Page 7 of Fatally Yours

“I promise you, it’ll work.”

“Don’t say that, dude. It’s disrespectful to the dead. ”

“This whole thing is disrespectful to the dead,” he retorted under his breath. As we continued, Wes put his arm around me.

“Are you okay with this?” he questioned. I sighed, keeping my eyes on the grass below.

“I just want him back,” I said. “Life isn’t the same.” He nodded and rubbed my shoulder reassuringly, releasing me from his grasp.

“I get it.” Just as we separated, we finally reached August. His headstone looked just as pristine as it did the day they put it in, only because I maintained it.

His parents were nice enough and did care about him, but they both left town after we graduated from high school.

There really was something about this town that made people want to leave.

Wes’ sister was gone, Mandy’s brothers moved out a few years ago, and my parents sped off the moment they could legally leave me.

We had to fend for ourselves, but at least we had each other.

It was tough, but things were finally looking up over the past year or two—until that fateful day.

Even after all this time, they hadn’t made an arrest. It was almost like he wasn’t a priority.

We circled his plot, and everyone stared at it in solemn silence. I felt my throat close as I crouched down, brushing my hand over his name etched in the stone. It was a sight I didn’t think I would ever get used to.

“God…” I muttered, feeling tears dot the corners of my eyes. Behind me, Mandy tossed her backpack on the ground and began to rifle through it. I stood up, and Wes grabbed my hand, giving it a comforting squeeze. After a few moments, she pulled out a carton of salt, making Scott raise a brow.

“What?” she said, cocking her head to the side. “Don’t give me that look.”

“You understand how bizarre this is, right?” he said. She lowered her eyes at him as her free hand balled into a fist.

“Shut up. You know it’s not the same without him.

I want things back to the way they were, too.

” A strange silence fell over us. There was nothing incorrect about her statement.

We all felt the tension and sorrow. The friction between Devin and me was uncomfortable.

He even raised his hand to me once, and Wes had to stop him before he did anything rash.

It was like we lost our heart. His voice no longer echoed through our gatherings, and the absence of music was stark.

Everything was different, and we all knew it.

“Okay, first, I need to put down a circle of salt. Make sure you stay where you are.” She began to wander around us, pouring the contents of the carton on the ground as she went. Scott eyed her.

“What’s that for?”

“I’m just following the instructions.”

“You’re gonna kill the grass,” Wes piped up. “Then we’re really going to be in trouble.” Mandy ceased pouring and pointed the carton at him.

“I’m gonna kill you if you don’t shut your trap,” she said. “Or this ritual will. So keep your questions for later unless you have a death wish, Wesley. ” Even through the glow of the flashlight, I could see his face go pink.

A grim silence fell over us as she continued. My stomach flipped as she completed the ring, enclosing us and his grave in the center. Were we really doing this? Was August looking down on us and laughing at our foolishness? Or was he looking up at us from…

My eyes pinched shut. I didn’t want to think about where he went after he passed—if he went anywhere at all. I was never sure what to believe. Heaven, hell, nothing—it all seemed meaningless when you left your loved ones. I only hoped that he was happy if he could be.

“This is important. Do not step out of the circle until it’s over,” Mandy said. We stayed silent, letting her work as she pulled out another set of items. A handful of candles were grasped in her hand. Most were white, but there was one that was a nauseating deep red.

She lined them around the rim of the salt until the only item left in her hand was the red one. She gave me a look and placed it in front of August’s headstone before taking out some chalk and drawing an inverted pentagram on his grave. The act constricted my throat.

His name illuminated like that while we did such a ghoulish thing made a slimy feeling crawl over me.

I couldn’t tell if I wanted to scream or cry, but I let it continue only because I was desperate, and desperate people did reckless things, like trying to bring someone back from the dead with a flea market black magick ritual .

She dug through her pack again, pulling out some herbs and powders that I hoped she had just obtained at the grocery store.

She sprinkled some pinches of each on a few candles, then she pulled a bundle from her pocket and lit the end, wafting it around in the air.

Still, we all kept our mouths shut, either stunned or dumbfounded.

Finally, she finished with the herbs and the bundle and snuffed it out on the top of the headstone, making me wince.

If this didn’t work, I would have to come back and scrub that and the chalk off once I finished melting down from disappointment.

My forehead began to feel damp, and I used the back of my hand to wipe away a bead of sweat crawling down my face.

My stomach felt like it was filled with insects, probably not unlike what August was experiencing right now.

I hoped that my legs wouldn’t give out, or I would slip into unconsciousness from the stress of this situation and break the circle.

Because if I believed this was going to work, then I should also think that the last thing I should do was disturb the salt, right?

“Okay, now make sure you stay in the circle, or we could be fucked,” Mandy said. All three of our heads bobbed as she went for her pack again. Reaching inside, she revealed an old hand mirror resembling something from long ago.

“Now I have to break a silver mirror over the grave,” she added. Once more, we shared an unsure glance. All three of them looked at me as if asking for my approval.

“G-go ahead,” I croaked. Was that my voice?

It couldn’t be. It was much too weak. I didn’t sound like myself at all.

