#Bruges Candle

[culturesfinest]

Bruges Belgium scented candle - soy wax candles - candle gift dark - Vela - Custom Candle Packed with immersive aromas, these scented candles come in 9oz glass jars and are one size (2.8in × 3.5in) (7.1cm × 8.8cm). Made with 100% natural soy wax blend, each candle features a 100% cotton wick and a permanent adhesive label where your custom designs can come alive. .: Materials: 100% natural soy wax blend, 100% cotton wick and a glass jar .: One size: 2.8in × 3.5in (7.1cm × 8.9cm) .: Burning time: 50-60 hours .: Glossy permanent adhesive label .: Choose from five different aromatic scents .: Assembled in the USA from globally sourced parts .: NB! All scents have the same wax color the Bruges Belgium Cityscape Scented Candle - Soy Wax Candles - Candle Gift. Transport yourself to the picturesque city of Bruges, Belgium with the Bruges Belgium Cityscape Scented Candle. This beautifully crafted soy wax candle is a delightful addition to any home, offering a fragrant and calming ambiance inspired by the charming streets and canals of Bruges. Hand-poured with care, this candle features a carefully selected blend of high-quality soy wax and premium fragrances that have been expertly blended to recreate the essence of Bruges. The result is a captivating scent that captures the unique atmosphere of this historic city, allowing you to bring a piece of its beauty into your own home. The Bruges Belgium Cityscape Scented Candle is designed to not only fill your space with a luxurious fragrance, but also to become a stunning decorative piece in its own right. Its glass jar is adorned with an intricate illustration of the cityscape of Bruges, showcasing its iconic buildings and canals. This exquisite design adds a touch of elegance to any room and makes for a perfect gift for those who appreciate both fine fragrance and beautiful décor. As you light the wick of this candle, you will be transported to the cobbled streets and romantic waterways of Bruges, with the fragrance delicately infusing the air. The scent is a harmonious blend of crisp, floral notes and warm, earthy undertones, evoking the ambiance of the city in the most enchanting way. Whether you are indulging in a relaxing bath, entertaining guests, or simply unwinding after a long day, this candle will create an atmosphere of tranquility and sophistication. In addition to its captivating scent and stunning design, the Bruges Belgium Cityscape Scented Candle is crafted with sustainability in mind. Made with natural soy wax, this candle burns cleanly and evenly, emitting no harmful toxins into the air. Its long-lasting burn time means that you can enjoy the delightful fragrance of Bruges for many hours, making it a sustainable choice for those who seek eco-friendly products. This soy wax candle is a perfect choice for those who appreciate the art of fragrance and want to elevate their living spaces with a touch of luxury. Whether purchased for personal enjoyment or as a thoughtful gift, the Bruges Belgium Cityscape Scented Candle is sure to add a touch of sophistication and relaxation to any home. Immerse yourself in the timeless charm of Bruges, Belgium with this exquisite candle and experience the allure of this enchanting city in the comfort of your own space.

[the-four-humors]

Basilica of the Holy Blood

Bruges, Belgium

2014

[dutch-and-flemish-painters]

Godfriedt van Bochoutt - Vanitas still life with a poem concerning the death of Charles I - 1665

Godfriedt van Bochoutt (1659–1666) was a Flemish still painter who was active in his native Bruges and Rotterdam. The limited body of work attributed to him ranges from fruit still lifes, hunting still lifes, vanitas still lifes and trompe l'oeil paintings.

Van Bochoutt's Vanitas still life with a poem on the death of Charles I (signed and dated 1668, at Bonhams auction of 23 October 2019, London lot 67TP) is one of his most extensive and explicit vanitas paintings. The usual moral lessons of vanitas still lifes are conveyed by the objects represented in this still life: the brevity of life and the unstoppable march of time are symbolized by the skull, extinguished candle, empty pipe, smoldering fuse, wilting flowers, decaying fruit, dead animals, an almanac and a watch; the role of chance in life by the dice and playing cards; the hardships of life in the peeled lemon and the emptiness of worldly achievements and power in the ink stand, globe, musical scores and books. The latter theme is particularly highlighted by a reference to the fate of the executed English king Charles I of England. The composition depicts a playing card of a king lying on its side, a crown and a Dutch-language mourning poem on the death of Charles I which is lying over a skull. The poem is stated at its bottom to have been printed in Amsterdam in 1665. In the Northern Netherlands there was a lot of sympathy for the executed king among the large community of exiled English Royalists and a significant number of Dutch citizens. Other Dutch and Flemish still life artists, such as Vincent van der Vinne, Hendrick Andriessen and Carstian Luyckx, were also producing vanitas still lifes on the death of King Charles I for the Dutch market.

[seeking-elsewhither]

Here’s the story; I would highly suggest looking at a picture of Johannes van Eyke’s Arnolfini Portrait before reading.

June 2nd, 1434. Bruges.

It was a beautiful day for a funeral. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and the priest was chanting a requiem for Lysbet. The sickness had come on suddenly, leaving me without my dear companion, and my friend Giovanni without his wife. The hot blue sky seemed to press down on us mourners in our black coats. Giovanni stood beside the new grave stoically shaking the hands of all who passed by offering words of comfort or condolence. As I grew closer to him in the line of well-wishers, he caught my eye and smiled for what I thought must be the first time since dear Lysbet passed.

As I reached out my hand, he pulled me in for an embrace. “Would you mind taking care of Baldwin for a few days while I go to Antwerp?” he asked. “I’m moving there soon and want to get some things in order.”

Of course I agreed, his lapdog was a joy to be around. For the next few days, I went about my business, working on commissions, and playing with Baldwin. Eventually Giovanni was back and it was time to return Baldwin.

As I walked up the path to what used to be Giovanni and Lysbet’s shared home, Baldwin jumped from my arms and bolted through the front door, which was oddly ajar. As I stepped inside, I caught a glimpse of Baldwin’s tail as he went into the next room. Seeing Giovanni, I went in to properly return his dog.

When I came in, Giovanni was not alone. He and a second figure seemed to have just finished a deep conversation. Giovanni and... Lysbet? did not seem to register my presence as Giovanni lifted one hand, as if in benediction, or farewell. The other clasped hers. Baldwin was the only one who seemed to see me, lifting his head to greet me before turning his attention back to his mistress. Lysbet gave him a smile, at once seeming so angelic and sad I could not help but wipe a tear from my eye. Giovanni did the same. He smiled at her and whispered something I couldn’t quite catch. Suddenly I felt that I was not meant to be there.

I turned to leave but Giovanni called after me. As I turned back to answer him, we were the only ones in the room, apart from the loyal Baldwin. Giovanni seemed calmer then. He waved me in and bade me to sit.

A sudden breeze from the open window put out the single lit candle in the chandelier over his head, which I hadn’t noticed until the puff of smoke rose from the wick. He launched into a long explanation of his affairs, and how he would be leaving Bruges soon for his new townhome in Antwerp. The sudden shift in the room’s energy from the ethereal presence of dear Lysbet to such mundane topics was jarring to me, and I struggled to keep up with the conversation. It seemed as though my friend did not wish to discuss what had happened, if indeed it had ever happened.

I wrapped up the conversation as quickly as I could, leaving him with my best wishes and condolences. His face grew momentarily grave at that. We stood a moment in silence, before his face cleared and he said we’d both best be going and wished me a good evening.

Though he did not wish to speak of the event, and I never mentioned it again, I never forgot the chance I had to see my friend, his wife, one last time. Years later when I feared that time might steal this precious memory from me I painted the scene so that I would never be able to convince myself that this visitation did not occur. I put them all in just as I saw them, Giovanni and Lysbet and even Baldwin. The single lit candle above Giovanni’s head, the open window, the mirror on the wall, none of these did I forget.

I only added one detail: an inscription on the wall.

“Johannes van Eyke was here.”

Ohhhh this is amazing!

Making it supernatural does explain the weirdness of the portrait.

Wait, does it really say that on the wall? I never looked at the picture so thoroughly.

Man, this is cool! Waaaay cool!

Thank you for sharing it!

[a-being-of-chaossss]

End of year stats!

