Free Dead Souls by Michael Laimo Page A

forward; without the sound of his footsteps, he was unable to tell if his feet were actually touching the ground.
    It feels as though I'm floating …
    He turned and handed the baby to Faith, then removed a key from his robe pocket and unlocked the padlock. Despite the visible pop of the latch, there was absolutely no sound at all. He removed the lock, and in that instant the bird dropped the horsefly at Benjamin's feet, its falling weight parting the mist like a rock in a pond. Benjamin could see the plump insect fidgeting frantically amidst the blades of tall grass. He pocketed the key and lock, then pulled open the large wooden doors to the barn, whose hinges had lost their loud rusting screech.
    The wind gusted, blowing across the mouth of the barn and sending in rolling pillows of fog. It crawled along the hard soil ground, seeping toward the bales of hay piled beneath the fifteen-foot loft. He could hear a high-pitched whistling sound, the result of a warm breeze whipping in through gaps in the wooden beams; apparently, the strange vacuum appeared not to exist in here.
    Benjamin hunkered down and picked up the horsefly, which he gingerly placed into his pocket. For Bryan, a special gift from the messenger . He then crossed the threshold into the barn, leaving just enough room behind for Faith, Elizabeth, and Daniel to settle in behind him. He looked at the gloom-filled store, the hay-bales stacked high beneath the loft, blocking the way to the rear of the barn; straw was spread out amidst hunks of wood and pieces of rusted tractor parts. Flattened tires leaned drunkenly against the right wall. Clutter existed nearly everywhere, except at the very center of the barn where Benjamin had put in order all preliminary measures for the ritual.
    The first thing he noticed was the heat: dense and oppressive, hitting him like a tangible force. It could've been a hundred degrees in here, maybe more. Sweat poured down his back in quick rivulets, and a warning voice inside his head told him that he would need to commence with the ritual quickly and efficiently—that the infant would not be able to withstand the extreme temperature for too long.
    Slowly and soberly, he stepped toward the center of the barn where two four-by-eight slabs of black-primed wood were lodged flatly into the soil. Painted in white on the wood was the magic circle, its circumference measured out at exactly eight feet. Benjamin stepped into the circle, the hairs on the back of his neck immediately shifting from the loaded conditions of the air. On the ground outside of the circle were the four pentagrams, plus the north-facing triangle of the gift; each held white candles at their points. He removed a box of wooden matches from his pocket, then kneeled down before each figure and lit the candles, first at the pentagrams, and then the triangle. Scrawled in white paint along the edges of the triangle was the Seal of Osiris, the inch-high words now aglow beneath the bask of motionless candlelight. Once the candles were lit, Benjamin nodded to Elizabeth, who as directed, closed the doors to the barn.
    He immediately paced to the rear of the barn, to a point near the bales of hay, where a black silk sheet had been draped. He removed the sheet to reveal the consecrated mirror, frameless, supported only by black-painted plywood wedged between the bales. About six feet tall and two feet wide, various symbols adorned the edges of the mirror's surface: six triangles, running along the top with the name of OSIRIS split up, one letter at each of their peaks; down the sides ran the symbolic representations of air, earth, fire, water, and spirit.
    Benjamin returned to the center of the eight-foot circle. He nodded to the others, who slowly walked over and stood just beyond the circle's circumference, alongside the pentagrams. He then closed his eyes, and pledged: "Here I stand at the center of the magic circle, where I shall act with the authority of the divine