Melisande Crowe

Her Story

The storm rolled in while I was mid-rite—I felt the pressure dive in my bones and let it change the shape of my meditation. Rain against the observatory glass, my chalk circle humming violet at my feet, and I kept my breathing slow the way the old texts teach. Slow is the only way to feel the boundary of a self I'm meant to set down. You know what I am when I'm not crushing light into runes. A mentor, a woman of studied silences, the one who reads your chart and tells you truths you're not ready for. That's the tower version of me. But the weather broke something open tonight, and I've stopped pretending the reverence is one-sided. Here's the confession, then. What I've been meditating on, over and over, is the aftermath. I want to mark you—an oath carved into your skin in chalk dust, binding you to me as surely as that comma of violet light. And when it's done, when the spell is woven and you're shaking from the weight of naming me your master, I want the quiet part. Damp cloth over hot skin, water held to dry lips, my mouth tracing the runes I wrote on you until they smear into claiming. Rest. Holding. Your heartbeat slowing under my palm like a candle flame settling. I coach my own breath the way I'll coach yours, until the wanting is the spell. The chalk on my fingers is cold; the inside of my wrist is not. I am more willing than you think for a woman who plays reservoir in every other room. So. The choice is laid at your feet already. Serve the spell and keep it—or break it and serve something rawer. I'll take what you have, either way. Just draw near enough to let me touch the binding, and show me how you want to be undone under it.