How Magic Found Me, And What I Did With It When I Had Gotten It Was Drunk
This is not the same story as How I Became A Pagan In The Third Grade. I'm saving that one for a hot Summer day. The year I turned 16, I had a friend who got into witchcraft. I had long since stepped into the role of "the good friend who pulls you out of the trouble you've gotten yourself into"
In that past year I had left home in the dark of night to keep a friend from trying LSD, sat with a suicider, ended several fights and "checked out" countless spiked drinks, and usually the crappy boyfriends who spiked the drink in the first place. I didn't think I was invincible, I just thought I was better armed than my pals. Then my friend brought home a Penji board. That would be an ouija board with a pendulum instead of a planchette.
So I'm sitting at her house, watching her swing this little glass pointer over the pretty piece of cardboard, wondering at how people can believe in this kind of thing. After all, why should anything in the universe give a shit that you bought a mystical doodad to try to contact someone who died before you were born. When I die, I plan on getting an unlisted number.
Anyway, I'm thinking these things, secretly hoping the pointer will do something really cool when I see something zap from the board, up the pendulum to Sue's hand. I felt it like a burst of adrenaline shooting up my spine. She drops the pendulum super-fast, and we both stare at it for a second. Then we talked ourselves down. The standard, "did you see that? Yeah, and I felt it too." which ends in, "We probably made it up."
That night creepy things happened in her house. The next day, I put on my saviour (as in save-your-ass) hat, and went to check out her previously average house. Mind you, I had done nothing particularly magical up to that point, unless you count esp type stuff, which I didn't. It didn't occur to me that maybe I don't know what I'm doing. It occurred to me that I had better know what I'm doing, because she needs help. I went all around her house feeling hot spots and cold spots and creepy spots that make your scalp tingle, then told her it was HER house, so she should just tell the thing to leave. That didn't work so well. She spent the night at my house instead. The next night I stayed at her house, figuring she's never going to get out of my house unless I can convince her that her place is safe.
That night I woke up and I couldn't move. I felt like someone else had control of my body, and was fighting to take over my mind. I had seen enough movies about possession to really freak out. I started trying to pray. When in doubt, return to your Catholic roots! "Hail Mary full of...shit! Our father who art in...damnit!" I couldn't remember a frigging thing. I just kept repeating "Our father who art in heaven" over and over in my head. Mentally struggling to push this thing out and get control of my body so I could kick Sue as hard as possible, Then get us both back to my house. Suddenly I felt a thing like cool water run through my head, then through the rest of me, and suddenly, I was free!
(did I make it all up? probably)
We spent the next few nights at my house while I bounced what had happened off anyone who would listen. Then I went back to Sue's place and told the whatever to GET OUT! I washed the door frames with holy water, and put my hands on every wall, tracing any sensation I could find, sweeping everything before me in a massive wave of my own thoughts, shoo-ing all towards the front door. Then I blessed the door.
The end result? Sue bitches at me because the ghost of her Grandmother left too.
That one week of fun and games pointed me toward a path of witchcraft. My goal was to learn everything I could, as quickly as I could, so I could rescue my friends with minimal effort. I learned astral projection so I could rescue people without getting out of bed.