I’m losing control, the edges are fad—
You wouldn’t be losing control if you hadn’t thought that.
That’s paradoxical, the fading meant I was already losing it.
Thinking it ensures it. You could have affirmed the opposite.
And it would just… work?
Of course.

Something between a growl and a sigh came from Agatha; Not directed at her father, or even the spell being taught, but at herself. She was well aware of applied willpower as a component of many spells, but time and time again the basics came back to bite her. She needed to motivate herself, and chose to raise the stakes.

“So, let’s say I ace this before the end of the day.” She said, coming back to the lush summertime garden from the depths behind her eyelids. Her father normally opted to sit cross-legged for these lessons, but today he was sitting on his knees, indicating he would need to get up at a moment's notice. His slacks were all but certainly going to be stained green by the wet grass, then baked in by the sunlight, on the long walk back to the tall Victorian cottage they called home.

“End of the day is going to come a little sooner than expected, kiddo.” He said, glancing at the house. “I’ve got a meeting today, and we’ll need privacy.”

“Right, but I can practice on my own.” She chimed.

“You can. We’re not moving past this lesson until you nail it, though. We have a lot to cover before summer ends.” He said, letting the last two words land dryly like a skittering leaf over concrete. 

“When I nail it,” she said with playful confidence, “we can head to town to watch that new movie?”

Her Father, eyes rolling and laughing audaciously, ”You want to waste a trip into town on Michael Fassbender?”

“-and Jennifer Lawrence.” She snapped back, smile unwavering. “It can’t be any worse than the last one!” He smiled back.

“I guess we’ll see about that! This Friday, then.” He said, standing and brushing lawn scraps from his slacks. “If you can do it cleanly— No wavering, no hyperventilating,—”

Agatha took mock offense, “That’s a genuine technique!” She managed to get out before bursting into a giggling fit. Something about that slight smirk and green eyes peering over his little spectacles was just too much for her. Despite being blinded by her hysterics, she knew instinctively to reach out both hands. They were met with his own, and he pulled her up, still laughing, into a sunwarmed hug to seal the promise.

Back at the house, they chatted over breakfast. Where they both agreed was cinnamon; Agatha’s Cinnamon toasters, and Gerald’s Cinnamon raisin bagels. Where They disagreed, was the little dried grapes. Agatha swore them off after a nasty childhood run-in with a box of them and a bonus nest of insects inside. That grudge was put aside for today, as the topic of discussion was a video game she’d been playing. 

“...it's got the usual fetch-quest stuff, but the dialogue is fantastic. You can go anywhere and do anything, but if you break their secrecy laws then the snobs will instantly know." She said between bites of cereal.

"That sounds… all too familiar.” Gerald said with just a hint of laughing at something else's expense. “So, what then? What happens if you blow the big secret?”

"It's a three strike system. Doing some of the major quests can remove strikes. Getting three is game over, I guess? I’m not sure, it’s pretty easy to avoid so far."

"Wait. The safety of their species hinges on secrecy, and they let someone actually born yesterday blow their cover upwards of three times?"

Agatha, prioritizing the last few bites in her bowl over the reputation of her taste in games, replied half-heartedly, “It's a game, Dad. The secrecy mechanics aren't going to be as rigid as The Covenant.”

 

The Covenant she referred to was the ever-present boogeyman of the Price household: The Practitioner’s Covenant. Every formally taught spellcaster, occultist, or arcane researcher has at one point or another been entered into the dreaded promise. Sworn to secrecy for life, and unable to expose anyone to the world of the preternatural— either with purpose or gross negligence— upon penalty of banishment from the material plane. 

In this family, the word carried weight. Not authoritative weight, but baggage. It was used in the same tone as the name of a guest who should have said their goodbyes a week ago. The first thing that came to Gerald’s mind was Draconian. The first for his daughter was a string of several swears and the incantation for a rather colorful Hex. It complicated the lives of everyone caught in it, but it held a special place of contempt for the Father and Daughter.