Age: Minor

Height: 5’2

Grade: N/A

Confidence: 8/10

Happiness: 7/10

Gender: Genderfluid/Agender

Sexuality: Ace

Romantic: Arospec Sapphic

Fav food: uhhhh idk

Fav show: Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Fav movie: In Bruges/Boy Kills World

Fav song: Play Dice - Hakos Baelz

Fav artist: Hakos Baelz

Relationship status: Not interested

Fav colour: Mint

Fav season: Fall

Followers: 193 (damn hi followers)

@thatoneluckybee @quintessential-candles @kirexa @thestaticonyourscreen @fish-nailed-to-a-cross @fireflychaosdemon @your-new-gay-sushi

End of year stats!

Age: won’t say but minor

Height: 5’5

Grade: won’t say

Confidence: 7/10

Happiness: 5/10

Gender: gender fluid

Sexuality: asexual

Romantic: aroflux

Fav food: probably ramen?

Fav show: b99

Fav movie: not any

Fav song: too many to pick!!!

Fav artist: wallows or dayglow

Relationship status: single

Fav colour: green

Fav season: winter

Followers: 358 (as of Dec 29 at 2 am)

[why-do-i-like-the-bad-guys]

Sad movies I’ve watched:

The Diary of a teenage girl

What Maisie Knew

Buffalo 66

Speak

Good Will Hunting

Dead Poets Society

An Education

My Sister’s Keeper

Stepmom

In Bruges

The Virgin Suicides

The Boy in The Striped Pajamas

The Imitation Game

Me Earl and the Dyling Girl

Disconnect

Self/less

The Outsiders

16 Candles

The Skeleton Twins

The Free World

Cardboard Boxer

You’re Ugly Too

[brightdayboards]

Bruges-La-Morte (1978)

[bradshawed]

thank you for the tag @thyme-in-a-bubble x

no pressure tags: @sematarygirls @bruisedboys @bcyhoods @wolvisms @cainache @sacharinee @waklman @dadcomfort @katsendgame @nolita-fairytale (and anyone else who would like to take part!)

thanks for the tag @lover-of-books-and-tea

no pressure tags: @chvoswxtch @appocalipse @oncasette @bradshawed @ghostlyfleur

[comettravels]

Bruges, Belgium.

[britomart]

okay for the hell of it i decided to list the movies i watched this *Last, i mean last year too :] (fortunately not as long as the book list but still kinda long so under the cut-!)

parasite (2019), in bruges (2008), sing street (2016), emma (1996), knives out (2019), she's all that (1999), 10 things i hate about you (1999), shaun of the dead (2004), this is where i leave you (2014), clouds of sils maria (2014), koyaanisqatsi (1982), clueless (1995), some like it hot (1959), the martian (2015), sherlock holmes (2009), exposed (2016), bill and ted's excellent adventure (1989), the punk singer (2013), a trip to the moon (1902), hiroshima mon amour (1959), lotr the two towers (2002), parsifal (1912), buffet froid (1979), submarine (201), brexit the uncivil war (2019), bridget jones's diary (2001), four weddings and a funeral (1994), mary and the witch's flower (2017), stop making sense (1984), much ado about nothing (1993), man with a movie camera (1929), sixteen candles (1984), the rocky horror picture show (1975), the spy who dumped me (2018), the beatles: eight days a week (2016), mysterious skin (2004), dying to survive (2018), princess cyd (2017), falsettos (2017), stroszek (1977), dreams (1990), wallace and gromit curse of the were-rabbit (2005), spider-man: into the spider-verse (2018), at eternity's gate (2018), promising young woman (2020), minari (2021), rocketman (2019), howl’s moving castle (2004), paddington (2014), emma (2020), whale rider (2002), moana (2016), paddington 2 (2017), howl's moving castle (2004), submarine (2010), the dig (2021), stop making sense (1984), the song remains the same (1976), k-on! the movie (2011), cold war (2018), kingsman the secret service (2014), minimalism (2015), lord of the rings the return of the king (2003), contagion (2011), the lake house (2006), lotr the fellowship of the ring (2001), little women (2019), spirited away (2001), ant-man (2015), iron man (2008), adventures of sherlock holmes (1939), game night (2018), enola holmes (2020), game night (2018), blade runner (1982), pride and prejudice (2005), watchmen (2009), the invisible man (2020), mamma mia (2008), harry potter series (2001–2011), carol (2015), star wars the force awakens (2015), sherlock jr (1924), maudie (2016), the age of innocence (1993), spellbound (1945), fox and his friends (1975), another round (2020), it must be heaven (2019), flickering lights (2000), basquiat (1996), dog day afternoon (1975), captain fantastic (2016), mean girls (2004), ready or not (2019), snow white (1937), my big gay italian wedding (2018), happiest season (2020), kiki's delivery service (1989), alphaville (1965), scott pilgrim vs the world (2010), reservoir dogs (1992), hot fuzz (2007), reservoir dogs (1992), the killing (1956), reservoir dogs (1992), reservoir dogs (1992), but i'm a cheerleader (1999), the umbrellas of cherbourg (1964), reservoir dogs (1992), ponyo (2008), howl's moving castle (2004), reservoir dogs (1992), gimme shelter (1970), american animals (2018), calm with horses (2019), romeo + juliet (1996), brooklyn (2015), lilting (2014), man up (2015), trainspotting (1996), withnail and i (1987), reservoir dogs (1992), bridesmaids (2011), lotr the fellowship of the ring (2001), music and lyrics (2007), 24 hour party people (2002), the nice guys (2016), run lola run (1998), the sum of us (1994), desperately seeking susan (1985), mikey and nicky (1976), reservoir dogs (1992), fargo (1996), black widow (2021), my beautiful laundrette (1985), paddington (2014), no country for old men (2007), days of being wild (1990), chungking express (1994), tommy (1975), guess who's coming to dinner (1967), romeo and juliet (2021), a silent voice (2016), tony takitani (2004), heathers (1989), the host (2006), in the mood for love (2000), zootopia (2016), the old man and the gun (2018), in the loop (2009), the death of stalin (2017), bad genius (2017), sleepless in seattle (1993), you've got mail (1998), sliding doors (1998), monty python and the holy grail (1975), lion (2016), reservoir dogs (1992), ferris bueller's day off (1986), back to the future (1985), yellow submarine (1968), rock n roll high school (1979), starshaped (1993), reservoir dogs (1992), hearts of darkness (1991), paddington 2 (2017), withnail and i (1987), mikey and nicky (1976), happy as lazzaro (2018), la haine (1995), battleship potemkin (1925), bringing up baby (1938), linda linda linda (2005), bringing up baby (1938), pulp (2014), the fifth element (1997), stop making sense (1984), mabo (2012), leon the professional (1994), dawn of the dead (1978), the x files (1998), birds of prey (2020), spider-man: far from home (2019), black panther (2018), tristan and isolde (1972), fire and sword (1982), prisoners (2013), inglourious basterds (2009), happy together (1997), pride (2014), a matter of life and death (1946), after life (1998), the x files (1998), memories of murder (2003), shaun of the dead (2004), hot fuzz (2007), the world's end (2013), booksmart (2019), knives out (2019), the red shoes (1948), whiplash (2014), whiplash (2014), whiplash (2014), whiplash (2014), death proof (2007), taxi driver (1976), the lair of the white worm (1988), the private life of sherlock holmes (1970), re-animator (1985), star wars (1977), star wars (1977), the empire strikes back (1980), much ado about nothing (2011), fireworks (1997), house (1977), submarine (2010), monterey pop (1968), four adventures of reinette and mirabelle (1987), the pianist (2002), t2 trainspotting (2017), velvet goldmine (1998), reservoir dogs (1992), swing time (1936), lancelot of the lake (1974), bringing up baby (1938), charade (1963), at eternity's gate (2018), brideshead revisited (2008), doctor who (1996), last night in soho (2021), no time to die (2021), the godfather (1972), the godfather (1972), withnail and i (1987), the long goodbye (1973), dune (2021), the matrix (1999), lupin iii: the castle of cagliostro (1979), carrie (1976), spider-man: no way home (2021), spider-man (2002), the florida project (2017), lotr the fellowship of the ring (2001), love actually (2003), the muppet christmas carol (1992), return of the jedi (1983), what we do in the shadows (2014), lesbian vampire killers (2009), the suicide squad (2021)

*some more favourite new watches bolded :)

[dutch-and-flemish-painters]

Godfriedt van Bochoutt - Still life with dead birds - 1662

Godfriedt van Bochoutt (1659–1666) was a Flemish still painter who was active in his native Bruges and Rotterdam. The limited body of work attributed to him ranges from fruit still lifes, hunting still lifes, vanitas still lifes and trompe l'oeil paintings.

