Mairi was my hero.
When I fell and scraped my knees, it was always Mairi who ran to my side—It’s just a scratch, Gracie-Lou. Let me kiss it better. When boys called me four-eyes and spat at my feet, she told me they were nothing, a blip in the road to greatness. When Mom’s latest boyfriend leered at my budding breasts, she spent the night camped in my room—it’s too cold in mine, your bed’s so warm. Mairi was my big sister, the one person in the whole world who would sacrifice her own life for the sake of mine.
She wore gothic prints and flowing lace, her arms clinking with silver bangles that covered tattoos and scars. Our black cat, Isis, would curl on her lap like a witch’s familiar, while she prayed to the moon and the stars for Mom to stop drinking and remember who she was.
Every Saturday, the three of us would huddle on the couch, eating toffee popcorn and watching Disney movies, trying to hold Mom together. We were never very good at it. She loves us, Gracie-Lou—she’s just not well.
Mairi died when I was fifteen.
Her best friend’s car slammed into a tree with such force that it crumpled like an accordion. High on drugs or drunk, it didn’t matter. She was gone.
***
I dedicated my life to bringing her back. I researched cultural and religious beliefs across the world, searching for the uniting threads, the pieces of something real. Scouring the Internet, I joined Discord channels, Reddit threads, and dark websites, looking for the power behind the nonsense.
At times, I was convinced I’d gone crazy. My mind was rotting away before my eyes, unable to sustain life without my sister watering the soil and trimming the dead-heads. I sliced my arms to bind my soul to my body, unwilling to give up until she stood by my side.
I found a trader in Egypt who was willing to part with an eldritch text for the cost of my dignity and the last of my savings. The book was bound in ancient leather, soft and warm like freshly skinned flesh. There were no words on the spine, and the front cover was embossed with a symbol that looked like an Egyptian ankh with feathered wings. A clasp locked the tome closed, but when my thumb brushed the metal, it snapped open, a sea parting ways to welcome its master.
Its pages were smooth vellum, thick as card. The text within was handwritten in a rolling script, the ink as black as the shadows beneath a young child’s bed. The illustrations were blood red, edged with black, detailing the precise placement of every element required for the invocations contained within.
This tome was a guide to breaching the veil between life and death. Speaking to loved ones, touching them, drawing them back—all were possible, if you sacrificed enough in return.
If it worked, I would hear my sister’s voice again.
***
After weeks of preparation, I cleared a space on the attic floor. I ground chalk with my own blood, etched overlapping circles and interlocking runes upon the dusty wood. Sacrifices were placed in predetermined spaces, sweeping across the circles. Some were straightforward: a spider, a mouse, a bird. Others were more personal: a cup filled with menstrual blood; old strands of Mairi’s hair; a tissue soaked with tears.
My voice faltered as I started the chant. Doubt saturated the words, weakening their power. I closed my eyes and pictured her blue eyes meeting my own.
This had to work.
I would not spend my life without her.
The syllables spilled from my lips; the words holding no meaning to me, but the intention as clear as a summer sky. I demanded to be heard.
A whirlwind rose from the floor, encasing the sacrifices within. It howled like a wolf calling to the moon. The sickly taste of almonds and wet rust clung to my tongue. Hair flew across my face, stinging my eyes.
A box clattered to the ground, spilling glittering Christmas decorations that tumbled around my feet. Isis raced out of the shadows and darted through the debris, yowling as she ran.
No! You shouldn’t be here.
Her claws cut into the wooden surface, her eyes wide and teeth bared. She barreled past me on the way to the attic’s ladder and was swept up in the maelstrom.
I reached out to catch her, but my hand met empty air. I was as helpless to save her as I was to save Mairi.
Isis’s body flew in a corkscrew and then slammed to the ground in the center of the circle. The wind froze, leaving silence in its wake. Her tiny body was splayed across the runes, spatchcocked. An unseen force stretched her limbs. Ligaments and bones popped, accompanied by a stomach-churning wail. Light shot forth from her body and rose into the air.
I could hear them. Millions of voices all clamoring for my attention. They screamed in my ears. Sang long-lost lullabies. Begged me to send messages, to finish tasks, to set things right.