Every practitioner may enter two people into the fold within their lifetime, with few exceptions. Gerald’s first was Agatha’s mother. His second would have been reserved for another child, if not for the incident that ended her life. By the time Agatha was seven, it became apparent that her Father couldn’t hide the truth from her any longer, and enacted his last remaining Covenant. A combination of trauma and knowing the largest part of his life was off limits to others made connecting with new partners difficult for him, and drove a wedge into every new relationship.

Agatha on the other hand would not be eligible to enact a covenant with anyone for at least another year, and currently had no intentions of choosing anyone in particular. She was well aware of how difficult the whole affair was for her Father, and had secretly considered offering to enact a covenant for his potential partners in the future. He of course, would object profusely, insisting she should save it for her own family or loved ones. In her heart of hearts, she was. It was only a matter of time before it would drive him to seclusion and sadness, Agatha believed. 

 

Sensing a need to keep the conversation from souring, Gerald added, “You’re right. That does sound fun though, I might log a few hours into it myself. What was it called again?”

“Oh it-” was all Agatha managed before the phone line rang from the living room. 

“I think that’s my contact. Rain check on the recommendation?” He said with sincerity, inching out of his seat and towards the phone. She nodded, slurping down the last of her breakfast. 

She couldn’t perfectly make out what was being said over the running water of cleaning dishes, but she did manage to learn their name and arrival time. Pendrake. Eleven forty-five. Their visit would almost certainly cut down on the time she had to practice. After washing her dishes, she poked her head around the corner and silently mouthed “Let’s get started! Come on!”.

Agatha endured two and a half hours of incanting, envisioning, and having her father invade her thoughts with equal parts praise and criticism. She knew it was unreasonable to believe she could master this projection technique in half a day, but part of her hoped that the gifted label that’s haunted her from adolescence would pull through. Instead, there was only the slow realization that this spell would require muscle memory and repetition with as few mistakes during practice as possible. 

Her Father’s words had a tendency to echo, beyond their telepathic link, and into her subconscious: Arcane problems often require mundane solutions. Those words sometimes bled into her own thoughts, and when they did, he noticed. Rather than be embarrassed, she had learned a long time ago to embrace these moments. It made him proud to have seen her taking these lessons to heart, and she wanted him to know it. 

 

How am I supposed to look around during the projection if I have to keep the rune circle drawn in my mind’s eye?

Aside from looking through the center? Just forget the circle is there.

Just forget it? Dad, every time I forget it my vision wavers.

There’s more than one way to envision a concept. Have you actually read the runes' meanings?

I… skimmed them.

Because you were more focused on imprinting the image than the meaning?

Another exasperated sigh just before she came back to reality. The morning dew had been baked off of the grass and the heat made her suddenly aware of the sweat running under her sundress. It was almost noon, and she knew what that entailed. Gerald was already on his feet, scrubbing away at the grass stains again, when they both heard the car door on the other side of the house. She solemnly nodded, giving her grace, and he returned it with a funny little nod and courtesy. 

Agatha followed from a distance as she needed some materials from her room. Before heading upstairs she caught a glimpse of the mysterious Mr. Pendrake. His lack of remarkable features bordered on obscenity, and it was likely by design. Prominent forehead, tight face, and a widow's peak. Blackish, brownish, blondish hair; thinning, but functional, and just enough for his crew cut. Stone gray eyes, and a nose that looked like it had only just healed from boxing match injuries this decade. At least I can recognize Hugo Weaving in a crowd, she thought as she left the view of the banister. 

Turning Sixteen meant a lot of changes for a young woman. Maturity came with change, and for Agatha that meant scraping off all but three of the glow-in-the-dark stars from her ceiling and walls. Her baby-blue wall trims had been darkened to a midnight Navy, and the oak wood finish had been retouched to a faux mahogany. Her desk was orderly, but certainly lived in. It contained her research, both mundane and arcane, as well as her deepest secrets. One of those secrets would need its batteries replaced, she reminded herself, and pulled out a sticky note to scrawl Batteries! In her messiest handwriting. 

