***
Wind
I got in
with a spell
Sliptide told me.
I got in
shielding myself with a summoning circle around my knees
with runes for
sanity,
speed,
and
resolve.
I got in,
muttering under my breath,
“Clarak, slar,
helva garden
rill tiv lo wisphel
li o caral o
tara car
y
(open, minds,
come to me
sever my awareness
from this body
until the sun falls
show me
the ethereal worlds)”
***
Qind
I got out
with sunset
stretching over the cerulean trees
and had
no clue
what happened in between,
but my head hurt
and I vaguely recalled
a voice
in my mind
asking me
why I couldn’t move.
“Well your spellcasting’s strong enough it brought you back,”
a voice said.
I blinked at the air.
Sliptide’s voice rumbled
across the clearing again,
“You lay there thrashing for half the morning
then fell completely still. Barely breathing.
I was going to boil your body
after it got dark
but it seems
you’re back.”
My fingers and toes tingled, and my lungs ached
like they’d met their ex Air again.
“I guess I am back,” I rasped,
and sat up, scooting across the shielding runes in the dirt
toward a rock
to sit against.
Then I vomited.
“I remember almost nothing.” I wiped my mouth
and rubbed my palm in the ferns.
Sliptide chortled, “And you can speak! My, my,
you’re back and your mind’s not broken.”
“I think someone spoke to me,” I said. “But I’m not sure.”
Sliptide waddled toward her den
in the hillside,
tail swishing. “Was this enough
to convince you
to keep astral projection
as a one-time venture,
or are you going
to keep trying?”
“I think,” I said,
“I’m going out to gather some things
then I’m trying again.”
“Well,” she said,
“I’m going to bed.
If you lose your head
I’m still soaking your bones
in acid
and if you do make it
and try to stay for a thousand years
I might feel like eating you
right before your neglected body dies.”
Jordyn Saelor 