Familiar Incantation
Trond E. Hildahl
Don’t forget the dagger, David.
Newton’s words are camera flashes in my mind. A curved blade, hilt worked with silver. A circle of blocks at perfectly spaced intervals, sans one. The dagger in the missing spot. A warm sensation of belonging and protection. That last impression signifies me, David Brimley, fourteen-year-old witch.
“Shoot.” The rest of the ceremonial tools are in front of me. Or at least, what a fourteen-year-old can scrounge from household items: chalk, goblet, candle, and wand. Yeah, I am missing a dagger. I close my eyes, trying to recall where I’d left my penknife. “Do you know where I left it, Newton?”
Like I follow you around all day.
There is that; it’s hard to see much when you are rooted in a planter in my room. Newton is