Godfriedt van Bochoutt was a specialist still life painter. His known oeuvre is very limited. His subject matter ranges from fruit still lifes; hunting still lifes, vanitas still lifes and trompe l'oeil paintings.

Irrespective of their obvious subject matter, most of van Bochoutt's known still-life paintings carry a vanitas meaning. In other words, the objects in the still lifes can be regarded as references to the transient nature of all earthly goods and pursuits, the dependence on chance of life and its apparent meaninglessness. This meaning is conveyed in these still lifes through the use of stock symbols, which symbolise the transience of life and, in particular, the futility of earthly wealth and distinctions: skulls, extinguished candles, empty glasses, wilting flowers, dead animals, smoking utensils, watches, mirrors, books, dice, playing cards, hourglasses and musical instruments, musical scores, various expensive or exclusive objects such as jewellery and rare shells. The term vanitas is the key term used in the famous line Vanitas, Vanitas. Et omnia Vanitas in the Vulgate translation of the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible. In the King James Version this line is translated as "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity".

[ochipi]

Thank you for tagging me @meilas ! It’s been ages since i got one of these!

Are you named after anyone? I wish… for the last 500 years my dad’s side shared one (common) name which allows for a lot of variations for both men and women. But my mom hated the idea of being reminded of someone else when she called my name, and ended up giving me one of the rarest and ugliest names in the Low Countries.

When was the last time you cried? Last Thursday. Work stuff.

Do you have kids? Not as yet. But I have the loveliest babysitting family and have worked in kindergarten, taught badminton to six and 12 year olds and rotate other baby sitting jobs.

What sports do you play/have you played? I started badminton when I was around 8 and continued until I was around 22. I got a knee injury and combined with increasing study load at uni, it just fizzled out. But archaeology is plenty of physical activity :)

Do you use sarcasm? Sometimes. But they never land.

What is the first thing you notice about people? Their hair and their attitude towards the people they’re with.

What is your eye color? It has changed! I’ve turned from brown to dark green with a dark grey outer ring. And I love it!

Scary movies or happy endings? Happy endings. I am very sensitive to dream about stuff that happened during my day. Don’t need to dream about scary stuff.

Any talents? It feels awkward to say that about yourself, but I do get complimented a lot about how easy I pick up new handicraft skills.

Where were you born? In the same village as my grandfather, close to a medieval town and grew up in my grandfather’s childhood home. The roots are strong. ❤️ (Belgium by the way).

What are your hobbies? Handicrafts! The more traditional the better. So far they include; writing, frivolité lace making, tablet weaving, crocheting, beadwork (peyote and embroidery), embroidery, knitting, crocheting, candle making and water color. I hope to include yarn spinning, Bruges style lace (bobbin lace), Brussels style lace (needle worked), weaving and sewing to that list.

Do you have any pets? Yes! I myself own two aquariums, I have one cat Archaeology Kitty Noor but since I still live at my parents’ house it also includes another cat, 3 chickens and 3 geese.

How tall are you? I don’t see that information as necessary knowledge in my life. I refuse to know and every time a doctor measures me, I ask not to know. Same with my weight.

Favorite subject in school? History! And depending on the teacher English and Dutch as well.

Dream job? I am actually doing my dream job! Archaeology! But I have to confess that I am scared about what to do with my life if archaeology no longer works for me (f.e. Physically but also managing kids with ungodly hours).

I am tagging:

@rhyslahey @missjenniferrose @anon-e-has-a-tmblr @audkitty @typoforarosy-star

I was tagged by @cityoftheangelllls, thank you!

Are you named after anyone? Not that I know of, I think my parents' rationale for my name was, "Oh, this sounds pretty."

When was the last time you cried? I think a few days ago, when watching one of the few good parts of an otherwise very stupid TV show.

Do you have kids? Nope, and I don't have any plans to change that!

What sports do you play/have you played? None, though I did like playing badminton for fun.

Do you use sarcasm? Yes. Often.

What is the first thing you notice about people? Usually their eyes.

What's your eye color? Dark brown.

Scary movies or happy endings? Ooh, scary movies! Though I am not opposed to happy endings, nor do I think scary movies and happy endings are opposites or mutually exclusive. I also find that in my fanfics I tend towards happy or at least hopeful endings (even my fanfics for scary movies).

Any talents? Uh, my prodigious memory for useless information.

Where were you born? USA.

What are your hobbies? Reading, writing, random arts and crafts, blogging on Tumblr, watching movies, listening to music, playing video games, bootleg trading I guess.

Do you have any pets? I had a cat, but she passed away last April.

How tall are you? 5'2".

Favorite subject in school? History, but I was also very fond of English and biology.

Dream job? I don't think I have one, but I am happy as a teacher and I can see myself doing that for the rest of my career.

I'm tagging: @wheel-of-fish, @meilas, @pureanonofficial, @nanasalt, @box5intern, @emotionalmotionsicknessxx, @from-aldebaran, @symphony-in-a

[cardest]

Belgium playlist

The Allied forces have launched an offense and the strategy is to use Plastic Bertrand. See you in Waterloo! This is the Belgian playlist. Dank u (wel)

Have a listen here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-iHPcxymC19kFE2Ch75otguETyB8yv-0 Have I forgotten a song or band? Blistering barnacles! Let me know. Add your songs.

BELGIQUE 001 Channel Zero - Black Fuel 002 Mijne vlieger - walter de buck 003 AMENRA - Razoreater 004 Hemelbestormer & Vanessa Van Basten - Portal II 005 Brian Eno - The Fat Lady of Limbourg 006 Front 242 - ANIMAL 007 LENG TCH'E - 1-800-Apathy 008 They Might Be Giants - Meet James Ensor 009 Carnation - Explosive cadavers 010 De Vlier - Bezemdans Van Pulle 011 BLIKSEM - Twist the Knife 012 AC/DC - Bedlam In Belgium 013 Lugubrum Trio - Aldi Iacta Est 014 Wolvennest - Tief Unter 015 't Kliekske - Stokkendans 016 Oathbreaker - Immortals 017 Jacques Brel - Ces Gens La 018 Emptiness - Meat Heart 019 Witch Trail - Altered State 020 Mad Curry - Man 021 Iron Maiden - Paschendale 022 Bathsheba - Demon 13 023 WANNES VAN DE VELDE - Pieter Breughel in Brussels 024 HEXA MERA - Inhuman 025 R.Roland - Ethero-Disco 026 Ancient Rites - Mother Europe 027 The Neon Judgement - One Jump Ahead 028 The Casualties - No Turning Back 029 In Bruges Soundtrack-Medieval Waters 030 Pavane La Dona - Tielman Susato - Danserye 031 Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Christina the astonishing 032 Zita Swoon - My Bond With You And Your Planet Disco! 033 Die Anarchistische Abendunterhaltung - Drieslagstelsel II 034 BLACK MIRRORS - Funky Queen 035 Hidden Trails - Leaving Like That 036 Eddy Wally Cherie 037 Bobbejaan Schoepen - Cafà Zonder Bier 038 In Bruges Soundtrack-Shootout Part 1 039 De Kreuners - Zo Jong 040 Enthroned - Goatlust 041 Aktarum - Party Troll 042 Black Strike - Rat 043 The Black Tartan Clan - Dont Walk alone 044 Slow Crush - Glow 045 Claude Lombard - Les Enfants Perle 046 chakachas - Jungle Fever 047 Integrity - Hymn for the Children of the Black Flame   048 MANTIS - WELP 049 EXUVIATED - Last Call To The Void 050 Plastic Bertrand - Ca Plane Pour Moi 051 Lais - La Plus Belle de Cans 052 EVIL INVADERS - Raising Hell 053 Brutus - Drive 054 Elg - Panorama 055 Bil Tze - Wing Chun Kung Fu 056 LOTUS - L'Appel du Vide 057 Liquid G. - Selfdestruction 058 LVTHN - Eradication of Nescience 059 Hedonist - The Urge 060 Squash Bowels - Shit Oneself 061 Chakachas - Stories 062 COCAINE PISS - MY CAKE 063 Wolvennest - Void 064 Willem Vermandere - Onderweg 065 Evil shepherd - Darkness engulfs 066 dEUS - Quatre Mains 067 BEAR - Masks 068 Mark Hollander - Aksak Maboul Saure Gurke 069 àGRUMH - Ha People 070 Brutal Sphincter - Big Mouth, Tiny Hands 071 Chapell International with Rene Costy  - Scrabble 072 Acid - Maniac 073 Aborted - Die Verzweiflung 074 Ground Nero - Plethora 075 Crossfire - See you in hell 076 O Veux - Strange 077 Marc Moulin - Tohubohu II. 078 Agathocles - cheers mankind cheers 079 Ostrogoth - Queen of desire 080 SLOW - Aurore 081 Perverted Ceremony -  Light the inverted candles 082 Plastic Bertrand - Tout petit la planete 083 Brutus - Sugar dragon 084 Bathsheba - At the end of everything 085 Zeus - Held it 086 Possession - Sacerdotium 087 S to S - I'm a Killer 088 Francis Coppieters - Cross Talk 089 Saqra's Cult -  Inkarri 090 Butcher - Iron Bitch 091 Dario Mars and the Guillotines - Soulless 092 Whitesnake - Belgian Tom's Hat Trick 093 Integrity -  Cradle To The Grave (Motörhead cover) 094 PARAGON IMPURE - Sade II: Juliette, Queen Of Vice 095 ABORTED - Global flatline 096 Serpents Oath - Nihil 097 Red Zebra - I Can't Live in a Living Room 098 ABBA - Waterloo 099 Incredible Bongo Band - Last Bongo in Belgium 100 dEUS - Theme From Turnpike (from In A Bar, Under The Sea) 101 Enthroned - Sine Qua Non 102 Elton John - Just Like Belgium 103 Agathocles - Sieg Shit 104 The Bee Gees - Walking Back to Waterloo 105 Maurice Chevalier - Manneken Pis 111 Schizophrenia - Perpetual Perdition 333 Tintin theme song 666 Channel Zero - Suck My Energy

