This piece was originally written for a vid-cast called Modern American Ink, a real-time writers group where writers met and critiqued one another's variations on a theme. The theme for this piece was "child protagonist," which I took to mean "teen witch."
This story was originally titled 'Pull,' but after some reflection and more recent edits, I decided 'Tether' better suited the theme and vibe.
"Get up."Letty struggled, pushed herself onto her elbows. Sharp, hot pain lanced through her side and she fell, chin cracking against the concrete floor, hot taste of copper gushing into her mouth."Letty. Get up."
Letty leaned over to spit. It looked black in the weak moonlight filtering past the barred windows.
"I'm trying," she gasped.
Her voice was hoarse. The pain in her side flared, but she managed to get to her knees, body curled forward with her palms pressed against the floor. Her hair was a tangled mess, matted on one side with what was probably dried blood. The room spun.
"Come on, Letty. It isn't that hard." The words were sharp with desperation.
Letty glared at the raven-haired girl in the corner. To the untrained eye her posture probably read as relaxed, but Letty knew her better; could pick out the tension in the straining line of her shoulders, the way she shifted her weight from the heels of her feet to her toes.
"Easy for you to say," Letty’s words were slow, interspersed with wet, shallow breaths."When did you turn into such a whiner?"
Letty made a high, jagged noise at the shock of anger that coursed through her, uncorking some hidden reserve of strength. She forced herself to her feet and flashed a rude gesture at the fading apparition.
"Right around the time you died, asshole," she said, raising her head as best as she could, but Esther was already gone.
Molly and Kara found her staggering down the road.
"Jesus, Letty!" Kara hissed, tucking her carefully into the backseat while Molly pushed the speedometer to previously unseen heights. "What happened?"
Letty coughed, something hot dripping from the corner of her mouth down her chin. Her voice was dry and cracked, scraping past her gritted teeth as she explained, "Witch hunters."
Molly met her eyes in the rear-view mirror, face gone ghastly pale.
"Witch hunters," she echoed, swallowing thickly, "like the ones that killed Esther?"
Letty nodded and slumped into the heat of Kara's body beside her. She was so tired. She was sure her friends had more questions, but they blessedly let the subject drop, leaving Letty to rest and watch the burning red glow of the tail lights on Molly's Jetta as they burned through the night.
Two cracked ribs, a concussion, and a broken wrist.
Her first day in the hospital, Letty mostly slept. She felt a hand brushing her hair out of her face a few times, but it was so faint she thought she might have dreamed it.
Her second day in the hospital, Letty's doctor made pointed comments about child abuse, asking how a sixteen year old got into so much trouble. Letty offered him a cool smile and assured him that her parents weren't around enough to beat her, anyhow; that she'd been cornered by some bullies on her way home from school and mouthed off when she shouldn't have.
Her third day in the hospital, Molly brought her a small burlap bag on a long piece of twine.
"Healing herbs," she explained, tying it gently around Letty's neck. Letty tucked it beneath her dressing gown and glanced to where Esther sat, watchful, in the corner.
Molly's gaze followed hers, settling on the empty chair. She turned back to Letty, frowning.
On the day of her release, Letty took extra time to pull her hair back, carefully applying makeup over any lingering bruises.
"What's with all the face paint?" Esther waved an all-encompassing hand at Letty from the other side of the mirror.
Letty pressed her lips together; opening them back up with a pop to make sure her Sweet Summer Strawberry gloss spread evenly.
"Some of us have reputations to keep intact." She dabbed some concealer over the blue-grey shadows beneath her eyes.
While she was tucking everything away in her purse, Esther rapped her fingers against the glass.
"The hunters came because you were getting close."
Letty's whole body went stiff, hair rising like someone had just done a jig over her grave. She didn't look up. After a long moment of silence she left the bathroom, not bothering to see if Esther had chosen to linger.
Letty had piles of books underneath her bed that had been steadily growing since Esther died.
She dug them all out, poring over the notes written in the margins—some hers, some belonging to witches of ages long past.
She was close, Esther had said, which meant she needed to keep looking.
She found it at two in the morning, a single, faded page in the back of an old, dusty grimoire. She dragged her shaking fingers over the words on the page and pretended that she wasn't crying.
"We can do it. All we need is a blood sacrifice."
Molly and Kara both flinched, shooting uneasy glances at one another.
"What?" Letty turned a glare on them.Kara spoke up first, stepping forward to peer over Letty’s shoulder at the page of the grimoire.
"Blood magic is usually bad news. We’re a small coven, and it's a little nerve-wracking. That's all." She leaned over, letting her shoulder brush against Letty's. "We all want Esther back."
Letty rolled her eyes, ignoring Kara's latter statement.
"The only people who are still afraid of blood magic are antiquated, doddering old witches who learned magic way back when they didn’t understand the system of balances."
She didn't have to say any name. They all knew who she was talking about. She probably shouldn’t be badmouthing their patron and teacher in such a manner, but Letty had never been one to hide her disdain for anybody, no matter how close to her they were.
"Besides," she slammed the grimoire shut and slipped it into the bag she had slung over one shoulder, "it's one tiny nick to the palm, not an entire human heart. We won't even need stitches."
She paused in the doorway of her bedroom to look at her fellow witches, her sisters.
