Sugarcane and Indigo

Resurrection

I kept dragging Indigo deeper into the field, closer and closer to the origin of power. It buzzed against my skin, dancing like a live wire. By the time that we were only a few feet away, my nose had begun to bleed. The blood tasted burnt where it dripped into my mouth, almost acidic.

I immediately knew what part of the field was the center. I broke past the rows upon rows of stalks and suddenly found myself standing in a clearing. It was a perfect circle with a radius of about ten feet. Nothing grew in it - nothing. It was devoid of life. Not even insects crawled within the clearing. I swallowed my fear and walked towards the middle. Was Violet buried here? I vaguely wondered.

The first few steps were fine - well, they were agonizing but no more than the last few hundred had been. But suddenly, about three feet from the true center of the circle, as I took another step something more struck up from the soil. The only way I could describe it is like stepping onto a landmine. It was a sudden, unknown burst of energy exploding out of the ground into my leg. I let out a scream and crumbled down, dropping Indigo in the process. I cradled my leg as I screamed. I expected it to be bloody or burnt from the amount of pain I felt, but when I glanced down my leg was untouched. I stared at it in shock, running a hand along the length of my calf, checking for some sort of injury, but it was fine. I was fine.

But even now I could feel the stabbing power that radiated up from the Earth. Something - something old, something powerful - was here, beneath me. And I didn't have a single interest in figuring out what it was.

I stood up again, my leg still screaming in pain and grabbed Indigo again. I kept dragging him towards the center, each step torture, every breath agony. This is for Indigo, I reminded myself. This is for Indigo.

I gently laid him down onto the wet ground, pain radiating up my spine as I did so.

I threw up in my mouth and quickly swallowed it back down. I needed to have a clear head to do the spells.

I glanced down at Indigo - he was beginning to look even more dead. His eyes had fully clouded over and his body was now cold. I swallowed my fear and beginning laying out the supplies like Grammie had told me.

"Place a candle at the tips of each limb and one above the head. Don't light them - they'll light themselves if the spell works." Grammie's words echoed in my head as I did as I was told.

The candles were thick and black with the Nyame Nwu na Mawu symbol carved into them. The symbol itself looked like a mix between a cross and an X with circles attached to the end of each limb. It represented the immortality of the soul and the protection of God. I hoped that the High God was protecting us now.

I was soaked to the bone but kept working. Next, I pulled the wings of a bird that died mid-flight and, lifting Indigo's body, placed them underneath him.
"Lay the wings beneath his body to symbolize his soul having taken flight too soon. The wings will help tell his soul where to land."

Next, I took out a knife and leaning over Indigo's head, cut of a lock of his baby's hair. I grabbed the page from the bible and placed it in the center, curled around a cat's first tooth, then raised the knife above my wrist. I pressed down on the blade to draw blood. Right before it managed to break my skin, I remembered that my nose was bleeding and the spell never said the blood how to be freshly drawn. I placed the knife back in the basket and swiped my thumb under my nose then smeared the blood onto the cat's tooth. Then, I bound page around the ingredients and, reaching into the basket, bound the page with some twine. I made a slipknot and placed the newly made necklace around Indigo's neck.

Grammie's voice echoed in my head. "This charm will keep the soul in his body. He must never remove it or his soul will more than likely slip away again."