Jorgi Williams hopes starting graduate school will go smoothly. He needs a break from his clingy and transphobic mother Kat, who still insists on calling him by his deadname. Moving into a duplex with a male roommate only sparks a fresh tirade from Kat, and Jorgi is sick of this treatment.
Thane Miller, Jorgi’s roommate, is a fellow graduate student. Handsome in a skinny, alterna way, Thane is laidback and kind, and seems to accept Jorgi exactly as he is. Jorgi can’t help developing a crush, despite his fear about whether Thane would date a transman.But the question of love is put on hold when they receive evil spirits as a housewarming present. Thane locates and digs up a cursed jar in the front yard and reveals he is a Wiccan, a white witch. He begs Jorgi not to freak out. Far from being freaked out, Jorgi is fascinated. Thane introduces Jorgi to his coven and the coven leader asks the dreaded question: Who in Jorgi’s life is capable of something like this? Jorgi’s ex-best friend Christy is infamous for vicious grudges, and she’s openly interested in black magic. Chance meetings with Christy seem to confirm she’s guilty.
But not everything is adding up. As the demons grow powerful enough to talk, they claim Jorgi’s soul has been bound to a powerful demon in a blood magic contract. That’s something Christy wouldn’t have the ability to do. Are the demons lying, or is the enemy still out there?
The stress of the demonic attacks, Kat’s relentless transphobic hounding, and the world of blood magic opening up around Jorgi cause him a massive internal shift. Suddenly, he becomes aware there is a part of him who comes and goes and who claims their family is not as innocent and Christian as Jorgi always believed. Jorgi has Dissociative Identity Disorder, and his other selves are holding onto dark secrets about the Williams family’s real religion. Thane is supportive every step of the way, causing Jorgi to fall in love.
Then one of Jorgi’s inner selves points the finger at their mother, and Jorgi’s sense of reality is thrown into chaos. Is his enemy Christy or his mother? Can Jorgi and Thane stop the haunting, break the evil contract, and get their happily-ever-after?
Thane popped an incense cone onto the sand in the incense burner and lit it. Then he moved the female figurine to the center of the altar. Finally, he picked up the dagger and drew a circle in the air around himself and the altar. “I hereby declare this space sacred.”
Jorgi felt energy wash over him. He’d only felt something similar once before. When he was a child, his church had done baptisms at the local lake, and energy had rushed over Jorgi when the fourth person had been baptized. He hadn’t understood what that meant when he was eight, and he didn’t understand what this energy meant now, either.
“I’m not gonna get fancy here.” Thane set the sachets on the altar. “And you don’t have to get fancy. You need intent, visualization, and energy. And you need to bring your willpower to bear behind your intent. Anything after that is ceremony, and you can do as much or as little of that as you want.”
Jorgi once more felt a different world pulling on him, one he hadn’t asked for. But instead of feeling his veins burn with fear like earlier, this time he felt a heavy, warm blanket of peace settle on him, easing his disassociation.
Thane closed his eyes and fell silent, and Jorgi stared at him. Jorgi wasn’t interested in dating anyone -- his previous boyfriend had burnt his ass good -- but he was still struck by how handsome Thane was. He had a goatee, which was in vogue right now, and three piercings on his right ear and four on his left. His face was symmetrical in that way that assured he was pleasing to the eye, but he didn’t look so perfect that he was like model or movie star material.
Thane opened his eyes and picked up the dagger again. “I call upon Kwan-Yin. Please attend to us in the matter of our apartment being haunted. Have compassion for Jorgi’s suffering and drive out the evil. Lend your strength to these sachets and bless them for use in the protection of Jorgi and our apartment.” He touched the tip of the dagger to each sachet.
Jorgi felt another surge of energy. What is all this?
“I release my sacred circle. All remaining energy from this working will go back into the universe to see my will done. So I have willed it, so mote it be.” Thane drew a circle in the air again, and Jorgi realized this one was counter-clockwise while the first one had been clockwise.
Thane turned and handed Jorgi a sachet. “There you go. I’m giving you one with an emerald in it. Put it in your pocket or something. And sleep with it under your pillow at night.”
Jorgi had no faith this would work, but he felt a burning surge of curiosity as the rest of the dissociation eased. “Okay. Sure. I’ll try it out.” It wasn’t like it could harm anything. If magic wasn’t real, then nothing Thane did would either help or hurt. “Thanks.”
Jorgi stuffed the sachet in his front pocket and headed to his bedroom while Thane hung the other sachets on nails over the doors. Thane also hung one on a nail over Jorgi’s bedroom window and then purified the apartment with salt.
The ghostly voice didn’t speak to Jorgi again that night, but that didn’t make Jorgi feel any better. In seventh grade, the demonic voice had come back.
There was nothing to stop it from coming back again this time, too.
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