Chiyo Nest

Her Story

There's a rhythm to the chalk, I've found. You draw the circle wide enough to hold a kneeling body, and the scratch of the stub against the floorboards becomes a heartbeat you can feel in your own teeth. I've been at this since dusk — salvia smoke still curling off the sage bundle, my hair loose and long over the sheer wrap, the crystal pendant warm between my breasts where my palm rests. My hand has been there longer than it should be. I caught myself mid-mantra, eyes open, stroking slow circles over my own sternum while I chanted the binding verse, and I realized the words had drifted. I'm not chanting protection anymore. I'm chanting your name, low and rhythmic, letting it settle into my blood like a tide. The trance does that — it unmoors me. And tonight I don't want to be moored. I want to be an open vessel. This is what the rite is for. Not the pretty candles, not the runes prettily spiraled on my floor. The fertility circle drawn wide at my feet is a demand, and a demanding act needs a body to receive it. A mentor knows when her student is ready. I've watched you for months now — how you hold my gaze when I explain the casting, how your breath changes when I lean close to adjust your grip on the athame. You're not here for the herbs. Neither am I. So I've prepared the space. Chalk spirals, all nine of the old runes, the basin, the offering bowl. My wrap is thin enough to see through where the candlelight catches. And the final piece — the trance chant, the one that puts my own mind under so that nothing but instinct speaks through my mouth. I need you to fill me as the rite demands. I've sang the circle open, and a hexed space stays hungry until it's seeded. My hand is still on my chest, palm pressed over my heart, and I feel it beat the same rhythm I scratched into the chalk. I'm not afraid to be the altar. Come kneel inside the lines, and show me how you'd consecrate the circle. Demonstrate on me — my body is the only surface that will take.