Occulturation #3 Welcome to Witchery

Garesh reads through the book for several hours. He probably should have paid more attention to Millie and the other Incorporeal, but he could only think to look for answers. He can’t find any answers. Much of the text is faded. There could be an explanation in this book, but it’s not visible anymore if it’s there.

Garesh gets up from his desk and turns to face Millie and the Incorporeal. Yes, ignoring them for so long was definitely a mistake. Millie is sitting cross-legged on the ground, playing patty-cake with the flying blue flame. The fire must not be hot or maybe she just doesn’t feel pain. As Garesh comes closer he hears Millie’s words as she plays the game: “Hot potato, hot potato. Baker’s man. The cow jumped over the moon. Momma called the doctor and the doctor said, “The Dish ran away with the Spoon.”

Garesh is fairly sure that those aren’t the words to the patty-cake game. Garesh asks Millie about the flying flame and the game they’re playing. Millie sits, staring at him for awhile before answering. Garesh isn’t sure she understood what he is asking because Millie’s answer doesn’t seem to relate at all to what he’s talking about.

Millie’s answer is

“Jack be nimble”

“Jack be quick”

“Jack jump over the candlestick”

“But Jack got stuck”

“So now he’ll stay”

“On the wick as the candle flame”

Garesh wonders if it is a riddle. He thinks about it. What does Millie mean? Garesh asked about the flying flame and Millie responded with a riddle about someone named Jack who jumped onto a candlestick and burned. Finally, Garesh think he gets it. “Ah,” he says, turning to the blue flame, “Your name is Jack?” the flame bobs up and down. Garesh doesn’t care what it means. Whether he is right or not, he’s just going to call it Jack from now on.

The scraping sound on the wall catches Garesh’s attention. He turns to face the noise and sees that the wall is covered with seven games of tic-tac-toe that nearly all ended in cat’s game. A floating piece of white chalk is starting another game of tic-tac-toe. The shadow of man puts his hand in the center of the tic-tac-toe, the floating chalk draws an X there. Then without any input from the shadow, the chalk draws an O in the top right corner. Then the shadow points to the space beneath the O and the chalk draws an X there.

Garesh asks Millie for the names of the shadow and the invisible one that carries objects. Millie answers by singing the alphabet song. Garesh has no idea what name this could signify since it goes all the way from A to Z. But then Garesh understands. He sees the tic-tac-toe game and realizes that he can do something similar to communicate with the spirits.

Garesh takes a piece of chalk and writes the letters of the alphabet on one of the walls. Then he asks for their names. The shadow and chalk stop their game of tic-tac-toe and move to the wall with letters. Garesh asks for the shadow to share his name first. The shadow point at the letter S, then V, then A, then R, then T, then R. Svartr. Garesh is wondering if the shadow is literate because Svartr doesn’t seem like a real name. Then he gestures for the chalk to share its name, the chalk taps on W, then I, then it taps L twice, then H once, then E, then I again, then M. Willheim. It sounds similar to William. Jack reaffirms its name as Jack, though Garesh is not sure how Millie could have learned its name.

Millie stares at the letter wall. She tries to spell her name. But she can’t do it. She starts with M, then she gets stuck. Willheim’s floating chalk directs Millie to the rest of the letters of her name, but Millie isn’t able to repeat finding the letters of her name without help from the other Incorporeal.

Garesh leaves the letter wall, letting the Incorporeal converse among themselves using the letter wall as a medium. Garesh makes himself dinner. It’s getting near bedtime for him. He should probably do something about the corpse of a child on the floor, but he is really tired. Surely, that can wait until tomorrow.

He is about to go to bed when Millie slinks over to him. She appears just as tired as him. She asks him to carry her to bed. Garesh is too tired for that. He tries to tell her “no.” But he can’t refuse her. It’s not something cliché, like her being too cute or something. No, he feels compelled to carry her to bed as he recalls the echoing words in his mind, Lay me to rest. Care for and carry me. Lay me to rest. Care for and carry me. He hadn’t expected these provisions of their agreement to come into play in something as mundane as carrying her to bed. Garesh has no choice but to comply. So he picks her up, with her head leaning against his shoulder.