She fished for her key from the depths of her bookbag, finding it in the usual sewn-in hidden pocket. The key fit to a rather bulky drawer that contained her more overtly mystic paraphernalia. Inside, was a well worn encyclopedia titled Hecate Providentia and flipped to the appendix. Notes were scrawled, and arcane symbology was carefully aligned so as to not cause a reaction on the page. 

It wasn’t long before she had a functional breakdown of the Hex phrases embedded in the rune circle. Translating the intended meaning wasn’t immediately clear however, as many of these symbols had several associated phrases as well as accent marks that still needed to be applied. Agatha cracked her knuckles and got to work. 

“Looks like the two of you are settling in quite nicely here, Jerry.” Said Mr. Pendrake in a vaguely elsewhere drawl. Gerald flinched at the nickname he’d dredged up, but tolerated it. They had a history, and that name was acceptable in another time. It was one of the few points of familiarity he shared with the man, and he could afford that much when he’d saved him from one fate after another.

“Thank you, Bill. It’s a lovely home, and we’re grateful for the opportunity to be stationed here.” He said, trying to make eye contact with the man that seemed to have his eyes on everything. 

They were sitting in the living room, sipping coffee opposite each other. In typical man-in-black fashion, Mr. Pendrake asked for his coffee to match his attire, and no sugar. Mr. Price opted for a caramel macchiato blend with heavy cream, and made no effort to hide his enjoyment of it, but the smiles were solemn still. He found it hard to show emotion around this man, as if to do so would cause the machine running Mr. Pendrake to fail their Turing test.

“As you know, our group understands the difficulties associated with finding clients for your branch of work.”

Oh boy, here we go Gerald exclaimed between a sip and a small sigh. 

“...That is to say, this is how the company understands things. I know you better than that. You’ve done plenty to advertise your services. You’ve met the clients. The issue is, you aren’t taking their deals, Gerald.” 

This markedly accurate accusation left him feeling uncomfortable in his own recliner. Gerald shifted slightly, and put down his cup. “I can’t justify working with some of these people, Bill. I’ve only got two rules. No doomsday cults, and no human sacrifices.”

Mr. Pendrake took a pause, respectfully. “That’s admirable Jerry, it really is. But where on that spectrum did the Society of Sl’zin fall?”

“Doomsday. They can’t go three sentences without blessing, damning, or imposing the ‘inevitable singularity’ on something.” Said Gerald somewhat apologetically.

“That’s their prophecy, not their prerogative. Are you sure this doesn’t have to do with their religious affiliations?”Said Bill, perhaps too comfortable in his assertion by the look on Gerald’s face. 

“This isn’t religious discrimination, Bill. I just don’t want this information being used for anything… dangerous.” He said, realizing half way through that it still very much resembled prejudice. 

“I’m not here to reprimand you. Infact, I’m here with an opportunity, Jerry. Regardless of your reasoning, you’re right that these other groups haven’t been a good fit for you. They don’t require the scope or the perfection your research methods employ.”

Gerald was taken aback. He was sure this whole meeting was going to be a warning that his sponsorship was waning, and that he needed to pick up the pace. As usual, Bill had come through for him with a golden parachute of some kind. 

“...and your mystery client does?” He said, picking his macchiato back up for what he knew would be a long sales pitch.

Meanwhile, Agatha was busy arranging runes on note cards around her bed. She sat at the center, peering over each, one at a time. That one, ‘permit’ or ‘allow’... but this accent implies personal. Like, allowing passage?

Ancient runes such as these often posed a problem for Agatha. It was as if they were too perfect. They could be read clockwise, counterclockwise, and she could even string the runes together in a pentagonal star and get a coherent thought from them. Hecate really knew what she was doing, mused Agatha. 

The meaning was slowly revealing itself, but part of her wondered if decompiling this rune circle was really worth the effort. Her father seemed to be hinting that it was key to keeping her focus, but she wasn’t entirely convinced. This could be a waste of valuable practice time, but she was too deep in and too invested now. 