Mandy held the mirror out in front of her and used a stone grasped in her fist to shatter the glass.

The shards fell right in the center of where he was buried.

My heart leaped to my throat as the moonlight glinted off the fragments.

She set the remnants of it over the shards and then pulled a weapon from her pocket. It wasn’t anything we could get locally. This was a dagger—something you only saw in bizarre occult movies when dumb teenagers and young adults did stupid rituals like we were doing now.

“Damn, I don’t want to cut myself,” Wes exclaimed, drawing me from my thoughts .

“Quit being a baby.” Mandy held out her hand and drew the blade across her palm in a swift motion. Beads of red oozed from the wound as she held her fist out, sprinkling her blood over the broken mirror. “Now you guys do it.”

Scott took it first, wiping the knife on his pant leg before repeating the action. His lip twitched when he did so, but he stayed silent as he walked over and dripped above the mirror. Wes did the same before the weapon was passed to me.

I stared at it momentarily, feeling like it was shoved into my gut, before finally taking it from him.

I could see the hint of scarlet along the tooth of the blade, making my stomach flip as I wiped it on the hem of my shirt.

No longer was the pale color of my shirt pristine.

Now, it was stained with the blood of my friends.

Taking in a shuddered breath, I finally lowered the knife to my palm, curling my hand around it as it pulled it from my grasp, making me hiss.

It made me feel pathetic to know I was the only one who made a noise of protest when I completed the action, but what was done was done.

I felt another round of tears threatening to fall from my eyes as I stepped up and spilled my blood over August’s grave.

It was poetic, wasn’t it? A lover exsanguinating themselves over the body of the deceased?

It was something he would sing about. Maybe he would—if this worked.

After the gruesome act, Mandy pulled out another item from her pocket. But this wasn’t packaged with labels like the others. This was a crumpled bag that looked like it had been in her backpack for the past six months.

“Bone dust,” she said, unfurling the top and plunging her hand into it without hesitation.

“H-human bone?” Wes’ voice cracked with his inquiry.

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to.” Her face was unreadable, making me question the validity of her statement. Even through the darkness, I could see his face pale.

Mandy powdered the mirror with the dust and tossed it toward her backpack.

It landed beside it, and a little cloud of powder fluffed up as it nestled itself between the blades of grass.

After that, she pulled a silken, red cloth from her pocket, unfolded it, and laid it over the mirror shards, blood, and bone dust.

“Lighter, please,” she said, sticking her palm out.

Wes fumbled around before stuffing his hand in his pocket and giving it to her.

I noticed that his arm trembled as he pulled back.

She flicked her thumb along the striker, and a small flame illuminated her face.

Her expression was as stoic as I had ever seen her, sending another chill down my spine.

Something was going to happen tonight—I could feel it.

The grueling anticipation was killing me, and I couldn’t tell if I wanted to cry, throw up, scream, or some combination of them all.

Before I could decide, Mandy crouched down to the cloth, and her hair frizzed as the wind picked up ever so slightly.

The flame licked at her hand as she remained emotionless.

The fire met the cloth, and in a few breaths, it was alight.

Something sizzled and popped, and a low, high-pitched squeal hissed from the center, but I wasn’t sure if it was our blood being gobbled up by the heat or the fragments of the mirror threatening to crack.

Either way, the noise only set me more on edge as my teeth pressed together, hoping, praying, that something wonderfully frightening would occur.

Mandy stood beside me, took my hand in hers, and recited something under her breath.

I recognized a few words as we stood there hypnotized by the fire.

Resurrect, grant, and plea stuck out to me, but we dared not interrupt her.

As the flame disappeared, all that was left was a white crumble of ash and scorched shards of sparkling silver.

Wes and Scott’s heads swiveled around, looking to see if anything had happened as she finished the hex.

Mine followed soon after, and I hoped to see the ground shift beneath us or the sky open up and August descend from it like an angel.

The prickle in my stomach turned to a roar as everything remained the same—motionless.

“So… what now?” Scott asked. Mandy released my hand, and her shoulders dropped, making my heart skip. If she were confident, she wouldn’t appear so defeated. Which meant this didn’t work, August wasn’t coming back, and all of this was for nothing .

“I don’t know,” she said. “I thought he was supposed to, like… crawl out or appear next to us or something.”

“Does it say what’s supposed to happen?” Wes asked.

“No…”

“Well, what the hell?” Scott said.

“I thought things would go differently,” she whined.

“It worked for me, but I wasn’t trying to resurrect someone…

” Just as Wes opened his mouth, the tears I had been holding back the entire night erupted, and my legs gave out beneath me.

My head fell between my shoulders as I pressed my palms to my heated face, feeling my cheeks dampen with sadness.

“Oh, man…” Wes said. I could imagine him putting his hands to the sides of his face, but I couldn’t see through the blur of my emotions.

Mandy rushed to me, collapsing beside my crumpled form and placing her hand on my back in a pitiful attempt to comfort me.

It wasn’t her fault, but I couldn’t help the outburst.

“I’m sorry.” She pressed her head to my shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Natasha.”