The sun is three quarters of the way across the sky by the time I’m done with chores. Throughout the day I could hear the neighboring door opening and closing over and over again. That’s one of the awkward things about the building: even if the bedrooms are soundproofed the main rooms aren’t. However, I do not let those sounds distract me as I open the book. Its pages are thoroughly yellowed from age. The binding is fabric covered bark. A number of pages are sewn together or duct taped together. The pages are paper and not velum, thankfully, meaning I don’t have to be as gentle with it as I would with a grimoire that had velum pages. To reassure myself that this is real, that this book works, as evidenced by my bank balance saved from not having to buy razors and Top paying careful attention, I start reading the instructions out loud at the rate of 20 erpm, or eye rolls per minute.
“If it be true thou suspectest thy husband,” the old hag that wrote it really couldn’t have helped herself with her examples, “of being unfaithful, follow the steps writ herein, and thou shalt find thyself being truly with him in spirit.”
I shake my head. “Can you imagine either of us getting a husband, Top?” She meows in response. “Right, I forgot the only human constructs your lot respects are roofs to hide under and pavement to sun on.” I scratch her head and carry on reading the dusty tome.
“Get by hook or crook some thing that hath been much about his person; his shirts from doing the laundry work the most wondrous.” Yeah, I was definitely going to steal a random pair of panties from the washroom… ah, fuck, that would have been way less dysphoria-inducing than performing PIV sex. But also way creepier, to be fair. Liz was fully aware I had her underwear and that I would return it to her when she came by for it. Which she hasn’t yet. And hopefully won’t for a few more hours. Not to mention I conveniently forgot to tell her where I live.
I continued reciting the guide. “Hold onto this item and lie down, channeling thy intention into it as thou utter the words to cast thy will. Lief, thou shalt find thyself in his head, and he shalt be unable to encave aught from thee.”
Translation: Grab something personal, hold onto it, will yourself into their head and done. It sounds far too easy, doesn’t even tell you what to say. Well, the reason for that is the glossary of arcane terms to construct your spells out of that the book opens with. The rest of the book just hints at their construction through spell descriptions. So in this case it would be Self-Join-Sight-Other, with the item acting as focus.
A knock on the door shakes me from my focus. There is a specific feeling a lot of trans women know. I say a lot instead of all because not all of us wore our mother’s or sister’s clothes when home alone to make up for the lack of our own feminine wardrobe. It’s the quick jolt of panic when you hear keys in a lock, or a knock on the door, or footsteps. The fear of being discovered, seen as a pervert when all you’re doing is wearing clothes that make you feel comfortable and whole. During that jolt of panic, time stretches in such a way that you can’t do much but think about your options: Do I face the music, do I jump under the sheets, do I quickly strip, or do I run into the woods, never to be seen again?
Point is, I hear a knock on my door and the joy I feel from being in my dress with my hair down turns to dread. Top notices immediately and pads over to the door, mrrping at me and stretching in such a way her claws deploy. “Thanks, I don’t know if that will be necessary.” It will take me too long to change and to hide my hair. I decide to use the old “My parents weren’t home but suddenly are and are checking on me” technique.
I open the door just until the chain lock on the inside tenses, standing behind it in such a way that my dress and half my face is hidden. “Yeah?”
The individual on the other side extends their hand, which is adorned in ink depicting vine-covered bones, as if a garden had grown over their skeleton. It doesn’t just cover their hand, though, it extends up their toned arms in a full sleeve, and I notice a matching one on the other arm. The garden on that one is in full bloom, while the one they extend to me is dyed the warmth of Autumn. Growth and withering, Spring and Autumn, what poetic ink. Their long, black hair is tied into an extremely neat braid, and their eyes are a warm brown. Their build is that of someone whose first puberty was testosterone based, specced into the climber talent tree. Lean, balanced muscle. It takes for them to cough to make me realize I’ve just been quietly staring. “Hey, I’m Moss, I just moved in across the hall, figured I’d greet my neighbor.”
I shake their extended hand, the firmness of their grip surprising me. There is just the slightest peak of a binder underneath their tank top. “Kouzelna. It’s my last name. Cool ink.”
“Thanks. Cool hair. What’s your secret?” They are far too nice to simply shake off. Plus, what cis person is named Moss? Plenty of Rosses and Roses out in the world, but not enough Mosses. Which is a shame considering their importance in oxygen production.
