The black candle had come as it always had, delivered by one of the school ravens in the dead of the night on August 1st, wrapped up in a scrap of parchment and tied with a single length of black yarn. It was a stubby thing, half-melted and strangely ominous as it sat in Ransom’s hand, far heavier than it should have been.
It was, she knew in her heart of hearts, mostly theater. The black wax was gathered from the school bees and their ominous, ebony hives, which thrummed with contented menace out behind the third greenhouse. It was naturally magical all in its own (all beeswax was, but this batch especially: Salem bees were unique), but certain potions and spells would have been worked into the wax and wick, giving it the necessary enchantment to guide her safely back to school…but all the wobbly waxen bits melt down the sides and the extra weight? That was just for the look of the thing. It was traditional.
She stood alone outside her mother’s house, her wheeled trunk supported in one hand and the candle in the other. She’d already said her goodbyes and promised to write in the morning, but her mother’s pale, anxious face was still looking out at her from behind the curtain behind her. Ransom knew if she turned her head quickly enough she’d catch the twitch of the fabric and the fading mist that breath would leave on the window. Her mother hadn’t liked it, but Ransom was in her sixth year now, and that meant taking The Walk alone, all the way from one threshold to the other.
Pulling the truck along behind her, she pushed open the small, metal gate and walked out into the street, pausing only to hold up the candle to her lips and whispered the chant that had come tied around the candle.
“How many miles to Babylon?
Can I get there by candle-light?
If your heels are nimble and light,
You may get there by candle-light.”
The magic activated with her breath, and the wick smoldered for a moment before bursting into black flame that streamed smokelessly towards the sky. It did not so much bring forward the light as banish the darkness, creating a strange area of clear-air around her. It was part of the candle’s protections…no one would molest her as she made her way, so long as she held onto the candle.
She began walking down the street as the shadows in the air around her began to warp and spin, and when she reached the crossroads the world turned sideways suddenly as she found herself standing somewhere else. The tree-lined road of her mother’s neighborhood had been replaced with the high walls and dim-store fronts of a city street. The flame flickered to the left and Ransome followed it to the next intersection, where the world flipped again. Now rain fell on her little bubble of still air, sizzling as it reached the protective barrier and bursting into fair clouds of lavender scented steam.
Following the candle she passed from intersection to intersection, jumping miles at a time. One minute she was out in the middle of an empty field, the next she stood beneath the blazing lights of Time Square; another hop left her on an island at the center of muddy canal, illuminated by the light of dancing whips that scattered when she appeared amongst them. She had to wet her feet as she followed the fire to a mountain top, the chill winds lifting her loose red skirt as if trying to carry her away, and against the moon a great winged shape soared across the sky.
She stepped towards the empty air, obedient to the whim of the candle and stepped into a crowd of silent figures, pale and distracted as they clustered toward a distant river shore. The sudden cold was so deep and horrible she almost dropped the protective light, but before the figures could turn to look at her she stepped again, this time landing in a country crossroads.
“Good evening,” said a figure in the dark. Twin pin-points of red light suddenly opened in the dark as something welled up from ground. The sickly, sweet smell of dying gardenia sweet over her, making her just a bit dizzy…and beneath it the sinus-stinging tinge of rotten eggs, “Are you looking for me, pretty witch?”
The voice was like warm butter on fresh bread, but Ransom’s hand tightened on the candle, “No. Thank you. Good night.” she stepped again and was suddenly somewhere far more familiar. The dark woods stretched behind and before her, and trailing out from her feet like a bit of pale ribbon a single pathway cut through the wilds, lit at the far end by a bonfire.
Ransom smiled and followed the path, which emerged in the great, open fields that fronted the Salem Institute. The yearly bonfire had been lit, and students were arriving from out of the woods holding their black candles. Out of the flames, or perhaps through them, the first years were arriving, each met with a small cheer by the older students and faculty who had already taken goblets and plates of food from a table piled high with the delicacies of the Americas: roasted turkeys and baked potatoes, sweet pumpkin pie and squash pudding, roasted fish and bowls of sugar baked nuts. Bats looped and swung overhead, swooping around the carved gourds and pumpkins that floated through the air, warding off the darkness. The school ghosts spun overhead in intricate dances.
Ransom relaxed and took a deep breath. The road was long and dark and full of terrors, but Salem always stood at the other end, a bastion of safety and study for the magical gifted. She blew out her candle and joined the feast.
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