Stark Diary 22:  Possession is 9/10th of the Law

Harry said, "Stark I'll need to see your hand for a moment to set up the spell."  I extended my hand out to him, and quicker than I thought possible, he poked a long golden needle into my thumb.  He had the needle hidden in his hand.

"Ow!"

I instinctively jerked back, but he held on and tsked at me.  "The essence of yourself is contained in your blood."  He took me by the end and led me to the four points of the chalk diamond I stood in, he squeezed the thumb and a drop of blood fell on the point.  He continued with the lecture as he dragged me around the diamond, dropping blood at each point.  "If you are possessed by a demon and we call it out, this diamond of your blood will help you ground yourself in reality and fight the repossession."  He pushed up his round golden glasses and looked at me somewhat eagerly, "We won't be sure how much of a fight it puts up, until we've called it forth.  Of course Cecily will be outside the diamond to help if things get out of hand."  Cecily stood there watching with an equal gleam in her eye.

He let my hand drop and pulled out some sort of black charcoal substance and started drawing a circle around me and Cecily.  "This will keep the demon in and restrain it from getting out if we do call it forth."

I held up my bloody hand, "Do you need this anymore?"

He looked up from the ground, "Oh...no, no more blood for now."

"For now?" I stuck my finger in mouth and sucked on the thumb to stop the bleeding.  I stood there, half way between bemused and alarmed.   I was somewhat hoping for possession.  It sounded like a better alternative than loosing my mind.  Twice now, I been going about my daily life and the world had skipped a beat.   I couldn't describe it any better than that.  One moment, life was as how I had gotten to know it, the next I was somewhere I didn't recognize.  The first time I had been out jogging, 3 miles out, and 3 miles back.  I reached the end of the 3 mile run out and suddenly I was in a place that I didn't recognize.  I looked around and the trees were strange.

I know that rock formation was not there when I had last jogged out.  My guard, Jonqui, thought it was strange when I asked him if he recognized where we were, but humored me anyway.  A moment later, and everything did look familiar.  The next day, the same thing happened in the bathroom.  I stood there, washing my hands in the basin and everything looked different.  I didn't recognize where I was at all.   That was it.  I was disturbed.  Had Fletcher's meddlings in my memory messed other things up?  Had he left additional spells on me.  I stormed down to Harry's room, and asked him to help. 

The magic test had drawn a blank.  No obvious ensorcelments.  The demon possession drew another blank.  He had joked about me being pregnant, but I knew unless we were experiencing immaculate conceptions that wasn't possible.  I'd had two periods since I last slept with anyone.  As Cecily, Harry and I stood around puzzling.  The servants rushed up and motioned Cecily out of the room.  Some emergency or another.  Harry and I looked at each other and shrugged at the same time, then laughed.  I think we were both happy that we had not been nominated Regent.