I heard a distant meow, and a paw pressed against my leg. The others poked and prodded at me, hundreds and thousands of fingers tapping and pulling at my skin. Set us free. Bring us home. Do not come here. Run, Grace, run!
I was too overwhelmed to speak. I curled into a ball on the floor; the book clutched to my chest. My body trembled with fear, my heart fluttering as I gasped for air. I was trapped by their grasping fingers, lost in their desperate voices.
Please! I begged. Please, let me go!
And then, it stopped.
For a moment, I hesitated, too scared to face what I had done. I inhaled a breath, unclenched my hands, and raised my head. The room was bathed in a soft white light that glowed like the moon. It hovered above Isis’s corpse, expanding and contracting, a living, breathing creature, waiting and watching, expectation filling the air.
The incantation hadn’t worked the way it was supposed to—the ghosts shouldn’t have been able to break through without being summoned. Did the living sacrifice change things? My throat choked with tears. I wanted to pull Isis free, hold her in my arms, but I didn’t dare breach the circle.
An hour later, the gateway still hadn’t closed. Sometimes it moved, twisting at the edges like someone was pulling at the boundary. Sometimes there were voices, too distorted, too quiet, to decipher.
I yelled. I paced. I smashed the glittering baubles that Mairi used to hang from our tree. I cried like a child, my stomach clenched in a knot at the thought of trying to sleep without Isis stretched out across my bed.
But my spell had proven the veil existed.
The door was there.
Maybe I just didn’t do enough to connect to her. The book was written thousands of years ago. Billions of souls had died since then—perhaps Mairi’s voice was lost in the storm; perhaps I needed to offer more to pull her free.
The ball of light pulsed in front of me. There were no answers there. It was up to me to find a way.
I traced another circle, encasing the runes I had already drawn. The new circle was lined with fresh blood, drawn from my wrist. Mairi’s favorite bracelet—imbued with the magic of one sister’s love for another—was thrown into the center, where it landed beside what remained of Isis.
The book heavy in my hands, I spoke once more.
I called for Mairi. I called for Isis. I willed them to cross the veil and return to the living realm. Please, come home to me.
The light expanded beyond the circles. It swallowed my body and burned through my nerves, like lightning melting glass. My mouth was filled with rotting maggots, crawling across my tongue and clogging my throat.
Hundreds of glowing, phantom fingers pulled at the portal’s edges, tearing a hole in the light and forcing arms, legs, and heads through the opening. They spilled forth and filled the space until there was nothing but the impressions of people, overlaid on each other, a sea of ghosts crying for freedom.
Feel what we feel.
We won’t go back.
They hated us all. Wanted to be us. Desperate to bathe in the sun once more.
They rose above my head in a torrent of raging life. I shouted Mairi’s name, begged her to come to me. A soft hand brushed my cheek. I’m sorry, Gracie-Lou. Then the writhing swarm shot apart in an explosion that made my eyeballs vibrate, dispersing out into the world, and returning the attic to darkness.
***
The invocation had drained the strength from my body. I crawled to the window and looked out onto the midnight street. The air echoed with screams, and the streetlights flickered like candles.
A low mewl drew my attention back to the circle. Isis opened her eyes and wrenched her body back in place, one limb at a time. She sat there, in the circle, watching me. When I stroked her head, she stayed motionless, as unresponsive as a doll. You’ll be okay, baby. You’ll be back to normal in no time.
I climbed down the ladder and stumbled to my room. My phone was lying on my bed where I had left it. There were already stories on my news app of mysterious deaths and apparitions laying siege in the darkness.
I found Mom lying on the floor of her bedroom, face frozen in a wide-eyed rictus. Her latest boyfriend was dead in the bed.
What have I done?
I should have felt guilty. All those lives rested on my shoulders, and a reckoning would surely be due one day. But Mairi was out there somewhere, waiting for me. Hope warmed my chest at the thought of hearing her warm laughter one more time.
If I could bring her spirit back, there must be a way to make her whole again. One step closer to my goal—all I needed was the right spell.
I packed my books into a backpack and headed out into the night. Isis padded at my feet, a silent shadow, her eyes unblinking.
I’m coming, Mairi.
