Sitting at a table in the window of The Cauldron & Crumpet, Portland’s trendiest and most traditional Pagan pub and tea room, Sally thumbed furiously through her Book of Shadows and checked her wristwatch every thirty seconds. Her reference books—Pekoring Weismann’s Practical Correspondences for the Asatru Witch, Adele Marmonte’s The Way of Freya, Stuart Kleinhaber’s Rhythms of the Runes—were strewn across the table in front of her, alongside a cup of herbal tea and a half-eaten bagel.
“I wish Opal would hurry up and get here,” she said to Baron, who peeked slyly out of Sally’s backpack on the chair next to hers. Technically, pets weren’t allowed at The Cauldron & Crumpet, but the staff generally turned a blind eye to witches and their familiars. Baron sniffed the air as a middle-aged witch and her pocketbook miniature poodle—both decked out in dark purple robes and black leather collars—passed by on their way out the door. Sally swatted Baron lightly on the nose when he growled at the dog and tried to climb out of the backpack to go after it.
“No.”
She glanced quickly at the murky sky outside the window. Portland would be dark and rainy for months to come. Even her parents cursed the seasons once the sunny, dry summer was over, but Sally loved the darker half of the year. It was the perfect time for study and spell-work.
She flipped past a thirty-page handwritten section in her journal on the individual runes and their correspondences—associated colors, seasons, deities, sacred trees, divinatory meaning, times of day—and landed on a page detailing the next rune pattern she’d need to lay out. It was a complicated arrangement of more than half of the Elder Futhark runes in a woven knot based on Jormungand, the World Serpent. But she wouldn’t have to put it together until later in the evening. Between now and then she just had to keep up with sporadic intervals of candle-lighting, with the occasional incense, incantation, or feather—assuming Baron hadn’t done any permanent damage to her pigeon feather.
Sally rested her fingers on the open pages of her Book of Shadows and whispered to herself as she read. She ignored the pale, scaly skin of her hands. The sloppy ponytail she’d pulled her mane into—without benefit of a mirror—felt itchy at the back of her neck, and when she reached back to scratch, she wrinkled her nose at her dry, crackly hair. After the Black Moon, she’d research a restorative spell. Despite the future of the Cosmos weighing on her thin shoulders, she was still a teenager. In the newly groovy world of cooperation and environmental stewardship that her magick would surely usher in, she still wanted to look nice for the winter dance at school.
She checked her watch again and sighed. Opal wasn’t late. Sally was early.
Affecting an epic yawn, Baron stretched his front paws toward the table and made a play for Rhythms of the Runes, nearly pulling it off the table before Sally caught it just as it was about tip slide into her lap.
“Baron!” Sally tapped the cat sharply on his orange-and-black nose. “Don’t make me wish I’d left you at home.”
She pushed the book back onto the table. Baron sat up and sniffed at the edge of the book, then tried again to catch it by the corner. Sally smacked at his paw.
“No!”
With a huff of indignation, Baron licked at his affronted paw and curled back down in the backpack.
Sally turned the page in her Book of Shadows and shifted in her chair. She was having trouble sitting—unusual, because she’d always relaxed easily at The Cauldron & Crumpet. But her burnt thumb was throbbing, and the more she tried to find an agreeable sitting position, the more the muscles in her back and shoulders protested.
“Dagaz in the North, Othila in the South, and Ansuz in the East,” Sally muttered as she traced her index finger along the hand-drawn outline of the Jormungand’s Knot rune spell. “Okay, so it makes sense to have Laguz in the West, Berkana and Hagalaz in the center, and . . . Perfect! Jera back in the North, directly beneath Dagaz.”
She counted the points along the drawing in her journal of the World Serpent’s body as it wound through a loose trio of interlocking infinity symbols. She’d need fifteen of her twenty-four runes for this planetary harmony-building spell—not to mention nine white candles and a sizable chunk of live forest moss.
Sally smiled and patted the side of her bag. Everything she needed for the next few days was right by her side.
Baron hopped out of the bag and leapt onto the table where he briefly inspected Sally’s half-eaten breakfast before he deliberately pushed one of her books to the floor with his nose.
“Baron!” Making sure no one had seen him, Sally grabbed the naughty cat and shoved him back into her bag. “You have to be careful with books that are out of print.”
She lifted Kleinhaber’s Rhythms off the floor. The book had fallen open to a section on crafting Teutonic sigils, which she’d practically memorized while designing the layouts for all her runic spells—The Map of the Nine Realms, Heimdall’s Comet, Jormungand’s Knot, Frigga’s Cup and the Triple-Spiraled Triskele she’d used in the central piece of Odin’s Return.
At the bottom of page 240 was the familiar line drawing of the sigil ancient Vikings had carved into the sides of their fishing vessels to ensure a bountiful catch and protect them from storms and sea monsters. Sally read the accompanying text aloud.
