The next part involved supplies. It was a laundry list that could have been ordinary for any kind of hike. Except this hike was happening at night. Midnight to be precise. On August 1st, the night of the first full moon. The night that was marked by ancient people as Lammas, the first of the Autumn feasts. But I didn't know that at the time and I really didn't care. I was just doing as they had told me.
You will need a candle, she had said, as she fleeted around the edged of the mirror frame, and a knife to slice it in two. Two candles now, that had been one. The one I placed in front of the mirror. The other, I slid in my pocket. Next was the bottle. Full of ice cold water, straight from the fridge. I poured it over my hands, my feet, my head. That was for purifying, they had said. Apparently taking a normal bath wasn't good enough. But then again, they have a lot of funny rules when it comes to this kind of stuff. Like making sure all the water fell on some kind of dirt. I just used a potted plant. That would do, right?
Next came the lighter, lighting the candle in front of the mirror, I slid it into my pocket next to the candle half. Then I took the water bottle and filled it with water from the tap. Back in front of the mirror she told me, now hold the water over the flame and pass it through it thrice. Thrice? Really? Who says that anymore? Why not just three times? But I did and it changed color, turning an amber gold. She seemed to approve.
You're a fast learner for a boy, she sniffed, even though in my time we did not let boys take the walk. I asked her why not but she wouldn't say. Instead she ordered me more (pour some out into a cup, its called a libation) and then curled into the mirror with silver tendrils. Sometimes I wished my grandmother had never given me the mirror. But not tonight, tonight it was finally going to pay off. All the months and months of befriending the girl who appeared in the reflection, peaked around corners in the mirror at me.
I walked into the kitchen and grabbed the final thing required. A piece of bread. She had said it should be fresh baked but this was the best I could do on short notice. I walked down the stairs and out the door but as I was about to close it I heard a soft sussurus on the wind. I waivered. She appeared in tendrils of silver.
You cannot leave yet, she spoke to me in haunting underwater echoes, you must drink of the bottle in your hand, so that you may have protection. I didn't realize I would need protection, but I took a swig anyway. Whatever the water had turned into it tasted very much like the rum and raisin pie my mom had always made when I was young. But it was much less sweet, with the force and the burn of a thousand fires tickling my tonsils and burning down my esophagus to go lie in my stomach like a sliver of molten led glowing at my core.
Now you are safeguarded until you reach the stones, she said and was gone in her tendrilly way, as I moved away from the door and down the road. It was a familiar road, but as all things take on a haunted look in the pale contrasting light of the full moon, I now found this road to be omniously chilling. I stepped on anyway.
The air was motionless, no wind to make the leaves scratch along the concrete. Which made it sound a million times louder when I stepped on one of the crunchy ones. But there wasn't time to stop and freak out properly. I knew where they wanted me to go. I had known somehow, even before they had told me. There would be the ridge and the blackberry bushes and the old stones sitting on top of each other on the trail that ran on the ridge above the houses. I had been there a few weeks before when the very first blackberries had come into fruit. Tonight the air would be heavy and warm with their sweet perfume.
But my thoughts were interrupted by the voice wheezing beside me from the thinnest air as it breathed, In ancient times we would go up in hordes. Thousands and Thousands of us would go and make a bonfire on the hill and we would drink the water of life and we would dance naked under the stars and the bright silver moon. But that was a long time ago and now only we ghost are left to walk with you up the hill, it wheezed as it flew by. To anyone else it looked like a dragonfly. Though of course real dragonflies don't fly around at night. Not like these. They rose around me, Thousand and Thousands of them as I kept walking to the cul de sac where the road ended and the trail would begin.
Beware the Hound of God who guards the way, breathed the ghosts as they flitted away on false dragonfly wings. There was no hound in sight. Nothing but a porche parked on the curb next to where the trail started. It sat and its glossy coat of paint radiated sleek sharpness against the pale black of night. It was a whole other shade of black. A black that could cut life a knife and still gleam with hunger.
"Hound of God you say?" I whispered to the still night.