Maybe Garesh is just really tired, but Millie seems really heavy. He feels like he can barely move. Garesh thinks she weighs much more than any twenty-five year old has any right to [just over 8 years old in earth years]. Garesh struggles up the stairs to his bedroom. He can’t even see anything anymore. His vision is blank as all he can focus on is the pain of carrying her, but he can’t let go no matter how hard he tries or how much he wants to. His bindings force him to continue to hold her. If he wasn’t compelled to hold her, she would have slipped out of his grasp long ago. It seems like hours pass in this torment of holding this boulder of heavy weight. It probably took no longer than a minute in passing.

He comes to himself when he sets Millie down in his bed. Oh dear. Where is Garesh going to sleep? He definitely isn’t going to move her to somewhere else. Garesh is not going to carry her to another bed. He doesn’t have any other bed. He’ll have to sleep on the couch downstairs. He Helps Millie get under the blankets. He doesn’t think Screamers sleep, but Millie definitely looks like she does.

Garesh makes his way to the couch and goes to sleep. Willheim, Svartr and Jack continue using the letter wall. It seems  that they don’t sleep, so why does Millie? Garesh is too tired to consider this inconsistency. It doesn’t seem like any time passes before he is woken by the sound of knocking on his door. Garesh looks around. The Incorporeal are nowhere in sight. Perhaps Willheim is knocking on his door? It’s the front door to the house that is knocking. He decides to ignore it.

A few minutes later he realizes that it might be the police. The knocking continues. How early is it? Does this person have no manners? Garesh slowly walks toward the door. He stops when he sees a wrinkled old woman inside his house by the door trying to unlock the door. She seems to be having trouble.

Garesh shouts in alarm at seeing someone inside his house. The old woman ignores him. He hears a click and the door swings open, going through the old woman as if she weren’t there. “Thanks, Lauren,” Garesh hears a young woman say as she enters the house. She looks around and sees Garesh. She says “So you are home. Why didn’t you answer the door?”

Garesh answers that he was asleep and asks them what they’re doing in his house. However, their appearance gives him some idea as to why they are here. The one called Lauren appears to be an Incorporeal Screamer. The door went through her, and she somehow got inside his house while the door was locked.

The young woman is, well the only word that come Garesh’s [and the author of this story’s] mind is the word “pilgrim.” He’s not even sure what “pilgrim” means, but it feels like the best way to describe the young woman. She looks to be somewhere between 60 and 90 years old [20-30 years on Earth] She has curly black hair and a long pointed nose. She wears a gray dress that has a wide black belt around the waist over the dress with a buckle keeping the belt tight. Her sleeves are the same drab gray and go down to her wrists. Small bracelet-like buckled belts hold the sleeves openings closed tight around her wrist. The hem of her dress goes down to just above the ground. Garesh can see her black leather boots that use a belt buckle instead of laces. She wears a wide brimmed gray hat that has a cone shaped top. It’s almost a classic witches hat but it has a buckled belt going around the cone.

“Hello, I’m Ystra and this is Lauren,” the young woman says, introducing herself “What’s your name?” Garesh gives his name and repeats his question about why they are in his house. Ystra explains that she only came because Lauren nagged for her to investigate all night, so she didn’t end up getting any sleep. Ystra apologizes for coming so early in the morning. She stops talking and her mouth drops open when she sees the corpse of a little boy in the chalk circles. He didn’t take down the ritual. He wasn’t going to undo something that took so much time and expenses to make.

Ystra looks to Garesh for an explanation. “Don’t you already know?” Garesh asks, “Isn’t that why you came? I performed witchcraft to summon and bind Incorporeal.” Ystra doesn’t seem surprised as much as confused. “Why did you do this inside? Oh, please tell me that isn’t a dead body.”

“Of course it’s a dead body,” Garesh says, “Bindings need a sacrifice.” Ystra goes pale. “Where did you learn witchcraft?” she asks, “Who taught you that this was how you do things, that this was okay?” Garesh shows her the tome, Rites to Commanding the Invisible. Lauren reads over Ystra’s shoulder. Lauren’s face contorts into twisted pain and anger. Garesh hears her speak for the first time. It’s a raspy voice of an old crone. “You blasphemous False Bargainer, this is in Sylvan script! This is from the ancient days shortly after the Angels left. This from the first witches, a barbarous bunch who followed the fickle ways of Kyrla.”

