Chapter 7: Chapter 7 – Off Without A Hitch

Emily didn't look the best when she had finished bleeding the fox. Her hands were stained red, and the clothes Matthew had lent her were ruined.

She had collected the blood in a big Tupperware tub she had found in Lan's cupboard. And this plastic box for storing food was perhaps the thing Emily was most impressed by in the modern world.

'It's just perfect! I can store any number of things in one of these! It's much more convenient than jars, that's for sure,'

She had left Matthew leaning against a tree on the edge of the Devil's rise. He was somehow still asleep, which was a testament to the strength of Emily's spell, despite her restrictions.

After checking he was alright, she brought the tub to the pentagram in the centre of the ring of trees and stepped inside.

Standing as still as a statue, Emily went over the rituals one more time. If she messed up a single word, a single phrase, anything could happen.

Over the years, she had heard many horror stories about faulty awakenings. Everything from blindness to growing feathers was possible if a witch wasn't careful.

The centre of the Devil's Rise was utterly silent. The wind did not blow past the ring of trees and...

Drip... Drip... Drip...

"What was that?" Emily muttered, straining her ears.

Drip... Drip... Drip...

She wouldn't have heard the sound if she hadn't been listening closely, but there it was again. A constant, monotonous drip of water.

Emily frowned and stepped out of the pentagram, walking towards the sound.

At the far side of the ring of trees, on the very edge of the circular mound, was a bucket full of water. Above the bucket, a constant stream rickled along a bowed branch of a tree, dropping in individual droplets that rippled on the surface of the bucket.

Seeing this, Emily frowned. 'Who would put a bucket here,' She wondered, glancing around the area. She noticed a particular spot near the bucket where the grass was burnt and had a strange sense of deja-vu. 'Have I been here before?'

But Emily had been to the Devil's Rise a hundred times at least, and this was nothing strange.

Since the noise was distracting, she took the bucket and moved it out of the way. After she was done, Emily walked back to the pentagram and started the ritual.

Everything was laid out before her in an orderly fashion.

The tub of blood, which she opened and sprinkled generously across the pentagram.

Then there was her script, which she had brushed up on the previous night. Emily knew it off by heart, but she had brought it along all the same.

Finally, a matchbox, which she picked up and used to light the candles.

All in all, awakening didn't have the most complex ingredients, but that made sense. How was someone who wasn't a witch supposed to attempt a truly difficult ritual?

As she began to read from her script in a language long forgotten, the sky above the Devil's Rise darkened imperceptibly.

Gradually, a dark cloud formed directly over the pentagram, blocking the sun. It started to rain in a faint drizzle, tiny raindrops splashing down on the dry grass. However, the water could not penetrate the pentagram, and the candles remained lit. Besides Aesthetics, this was their purpose. If the candles went out for any reason at all, then she had messed up the pentagram and would need to start again... if that was still an option.

She breathed a sigh of relief when the candles were not extinguished by the rain and quickly began to recite the ritual.

Lord of Plenty and Bringer of Song, I beg for assistance.

She kept repeating this phrase while slowly bending down and placing both hands in the tub of blood. They came out drenched in red, and she rubbed the foul-smelling liquid on her face, covering every inch of exposed skin.

The cloud above thickened and grew darker, taking on an ominous, otherworldly atmosphere. Rain that had been falling in a drizzle grew heavier and more pronounced, landing in big droplets everywhere but the pentagram.

Everywhere, including the unconscious Matthew's face.

Emily was too preoccupied with the ritual to think about this. She had always been a loner, not by choice, but the people of her time did not take kindly to witches.

As such, her meticulous plan did not take her companion into account.

For example, she hadn't considered what would happen if he woke up.

 

***

 

Matthew woke up with a headache that could only be described as a joke. At first, he thought his body was kidding because there was simply no way he could possibly be in this much pain.

It felt like someone had forged a sword using his head as the anvil, and the piercing agony didn't stop there.