Grab your Guylian chocolates and have a good time listening. Play the songs here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-iHPcxymC19kFE2Ch75otguETyB8yv-0

[avinrydarchive]

hallow’s eve, saint’s day

Author: AvinRyd Fandom: The Bartimaeus Sequence Rating: G Pairing: Gen Word Count: ~8500 words

When in Prague...

--

Some lighthearted spooky shenanigans for you this October.

Written for the Bartimaeus Fic Exchange 2020. Check out the collection on AO3 to see everyone else’s awesome fics!

Read on AO3

Chapter 1: Somewhere: Sometime

 22,643

“...”

“Hello, glad to see you’re awake.”

“Um, hello. Where am I? How long was I...asleep?”

“Well, twenty-two thousand, six hundred and forty three spirits have passed by since you arrived, so I’d assume about five days on the mortal plane? Hard to say exactly, but I’ve had a while to put a model together. “As to where you are? Stuck.”

“Stuck?”

“Stuck. I have many theories as to where and how, but the fact is that we’re stuck here between the two dimensions known to my people—and yours, I’m assuming, since you came from the same direction I did.”

“Oh…

“You said you’ve been here for a while? Is it permanent, then? This being stuck?”

“In theory? No. I believe it’s possible for us to leave, should the right situation arise. However, in practice? I’ve yet to see a situation that would afford an exit so...it might be permanent, yes.”

“...”

“...”

“How long have you been here?”

“I lost count a few centuries ago.”

 1,962,573

“Hey, the gates haven’t done that before.”

“Oh, that usually means someone on the mortal plane came up with something interesting. What… Oh. That’s  very interesting. I wonder…”

“What? No. No, stop—whatever you’re ‘wondering’ it’s a bad idea.”

“Hmmm, doubtful.”

     4,747,821

    “...”

“Finally! That was way too long, don’t do it again.”

“How long?”

“Thirty thousand, six hundred and fifty seven. I didn’t think you were going to form back up that time.”

“I was  so close though. It closed just a fraction of a second too soon. Next time—”

“Next time?! Did you hear how long I said you were gone? You’re going to get yourself dispelled at this rate, and there’s no guarantee it’ll work!”

“It will.”

“Oh, so when I say stuff like that, it’s arrogant, but when you do it’s just fact?”

“It’s not arrogance when my previous hypotheses have all been correct. It’s based off the same knowledge, there’s every chance I’m right. I  know I’m right. I—

“Wait, there’s another one.”

“Ah, no. Hold on—”

“I’m going to do it. This time for sure.”

“Wait! What if it doesn’t work? What if it  does?  Will you— That is, I’ll be…”

“Don’t worry. I’ll work out the method, then come back for you. I promise, my friend.”

“Friends? Is that what we are? I—wait, no!”

“...”

“...”

“I didn’t even ask his name…”

Chapter 2: Prague: Hallow's Eve

“—so there’s no need to worry about it. Piper and Harold can badger me all they want, send all the nastily worded imp messages they like—it’s not like I’ll run out of 'fuck,no's. I’ve got an unlimited supply.” Kitty sighed and shifted, trying to ease the ache in her back without smudging chalk lines. Sitting on the hardwood floor was murder on her over-taxed body, sending sharp spikes of discomfort up the curve of her spine and into her creaking hip joints, but this circle was so fragile she didn’t dare risk throwing a chair into the mix. The ringing at the base of her skull wasn’t terribly comfortable either, but it was a side effect of this spell they’d been unable to mitigate. Over the slight resonance, Bartimaeus’s voice replied, “Alright, alright. And since you’ve left Bruges they’ll probably have a time finding you for a while, at least. How’s Prague?” “Beautiful. Old. Rainy. A bit spooky, but I suppose that’s to be expected.” The laugh ringing through their connection wasn’t just one voice, but many. That was the interesting thing about this; she was speaking to Bartimaeus, but he was only separated from the Other Place just enough to exist as “Bartimaeus”—the rest of the Other Place was nearly an equal part of their conversation, which had taken some getting used to. “See, that’s the appropriate response. Certain modern magicians I’ve known—particularly young, bratty, British ones—have no appreciation for the old magic that city is steeped in. And speaking of magical detritus from a thousand failed spells, you did bring your instruments with you when you left Belgium, right? This is the longest we’ve ever had the portal open, and—” Kitty sighed again, much put-upon. “Yes, Bartimaeus. I have them and they’re set up and everything is stable. There was a tiny spike a few minutes ago, but everything is normal otherwise. I left Bruges to get away from the hovering protective people, you know. Please don’t you start being one now.” Bartimaeus scoffed, but the humming presence behind him was at least half on Kitty’s side, she was sure. “Fine, far be it from me to care about silly humans doing insane experimental magic with minimal education. I place full faith in your absolute knowledge and will immediately cease worrying that the portal will explode in your face and leave a Kitty-sized crater in one of the oldest standing magical cities of the mortal realm. I wash my metaphorical hands of it.” It was Kitty’s turn to laugh, bright and clear in a way it’d taken years for her to get to. “You do that. Anything in particular I should know about the city: places I should go, things to avoid?” “Eh, just keep your wits.” Kitty got a strong, almost visual impression that, had Bartimaeus been in a material form, he’d be looking on with an unimpressed twist to his mouth. This was such a weird spell. “If you’ve got that aura-viewing skill on tap still, keep a sharp eye out. Avoid any bridges without auras—they’re most likely falling apart internally. And costumed men with ‘distinctive’ candles!” “O-o-okay? That’s highly specific, should I be concerned?” The suggestion of a shrug and his words came through crackled with interference. “Not really, he was just a bit creepy by human standards, and that candle… Not a thing for polite company. Thought you’d prefer to steer clear of anyone similar. Don’t go to graveyards tonight, either.” The ringing at the back of Kitty’s mind was escalating to a high whine and she reached up to massage the base of her skull. One of the glass phials outside the circle, sealed and full of swirling gas, was starting to pulse with a faint glow. “Alright Bartimaeus, we’ve got to stop. The spell’s starting to break up. I’ll try again after I’ve spoken with the print master, okay?” “Good, this was probably too much strain on you anyway. Have fun bullying old men into changing books!” The djinni’s voice sounded further away than before, and before Kitty could reply, the connection snapped off. There was a sharp pop and a flash of sparks in the air above her as the spell collapsed—another issue to work on. She’d love to reach out to Button for ideas on a fix, but that would invite more pleas to return to London and Kitty was so, so tired of those. Government was not for her, not even a little bit. Even her drive for activism had waned, though she suspected it was simply burnout—and as Bartimaeus and Jakob and everyone else had said, this was some well deserved burnout indeed. Standing up was a process for Kitty these days: gingerly uncross legs; wait for the shriek of pain to stop; get knees under herself with careful movements; press up using stiff wrists to stand with popping knees; roll slowly upright, feeling every sore vertebrate slot into place. Painkillers. She had a couple left from the drugstore in Burges, right? She hoped so. She was far too tired to be exploring the city for a drugstore—or an apothecary? Who knew what this place had. Her travel bag lay on the bed, flap sagging open to reveal her essentials. The white plastic of a drugstore bottle peeked out from under the sweater Mrs. Hyrnek had made for her, and she’d just reached for it when— “Did you know that, when a djinni is dismissed, the gates between our world and the Other Place are open for precisely eight-point-five-two seconds?” Kitty whipped around. The room was empty; the disembodied—familiar?—voice already just an echo bouncing off the window panes. Light from streetlamps flickered strangely through wavy glass and water droplets. Somewhere, thunder rolled. “Second—” There it was again, but there was nothing to see, no matter how hard Kitty looked. “—and you must know some of this, having visited the Other Place yourself—but did you know that a human soul is, pardon the pun, in essence the same composition as any spirit? Though with a deep affinity for the earth element that other spirits abhor. And that, if sufficiently stimulated and accustomed to the act, a soul can exit the body—voluntarily or not—and bridge the worlds; even following another spirit on its way away from our earthly plane?” The voice was familiar, and yet...not. Kitty could swear she’d never heard this person speak—a boy with an absolutely unfamiliar accent. And yet? And yet, in her mind she heard an echo… What do you presume…?   “And thirdly: did you know that your absolutely ingenious bit of spellwork holds the Elemental Gates open longer and with more stability than any spell used in the last two thousand years? And that, if a spirit were somehow stuck in a crevice of those gates, your spell provides an opportunity for escape not given in those same two thousand years?" The voice came from behind her now, and this time Kitty turned slowly—mindful of the crick in her neck her last turn had caused, and also not near as fearful. She knew now that there was nothing to fear from this voice. On her bed—or rather, floating slightly above it—sat a teenage boy, visible at last. Yellow lamp light and the watery orange glow of the street lights did not bring up warm highlights on his dark skin as they should have. He was nearly transparent and so washed out the ends of his curly hair faded out of sight. Seemingly unbothered by this, he grinned up at her, flush with the satisfaction of solving a millenia-old conundrum and shining with an emotion Kitty suspected might be gratitude. Cautiously, she returned the smile and—in a very steady voice, thank you very much—quipped, "Ptolemy. Are you aware you're floating three inches above the bedspread?"

