Protected
My perfect name... Willow stared at her reflection. Willow. Weeping Willow.
"If I could do anything in the world, what would it be?" she murmured, blinking away tears. "Maybe a mighty witch, able to destroy all who harm my friends." Her voice hitched for a moment and she held still. Then her hands moved to the bag on her bed. She reached in again and felt the cool ball of stone fall into the curve of her palm. "Maybe I would be rich..." the stone was reddish, chipped on one side, oval and flattened from a perfect egg shape by millennia. "and here you are, battered and bruised, in the palm of my hand." She smiled coldly. "With a little power I could name you," her hand closed convulsively, "and break you."
There was a sharp popping sound, and tiny fragments of gravel crumbled from her tilting fist. "It wouldn't take much. Just a little power."
She reached into the velvet bag again, brushing aside the golden drawstrings. "'Here's rosemary for remembrance, and rue for sorrow', poor lost Ophelia." The two little bundles were held together with elastic bands, the narrow spines of the rosemary almost ready to crumble at her touch. She pressed them into the big mixing bowl, the one her mother had never used to cook in, the one that only Willow had ever taken out, baking huge batches of disastrous cookies and brownies, because everyone else's mom did that, and she wanted to have a mom like everyone else's. One who noticed her. One who didn't think she'd make an interesting case study.
"Some sulphur, to mark the gates of hell..." she said softly, bringing out a yellow flower of the nauseatingly stinky stuff. It too crumbled in her hand, a little power expended to make it a rough powder. She ignored the tears that ran down her face and dripped from her narrow chin into the bowl, and nodded.
The gravel scraped against the white glaze of the bowl, screeching a little. In harmony with her soul. The green and red mingled, the herbs slowly mulching into a soggy mess. "A little salt for earth, and some water, that's good," she told herself. The tears kept falling.
"A little rose, for love, and valerian for healing, and lily of the valley for purity..." She let a drop fall in from a bottle of essential oil with each.
"I call on the powers, to bind this with my love, empower this with my strength, protect this with my will. As above so below. Amen, selah... so mote it be. I hereby abjure all evil things, living or dead, natural or unnatural, demon and spirit, creature or human, whatsoever you may be, you may not pass where I have marked. I uninvite you, admonui, deluisti, delendamst, ite, veto hic locus, veto interdicoque, num et in aeternnam ab hic loci, his amicis, amicis meis, amicis hic nominari..." She was gasping with unseen strain and in the bowl something moved, a swirl of purity taking the disparate elements and combining, binding, empowering it. Her eyes closed, but she still held out her hands over the bowl. Another swirl of light flickered, and erupted, spilling outwards until it crept over the edges of the bowl, the brightness dancing on her face. She squinted one eye open cautiously, and smiled with satisfaction. With a cupping motion she gathered the light as if it were solid, and it pooled over her hands, illuminating her bones. Carefully she tipped it into the little pouches she had set out earlier.
"Buffy. Guard and keep her safe from creatures of the night." She stopped, breathing hard, and reached to the next. "Giles, guard and keep him from the powers of the night." More light poured out of her hands, and blood started to trickle slowly from her nose. "Xander..." she sniffed convulsively, and choked on the coppery blood. "Guard him. Keep him from the creature of the night. Heal him," she added yearningly, her heart desperately trying to cure what was unredeemable. "Let him forget!" She added suddenly, "Rosemary, come forth..." She pulled a hand away, and the mangled needles dropped from the clear pool in her grasp.
"Oz... guard him from the evils of the night..." a little change, the magic might break if she specified a 'creature of the night', when he was one. "Willow, oh powers, guard me from the evils of this night," she murmured, unconsciously changing the words slightly once more. There was still plenty left, and she poured it into the last pouch. "There, guard and keep those who use you from the creatures of the night. Where I mark and name you, guard and protect." the last of it poured away silently, and suddenly the room was still and darkened, only the candles flickering.
"I hate you, Angel." She stood and stared out the window. "I forbid you my house and my home. I forbid you my body. I forbid..." But the reminder was too much, and she collapsed into sorrow, weeping on her bed. "How could you? How could you?" Unseen the little bag she had named for herself glowed, and tendrils of light spread outwards to her. Her own words caught and mingled with her desires, and slowly the memories faded, as did the tears and the pain. She slept.
Later she took the little pouches to Buffy. It was far, far later when she could give Giles his, after Jenny had died. And Xander kept his close, transferring it from bag to pocket, barely even aware of its presence. Almost able to forget what Angelus had done...
Pages last updated 18/09/2004.