's ability to spot them, rendering everyone suspect. If only a member of her campus coven or even Shane could have come, but the former were still on winter recess and Girl had been quite explicit in her daffy way that the latter couldn't know a breath of this until the time was exactly right. At least that is what Roselyn imagined she said, it was still a bit hard to follow her ramblings and find the meaning. Anyway, the "no Shane" message was clear, as was Girl's disappointment that there were only six objects in the bag. But at least it was clear that these were the right objects and Roselyn hadn't vandalized college property for nothing.
She lit the candle with a barbecue lighter, her fingers too thick with the gloves to fumble with matches, wafting the melting wax smell of witchcraft. The temperature had to be in the twenties Fahrenheit and even the smallest candle repelled the darkness and the cold. The flame flared high and danced in the slight breeze. She lit the incense with this candle, a practice she indulged infrequently. When she could manage it, everything was lit from its own match but she didn't have time or interest for fastidiousness. The spirits would have to understand that her nose was getting frostbitten and she had places to be that hopefully involved warm quilts and hot hard cider. The incense smelled quite a bit more pleasant than the doll, exotically familiar. While she couldn't pick out what it contained, her nose knew every herb and resin.
Roselyn took some black twine from her pocket and wound it around the doll's hands, tying its hands behind its back. Or its front, actually. The doll had no features and only a roughly humanoid shape, so it was hard to tell. Roselyn placed the doll in the corner of the circle, an easier feat than would seem geometrically possible, though largely owing to the bean shape of the meditation garden. The white sand under her feet was nearly indistinguishable from the snow around her. She placed the bag of object behind the doll and repressed her imagination from drawing forth a fantasy where the doll could suddenly move. Few things gave her the wiggins more than evil dolls. The doll remained where it lay, unaffected by the introduction of the bag, so she placed the lit candle before it and, censing the doll with the incense, said, "What has been made, it now unmade. The knots you tied have all been frayed. All your bindings will be unfurled. Those between the worlds, now in the world. As I have spoke, so shall you see. By my true will, so mote it be!"
She leaned over, gently blew out the black candle, and vomited.
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