Chapter 3: Prague: Hallow's Eve  

“Ptolemy. Are you aware you’re floating three inches above the bedspread?” Ptolemy’s face twisted. “Am I? Irritating. Rekyt made this material form business look so much easier than it is.” “Well,” Kitty said reasonably, moving to sit on the bed as well, “he has had quite a bit more time to practice. And human souls aren’t terribly used to having to keep themselves in a form, are they?” Brows drawn in concentration, Ptolemy drifted downwards about an inch and muttered a distracted, “I suppose so,” before managing to drop the remaining space. Now he was flush with the worn bed quilt, but didn’t make so much as a wrinkle in the fabric. Kitty watched in fascination as, with experimental movements, Ptolemy brought his hand to the bedspread, then pushed it into the bedspread, then waved it in and out a few times. In a sudden flash of mischievous inspiration, she grabbed the drugstore bottle she’d reached for earlier and turned to Ptolemy, lobbing the rattling object with a quip of “Catch!” The boy’s reflexes were not quick—even in the best of circumstances he would have ended up bonked in the nose—but it didn’t matter. The bottle phased through his fingertips, then through his face and chest to land with a clatter on the pillows behind him. Kitty met his unamused stare with a grin, absolutely unrepentant. “Had to check. Scientific method and all that.” Still looking a bit miffed, Ptolemy pulled his foot up to “rest” on the bed and wrapped his arms around the bent-up knee. “If you hadn’t built that spell, I’d be tempted to say you’re the least scientific person I’ve ever known.” Kitty rolled her eyes and leaned back to reach around Ptolemy for the bottle she’d thrown—her joints really did ache after that long conversation’s worth of sitting on the floor. Pulling herself back upright after the extension wasn’t exactly painless either, but she was very sure it would be rude to reach  through her visitor to grab something, especially since she’d been the one to throw it through him in the first place. Deftly, she twisted open the puzzle cap and tapped two tablets into her hand before closing it and trading it for a waterbottle in her travel bag. When she’d done, she met Ptolemy’s interested stare with grin. “You’ve only just met me, but you are pretty close to the truth. I didn’t do much with the technicalities of inventing that spell. It was my idea, and I know how it works and how to monitor it, of course, but the construction was a collaboration between Bartimaeus and two magicians I know back in London. They did most of the actual science.” The water tasted strongly of mineral and metal, filled at the last petrol station her bus had stopped at, but it wasn’t awful and got the job done. The moment also gave her time to consider how the hell to move on from here. There was a boy dead more than two thousand years sitting in her boarding room, and she had no idea how he’d gotten there. He seemed to have minimal purpose other than just...arriving—not indicating he had any message or any particular reason for not being able to move on. If his opening remarks were to be believed, he was back on the mortal plane because of a magical glitch in the system. He’d gotten sucked away before death had fully taken hold. Her musings were interrupted by Ptolemy moving, reaching to pull a book from her bag, then huffing when his fingers slipped right through the corner. “This is not going to work,” he muttered, focus completely on the stubbornly stationary book. He made two more swipes at it before giving up that approach and staring intently at it instead. Nothing happened and he flopped back dramatically to stare at the ceiling, hair falling right through the bed. “This is not at all workable. Kitty, I think I need your help.” “I don’t know why. You seemed to be doing quite well on your own.” “Are you always like this?” Kitty snorted in a very unladylike fashion. “Pretty much. Why do you think Bartimaeus likes me so much?” A moment of contemplation, then: “That does make an unfortunate amount of sense. Still, I really would appreciate a moment of sincerity, this is a matter of utmost importance.” “Utmost importance, huh?” Kitty laid back on the bed with a groan. “What’s that, then?” Ptolemy’s face was solemn as he looked over at her. “There’s someone else who’s stuck, and I promised I’d get them out.” “They can’t just...fall through? Same as you did?” Ptolemy snorted a laugh, serious moment broken. “They could, but they won’t. Too unsure of the results. If we’d had physical forms, I’m pretty sure they would have tackled me to keep me from doing something this reckless.” A day’s hard travel and spellwork dragged Kitty’s eyelids down—an inexorable pull. She hummed in exhausted consideration, then said through a yawn, “I don’t suppose a normal summoning would do the trick, would it?” Her jaw cracked mid-yawn, nearly drowning Ptolemy’s reply of, “Probably not…” Then, “I sense we may need to continue this conversation in the morning?” “Mmhm…” She’d given up the fight to keep her eyes open. “Well then.” His laugh was softer, almost fond. “Until the morning, Kitty.” She tugged her feed up onto the bed and shifted a bit, trying to find a comfortable spot on the lumpy mattress. “G’night, Ptolemy.” Kitty’s last thought before slumber was a deep confusion as to if this was not all just some elaborate dream, caused by magical backlash-induced unconsciousness. Quietly, she hoped not.

