When they had been close, Aaina used to tell Laura everything. She would always vent about her family, how her mother was only concerned with her being respectable enough to be married off when she was old enough. And how her father only cared about his work, and making sure Aaina's younger brother Alfred was going to be ready to take over the family business when the time came. Greenstern was just a place to send her away to during the year. Aaina wasn't respected by her family, it has always been a constant battle to be worth more than just someone to be married off to, and to prove that she was also capable of running the family business like her younger brother. But it soon became obvious that her parents were never going to see her for the smart, capable girl that this is. So she turned all her energy away from trying to please them, and into showing them what happens when you underestimate Aaina Arya.
She read books on poisonous plants, how to send dark omens and curses. She lashed out, and with that found comfort in the darkness. But it all went especially badly when she turned to necromancy. She moved past just theoretical work at school and wanted to practice. She became enchanted by the thought of having the spirits on her side. That's when Sissel Berg overheard what she was trying to do, she mistakenly threatened Aaina to turn herself in, rather than go straight to the headmistress. Aaina cursed her. She got warts on her face, and her hair began to fall out, she started to see things others couldn't. The school found out and suddenly it all went away, along with Sissel, and for a while Aaina too. Laura stopped being friends with Aaina during that time and Aaina never made any attempt to reach out to her either. Laura learnt to keep her distance, and for the rest of the year she talked to no one unless she had to. It wasn't until the Year Below Pairings that Laura met Violet, and had to buddy up to learn how to read each other's palms. Neither of them were particularly gifted at it, and became close because of it, and had been ever since.
Laura and Violet followed them deep into the graveyard, where the fog was even thicker, until they came to a clearing with benches in the centre. A resting place while you mourned, it turned Laura's stomach as she saw them come to a stop. Aaina pulled the backpack off her shoulders. Laura and Violet crouched down into the darkness behind a tree and watched the two girls, Violet pulled her camera out of her pocket and was ready to film and take photos if needed. Laura was starting to regret not telling Violet more about what she thought they might be upto, but something inside her wanted to keep it quiet, as if saying it would make it all real.
Aaina unzipped her backpack, and started to pull out objects and passed them to Maggie. The first thing was a large candle, which was very common in day to day spell work, Laura's heart still had hope. The second object was a cauldron, big enough to sit snugly into the palms of your hands, then came the jars of dried herbs and other ominous bottled things. And then finally, a ritual knife. It was another extremely common object in day to day craft, used solely for cutting ingredients and such during spells and not actually used for anything menacing like sacrifices. But something about this particular blade made Laura's stomach churn, it was that feeling again. And one look at Violet, she could tell she felt the same. Laura saw Violet had begun filming on her phone. This could be it, Laura thought to herself, we're going to catch them.
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The girls watched as Maggie and Aaina set up the objects in preparation, when they were finally ready, they both kneeled on the ground in front of the bench and Aaina lit the candles. Laura could only just hear Aaina muttering the words to the spell under her breath, her head high and steady in concentration. As she flowed along the very practiced words, her hands moved along the ingredients, and with a pinch or a pour the cauldron was almost complete. Aaina picked up the knife, Laura flinched as she held it up to the sky and said in a clear voice.
"Blood once yours, blood still alive. A taste of life to regain thou." Maggie held her hand out to her, and without a second thought Aaina sliced her palm open, and blood began to pour out. Maggie let out a cry, but you could see she was trying to hold the pain in. She held it over the cauldron and it dripped in, once there was enough she pulled a bandage out her pocket and wrapped her hand up but it wasn't enough to stop the bleeding. Aaina barely glanced at her, and continued on with the spell. She held her hands out in front of her.
"And rise, to my side. And help me take what is mine. Rise, rise, rise up!" she called out, and poured the contents of the cauldron onto the earth.
The ground began to rumble and quiver, it was deafeningly loud. The graves began to split open. Laura felt bile rise in her throat, she had done it. She couldn't have, it was too horrific, but she'd done it. Aaina stood, and began to laugh in disbelief, it seemed she couldn't quite believe it either. Maggie, still sitting on the floor was bleeding more heavily, she looked around in horror as blood started to make a puddle on the stone. The grave next to Laura cracked open, a decaying hand reached out. Laura fell backwards into Violet and stared in horror, her mind could hardly comprehend what it was seeing, she could feel Violet shaking with fear against her. A dead woman was pulling herself out, her eye-less head turned to her and ground its teeth. Laura's chest pounded and she could hardly breathe, she heard Violet vomit into the bush they were hiding behind. Violet screamed, jolting Laura out of the trance she was in, all around them the dead were pulling themselves out the ground. Not caring anymore if Aaina or Maggie saw them, Laura stood up and grabbed Violet's arm.
"Quick, get up, we have to warn the school" Violet scrambled up, with a white knuckle grip on Laura's wrist. Without turning to see if the other girls had seen them, they ran. The dead were pulling themselves up everywhere, the girls jumped and dodged out the way of the reaching hands unable to hold back screams and yelps. They were almost at the wall, so close. They ran harder, that's when they could suddenly hear screams from far away, it was Maggie. They reached the wall, Violet looked at her with wide eyes and without thinking twice Laura realised she had to swallow her fear.
"You go and warn the school, I'll go back and get Maggie." Violet couldn't protest, Laura had given her a push up and she had tumbled over the top of the wall, "Run like the bloody wind!" Laura called over to her. And Laura was left alone, as the dead closed in.