Naked beneath the silvery-blue hue of the full moon, I enter the shallow woodland clearing, just as the book instructed. Branches stripped of leaves lace the sky like frail wooden capillaries around me, whispering in the light breeze that greets my sensitive skin. I'm aware of my nipples firming under the dappled droplets of mist that cling to my breasts; hair follicles contracting to commence an all-over shiver. I should feel cold but inner heat swamps it. Excitement, perhaps. Or fear. I'm unsure which is greater.

The leaves beneath my feet rustle and swirl as a gust eddies. Could almost be voices, surrounding, gathering, preparing for the spectacle. Movement to my left snaps my attention and I pause to listen, eyes widening to take in the partial gloom beyond the tree line.

Nothing.

Or something. A broken twig. A breathy sigh. Moonlight catching a pair of shadowy eyes.

Or nothing.

I swallow and shudder. Everything suddenly seems foolish, tonight of all nights. Halloween. All Saint's Eve. Samhain. While the origin of the celebration might be shrouded in historical mysticism and religious half-truths, they mostly agree on one thing: right now, the boundary between this world and the otherworld is at its thinnest. Spirits – benign or hostile – can surface. Listen. Even cross between realms.

All I have to do is summon them. Make them hear. Harness their power.

I'm out of options. God didn't hear me, maybe the spirits will.

Deep down I know it's a bad idea. Risky. Not only leaving myself so vulnerable, clothes piled at the edge of the clearing, but because nobody ever comes out here any more. Not after last time. The headline in the Solfield Gazette had screamed: 'Two dead in woodland ritual suicide!' and that was it. The last in a long line of unexplained, gruesome incidents that condemned the area and its sacred power to history books and hearsay.

Nanna: Mark my words, those woods are haunted, child. You stay well away.

Father: You reading about Pellingham again? What's the fascination? No good will come of it.

Only Mother actively fed my curiosity over the years: That place is powerful, Luna. Used properly, it could provide immense healing.

It's because of that I have a strange affinity to the place. An attraction fuelled by stories of witches and warlocks and spells and shimmering light in the books that line my bedroom shelf alongside traditional texts. It's more than a romantic ideal. I can feel it. A tingle. Energies aligning, triggering another shiver.

Closing my eyes I let my aura radiate, trying to block out my trepidation; the nagging doubts I have over what the hell I'm doing. What if Willow wakes to find my side of the bed empty? Would she worry? Call the police? What would the papers say? Crazy witch found naked in woods. I resist the temptation to insert the word dead in my fictitious headline. It won't come to that. I'm better than those before me. More practised. I can control it.

I have to.

Breathing steadily, I steel, reopen my eyes and approach the centre of the clearing, across the carpet of leaves that scuff and tickle my soles. The dark tips of my hair brush my spine with each crinkling step. I check all the elements are present, running through them in my head, eyes flitting across the space.

Earth underfoot.

Air all around.

Water from the mist.

Fire behind me, candle flickering inside the octagonal lantern alongside my clothes.

That just leaves ether. The fifth element to complete the calling.

Me.

Bone. Tissue. Blood. A conduit.

My only prop is the small photograph curved into my palm. My telos. My purpose. I can almost feel it burning an imprint into my hand as I take the remaining tentative steps.

Nervousness twists my gut but I swallow it back, even when the air grows heavier against my skin. Something changes as I reach the middle. Energy ripples through me from head to foot, rooting me, almost binding me by its sheer force. I gasp and sink to my knees, the leaves strangely welcoming as counterpoint to my heat, hands clapping to the ground shortly after as I'm pulled to earth by invisible shackles. Fear knots my heart. Perhaps I'm unprepared for this.

The power of the place ebbs. Up through my palms, arcing, biceps spasming with electricity that races to my shoulders and radiates down my spine to swirl my hips, before thundering through alabaster thighs to the floor. Over and over, like I've somehow completed a circuit. Plugged into nature.

Heat sears my palms. I only realise the extent after I yank up to kneel on my haunches, the photograph fluttering a few feet. It catches in the crook of a stray twig where I glimpse her face. Almost a reflection, familial features strong. Bubbly and vivacious. Before the illness and doctors and medication stripped it all away. Before she put her faith in them over herself. Over me. Became a gaunt, hollow shell. Lost conviction. Lost her way.