“Magic.” Top bumps her head into my leg. Honestly, out of all the responses she could have picked to use for my dumb jokes, bumping me with her head is the sweetest one. Within moments, Moss is crouching down and extending a hand towards Top.
“Well, good thing you have such a sweet black kitten for a familiar.” Okay, who outed me? “What’s their name?” Top gives Moss the smell test before she approaches, enjoying the attention.
“You are petting Dame Topiary Forges Her Armies On Moons.” Top meows in confirmation. “Or Top for short.”
“Gorgeous name for a gorgeous cat.” Top purrs as Moss rubs her cheeks.
“Traitor.” Mrow. “You know why I don’t have guests over.” Mrrp. “I’ll give it a thought, I can’t promise anything though.”
Moss chuckles. “It’s cute how you’re pretending to understand her.”
“Sure, pretending.” I quickly glance at the clock, then back at Moss. “Well, it was nice meeting you, but I am rather busy.”
“Okay, sorry to disturb you, I’ll see you and Dame Topiary Forges Her Armies On Moons around.” They shoot me some finger guns and walk backwards into their apartment.
On some level, I wish they won’t, that they’ll completely forget me, that I’ll get to exist in the background. They were the first one to see me with my hair down, and although I did my best, I imagine they might have noticed the dress. I figure they wouldn’t out me, that they know how to keep things private, but I have no clue if they’ll lie on my behalf. If they’d help keep me in the background, in everyone’s periphery, so that I can avoid harm. And disappointment. And the pain of rejection. And the deep longing to break this isolation.
But how can you reach out? How can you casually approach someone, request their friendship, demand their time and energy? How can you build a community without the tools? How can you relate to others? Is it just about the terrifying ordeal of being known? Of baring your heart to others, opening yourself up to judgment in the hopes that whoever witnesses you finds you worthy of their time and company?
When you spend your life surrounded by liminal relationships, at best, it’s difficult, nigh impossible, to build permanent ones. It’s not that you don’t want to, or that others don’t want to, it’s that you can’t. You can’t approach them to ask. You don’t know how to ask. How do people connect? How can I become a fixture in Moss’ life so that I might try and come out and hope in my heart of hearts that they will have my back?
I can’t. They need to be the one to do the first move. Was them knocking at my door that move? Are relationships elaborate games of chess?
I hope not.
With the door closed and Top in her spot atop the PC tower I step towards the windows. I need to make the proper atmosphere for the ritual. Whoever ever heard of a witch performing a ritual in a brightly lit room? First go the blinds, then the curtains. I close up all of them in the apartment, the darkness imbuing me with a sense of determination. I am going to do this. There is no backing out now.
My next course of action is to appropriately decorate my bedroom. I light a few candles in these rather lovely glass containers that have a perforated lid so the light can get oxygen without the risk of it setting the place on fire. I put eleven in total around the room, each with a different color to represent a few groups of things: Four for the seasons (pink for Spring, green for Summer, orange for Fall, white for Winter), four for the times of day (A deep, dark blue for Night, a very pale blue for Dawn, purple for Dusk, regular light blue for Day), three for the phases of the Moon, they’re all silver but I carved the crescents and full moon into them.
Why not just five candles in a pentagram? Velesic is Slavic Magic, not Chinese magic. Elements based on the four states of matter. If I wasn’t such an anxious coward I would wear pentagrams as accessories to make conservatives faint, they’re perfect for that, but they’re not what I feel I need for this ritual.
With a few deep breaths, I close the door and prepare to lay down, Liz’s underwear clutched in hand. Top just barely manages to run into the room as the door closes. When I lie down on the bed, she sits down next to my head and meows.
“You know where not to aim for if I somehow end up possessed by an evil spirit while astral projecting.” She nuzzles my cheek in confirmation and I breathe out in relief, clutching onto the focus tighter.
The magic words always sound weird, and a few of the phonetic components are difficult to properly convey in English. “Shebet-Zpoyit-Zrkak-Yinya” is the best I can do in terms of transcribing it in a legible way. And as I speak those words, my eyes close shut and I feel myself jerked off to the side for but a moment.
And then I see.
i picked this up after reading chapter 1, read the whole thing, feel i should say that there is a voice in this story that i would like to see you use in a new story sometime, i know it was pulled together and all that, like you said. but, :) thanks for the good read.
Now I'm curious what you mean by voice in this comment, but thank you for picking it up and reading it.