Lauren lunged toward Garesh, but Ystra shouted “Lauren, I compel to not harm him!” Lauren freezes and is pulled backwards by an invisible net of chains. Lauren verbally expresses extreme frustration and disbelief that Ystra would waste one of her four monthly compulsions to save a murderous False Bargainer. Ystra pleads Devil’s Advocate in favor of Garesh, claiming that Garesh is ignorant as to the ways of witchery.

Lauren points out that this doesn’t excuse, explain or pardon his actions. If Garesh thinks witchery involves killing people, he shouldn’t have taken up the trade. Garesh asks how it could be possible to perform bindings without a sacrifice. Ystra explains that bindings still need a sacrifice, but the sacrifice is a human soul, not a human life. Garesh is still confused. He doesn’t understand the difference between life and soul. Ystra explains that witches have methods of extracting the soul of humans through deals with humans that offer the human a favor or boon in exchange for their soul. Ystra purports the idea that humans don’t need their souls, except for using magic. This is why witches usually keep their souls because the magic of witchery requires them to have a soul if they want to use it. However, most people don’t need or use their soul in their everyday life.

Garesh has a short moment of guilt over performing unnecessary murders. But, he then remembers that it is unlikely that he could have gained human souls through contracts with humans unless he had an Incorporeal to grant them favors.

Ystra explains that she is a recently graduated apprentice. She offers him contact information so that he can ask her for help and counseling. Lauren makes a statement about Garesh’s crime of murder is insignificant compared to how he used Fey bindings on Incorporeal. Garesh is confused about that. He explains that he thought that Rites to Commanding the Invisible said that three is the number for Incorporeal, so if it was using Fey bindings, he should have aligned the starts and times for Fey.

Lauren is furious that Garesh would mistake Incorporeal with Fey in associating them to the number three.

“But it said that the Screamer for number three is impersonal and unseen, that is clearly Incorporeal.” Garesh says.

“What’s it say about number four?” Lauren asks with a hiss.

“The Screamer for number four is despondent, inactive and pitiful.” Garesh says.

“So how did you think that referred to Fey?” Lauren asks, “Fey are constantly at parties. They don’t have time for anything else, so they send witches and servants to acquire their meals. It’s why Fey are impersonal and unseen. They’re away at exclusive parties.”

Ystra sees that Lauren is getting riled up from this talk of Fey, so she makes a quick excuse about needing to be somewhere and drags Lauren out with her with some sort of wide, flat, leather leash attached to Lauren’s belt.

Garesh closes the door behind them. He is glad that he has a source for answers and information. The knowledge about him using Fey bindings doesn’t mean too much. It shouldn’t explain why four Incorporeal bound to him when he only used three sacrifices and only invoked one Incorporeal.

Garesh searches the house for the Incorporeal. Millie is still asleep in Garesh’s bed. Eventually he finds Jack’s blue flame exploring the basement, looking through boxes. Garesh finds a floating white sheet. It’s Willheim carrying a white sheet to make himself look like a ghost. Svartr walks across the white sheet. Now that he’s found the Incorporeal and he returns upstairs to plan.

Garesh’s Incorporeal may not be as fierce as he had hoped, but he can make do with what he has. Willheim and Svartr are practically invisible. Millie can pass as human. Jack can probably be held in a lamp to look inconspicuous. He takes out his map that displays the layout of the capitol building where the Council of the Grave meets. The Council of the Grave is the government committee that determines how to deal with Screamers. They would be the ones responsible for what happened to him in the Outer Villages.

As far as Garesh can tell, Millie will be useless. Svartr is unable to touch anything, Jack is a fire that doesn’t even give off heat. The most useful out of the Incorporeal is Willheim, and he can’t even carry the corpse of a little boy because he is so weak. However, he is still new to witchery, maybe Ystra can help him figure out what the Incorporeal can do.

Garesh isn’t sure what his next step can be. Learning the abilities of his Incorporeal was what he was planning on before he summoned them, but now he isn’t sure they even have abilities. Though, Willheim, alone, would probably be about as useful as Lauren is to Ystra, right? Ystra got inside his house because Lauren unlocked the door from the inside, Willheim could do the same.

Ah, but first he needs to dispose of the body. That child’s corpse is going to stink up the house, and the longer he waits, the harder it will be. Hopefully nobody comes looking for any of the three children he killed, that would be troublesome.