While the electrical storm around me still rages, I focus on her face. How it was. Keep it in mind as I attempt to arrange my thoughts, gradually pushing her away – far away – to a place where I can channel the energy later. To the end wall of a long corridor that stretches ahead in my mind as I refocus on the means to reach her. Help her. To harness my libido and transmit the incredible energy it contains to manifest itself in restorative power. To let my orgasm be heard by the spirits that I feel surrounding and crowding me, to amplify its potency, sweeping my intentions before it; a wave propelling a boat along on its crest.

Perhaps my actions are partly rooted in selfishness; so we can share more years together before we’re separated on this plane by more natural means. But it in no way lessens my desire to effect change.

Everything calms a moment as I muse. The breeze abruptly stops, almost as if the place is holding its breath. Waiting for me. I try not to be unsettled. Concentrate on my goal.

The starting point is clear. Willow. As I kneel in nature's carpet, the warmth of my hands comes to rest on my hips the way she does to me, her proximity lighting me up as her mouth brushes mine. That crackle escalates between us as we take turns capturing one another's lips before the kiss turns potent, tongues lancing, swirling like the leaves that stir once more around me.

I trace fingertips up my body, skim my breasts, then down, exploring the curvature the way she does, each time as if it's her first touch. That's one of the things I love about her. That discovery. That desire to know me inside and out. To take me places I cannot tread alone. To push.

Her touches are tender at first. Barely a breath above my skin that's ruffled by the returning breeze. Each hair seems to respond in an identical manner, standing on end like iron filings to her magnetism. The shiver strengthens as her lips travel across my cheek, nibble my ear and rove to my neck that I tip back to expose.

There's just something about giving myself to her completely. Letting her take me. Own me. Control my pleasure. As her caresses roam from point to point, shoulder, to neck, to throat, her pace increases fractionally. I glow, knowing her actions are not just for my benefit, but because our closeness affects her too. Turns her on. Ultimately makes her drip like the moisture in the air that catches on my lips and rolls into my eager, parted mouth. To devour her as she rocks above me, the moans in my head that she elicits joined by the tree boughs groaning as the wind picks up further.

I'm only aware that I'm stroking my breasts when my nipples harden fully. Strokes turn to full massages, squeezing doughy flesh before I grip each nipple between thumb and forefinger as if it's her lips seeking. Rolling. Pinching as I gasp to the trees, perhaps too loud.

My eyes drift shut but I can feel her staring up at me. Watching my reactions to her tiny nibbles hopping from pebbled peak to peak, occasionally flicking her tongue. Circling. Lapping. Teeth grazing when she senses I need more. I arch, breasts angled up, trying to thrust my needy flesh into her hot mouth, instead feeling the sting of her bite rocket through my taut frame.

Grabbing my flesh, I squeeze. Moan a little. Let the telos flash through my head, to remind the spirits that I'm doing this for her, not me. But Willow occupies the fortress of my mind. It's her breath that heats me. Her teeth that electrify me, aching nipples the epicentre of the fire that dances inside my body in unison with the flame flickering in the lantern.

Between my splayed thighs, wetness forms. Droplets of nectar that foretell an orgasm I need the spirits to hear. One that will carry my power out to where it's needed. I drift fingertips to greet it, scuffing heated bare skin to mimic the way Willow touches, kisses, and licks, her breath fluttering into the smooth curve that leads down to where I need her most.

She often makes me wait. Anticipate. Squirm and wriggle as just her breath plays over me, teasing before the next touch lands. Rarely is it where I expect, which is as exciting as it is maddening. I want her so much. Wish she were here with me for support, but know it's something I must do alone. She wouldn't understand.

My fingers drift almost on automatic to my opening. It's her tongue, I swear. Flicking and teasing my folds, collecting nectar that I see starts to coat her lips. I never tire of that vision. Of her enjoying me.

The thought that anyone could stumble into the clearing and discover me barely registers. Any inhibitions I may have had are consumed by the act of expressing my love for Willow out here. For me. For Zara. For them to deliver.

I can feel them around me, swirling energy building as my fingers pick up speed, curling into myself a notch. Further. Deeper until I'm gasping Willow's name into the mist.

Affording her greater access, I tip my head back further, hair brushing the ground behind my feet. Something tugs at it and I try to jerk forward but I'm held fast. The leaves and twigs whip over my soles like rope and knot, binding me. Loop rapidly up my calves and over my thighs, maintaining my parted posture. Plugged into the clearing again.

