The moon bathed the world in silver as a faint breeze blew through the open window. Seven white candles burned around the circle drawn on the wooden floor in chalk. A figure in a black robe knelt, lighting the eighth candle at the center. The scent of eucalyptus was strong in the air, along with sage and lavender. Somewhere, an owl screeched in the night.
The figure stepped outside the large circle, standing in a much smaller circle adjacent. This was lined with runes. Disrupting the stillness of the room, the figure suddenly sneezed loudly, bending over and bringing its hands to its face.
The hood fell, revealing her shiny black hair and pasty white skin. Her skin was smooth, and she wore no make-up save for her eyeliner and lipstick, black and deep burgundy respectfully.
"Ugh... I hate eucalyptus..." Serafine groaned, sneezing again. She reached into her pocket and pulled out several tissues to wipe her nose with. Then she returned to the task at hand.
She thought over the words in the sacred text she had painstakingly translated and completed. Several lines had been lost and she had done her best to complete them during the translation, based on the surrounding lines of text. But, after two weeks, she thought she had it fully translated to English.
Serafine cleared her throat before she began to recite the Words of Summoning she had read. The Words of Summoning was a poem consisting of three stanzas, the first meant to draw the attention of the beings of another realm, the second to ask one for what you desired, and the third what you would give in return. The first was a rigid stanza, used in every summoning, but the second and third were fluid, as you needed to rhyme what you desired and what you would give, with the lines of both stanzas. In her case, Serafine would stated she wanted 'The Ultimate Tool' and she would give 'Her very soul, however minuscule' for it.
The wind rushed around the room. Again, she heard the cry of an owl in the night as the candle flames flared. After the wind died down, Serafine looked at the empty circle before her for a moment or two, then giggled.
Shaking her head, she stepped out of the circle, going across the attic to close her window. She searched her pockets for the key to the attic, looking out at the fields. Wheat blew in the night breeze, and her mom's truck was parked in the driveway. She couldn't see her stepdad's car, so she figured they must still be at the theater.
"Ah, its so much fun dressing up as the character and acting out my favorite scenes, but cleaning up afterwards is such a drag," Serafine said to herself, finally finding the key in her pocket. Lumina's robe, the outfit of the witch in her favorite book, had an absurd number of pockets that the witch kept her ingredients for spells in. Serafine mostly kept pens and food wrappers in hers. The Ultimate Tool was a magic item that Lumina was hunting in the book.
"I'd help you pick up, but that'd be a pretty wasteful thing to Summon me for, wouldn't it?" Serafine whirled around, shouting in fright at the unexpected voice behind her.
There, standing nonchatantly in the circle of her attic, its candles now all blown out and only the circle itself giving off light as it glowed, was a tall woman in a tank top and black jeans. No, jeggings on second inspection. The woman was taller than Serafine, even without the two-inch heels the woman wore. Her orange, not red, hair was tied back in a sleek ponytail that hung to her middle back. But stranger than the fact the woman had somehow entered the room without going through the door, was the pair of white wings she had. Not the kind of cheap cosplay wings you might see on Halloween, but actual wings that flexed and rustled on her back.
Serafine felt her kneels buckle and she fell on her rear. A seemingly normal response to a not-so-normal situation. But, Serafine was thinking something far different. This woman looked exactly the way Angels were described in her book! The unusual hair color, the fluffy white wings! But how!?
