LITMIR.BIZ

       Taming the Hunter

      Anacampserote (n.): something that can bring back a lost love

      Winter Solstice...

      After padding through the soft emerald grass that carpeted the floor of her sanctuary, Eryss Norling knelt before the altar she kept tucked between the pink-and-white petals of bleeding hearts and the cool winter stars of forget-me-nots. Behind those, crinkle-petaled hollyhocks bloomed as if it were summer. A dragonfly flitted among the leafy canopy that climbed to the top of the two-story glass-walled conservatory.

      Tucking her long, loose chestnut hair over an ear, Eryss bowed to light the large yellow beeswax candle on the simple wooden altar. Then she turned to light the eight smaller blue candles she’d placed around the altar to enclose her in a casting circle. Between each of the candles she’d placed rose quartz and garnet crystals to heighten the energy and fill the circle with love and happiness. And resolve.

      Her silver-green velvet robe splayed around her knees and legs as she twisted within the circle, brandishing the lit match. Closed by three braided-ribbon frog hooks over her breasts, the robe was a favorite piece she wore often when casting a spell. Talismans of silver, crow’s foot and bloodstone hung around her neck, sliding across the crepe-thin pink negligee she wore against her clove-scented skin. Blowing out the match dispelled sulfur into the humid air, and a waft of white smoke curled toward the morning glory vine climbing an iron trellis to the arched windows that formed a cathedral dome overhead.

      Steeped in reverence, her movements were slow and thoughtful. She nestled a heavy, six-sided quartz wand with points at both ends in the sifting of black salt. After whispering a blessing for all that she had, all that she would know and all that changed with her footsteps through this realm, she bowed her head and touched her chest, where a tiny maroon line darkened her pale skin just below her breast. Her heartbeat thudded softly against her fingertips.

      With her other hand she clasped the crystal-bladed athame and drew it across her forefinger, cutting a line through the whorls of her fingerprint. A few blood droplets splattered onto the black salt. Forget-me-nots bowing over the altar whispered delicious fragrance, entwining about the metallic tint from her blood, summoning earth elementals with the sweet perfume.

      Setting aside the knife, she then beckoned forth the earth’s energies with her hands, focusing it toward the quartz. Closing her eyes, she began to hum deeply and from the base of her throat, channeling the vibrations toward her heart and then releasing them throughout her body.

      “I have loved only one so many times,” she whispered. “In all my incarnations it has always been him. This I know.”

      And yet in each of those incarnations she had lost him for reasons she could not divine. Her portentous dreams had never explained that frustrating point. That wasn’t the important question. What was important was that she see him, recognize him should he enter her life once again. For in her dreams, she had never seen his face. She knew no one reincarnated into the same visage.

      There was only one way to recognize the one whom she had loved. And that was with a soul-deep knowing.

      A cool cloud of red smoke diffused from around the quartz wand and billowed up over her hands. She kept her eyes closed, confident the elementals of earth and time participated in this sacred spell.

      “When he returns to me in this life,” she said, “allow my soul to recognize his soul. Bind us with a love of the ages so that only death will part us.”

      She blew out a breath through the red smoke. “So mote it be,” she ended.

      And a force walloped her chest, lifting her from the kneeling position. Arms lashing out for security, she was thrown out of the casting circle. She landed hard on the grass before the green velvet sofa.

      “What the...?”

      Opening her eyes, Eryss saw tendrils of smoke curl and form into intricate arabesques before darkening into soot and dropping onto the quartz. A startling image. What did it mean? And she’d been physically thrown out of the casting circle. That wasn’t supposed to happen. What did such an expulsion portend?

      Had she performed the anacampserote incorrectly?

      “Yes,” she reassured herself on an intake of breath. Crawling forward on the grass, she leaned over the salt line and touched the black salt and soot. Rubbing it between her fingers dispersed a scent much like an ocean surf. Weird. But she would remain positive the spell had achieved her intention. “All will be well with my soul.”

      Bowing to blow out the yellow candle, she then swept her hands to encompass the circle, taking out each flame of the smaller candles as she whisked air over them. An emerald-winged dragonfly swooped down and nestled in her hair as if it were a fancy barrette.

      Now all she had to do was figure out what it would feel like when her soul recognized the one.