"I’m doing this," she said quietly. "If you don’t want to come with me, I’ll understand, but I have to know. I have to try." Tears stung the corner of her eyes and her throat went tight."I...I saw Esther." She forced her eyes to floor, unable to watch her friends react, unwilling to see their wary eyes when they realized she'd gone around the bend. "At the hospital. She told me I was close, and I think this is it."
She startled at the sudden, heavy weight of an arm around her shoulders and looked up into Molly's grinning face.
"Well," Molly said. "What are we waiting for?" And she towed Letty out the door, Kara hot on their heels.
The cemetery had stopped being creepy right around the time Letty learned that she was one of the things that went bump in the night. Now it was mostly sad, so much of it empty and forgotten.
Esther's headstone was a brand new slab of gleaming white marble. Six months of slightly up-and-down weather had done little to dim its shine. Letty ran her fingers over the letters of Esther's name, corners of her mouth pulling upward.
"All right." She tossed her bag to the ground and turned on Molly and Kara. "I bribed Ivan to give us thirty minutes uninterrupted. He thinks we're drinking wine and having some kind of candlelit sisterhood vigil that may or may not involve dancing naked under the light of the moon and I didn't bother to correct him. We're working on a very limited time frame, so we only get one shot at this."
She searched their faces.
"Everybody still in?"
Molly nodded. Kara grinned.
Letty made quick work of the set-up: a small pentagram with candles at each of its points to represent different aspects of Esther's personality; a lock of Esther's hair in the center with a rough-cut garnet the size of Letty’s eye; herbs scattered in three counter-clockwise passes over the top.
She pulled a knife from her bag and held it before her. The entire thing was milky-white, carved of bone, with runes etched into the handle.
Archaic Latin had never been Letty's strongest suit, but she knew this incantation backwards, forwards, and upside down. It rolled off her tongue like smoke, coiling thick in the air and settling low over the scene. She could feel the magic drifting lazily around her ankles, sinking into the wet earth.
Letty drew the knife across her palm, passing it over so that Kara and Molly could do the same. Hand clenched into a fist, Letty reached out over the pentagram.
Blood fell in thick drops, muted thuds stark against the silence of the cemetery. In the distance, the wind howled.Molly held her hand out; then Kara, too.
Lightning flashed high overhead and the gauzy clouds snarled into a tight, dark knot. Letty closed her eyes and breathed the incantation once more.
The sky opened up. Letty chanted, her own voice indistinguishable from those of Kara and Molly beside her.
The world around them seemed limited to the icy wall of water that crashed relentlessly down. Letty’s arm was aching, as if it had been outstretched for hours rather than a few paltry minutes.
Everything smelled of Earth and o-zone, and the wind threatened to knock Letty off her feet with every pass.
Her pulse thundered in her ears, amplified by the blazing white rush of magic in her veins. It spun, dipped, and latched onto something.
Letty grabbed at the connection and pulled.
When Letty finally stumbled, falling to her knees in the sopping, slippery soil, a clumsy hand found hers through the rain, grasping so hard it hurt and running a thumb over her knuckles. It was a gesture she would know anywhere.
Letty laughed, loud and strong and bright. A pair of familiar arms wrapped around her.Letty sobbed and crumpled forwards, the arms pulling her in close and tight.
"They'll be more careful now," Molly tapped her toe against the floral rug in the massive sitting room of Letty's parents' McMansion. "Only hunters with a death-wish would dare to tangle with a proven necromancer."
"We could let them pass through?" Kara didn’t sound convinced by her own suggestion.
Letty wrinkled her nose.
"They came after us for no reason. We made no move on them or theirs. Somehow I doubt they’ll be content to just pass through."
Kara affected a put-upon sigh while she reached toward the spread of slumber party staples on the coffee table, but the up-tilt to her mouth gave away her amusement.
"I guess we'll just have to hunt them down and scare them off," she said, carefully shepherding a thick wedge of veggie delight deep dish over the white shag rug.
"Give them a taste of their own medicine," Molly added, approving.
Esther leaned over so that her entire body was half-draped over the back of the couch, half-draped over Letty, her cheek resting against the top of Letty's head. Molly mimed gagging. Kara kicked her in the shin.
"I've been meaning to test out my new crossbow," Esther said, and squeezed Letty’s hand. Letty squeezed back.
“Well, ladies,” Letty didn’t bother trying to hold back a smile as she raised her half-eaten slice of pepperoni in a toasting motion, "let's run these bastards out of our town."
"Here, here!" Molly said, reaching over with her garlic knot at the same time that Esther cheered, "Aye!"
Kara's emphatic, "Hell yeah!" was largely muffled by the mouthful of broccoli, mushrooms, olives, peppers, and cheese, but the sentiment came across clearly enough.
Esther clambered over the back of the couch, wedging herself between Letty and Kara, the latter of whom shuffled over with an irritated grunt. Esther tipped her head over to rest against Letty's shoulder and wiggled her arm through Letty's until they were more or less linked.
"Grab me a cinnamon stick?"
Letty arched an imperious eyebrow. "Get it yourself."
"Please?" Esther whined, sticking her bottom lip out in a comical pout.
Letty sighed, rolled her eyes, and leaned over to shuffle through the snacks until she managed to unearth a small, grease-stained box.
"The things I do for you," she said, settling back and handing the cinnamon stick over.
Esther fixed her with a sweet, shy smile.
"Yeah," she said. "I know."