His back and shoulders were well and truly fucked, as though he had been dragged up a hill by his wrists.

"Wh-what the?" He mumbled, feeling rain fall on his face. 'Rain?'

Through the noise of the headache, he felt something wasn't right.

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'Am I lying on wet grass?' His back was soaked and freezing cold. He wasn't even wearing shoes.

"What in the flaming fuck is going on?" Matthew stammered, his eyes shooting open.

For the past eighteen years, there had been a roof above his head every time he woke up. So this was his first time waking to find a massive thundercloud directly above him. It was so dark he could call it black, and the distant rumble left him feeling uneasy. He felt like lightning could fall at any moment.

Matthew shot to his feet and quickly registered a few things.

One. He was back at the Witching circle.

Two, he was wearing the same clothes as the previous day, and his expensive school uniform had been ruined by mud.

Three. Clare was covered in blood. Standing in the eye of the storm.

Memories rushed back to Matthew in a wave. 'Did she knock me out?' He remembered getting hit on the back of the head, but after that, everything was hazy.

With no idea what to do, he wanted to call someone and ask for help, but his phone wasn't in his pocket. He had taken it out the previous night to call the police, and it was still lying on the kitchen floor where he had dropped it.

'What do I do?' Matthew started to panic. Clare was chanting in a language he couldn't understand, and she looked serious. Deadly serious.

Scepticism could only take Matthew so far, and with everything that had happened, he wasn't so sure she had been lying.

But that thought was the minority. The screaming urge that filled his brain, monopolising his every thought, was that he should save Clare. She was bleeding in the centre of a thunderstorm and suffering a severe concussion. He needed to do something. Now.

With shaky legs, he started walking into the circle. The rain had started to bucket down, and an intense chill crept over the Devil's Rise, making Matthew shiver as he forged ahead.

From the beginning, Clare wasn't far away. She was barely ten metres from him, but it felt like a hundred.

Each step was harder than the last, and the closer he got to Clare and the more clearly he could hear her, the less sure Matthew was that he wanted to intervene.

'No, don't be a coward!' He told himself, taking another step.

By this point, he was barely two metres away and closing fast. That was when Clare looked up and saw him. Her eyes widened in fear, and she stuttered briefly, frozen in place.

"Clare!" Matthew shouted over the pounding rain. He hadn't noticed that despite the storm, there was no wind. There was never wind in the Devil'd Rise.

She ignored him and went back to chanting. Unable to break from the ritual now that it had begun.

He edged closer again, reaching out.

"Clare, I'm here to save you!" Matthew yelled nervously, a chill crawling up his spine.

Suddenly, the thundercloud opened up, and a green lightning bolt fell towards Clare. It passed through the pentagram, and struck her on the head. She groaned, swaying slightly.

"Shit!" Matthew cursed, crossing the final half a metre in a flash.

He stepped over the pentagram and stood beside her inside it, grabbing her by the shoulders.

"We need to go!" He yelled.

Clare looked beyond frustrated, and she ignored him, chanting louder, her voice staying firm.

She bent down to the tub without a word and picked it up.

Matthew frowned, noticing the dark blood in the container.

"What are you-"

He never got the chance to finish that question because Clare dumped the blood over his head.

"Fuck!" Matthew spluttered, wiping blood out of his eyes. "What was that for?"

Clare didn't respond, chanting firmly in the language he couldn't understand. Just as Matthew was about to grab Clare and drag her out of the circle.

A second bolt of lighting fell, striking him on the head.

Matthews's world shook, and smoke rose from his hair. Everything after that point was a blur.

A vague, monstrous figure descended from the heavens and spoke with Clare.

She kept pleading at Matthew and pleading to the mighty beast, which eventually relented and rose back to the heavens above.

For a long while after, the only sound in the Devil's Rise was the drip, drip, drip of water onto a patch of grass beneath a bowed branch.

That, and Clare sobbing.

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