One of the runes in particular caught her eye. Perpetual. Except it was embedded in another rune, one that was harder to discern. It looked like pride, but that translation was far too strange for the rest of the rune. Her trusty lexicon surely had the answer. Embedded some four hundred pages in, the rune for Pride was there, but it wasn’t the same. What Agatha mistook for accents appeared to be integral marks to the rune.

Luck seemed to be on her side, as it took relatively little time for her to find the actual rune based on the missing marks. The answer gave her some pause. Ego. Perpetual Ego. Immortal soul. 

The implications of what this Hex was had sunk in. This projection wasn’t merely taking her sight elsewhere… it was transposing her soul elsewhere. The revelation was exciting, albeit haunting. The runes on their little cards were practically seared into her eyes now. They recited a poem that could be read any which way, and she let the hum of her incantations be the supporting instrument in the choir of truth. The lights grew dim under her eyelids. The circle was drawn, emblazoned in crimson light. The swirls of purple and orange in the dark adhered to the shapes, and became a gateway. 

 

Her essence coalesced on the other side. When the white horizon faded, she was left standing just where she had intended to arrive: the banister of the stairs. Below, she could see her father sitting patiently, while the well dressed man was trying to convince him of something. She could only make out words in between wavering focus, but somehow this was still much clearer than any attempt before. 

“Their track record is just stupendous. They match or exceed rival offers. They always pay a portion in advance. Jerry, they’re a milk run. The sweetest deal you could ever hope for.” The man was clearly at the closing stage of making his point. 

Her father looked weary, but not unconvinced.”Bill, you know my concerns. How can I be sure they’re ethical when no one knows anything about them? Where did they get all this money? What is the research being put towards?”

Gerald fidgeted in his seat again, having ran out of coffee to sip relatively recently. Mr. Pendrake was trying not to let his disappointment show. He stowed the look, and in its place, took out an orange pamphlet from the inner folds of his suit. 

“What I’ve told you is everything they’ve told me in person. This is the rest.” He said, as he slid it across the table, astral signing to get it the rest of the distance across. 

Gerald put down his cup, and picked up the little orange nuisance. He flipped through several pages, then gave a look somewhere between a scowl and an apology. 

Agatha wondered what could have made her father so upset, and decided to get a closer look. Moving through the air, she stuck close to the ceiling, peering down at the words over his shoulder. ‘We accept stewardship…. Power… what is best.’ 

Yeah these guys sound like Grade A twats, she thought. Gerald responded to her thought with a sudden shock, then peered around for the source. 

“Something wrong?” Bill said, picking up on the sudden disturbance, but not the cause. 

“No, no I… something about this reminded me that I need to have a talk with my daughter. About language.” He said, the last portion under his breath.

Agatha went wide eyed, and backed her spiritual form away.

“Daughter…? Oh. Oh I see.” Said Mr. Pendrake in a manner that seemed to indicate that he had to stop himself from following up with, ‘well I don’t understand any of that stuff but I hope your kid is happy’. He started to get up, adding, “Well Jerry, I just want you to think it over. Do your due diligence on them if you have to, but I hope you’ll take the job. I’ll let you mull it over, OK? It was good seeing you.”

With that, the two men shook hands, Gerald patted his shoulder, and Bill was off. Wasting no time whatsoever, Gerald immediately went to the kitchen, pamphlet in hand and placed the orange ball of now crumpled paper directly on top of a pile in the trash bin. Still turned around, he uttered “We need to talk about privacy, Agatha.”

Her vision went dark, and she crashed backwards onto her bed, her note card pile notwithstanding. A short moment later, her father could be heard coming up the stairs. The sound was deliberate, but in the way that someone knocks on a window after already making eye contact with someone on the other side. 

 

“You can come in.” She said, choosing not to wait for the perfunctory knock. There was a pause, then the door creaked open. The sound of a chair being pulled out from her desk occurred while her eyes stayed glued to the royal blue bed canopy above. 

“Did I not make it clear that I needed that meeting to be private?” He started, waiting for a response.

