Reprisal by Gregory Harvey

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Angela was beginning to make out the clearing at the end of the dirt track. It wasn’t a road by any standards, more of a cattle trail, but it was obvious that cattle didn’t make it. After all, why would cattle be in the middle of a city? Angela simply guessed that she wasn’t the only one who had discovered this clearing.

She followed the path into it, and sat down directly in its centre. She craned her neck around, seeing if there was anything watching her. That feeling, of being stalked, often came to her in these woods, and, as a witch, she often put it down to the great power that laid dormant within it. In fact, Angela didn’t think that it was entirely impossible that there was a hidden cemetery somewhere out in the woods, or at least something else like that which would explain the energy. If this spell was going to work anywhere... it was the clearing in which she now sat.

Angela the witch! Is a dirty bitch! Her mother, after birthing her, left her in a ditch! Angela the witch! Is a dirty bitch! Her mother, after birthing her, left her in...

Angela began to pull her stuff out of the back pack. Her box of runes, not actually used in the spell but always useful to have around, was placed to the side of her. In front of her she placed three crow feathers, sanctified dust, incense and six other ingredients of varying natures.

Last to come out of her bag was her spellbook. It was in this tome that she kept most of her favoured incantations. The ones that couldn’t be memorized or used out-of-hand. Next to her runes, this was probably her most prized possession. Perhaps that was obsessive... but who really cared? Sure her mother would get up her from time to time about getting a bit to far into it... but Angela guessed that was a mother’s right. And besides, she said similar things about Angela’s brother and his idiotic video games.

But what would Angela’s mum say if she knew her daughter had crept out in the earlier hours of the morning in order to cast a spell of reprisal against her classmates? What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. Ellen, however, what she didn’t know was apt to get her into a world of pain. And that bitch would deserve every last, glorious second of it.

Angela the witch! Is a dirty bitch! Her mother...

She looked down at the magic catalysts and stimuli in front of her. How powerful a spell this could be! But was the affect in anyway equal to the crime? Of course it was! Ellen deserved what she was going to get. Angela was going to show her what being a bitch really meant. Another moment of doubt struck her regardless. Oh well, only one way to be sure.

Angela flipped the top off of her box of runes, and took out the small velvet bag in which the runes themselves were stored. Hastily, she ruffled the bag around, shuffling the runes inside. After about ten seconds of this, she pulled opened the bag and drew out a single rune. It was a veticle straight line marked onto a small fragment of quartz crystal.

Isa.