I had run into a problem, one that I should have foreseen, but for some reason had completely eluded me: all of the ritual prayers that had passed down from generation to generation were gone. They had been recorded on yellowing pages in a leather-bound book that I had kept next to my bed for easy access. I could still remember the way the stained pages felt as I turned them over, searching the book for just the right ancient rite for what I wanted to accomplish. It was a culmination of more than a century of knowledge condensed into an invaluable tool and it was likely sitting in some dank warehouse or at the bottom of a landfill. Just the thought brought a chill down my spine and I felt sick, I couldn’t believe that no only was it gone, but it hadn’t occurred to me until it was time to assemble a ritual. My ancestors had to be turning over in their graves.

“Maybe we could try asking Terry?” Connie suggested. Her hand hesitated over the top of mine, then dropped down to pat it gently. She wanted to somehow help, but didn’t exactly know how to accomplish that.

“I would think he would have told me if he had it,” I sighed. The box of my own ritual instruments was strewn out on the table before us, but no matter how many times I told myself that at least the rest of my things were here, the pit of my stomach churned at the missing spot where the book should have been. “It’s something he knows I would want most of all. No, it’s gone, either someone has it, stored it, or tossed it into the trash not knowing what it was.”

“Where did you used to live? Maybe we could go check, you never know…”

“It’s been twenty years.” I shook my head and began to turn over my old athame in my hands. “It’s all long gone, probably auctioned off like any other estate by the building manager. I’m sure he got a good price from anyone who knew what they were looking like. Not only that family ritual book is a tragedy to lose, I also had dozens of very rare, old spell books, silver and gold ritual instruments, and all sorts of magical bits and bobs. Unfortunately I had only some of my good instruments with me, like this dagger.”

Connie inclined her head in understanding, but I could tell that she was trying to come up with some plan in her head. Not having been exposed to the same aspect of familial magic, I didn’t think she quite understood that some of the items were simply irreplaceable. Sure, over time, given enough effort and money, I could amass a collection as varied and large, but it would never be the same, there would always feel like something was missing.

“My father knows a lot of people…” she trailed off like she second guessing her plan, but resumed with a shrug. “It’s a long shot, but maybe I could ask him if he knows anyone that’s into collecting rare, old books.”

“It’s better than only sitting here feeling sorry for myself,” I admitted. “I would be in your debt if you ask.”

“Nah, don’t saw things like that,” she said with a light laugh. “Not everything I do has to come with the promise of being paid back, that’s just weird to me. I do things because I want to, not because I want the favor returned later.”

“That’s very kind of you.” I began to pack up my things back into the box, my mind already trying to think of how to work around the absence of the book. “Until then though, we should try to come up with an alternative, luckily that shouldn’t be too hard. Are you familiar with practitioners that write their own ritual chants?”

“Of course,” she said like it was a very silly question, “I wouldn’t be much of a Wiccan or a pagan if I didn’t know about the classic book of shadows. I had one when I was an emo teen, it was full of bad poetry that I tried to pass off as powerful spells. Needless to say, none of them worked.”

“I’m surprised that you’re so familiar with them and have even tried to write one on your own before. They’re a highly potent form of magic. Don’t get me wrong, reading from a family book is very powerful, but magic responds better when the intent was written directly from your own heart and well of desires.”

“Not to make myself sound even more lame,” she said with an awkward smile, “but I think we’re thinking of two different things again. Anyone into pagan religions today keeps a book, in fact one of the first books I bought on the subject was all about how to keep your book of shadows neat and orderly. It kinda made it sound like more of a scrapbooking project rather than a magical one. Of course there’s plenty of books out there advertising that you can fill them with love spells and such, but they’re just things for fluffy bunnies.”

“Fluffy bunnies?” I asked. It sounded like something she already expected me to know.

“Yeah, you know, people who are into witchcraft, but only talk about the cutesy, lovey-dovey stuff. Or like, they claim to only be a ‘white witch’ or someone who thinks you can mix strawberries and yogurt into a smoothie and call it a ‘love potion’ recipe. I guess ‘posers’ would be the other thing to call them.”

I frowned at the idea that there were enough people around not taking witchcraft seriously for it to warrant a name of their own. Witchcraft was a powerful force that no one should involve themselves in if they didn’t know the potential negative outcomes. Even I had flew too close to the sun and dared to try to grasp too much power at once and had paid for it, and I was from a long family tradition and decades of dedicated practice.

“I wonder just how many other people there are out there who were just like me,” I contemplated. “If someone with as much practice and knowledge at their fingertips as me can end up making such a grave mistake, there have to be others who made similar blunders and are still stuck, unsure of how to fix their predicament.”

“To be honest, I’m kind of glad that I’m apparently utter trash as all of it. I’m scared now to do even a basic ritual like lighting incense and calling the watchtowers, because I might end up as a squirrel or something.”

“Luckily, I think the worst you would end up doing would be giving yourself an illness or something for a while. I did a very stupid thing in calling the power of the wilderness to infuse my body and expand my magical capabilities. Terry was right that I had gotten one interpretation of what I had wanted.”

“So intent is the most important part?” she asked.

