The nightjar alighted beside me, shifting into the shape of a wild cat and picking me up in her jaws. I didn’t notice I was falling until I hit the ground and rolled roughly. We could not survive long here without the clear spiritual focus the night imbued us with. But as her teacher the guilt would be mine.ĭawn was near. If she drained too much their spirit flame would be extinguished, and they would die. Ejiro unintentionally drank in life energy and spirit consciousness. Before a coven found her we would be back to teach her and bring her into the fold. She would explore the new realm we had opened her to. We sifted up through the thatch, leaving the newly awakened one floating quietly about the house. ![]() She had not yet mastered the art of fastening and holding without feeding. I glanced at Ejiro, She was flush and glowing faintly, without intention having drained energy from those she subdued. My spirit energy was depleted, a danger especially as I rarely fed on others. The newly freed form floated gently, looking at us curiously. Again I pulled, and the body’s grasp slipped away. ![]() Her body heaved, its hold on her loosening. Her body convulsed and she held back, frightened at the pull to cross over, though this crossing was only a hair’s breadth width, not the faraway world of the ancestors. I slipped my hand into her chest and cradled the pulsing spirit heart of her being. She tossed and turned, feeling the energy of the other side but unable to wake to it. I drew close to the one we were here to help, a girl of eleven. In the morning they would say they had been pressed and they would shiver. She fastened on their sleeping forms and they choked, gulping for air, struggling vainly to wake. She nodded and threw a shroud over the home’s sleeping occupants, to keep them still until our work was done. We sailed swift and sure, alighting on a palm tree beside a darkened house. We flowed along it, shifting shapes - I an old brown owl. I had established a connection with her in the physical world and could see her soul cord faintly shimmering. Those souls connected to us pulled the most, sending out strong lines of power. Outside the protection of my hut we felt the pull, the dreams, the thoughts of sleeping normals. A power that was intoxicating.Įijiro moved towards the door. We floated, translucent and unbound by gravity. I took hold of her hands and invoked the deep black sleep that let us travel to the other side. We moved freely among it all - the souls of sleeping humans, shining shapeshifters, headless spirits drifting along upside down. I rubbed the ori ointment on her eyes to ease the transition and make visible the other realm – the beauty of it along with the denizens that drive normals mad with fright. She was still learning to manoeuvre the delicate currents of the other side. Like other old world witches I was glad to recruit from family, where they were cut closest to us. Shy and quiet, she was my sister’s child. I had chosen my apprentice for her goodness. I didn’t need much, being a creature of the night. The kerosene lamp hung from a nail on the wall, its flickering yellow light the only illumination. We sat in my hut, bare as it was, Eijiro and I, on the even barer floor. The call of this spirit sang the music of its soul to me. ![]() With a sigh, I leapt from the tree, fell free, and caught one of the power lines that led to a human spirit. And old Mama Ishaka was on the other side of them. The hoot of an owl reminded me there was work to be done, battles to be fought - silent, undeclared, but raging all the same. The murmurs of glowing spirits mixed with the chitter of living insects. I stood balanced at the top of the oldest palm tree, the one that grew at the south end of the village. The Witching Hour Ekpeki Oghenechovwe Donald
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