Wicked

wooden beads
Italian red/gold finish

$61.00

ending over the parchment, carefully forming each letter, each word, each sentence, Caery gripped her hand, holding the pen steady, lest a drop of ink mar the page.

Words hold power, she remembered in her father’s voice.

Names hold the life of their bearer, verbs are as potent as the deeds they describe, adjectives hold true if you truly believe in them.

Father, she wrote at the top of the page, continuing counterclockwise with

Mother

Sisters

Life

Death

Love

In the centre she wrote:

Reverse the curse that binds me to you,
Destroy the spell you believe to be true,
Release the hold that should never have been,
Return to life the death I have seen.

Caery laid down her pen and picked up a small block of brown wax. She held her hand over the candle flame, teasing the fire, testing her strength, withdrawing almost immediately. Turning the wax over the flame, catching the melting drops on the block before it snuffed the candle out, she held it there until enough of the block was soft enough to use. Quickly she withdrew the block and, with a practiced hand, smeared the top left corner with wax, pressed a grayed and dust-soaked scrap torn from her work-dress into the center, and pressed the block again on top.

She folded the page into quarters, stuffed it into the exact center of her pressed herbal, and re-shelved it.

Done.