This symbol was typically painted or engraved on the left side of the vessel, five hands’ distance from the bow and four hands down from the top of the hull. The vivid blues and golds of the intricate knot pattern at the center of the sigil stood out in sharp contrast to the dark red predominant in the outer rim of the symbol. It is believed this particular shade of red denoted the fire of the volcanoes of Iceland.
Fire is a common element in modern-made sigils, often used to activate magical spells associated with the symbol. The first step in creating any sigil is to select the element which most closely matches the intention and purpose behind the symbol that will be created. (See Appendix F for Elemental Correspondences.)
Symbols of the deities themselves can also be woven into sigils to draw upon a god’s or goddess’ attributes or participation. For instance, the valknut, a tight knot of offset triangles . . .
Reaching the bottom of the left-hand page, Sally continued reading at the top of the right-hand side.
. . . is a powerful representation of fertility! Include this symbol for a potent sigil to bring about powerful change. Also, some modern practitioners draw a small stick figure cat at the bottom corner of their sigil. The cat is closely associated with Freya, the goddess not only of love and beauty but also of magick.
“Yeah, yeah, the cat,” Sally muttered, absently glancing at Baron, who was staring languidly up at the ceiling. Sally sighed at the dull ache in her teeth and the sudden stiffness in her fingers. She knew this intense series of spellcastings would be hard work, but she didn’t think it would take such a toll.
Just a few more days, Sally reminded herself.
She checked her watch. Opal was now officially late. Sally was about to close the book, when she stopped cold. She glanced again at the top of the page she’d been reading.
Page 245.
Sally looked back at the open page on the left side of the book. Page 240. Four full pages were missing! She flipped through the book to other key sections she’d referenced when crafting her rune rituals. The book was missing pages in seven other places—42 pages simply weren’t there.
Sally turned back to the section on sigils and scanned the words on the bottom of page 240 and the top of 245.
“So if the valknut isn’t a symbol of fertility, and isn’t used for harvest spells . . .”
She thought back to the rune rituals in her bedroom that morning, and the trio of interlocking, red triangles that had sat at the center of her altar through it all.
“Holy crap!”
“Sally?”
She looked up into Opal’s concerned face. Dark-haired and slightly overweight, Opal was a sophomore at Portland State University—three years older than Sally and the only person she’d
told about her magickal work.
The lines around Sally’s eyes crinkled as her face broke into a pained smile. “Opal! Thank goodness you’re here. I . . .” Sally held a hand to her chest and tried to catch her breath. She’d never felt her heart race like this before. “I think I’ve made a big mistake. Huge. Something might go seriously wrong . . .”
Opal set down her tea cup and blueberry muffin and sat across from Sally. “You look horrible.”
Sally’s hand shook as she reached for her own cup of tea. “I haven’t been sleeping.”
“Looks like your hair is going gray.”
“What?” Sally turned toward the window and tried to catch her reflection in the glass.
“Maybe it’s just the dim light in here.” Opal pinched off a big hunk of muffin and popped it into her mouth.
Baron sat up, his eyes and ears just visible over the table. He looked at Opal and sneezed.
“Lovely to see you, too, Baron.”
Fighting exhausted tears, Sally collapsed back against her chair and placed the open book on the table. “There are whole sections missing! I used this to craft my spells, Opal. What if I got something really, really wrong?”
Baron reached up and dragged his claws across the open pages.
“Baron!” Sally shrieked. She grabbed the cat by the scruff of the neck and shoved him down into her bag, zipping up the top so only his head could squeeze through. “Great. Now the book is doubly damaged.”
Opal flipped through the book as she munched on her muffin. “So what? It’s the intention that counts, right?”
Sally crossed her arms tight across her chest. “Sure, if you’re a fluffy bunny Pagan who doesn’t care about real magick.”
“Here we go.” Opal sat back and drank her tea.
“Magick is an art,” Sally protested. “It’s not silly love charms or chanting random spells to get help with homework. If you’re going to do magick, you have to get it right. I’m not playing with Tarot cards or howling at the moon, you know.”
Opal nodded wearily. “I know.”
“I’m doing real work, based on real research and real practice.” Sally wiped at her wet cheeks. “Magick is alchemical science.”
Opal smiled. “Do you even know what that means?”
“Opal . . . Please. This is serious.”
“Okay.” Opal put down her tea. “What do you think you got wrong?”
Sally shrugged. “With that many pages missing, maybe everything.” She reached for a paper napkin and blew her nose into it. “How could I have missed that? I’ve probably ruined everything.”
“Maybe not. What’s the worst that could happen? And will you stop wringing your hands? You’re acting like my grandmother.”
Sally looked down at her hands in her lap. She hadn’t realized she’d been massaging them. “My hands hurt.”
The sun came out from behind the clouds and streamed through the window beside them. The light hit Sally full in the face.
“Sally! Oh, my God.” Opal gasped and nearly dropped her tea cup in her lap before the sun sneaked back behind the dark cloud cover.
“What? What is it?”
Opal got up from the table and tugged at Sally’s elbow, pulling her up from her chair. “When’s the last time you looked in a mirror?”
The dark skies outside opened up into a full downpour.