“Definitely, that’s why you never want to do anything like a hex or a curse. Even if you hate someone with all of your being and you want to see them suffer, you’re likely in your fury to blind yourself to the possible hazards of using magic against them,” I explained. “More than a few people have tried to enact revenge only to find themselves being the one suffering.”

“So that’s why people are always warning against that sort of thing… it totally makes sense now!” She clapped her hands together like she had just made some sort of powerful connection. “All these things you’re talking about, people still abide by them, but I think they’ve lost the reality behind why they were passed down in the first place. Maybe this falling away from true magic is all about intent as well! Think about it: people are going through the motions of magic, but nothing’s happening, what if that’s because they deep doesn’t don’t really intend for anything to happen?”

Considering that possibility for a moment, it was sound enough logic. I personally couldn’t imagine how magic could have been forsaken in such a manner, but it was apparent that a lot of surprising things had happened since I was last conscious of society.

“It makes about as much sense as any other explanation, though that does bring me to question why intent changed so drastically in a short period of time.”

“The world changed,” she explained, “I’m not exactly a sociologist or anything like that, but lots of things made people disconnect from life. Terrorist attacks, mass shootings, and war all kind of came together to disillusion a whole generation of people and it’s still happening.”

“But it’s not like this is the only time in the world where terrible things have happened on a global scale. There have always been awful things going on and people didn’t forsake magic before,” I countered.

“We’ve never had lightning fast mass media on this scale before either. We’re at the point now as a society where people are posting things online before news stations can get anything going, everything’s recorded, and we’re bombarded daily with the next horrible thing to worry about.” Her hands began to fidget and her foot began to tap, it seemed that this was a subject that made her feel uncomfortable or anxious. “It’s hard to swim in the media sometimes. I often have to give myself a few days break here and there to let myself recoup and decompress. I always hope that the next time I turn on the news or check social media I won’t see anything else concerning, but there always is and it feels like there always will be.”

It was an interesting perspective, one that I don’t think I would have come up with myself. I had noticed over the few days where I had nothing to do but watch TV that the news had seemed more depressing than what I had been used to. Thinking back, even the anchors had seemed down-trodden and somewhat despondent, like they were all wondering why they had to report on the same things day in and day out. If the news were truly like that every day, I could begin to understand how people might have slowly given up and disconnected.

“I wonder if anyone from the magic world has thought to study this phenomenon,” I said, thinking aloud. “It’s not exactly a happy subject, but it might be an interesting one to study.”

“Is that what you did before everything happened?”

“Hmm, you could say that, magical study was more like a hobby than a job, though. Unfortunately I had to work just like everyone else.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” Connie said, pulling out her phone, “I was supposed to start figuring out that job for you. I know that we still need to figure out what we’re going to do for ritual words, but my dad is usually on lunch around this time, so I can talk to him.” She stood up and pressed the call button on her phone, holding it to her ear as she disappeared to her bedroom.

I looked mournfully at the incomplete box of my things one last time, then stretched, feeling a wave of exhaustion prickle at the edges of my consciousness. I hadn’t slept overly well on the couch and that combined with the early start and needing to deal with bureaucracy served to only make me all the more in need of a nap. I curled up on the couch, crossing my arms over my chest and snuggling my head into the crook between the seat and the arm, effectively working as a makeshift blindfold. It wasn’t long until I had fallen asleep.

In my dreams I was a cat, lithe and agile, navigating the streets of the big city once again. Everyone around me seemed distressed and despondent, many of them seeming like it was physically difficult for them to stay on their feet, hunched over and stumbling. I carefully padded around people, ducking stuttering steps and carelessly slung bags as I walked to some unknown destination. At an intersection, I waited with the rest of the people, many of whom were wiping tears from their eyes, noses red from needing to constantly wipe away their tears. I had no idea what they were so upset about, but a dread blossomed deep within my chest. Whatever they were emotional about, I was certain that it was something terribly unfortunate. The crossing signal now active, I walked quickly past them, not wanting to be near them for any longer than I had to, but the people across the street were just as forlorn, a mother clutched her children to her as she sobbed, their terrified faces stared at me like I could help stop whatever had happened.

The fear inside my chest became heavier and more dense the more I tried to find away from the masses of people. Everywhere I turned there were more people with heads down, walking quickly like they needed to get away from someone or something, but were trying not to spook everyone else into a stampede. I looked over my shoulder at where I had been, but could see no obvious reason why everyone would be so nervous. The city looked the same as it always had been, but it certainly didn’t feel the same way. Before I could continue on, a shard of icy fear stabbed through my heart as a high-pitched scream pierced through the air, causing everyone on the street to look towards its direction in panic. As the sound died out a new wail began, the wail of an air raid siren exploded through the sky, compiling fear on me so heavily that my legs collapsed out from underneath and my vision became blurred.

I woke with a start, sweat pouring down my nose and chin. My heart thudded loudly in my ears and my mouth was completely dry. I wasn’t sure how long I had been out for, but in that time I had managed to sweat enough in fear to leave a vague imprint of my body on the couch. I stood, trying to get my bearings, it was difficult when it felt like my mind was stuck in the dream, waiting to hear the wail of the sirens harbor the coming doom. I wasn’t one to believe over much in the idea of prophecy or prophetic dreams, but every neuron in my brain screamed out, begging for me to pay attention. Something was going to happen, something or someone was coming, and there was little time to do anything about it.