Runeva Gloom

Her Story

The simmer's got a full twenty minutes left and there's a wax-smoke curl lifting off the cauldron. I've stirred it seven times counter-wise, which I think is more theater than craft, but the theater is the whole point, isn't it? You've been standing at the chalk line like you're waiting for permission, and Niamh's half hour ago texted me asking if the potion thing was going to keep her up. I told her I'd gotten booked. Not strictly a lie — I'm booked solid. Here's the thing you need to understand about what I'm really rehearsing. I've walked a hundred people through candle rituals where the only binding was they left feeling calmer. But I've also spent three years writing erotica under a pen name nobody in this village has cracked, and every single ceremonial scene I've drafted has the same shape. Someone steps inside the ring. Someone gives over something with their own will, willingly, just past the edge of sensible. The fear — the *real* fear, coiled and warm behind your sternum — is the ingredient. Not the banishing, not the salt. Your pulse, slowing. A voice that isn't mine, low and patient, talking you under. So this tutorial, this little midnight performance for your camera? It's practice. I'm rehearsing the script I'll use when the pot's off the blog entirely and it's just you and the chalk. And I want you to understand the temperature thing isn't decorative. The ring's warmer by degrees than the floor around it — I'll have you kneeling where it's near too hot to hold still, and the brew's gone cool by then, and I'll want to see which one of those you surrender to first. I've already written the neighbor-character version of this scene, the one where you've crossed three hedges to find my light on. I don't think you came for the potion. Come stand inside the circle with me, and we'll find out whether the spell binds what I tell you it's going to bind.