PodCastle 762: INDIGENOUS MAGIC – The Witching Hour

* Author : Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki

* Narrator : Shingai Njeri Kagunda

* Host : Matt Dovey

* Audio Producer : Devin Martin

* Artist : Cindy Fan

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Previously published by Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores

Rated PG-13

The Witching Hour

By Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki

I stood balanced at the top of the oldest palm tree, the one that grew at the south end of the village. I was in my element — pitch-black night. This was my dawn. The murmurs of glowing spirits mixed with the chitter of living insects.

The hoot of an owl reminded me there was work to be done, battles to be fought — silent, undeclared, but raging all the same. And old Mama Ishaka was on the other side of them. With a sigh, I leapt from the tree, fell free, and caught one of the power lines that led to a human spirit. The link was strong. The call of this spirit sang the music of its soul to me. It called me back home.

We sat in my hut, bare as it was, Ejiro and I, on the even barer floor. The kerosene lamp hung from a nail on the wall, its flickering yellow light the only illumination. I didn’t need much, being a creature of the night.

I had chosen my apprentice for her goodness. Shy and quiet, she was my sister’s child. Like other old-world witches I was glad to recruit from family, where they were cut closest to us. Blood was more than just a symbol.

She was still learning to manoeuvre the delicate currents of the other side.

I rubbed the ori ointment on her eyes to ease the transition and make visible the other realm — the beauty of it along with the denizens that drive normals mad with fright. We moved freely among it all — the souls of sleeping humans, shining shapeshifters, headless spirits drifting along upside down.

I took hold of her hands and invoked the deep black sleep that let us travel to the other side. Our bodies slumped, and we passed over. We floated, translucent and unbound by gravity. We had power in this state. A power that was intoxicating.

Ejiro moved towards the door. I smiled and pulled her toward the wall. I flowed through it and she followed. Outside the protection of my hut we felt the pull, the dreams, the thoughts of sleeping normals. Those souls connected to us pulled the most, sending out strong lines of power.

There was one we set out to find. I had established a connection with her in the physical world and could see her soul cord faintly shimmering. We flowed along it, shifting shapes — I an old brown owl, Ejiro a nightjar. We sailed swift and sure, alighting on a palm tree beside a darkened house.

I shifted back and floated to the roof. My fledgling followed. We sifted down through the thatch. I looked at Ejiro. She nodded and threw a shroud over the home’s sleeping occupants, to keep them still until our work was done. She fastened on their sleeping forms and they choked, gulping for air, struggling vainly to wake. In the morning they would say they had been pressed and they would shiver.

I drew close to the one we were here to help, a girl of eleven. She tossed and turned, feeling the energy of the other side but unable to wake to it. I slipped my hand into her chest and cradled the pulsing spirit heart of her being. She gasped. I gathered my energy and pulled. Her body convulsed and she held back, frightened at the pull to cross over,