Chapter 4: Prague: Saint's Day  

Early morning sunlight cutting across her eyes pulled Kitty to consciousness. She’d forgotten to close the curtain before going to bed. Odd. She was usually quite conscientious about that—woe betide wherever woke her up too early, up to and including the sun itself. Still, last night had been quite strange, hadn’t it? Her fuzzy brain struggled to remember. Movement in the room drew her gaze. A boy, crouched next to the circle she’d forgotten to clean up. Habit moved her mouth before her brain caught up; she mumbled, “Bartimaeus, we don’t do magic science early in the morning, remember?” His face turned, familiar in shape but not in expression, and everything clicked back into place. Ptolemy looked rather bemused. “Does Rekyt take my form often? Or are you just so unused to any company other than his?” Oh. Right. “...both.” Kitty scrubbed at her eyes and pushed messy bedhead from her face as she sat up, the last night’s events reordering themselves in her mind. Two thousand years’ death seemed to have little effect on the boy sitting on the dusty floor of her sleepy, second-floor boarding room in the middle of Prague. He looked at her expectantly, fingers sketching circles on the floor and making no trace in the scuffed dust. With a groan, she flopped back onto the bed. Ptolemy’s intent gaze was still trained on her, she could  feel it, but her too-tired brain wasn’t up to meeting it and thinking through the morning’s problems at the same time. She stared at the cracked plaster ceiling for long moments before sighing heavily. “Alright then. We’ve got your business of ‘utmost importance’ to get to, right?” An affirmative sound, so she continued. “Well, I’ve got some business of importance to get to today as well. You’ve obviously been awake, thinking about this. What do you want to do?” A glance over at Ptolemy proved Kitty’s suspicions—the boy was practically shaking with the effort of not simply spilling all the plans he’d made overnight. Ghosts, apparently, didn’t sleep. She quirked an eyebrow and he immediately began: “We need to summon Rekyt. You said he helped design this circle, and I want to use it as the basis for mine, but I don’t understand a good third of how it’s build. Magic has moved on and—oh, but Kitty this is fascinating, I never could have dreamed—” He stopped, catching Kitty’s second raised eyebrow and pulling himself back on track. “Right. Between us and Rekyt and some intensive research, I think I can put together a spell that will do the trick. So. First: Rekyt; second: library.” Pushing upright once more, Kitty shook her head. “Other way around. Library first, Bartimaeus second.” She continued ahead before he could interrupt. “A summoning, a real one like that? That isn’t a small undertaking for me. I’ll be knackered for the rest of the day afterwards so—unless you figured out how to conduct an entire summoning while insubstantial last night?—we’ll go to the library and printers’ first, then come back with your research and summon Bartimaeus. Agreed?” Ptolemy studied her closely, quietly, and she felt a blush threatening to flood her cheeks. Ridiculous, really. He’d barely been able to  stand  after his trip to the Other Place; she had no business being embarrassed by her trip’s cost of physical stamina in front of him. A long, long staredown later, he nodded. “Agreed.” Good. She stretched and swung her legs off the bed to stand at last. There was a washroom just down the hall, communal for the boarders but Kitty was the only guest at present. She was glad of it—sharing washing up space with strangers was  not  something she wanted on top of everything else. After digging out her toothbrush, she turned to Ptolemy. “Stay here. We don’t know if anyone can see you yet. I’ll be back in a second.” Ptolemy looked just the slightest bit abashed. “Actually, I do know. A little after midnight I may have...taken a stroll? No one else can see me, or hear me.” “Oh. Well then. That’s good to know. I’ll...still be back in a second.” And she stepped briskly into the hall.