Hurriedly tugging my fingers from my dripping snatch, I reach behind to scrabble at the unseen bonds, only for more of the natural carpet to snake up my arms and capture them too. Panic rises, immediately replaced with a chilling heat as something takes over where my fingers recently vacated.

My eyes widen as the mist ahead of me forms shapes. Ghostly tendrils attached to a central figure. More of an ever-changing blob than of any fixed outward appearance, shifting and pulsing and shimmering in the moonlight. It's strangely beautiful. Serene and uplifting, exuding calm it wordlessly tells me to relax, like it's in my head, part of me, the brush of its watery stems cool along my inner thighs.

I cease struggling, mouth dropping open as the shape throbs, like nature's heartbeat feeding off mine, completely in sync with my own racing pulse. An extension of my libido. Maybe this is what it takes. How it feeds. The books never stated how it worked, just that it did if the giver had faith. Believed.

My eyes roam the floor and fall upon Zara's photograph.

I believe. And have more faith than most.

Spectral fingers slither up my thighs and I tense as they break and dissolve into particles of vapour, leaving dewdrops clinging to my shaved lips. Like waves lapping at my spread, repeatedly they encroach, each time daring to forge further.

The wind picks up around me, eddying, drying me momentarily, only for the shape to grow and wash over my mons, cleansing me. Simultaneously draining and energising me, its reach extends stroke by stroke and my eyes widen at the sight of my pussy lips spreading, seemingly of their own accord as the phantom fog invades me.

It's like nothing I've ever experienced. Tender and unthreatening in its actions, yet terrifying in the gravity of its execution. Helpless, bound and open, I can do nothing but watch agape as it starts to fuck me. I roll my head, the glow inside building, just like it does when Willow's breath patters my flowering lips. When her tongue rakes between them and twirls juices up to draw concentric circles around my proud jewel. When her fingers slip beneath her chin and lance inside to greet my drizzling wetness.

Splitting me over and over as she flutters her tongue in the most exquisite, otherworldly shapes, I'm paralysed by the expression of lust she exudes as our eyes lock. There's nothing I can do but gasp and pant and grab my breasts to squeeze and pinch the tender caps.

As if reading my mind, the bonds corkscrew higher, past my elbows, biceps flexing uselessly beneath the creeping scratches of nature. Up over my shoulders, tickling my underarms, I squirm as they wind their way to encircle my chest, the spirit's rocking motion between my legs tempering the fear that I'm not actually ready for whatever it takes if there's substance to the prior newspaper reports.

Young women torn limb from limb, their ligaments scattered throughout the clearing.

Lovers fused together, arms wrapped around one another, cast in medusa-like stone.

The most recent discovery of the man and his mistress draped hand-in-hand over a tree bough, a pair of branches piercing their hearts.

I fight to push them from my mind as the ground crawls over my skin, winding around my breasts and tightening in the most terrifyingly delicious pinch. My nipples threaten to burst as the crush grows and heat floods to my pussy, a deluge of juice in its wake absorbed by the ethereal spirit that morphs and oscillates, empowered with every drop it takes from me.

A scream wells in my throat as pleasure rips through me. My eyes frantically scan the ground for Zara's image, barely able to focus while the shadowy, wet fingers curl inside my channel fully and flex. My pussy is gripped tight by an invisible force, the apparition massaging my walls up against my clit that's pressed hard into my body.

I cry out and the woodland responds, consuming more of my body, barely any skin remaining as it winds effortlessly around my neck, constricting my throat and cutting off the scream that desperately wants to escape. To alert anyone within earshot.

Panic fills my watery eyes. Then something new. Liquid tendrils at my behind, slithering in. Probing as my failed screams turn to uncontrollable groans at the dual sensation, muffled by the ghastly realisation that not only are leaves and twigs enveloping my mouth from outside, but they're sprouting from inside my throat itself, slithering upward past my tongue to meet the offshoots advancing across my cheeks.

I'm taken. Utterly devoured by the clasp of nature, its fingers filling and exiting my quivering body in delirious unison, driving me higher than I'd ever thought possible. Colours stream behind my eyes, unearthly howls filling the dark wood as the wind becomes a typhoon and my world crumbles inward.

