A mistake.

He closed the front door to his trailer and leaned heavily against it. The living area was dimly lit, uninhabited. He closed his eyes to block the visual stimulus of his normal house and normal life after witnessing something he could never take back. 

He’d made a mistake helping them. The witches had followed him to a place he hadn’t been in years, not since his dad had died. They set up a circle of leaves he didn’t recognize and burned sticks of frankincense. They’d brought mirrors and special water and they discussed in lengthy whispers about moonlight reflection and divine energy channeling. Carter had tried his best to stay out of the way and look unaffected until he was informed of his role in the whole operation. 

“I don’t even get to be in the circle?” He asked indignantly. Alice shook her head.

“This is an astral thing and it can get unpredictable, we need you to make sure we don’t get lost.” She explained. Carter filled with dread as he realized this was one of those situations where he was going to get more questions than answers. 

“Get lost where? What are you even doing?” He tried to get the most important ones out first.

“We’re going to overclock me.” Erica declared in excitement, staring in mesmerized wonder at the full moonlight streaming in. “Contact an ancestor to help us out” she winked.

“Alice.” Carter looked at her in desperation, hoping she could give him some kind of real explanation. Alice emptied the tissue with the earrings into her hand, rolling the jewels in her palm.

“Our leader is in charge because she was left in charge, one of her ancestors left things that way and one of their ancestors left them.” She handed the earrings to Erica and took the yellow wildflowers she was holding. “We’re hoping by breaking through the barrier with this spell we can talk to them and explain why she’s no longer fit to lead, maybe they’ll pick someone else?”

“Maybe we can convince them to pick me.” Erica smiled devilishly as she was putting in the second diamond earring. She sat on the floor, cross-legged in the middle of the room. 

Carter squirmed at the memory, coming back to the present and opening his eyes. The room had grown darker and he slid down the door to sit on the carpet.

They’d made the flowers into tea, he’d drank it too, but that wasn’t the part he regretted. When Erica and Alice sat in the circle that night they faced each other. They read from a book and nothing seemed to happen. Carter watched from outside the circle and grew more skeptical as the minutes of chanting stretched on and on. The night wind howled and struck the walls with rattling gusts, yet the girls chanted on in droning tones under their breath. Minutes stretched farther until an entire hour had passed. Carter wished he’d brought a crossword or something. The girls still sat in their hunched position where they hadn’t moved or stopped or…even breathed it seemed.

His memories kept circling through his head as he felt the course carpet under his knuckles.

What had they been chanting for anyway? Their voices became monotonous and meaningless as they blended together. They mixed with the howling wind and creaking walls creating a single-note blanket of audio static around him. An hour stretched into hours and his vision began doing the same. So slowly, so incrementally he didn’t notice until it was obvious. The girls, their faces and hair and clothes. He couldn't tell where one began and one ended. They looked the same as they had but Carter had forgotten what the difference looked like. His mind couldn’t acknowledge that there ever was a difference.

Then it happened to the walls. The girls and their endless noise blended together with the walls and the floor and the shelves. They became a single object made of the same clay, yet they never moved. Then directions lost meaning, up and down becoming as horizontal as east and west. They were still chanting. He starred from where he was frozen on the floor, starred at the unidentifiable objects in his vision and he was scared. How was he supposed to stop them from getting lost if he was clearly lost? He didn’t know where he was or who he was and he was so hopelessly out of control of the situation he wanted to cry.

But he didn’t, because he wasn’t going to be a baby on top of everything else.

He watched and saw something he recognized. Something that moved in a familiar way, and he followed it. Its shape was auburn red and it…slinked. Yes, the large weasel slinked down the wall and up to Erica.

Erica!

He recognized his friend through the psychological haze. He followed the weasel's shape again as it looked at its reflection in Erica’s earrings. The creature seemed to be leading him back to reality as he watched it slink around Alice's shoulders. Neither sister moved or noticed the creature as it inspected them. Finally, it approached him, and he scrambled back against the wall as black, button-sized eyes peered through him with knowledge unfathomable.

“Alice?” He whispered, terror icing through his veins as the cosmic wild animal crept towards him in an unpredictable gait. “ALICE!” He managed to force his empty lungs to spew the last of their air into the word. Alice jumped and dropped the book, shaking her head. 

Carter felt a sharp pain pulling his mind out of his panic, back to reality. He focused on the pain in his arm and found his own teeth clamped around his wrist. He slowly relaxed his jaw, letting deep breaths carry his tension away. He was ok, he was home now. He extracted his arm from his mouth with a small pop and it came away with a crescent row of red lines and the sheen of saliva. He breathed deeply through his nose and massaged his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

The witches weren’t affected at all, they said the spell hadn’t worked. He didn’t know what he’d experienced, but whatever it was, it was a mistake.