***

Ten minutes later—longer than her usual habit but hell if she didn’t need a good five minutes of overwhelmed solitude—Kitty returned to her room to find Ptolemy floating cross-legged a foot off the bedspread, exactly level with the windowsill so he could look out. At the creak of the door, he didn’t turn so much as roll backwards, ending upside down with curls falling to and fading through the bed. Inane as it was, she couldn’t help but grin. Bartimaeus held such a reverence for the memory of his old friend; Kitty wondered if that was the source of his gravitas in the guise, or if the new freedom of insubstantial spirithood was breathing new mischief into an otherwise solemn boy. The grin stayed as she moved to pack up her travel sack once more. She saw the grey chill outside the window around Ptolemy’s inverted form and tugged her jumper from the side of the bag where it’d gotten jammed. It was grey-blue wool and knitted by Jakob’s mother—a gift. She saw Ptolemy’s eyes catch on the textured fabric as she finished tugging it on and offered her arm. “Have you figured out how to touch things yet?” He shook his head but reached out anyway. As expected, his fingers swiped right through it. Less expected was the world-wringing sensation of his fingertips passing through her wrist. Early on in their experiments with the communication spell, Kitty had directly touched their “spectral conduit” to the Other Place, as Mr. Button had called it. Before Bartimaeus had snatched her back, she’d felt her self, her essence, tenuously bound to her body at the best of times, begin to be siphoned out and up and away. It felt like that, except in reverse. Connection was made and into the vacuum of her not-quite-full body flowed another gust of person. She felt him for a moment, entranced and inexorably drawn to the lure of earthen control once again before she was able to batten down all hatches and shove the presence away. With a jerk, Kitty yanked her arm back. She could feel her eyes popped wide in panic as she stared at Ptolemy, who was also wide-eyed but in fascinated joy. “Kitty,”  he breathed, wonder under his words, “Kitty, let me try that again. That. It was… I could have— we could have—”   “No!” Her voice was too loud in the quiet room and Ptolemy flinched. “What? Why? I just want to try it. If we were a bit more careful, I might be able to—” “You might be able to do quite a lot! And you won’t be trying, thank you very much.” His brows furrowed in consternation. “Alright, then. I can try it with someone else, I suppose. I wonder if you need their true name to—” “No, Ptolemy.” She didn’t yell that time—her voice was as flat and cold as London pavement. She cut off Ptolemy’s next attempt at speech with a harsh, chopping motion of her hand. “No. That is an invasion of self no commoner can even attempt to consent to, even if you did ask, which it sounds like you weren’t going to do.” Hideous silhouettes danced behind her eyes, though she tried to push them back. Glowing, demonic eyes in the faces of helpless puppets that haunted her nightmares. Breathe. She just had to breathe through it, just like she did all the other times. Through sheer force of will, her heart rate slowed down to something resembling healthy and she was able to bring her vision back into focus. Ptolemy was staring at her—very human, but also not quite. She forced down a shudder. “Come on. We’re going to the library. I’ll explain why you can never, ever do that, but I’ve only got it in me to do it once, so you’ll have to hear it along with the master printer.” She didn’t wait for an answer, just turned, snatched up her satchel, and headed out the door, closing and locking it behind her. Ptolemy was a ghost, he’d be able to follow just fine. He did. She couldn’t hear him coming behind her, but she now had a disturbingly unerring sense of his location that she hadn’t possessed a moment ago. Possessed. With a shudder, she rubbed the skin of her wrist under the jumper, trying to scrub off the sensation even as she mentally tracked Ptolemy’s progress behind her back. They went in silence like that—Kitty walking at a brisk pace with Ptolemy trailing behind—for nearly ten minutes of winding through dreary streets. Kitty had a map, and directions from the proprietor of the boarding house, which she trusted more. Concentrating on the confusing tangle of twists and turns busied her nervous mind into calm—calm enough that when Ptolemy cleared his throat, her quiet “hmm?” was genuinely amicable once more. “Where is this?” His voice was soft, awed. “I know I’ve...been gone a while, but I’m fairly sure this not Alexandria.” Kitty snorted and replied, “Prague,” before snapping her mouth shut. The street wasn’t busy by any means, but there were still people about who might look sideways at the out-of-place British girl talking to thin air. Quickly, she stepped from the sidewalk to stand under the awning of a cafe. The map made crisp sounds as she unfolded it and brought it up to her face, hiding the movement of her lips as she whispered, “We’re north of Alexandria, by a lot. Across the sea, past Rome, up where we call Eastern Europe, now. I’ll find you a map when we get to the library, yeah? For now, I can’t be talking to myself all the way across the district.” “Right.” He agreed with a quick nod, already distracted by the pastries displayed in the cafe window. Rolling her eyes, Kitty folded the map once more and headed off. The grey above threatened more rain and she quickened her pace. It wasn’t a short walk to the Holy Roman Archive and she’d rather not have to make the last third of the trek getting dripped on. Ptolemy was at her side now, gasping and exclaiming every other second at some new thing he’d glimpsed, and she had to actively suppress a wide smile. Grinning inanely at nothing wasn’t a look she wanted to project either. As they began to emerge from Old Town’s winding alleys, though, the city’s mood began to pick up and match Ptolemy’s joy. They stepped onto the larger, more toured streets around the great Charles Bridge, where tourists and business people alike made their way on foot regardless of the weather. Ahead, the bridge’s towers loomed and, just off to the left, Kitty saw the large buildings of the Klementinum. She made straight for it. The tourist traffic was, thankfully, a bit dimmed by the unpleasant weather and it was only another few minutes walk through ornate, baroque halls and courtyards blanketed in autumn-hued ivy before they reached the Holy Roman Archive. Home of what was left of Prague’s magical lore, it was  also adjacent to the most influential of the Czech Publishing Guild’s members: Petřín Printers. They handled all of the magical texts to come out of Prague; all of the magical knowledge of Eastern Europe flowed through this print house and into the Archive. Kitty stepped past the enticing hush of the Archive, hoping Ptolemy would follow since she couldn’t physically drag him like she was afraid might be necessary. A glance to the side showed the boy’s feet were indeed dragging, eyes gazing with longing at the doors. “Soon. We’ll go there next.” He followed with an insubstantial sigh. “Yes, alright.” Kitty blinked. She hadn’t meant to say that aloud. It was so quiet in these halls, anyone could hear. The lobby of Petřín’s was unassumingly quiet, but Kitty wasn’t fooled. The walls hummed with the aura of a spell, most likely a silencing charm to keep the workings of the printers from disturbing the immediately nearby library. At a desk just inside, a man sat scribbling in a ledger with a fountain pen but he looked up at Kitty’s approach. His cheerful greeting was in Czech—thankfully one of the phrases she’d picked up staying with Jakob and his family. She replied in kind, following up with a somewhat abashed, “English? That was about all the Czech I know.” The man laughed and nodded. “How can I help you?” “I need to speak with Mr. Pavel Vlastislav? I’m here on rather urgent magician’s business, as well as with a delivery from Karel Hyrnek, of Hyrnek and Sons. I think he sent word ahead that I was coming?” “Hmmm, let me take a look.” The clerk flipped through his ledger, then ducked behind his desk to grab another book. As he did, Kitty looked around and saw Ptolemy studying a world map to the left, artistically rendered and nearly as large as the wall it was painted on. She couldn’t see his face, but she had an idea as to what it might look like, and what he was going to sound like in three…two...one… Right on cue, as the clerk popped back up into view, Ptolemy’s voice flooded into her ear as if he were standing right next to her and not ten feet away. “Kitty. Kitty this is— Is this the whole world? The entire globe? Have people truly been to all of these places?” The clerk was chatting at her as he flipped through his notes with Kitty nodding along distractedly, trying to pay attention as Ptolemy continued, “—and this map! It’s nearly as good as the cartographers of Alexandria’s work! Rekyt described many of these places to me, but they were not all in places I could plot on an available map… You said we’re in...Europe? To the east—oh! Yes, this must be it! You’re right, we are much, much further north. I wonder—” “Ptolemy! A minute? I need to focus,” was what Kitty thought to herself in a moment of irritation, mouth clamped tight over the words, but the boy stopped rambling immediately. “Ah, my apologies.” Well, that was fun. Maybe that mishap back at the room had been good for something after all? It was the only thing she could think of that might have caused such a strange phenomenon… Distracted, she had to once again refocus on what the clerk, Radim, was saying. Frankly, she’d missed what he’d last said, but then he was standing and ushering her through a door on the right and chattering about the privilege of being able to see inside the prestigious print house and Kitty was tuning him right back out. She was here on business, not to see the inner workings of yet another magical publishing shop. This was her third one in the past year; they all sort of looked the same at this point. Pavel was in his office when they arrived, Radim knocking a quick rap on the doorway before entering. The man inside stood, head still tilted towards a jet black sparrow perched on his shoulder—the imp’s presence explained ease with which he greeted her, a heavily accented but cheerful “Ms. Jones!” before Radim even had time to speak. He and Radim had a quick exchange in Czech too fast to catch, then Radim stepped out and Pavel gestured her to enter. “Come in, come in, Ms. Jones. You have news and a package from old Karel in London, hm? Please, sit down and tell me why he needs send such a lovely lady friend, rather than this news in the post.” Kitty swallowed. This was the hardest part, always the hardest part, and she’d already done it twice. Out of her bag she pulled a plain book, bound in brown cloth and printed on scrap: a manuscript printed by Mr. Hyrnek. There was also a pamphlet. Assuming today went well and Pavel accepted her request, she would need write her friends back in London and request him to send her another copy before she left Prague. Hands shaking, she set the book on Pavel’s desk and took a deep breath. Ptolemy perched on the edge of the desk, invisible to Pavel and watching her intently. Another deep breath, trying to dislodge the shaking behind her breastbone. Her trimmed down, bare bones narrative of the London Disaster was practically recited by rote now. Only by keeping it clipped, clinical, and precise was she able to get through the worst of the story without stuttering, but she’d told the story before and she’d tell it now. Unfortunately, the shuddering terror of the hybrids needed to be the focus of the tale—that’s why she was here. Magicians, the humans who practiced the enslavement of spirits, needed to know what happened from a first-hand source, told with compassion and urgency, or they would simply take the whole incident as either fairytale, or use it as a way to further demonize both the British Empire and the spirits themselves. If this came out wrong, the enslavement of spirits would worsen, not move closer to eradication. When she’d finished, wrapping up with a quick note of the Interim Council’s formalization of an integrated Parliament and the supposed plans for the country, both members of her audience were silent. Staring. This was a normal reaction, she’d gotten it from the print masters in both Paris and Madrid, and she didn’t blame them or Pavel. It was a lot to hear. It’d been a lot more to live through. Eventually, Pavel spoke. “That is...a harrowing tale. We’d heard of some horror from across the channel when the empire broke two years ago, but to think…” He swallowed. “Yes, this needs to be recorded. I assume this manuscript is the account?” Kitty nodded. “Yes, originally published by Hyrnek and Sons, but we all agreed that something like this should be shared. If nothing else, please, we request you bring this to the Archivist and have it included in the archive. If you are willing to print and distribute it, that is for the best, but I understand—” “I will, of course, do my best to ensure it is placed in the archives. And we will see what can be done about distribution.” Reaching out—just missing Ptolemy, who jumped away before his arm could be brushed—Pavel picked up the pamphlet. “And this?” “A list of the spirits who perished in the disaster, to update the newest editions.” And maybe a few others, but who was to know? Pavel flipped through it and Kitty stood, scooping up her satchel once more. Alarmed, Pavel stood as well. “Ms. Jones! Surely you don’t mean to leave so soon?” Exhaustion weighed her voice, two haunted years dogging her steps. “I’m sorry, Mr. Vlastislav, but I need to be going. I’ll leave the address I’m staying at with Radim and I’ll be in town for a few weeks. Find me there if you need anything.” That was the nice thing about her situation—after all the horrors and all the insanity and quite literally visiting another plane of existence, social niceties were near the bottom of her priority list. With a parting nod, she let herself out of the office without another word. Ptolemy was silent as she retraced their steps back to the lobby, still silent as she left her contact information with Radim, silent all the way until they’d reached the Archive once more. He didn’t suggest a book to start with, so Kitty made her way to one of the study tables and pulled another book from her satchel, rather than any of the shelves. Delicate pages with scorched edges crinkled as she turned them, scanning the handwritten translations in the margins. She’d been offered a fresh copy of Ptolemy’s Apocrypha with an English translation printed in, but Button’s book was special, and translating it with Bartimaeus’s help was a good memory. Credit to his perturbation, when Ptolemy finally spoke it wasn’t about the book she held. “I’m sorry. What happened… I can’t imagine. I didn’t realize the kind of trauma what I did would cause you.” “You couldn’t have,” Kitty replied diffidently, blithe tone slicking her thoughts to icy smoothness. “Like I said, it’s something no commoner would be able to understand, and most magicians too. The only ones who could come close are those of us who were there, and even then… The one who would best understand the bond you were trying to attempt is— Well, he’s dead.” Silence again, then: “And you? Would that make you the closest living authority?” “Actually, no.” She was able to look up and smile. “That would be Bartimaeus, so let’s hit the books and then you can ask him yourself, yeah?”