The last two things I notice before everything turns black are Zara's face flitting in the cyclone and the incredible feeling of weightlessness as my release peaks. I gush and spasm and shake in my supernatural bonds, glowing like a beacon of pure energy before an overwhelming peace descends in its aftermath.

The wind abruptly sucks to stop, I close my eyes and pulse in the self-imposed darkness, suspended, limp, elated, unmoving.

Then lifeless.

~oOo~

Fat droplets hammer the ground outside the church. A congregation huddle outside, black umbrellas forming a crude oval as the rain-spattered cask lowers into the ground. Shaky hands grip one another. Sobs and tears join the deluge from the sky to wash into the muddy grave.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

I make the sign of the cross and turn to let them grieve, traipsing back up the winding path between the weathered gravestones. It's the hardest part of my job.

In the sanctity of the church, I collect a stack of prayer books and distribute them among the pews for the next service then stand in the centre of the nave staring blankly ahead at the stained glass. The scratches have all but healed.

I still don't know what – if anything – happened that night. Somehow I'd made it back before daybreak after stirring, naked and prone on the ground, juices from my incredible orgasm sticky between my thighs. A handful of leaves and twigs were scrunched in my palms, and Zara's photograph untouched to one side.

Without much control over my body I'd stumbled to the tree line, retrieved my clothes and woke slightly before midday, still clothed on the bed, a concerned Willow stroking my scuffed and dirty cheek.

Of course she had questions to which I had no answers. Not ones to satisfy her, or me. But as I healed, the questions faded and she lovingly took her time. Gave me enough distance. Knew when to hold me. I'm so lucky to have her.

I grimace. Luck.

Zara's not so lucky. Nothing's changed. She's still emaciated. Still tired. For all my foolishness, for all that risk, the books had failed. Or I had. I nearly burned them all. Replaced the lot with the bible again. But at the back of my mind was doubt. Maybe I hadn't done something right. Maybe the conditions weren't right. Maybe I'd raised the wrong spirits. Or none at all. Everything was hazy, the only thing I remember being the incredible power of my climax. The way I'd…

My phone trills in the cavernous silence and startles me.

I cross to the pulpit and pick up the glowing handset. The display reads:

Zara

Furrowing my brow, I swipe to answer.

"Hey."

"Hey, sis." She's chirpy. "Can you talk?"

"Of course."

Her voice is tinged with excitement. "You're not going to believe this. I'm coming home."

"What? When?"

"Tomorrow."

"Oh." I pause. "They admitting defeat? Going to let you live out your days in peace at last?"

There's silence on the line, save for a deep intake of breath. "No, that's just it. I'm fine."

I grab the pulpit canopy. "What? But…"

"I know. They say it's a miracle. They've run test after test and there's no trace whatsoever."

"None?"

"None. Vanished. Vamoosed."

I crumple to the steps and cover my mouth with my palm, a tear sprouting from the corner of my eye and trickling alongside my nose. I sniff. Can't even speak.

Her tone wavers. "Hey, shoosh, don't or you'll set me off."

A sharp laugh splutters past my fingertips and I wipe my eye. "Sorry, I… That's…"

"I know, right."

All the air rushes out of me. "That's wonderful. What's… uhh, do you…?"

"Yeah." She laughs. That infectious little giggle I've not heard in months. Maybe years. "Would you be able to pick me up? About ten."

Smiling and taking a deep breath, I nod. "Of course."

"Thanks. You're the best. Oh, and Luna?"

"Yes?"

"I know it's been difficult… I've been difficult. But thank you for not giving up on me."

I wipe my eye again. "What are sisters for?"

We let the silence hang before I break it, still barely able to comprehend the news. "See you tomorrow then."

"Yeah. Tomorrow." Her voice cracks and she stifles a sob. "Funny. I don't fear that word any more." I give up trying to stop the tears flow and just nod as she signs off. "See ya."

The line goes dead and I roll the phone over and over in my shaking hands. Put the device back alongside my beaten bible. Pick up the book, NIV in gold lettering emblazoned on its front, and let its page edges rapidly flutter past my thumb a few times. I stop at a random page and open it. Romans 8:6 catches my eye:

The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.

I snap the book shut, conflicted, and stride from the church to stand in the torrential rain, questioning whether faith truly comes from the sky or the earth or within.