Agatha sat up, slowly and lethargically. “I had a breakthrough with the spell. I thought I could come down and show you-”

“And show me what you thought about the clients he was proposing? Do you have any idea how embarrassing that would have been if Bill had heard that? Your thought forms are audible in that state, Agatha! I’m just thankful he was out of earshot. That man is one of the few people still looking out for me. We would be in a lot of trouble if not for his intervention.”

Agatha rejected the shame of admitting her wrongs, and gave in to the knee jerk reaction instead. “So you’re taking the assignment after all? All that talk and you’ll still work for a cult if the price is right?”

The wound ran deep. Gerald Price was a man of transparency whenever possible, and he wore that hurt. Before Agatha could utter an ‘I’m sorry’, he took in a deep breath and began, “As a matter of fact I am not taking the assignment. Instead I’ll be spending the next two weeks doubling over my efforts to find a new client because I’m too bothered at the idea. Not for my own moral principles, but for yours.”

“It’s tough. I try not to blame your mother’s passing on her affiliations with that faith. But I feel it. I’ve noticed you do, too. I never wanted you to grow up with that kind of bias. But I also didn’t want you to think I would repeat the same mistake twice. Getting too close to some cult. The thought of my work putting you in danger is a fear I live with daily. It may not be entirely reasonable, according to Bill, but it’s there.”

 

His daughter’s face was on the verge of tears. He hated doing this, and decided to wrap this up as quickly as he could. 

“So no, I’m not waiting for the right price. It goes without saying that my work is going to complicate any possible plans for Friday.”

“-But you said…!”

“I also said to afford us privacy for that meeting. Regardless, I won’t have any time to head to town. I can’t justify not working and rewarding this. I’m sorry, Agatha. “

 

Wordlessly, he slid the chair back into place, and left the room. She sobbed for an age. She wished desperately that she hadn’t said that. She also wished he hadn’t been so accurate; she really did despise the thought of another cult entering their lives, if even from a professional distance. 

 

Despite having relatively few memories of her mother, she knew some great treasure had been snatched away from her by malevolent forces in the shape of some farce religion. The mere act of someone admitting to worship of an ethereal entity caused her eyes to sharpen in response. Her feelings felt justified on the matter, but her father’s perspective came creeping back every time, asking her to consider the ramifications of her prejudice. She came back empty handed each time. No lexicon would reveal this truth to her. 

 

After some time, she sat upright and remembered the runes that lay about her. If she couldn’t make it up to her father, she could at least complete the lesson on her own. An hour of repetition finally yielded the clearest projection she had experienced thus far, choosing to manifest in the yard. The crickets were chirping loudly this time of the year, and the moon was poised to bathe the house in dim light from overhead. It was more real in some ways than seeing through her own eyes.

Just then, one of the lights in the house came on. The kitchen. Agatha allowed her projection to float on inside, and meld through the walls. The light was on, but no one was inside. She could hear footsteps moving away from the kitchen. Oh, Tuesday. Garbage day, she mused. 

Suddenly remembering what her father said about audible thoughts, she took a quick look around the corner. No one in sight. She wasn’t concerned with being caught per se, it just seemed to her an awful look to be caught creeping around again directly after the last incident. Just before she decided to call it quits, she noticed something about the trash. It was still full, but one key item was missing: the orange pamphlet. 

Gerald could be heard rounding the corner, so she hid in the ceiling. When he got there, he took a double take, then tied off the ends of the bag and tossed it over his shoulder. Agatha watched him use the front door and heard the garbage being dumped into the outdoor bin, then rolled up to the curb for the remote pickup service. Before he could get back, she ended the projection. 

She was overwhelmed with questions and vindication. Did Dad keep the pamphlet? Did he ever intend to reject the offer? Was I right? Even if I was, am I right to feel this way? Her head was decidedly not ready for this, exhausted by the events of the day. She fell asleep then and there, surrounded by ancient runes. Somewhere in her dreams, those questions faded into obscurity, then blossomed into a chorus of chants. The voices wiped away her thoughts, and posed an entirely different question: Quo. Vadis. Mea. Perpetua. Ego.

Where are you headed, my immortal soul?