Chapter 5: Somewhere: Sometime 

 4,752,256

Dread emptiness pressed in around him. Is this how his friend had felt, all those years alone? When the spirits passed—back and forth and back and forth—he could sense their movement, know their passing, but there was no sound to hear, no sight to see. Even this place he was stuck, a place he felt should have something of substance to perceive was just...nothing. To stave back the madness, he began to study the passing spirits with whatever senses were available to him. Thousands upon thousands passed before his examination, and on every few he focused his attention. Going one way, they seemed to mournfully coalesce from liquid freedom into a speeding, aerodynamic form to rocket through the other side of the gate; coming the other, solid misery flared and flittered out in joyous reaching for the far bank. Nowhere did the strange, fluid channel appear again. Only cold, clinical, slippery-walled openings to pull the beings to and from. He’d reached out to one once, only to find himself sliding off, lacking whatever was needed to be included in the transference. Probably for the best. Once the temporary madness left him, his logic reasserting itself over the crushing loneliness, he drew away from the traffic in fear. To be loosed in the fearful current without anchor or guide? No, he couldn’t… Or at least he thought that. And thought that. And thought that until he came to the point—singular and horrifying—that he could.   His watching took on a new edge: analytical, searching. Time barely existed here, but some amount of it had passed before something caught his attention. Another direct stretch, calling for a specific being, but something about it was...softer. It was inviting but wary, familiar but fearful, like a stranger singing a long-buried song from childhood. Carefully, not flinging himself with abandon like someone had, he approached. It was tenuous, as all of these were—temporal and not meant to last long, unlike the fluid path they’d seen before—and this one was even more ephemeral than most. Holes in the weave, it could have been described. From one end, movement came, barrelling closer and closer and...familiar. Yes, the being speeding down was definitely a construction of substance he recognized but couldn’t put a name to. Names were hard here. Names were hard, but suddenly decisions were not. As the spirit sped past, he impressed some effort upon the pulling force, imposing himself on the construct until he fell through in a flurry of movement that he could suddenly feel, not just perceive in an abstract sort of way. He could feel it and he still felt it as he tumbled through. The portal did exactly as all the others did. He felt himself being compacted and compressed, separate from the being it was actually meant for thankfully, as he’d hopped in a good moment past it, but the bonds were ill-fitting. A familiar word that wasn’t his word. And so, when both he and the other tumbled out the other side, he felt himself spinning and drifting, formless and dazed as his traveling partner took form in a circle.

Chapter 6: Prague: Saint's Day  

In a brilliant bit of foresight, the first thing Kitty asked Bartimaeus to do once he’d arrived was cast a nexus about her room to silence all noise coming from within. A good move, as her explanation of the situation first garnered her a bemused “what?” Followed by some silence. Then some contemplation of the figure who was making a concentrated effort to appear on the mortal plane to more than just Kitty. Then followed by a roar of the same word that had come before. There was a lot of yelling for a short time. Possibly some crying as well, not that Kitty would ever tell. But when it was done, and all explained and settled and understood, she might have asked Bartimaeus to remove the nexus. Absentmindedly, she forgot. This turned out to be a good thing as, five hours later, both she and Bartimaeus stared at Ptolemy over their sketches of runes, figures, and half-circle diagrams in consternation. Together, their query was definitely loud enough to have been heard by the good matron downstairs. “You don’t have their name?! ” Kitty groaned and set her pencil aside. They’d been at this for hours, and only now did Ptolemy mention he was lacking this key piece of their puzzle? Bartimaeus looked just as crestfallen in his guise of a young, dark skinned man, wearing a traditional desert kilt and bedecked with a necklace of amethyst, but also not terribly surprised. “Ptolemy, my friend. I always knew your disinclination for names would come back to bite us in inconvenient places. Admittedly, this is the furthest situation from what I could have imagined, but still.” The ghostly boy in question was not meeting either of their gazes. He was staring at the bedspread he sat on, stunned silent. Then quietly, obviously not in reaction to what either of them had said, he breathed a word Kitty had never heard in her life. Bartimaeus, however, choked on his non-existent spit, indicating that it was probably something foul. After a few more moments of unintelligible invective that had Bartimaeus’s jaw on the floor, Ptolemy muttered, “I can’t believe I forgot. We were there for what must have been years, how did I not ask? I promised. I’m a magician, I know how important names are. How could I have forgotten?” Kitty winced. They had maybe been a bit harsh. “It’s alright, I’m sure we can figure something out…” Ptolemy stood up and began to pace, making circuit after circuit of the tiny room. Amusingly, every time he turned a corner, he also stepped upwards about an inch, beginning to spiral upwards as he muttered to himself. Kitty glanced over at Bartimaeus, who shrugged, leaned over and whispered, “Don’t look at me, this is new. He didn’t used to pace.” “Hmm…” A ghost pacing was a strange phenomenon in that you couldn’t hear them, the fact that they were pacing of above your head at this point notwithstanding. It was painfully quiet. Kitty and Bartimaeus went back to fiddling with their designs, pencil and quill scratching loudly in the silence, but still working around a glaringly blank space where, in all of them, a name had to be placed. “I need a calendar!” Ptolemy’s voice, loud in the room, had Kitty jumping nearly a foot out of her chair. He was suddenly right next to her, face intent and determined. “I had a formula, I just need to do the calculations and we can figure out when my friend arrived. From there— Well, only a few specific circumstances could cause this, so maybe someone will have heard about it happening?” “Well, it’s somewhere to start…” Bartimaeus hedged, and Kitty agreed with the hesitant tone. How on earth were they going to sus out a single death of magical happenstance, even if they could narrow it down to an exact date? Kitty caught Ptolemy’s gaze again. There was a light, one she felt mirrored in her own past. Hope. And hell if she could ignore that. She’d wrestled demons, ransacked governments, and crossed dimensions for a hope like that, and well—Ptolemy had been the source of a lot of that hopeful vision. It was the least she could do to try and help him in turn. As Ptolemy still hadn’t managed enough substance to actually touch anything, Kitty was the one to walk to her duffel and dig out yet  another   book. She was becoming quite the librarian herself, these days. This one was worn, thick, full of cramped handwriting with a ribbon bookmark between the last few pages. Returning to the small table, she set it down. “Not a calendar, but close. My journal goes back two years, almost. Think your friend showed up in about that timeframe?” Ptolemy nodded firmly. “It couldn’t have been longer than that. Now, let me just…” He trailed off, fingers tracing invisible numbers on the table. With his brows drawn together in a focused frown, Kitty thought privately that he’d never looked less like Bartimaeus’s replication. Similarly, the fond expression Bartimaeus watched him with was a brand new thing to see on the spirit’s face, and something warmed in her. For the span of about an hour, a long time ago, Kitty had cared about a djinni and a boy more than anyone else in her probably-about-to-end life. This wasn’t the same, couldn’t ever be the same, but she liked it anyway. Across the table, Ptolemy was now rattling off numbers to Bartimaeus, who flipped through the journal pages—first in large swaths, then fewer and fewer at a time. Closer and closer to the front cover until— “That’s the end of it.” Both of them were staring down at the first entry on the first page of Kitty’s journal—a date, five words, and a tiny shard of glass taped to the paper. Bartimaeus continued, “How much further back?” “Two days.”   Kitty looked at them blankly. They both looked back—Ptolemy glowing with the triumph of a puzzle solved, Bartimaeus with...something. Probably the same something building somewhere in the pit of Kitty’s stomach. “There’s no way,” she managed eventually, voice hoarse, throat suddenly dust dry. Bartimaeus’s reply was just a nervous chuckle while Ptolemy glanced between them, his high fading into confusion. “What’s the matter?” It took Kitty two tries to clear the lump from her throat. “Erm, well. You remember what I said about the only person who would understand possession by a spirit being dead? And what Bartimaeus said about the Glass Palace?” “Yes?” “That all happened two days before my first journal entry. I didn’t think to start recording events until— I was a right mess, basically, until then.” Understanding dawned on Ptolemy’s face and brought a smile to his face. The smile grew, bit by bit as he looked between his two friends. “Well then, shall we try? It’s our best guess, and the worst that will happen is it doesn’t work.” They both watched as he breezed over to where Kitty and Bartimaeus had left their sketches. A moment of careful study, then he pointed to Bartimaeus’s page—the djinni smirked at Kitty, who stuck out her tongue. “This one. Let’s try this one.” He bounced on his toes, each bounce taking him higher into the air. “Come on! I still can’t hold the chalk, help me draw this!” So they did. The dingy, dusty boarding room was a flurry of activity for long minutes. Bartimaeus did most of the kneeling and drawing while Kitty held the string guides and lit the few candles they needed for the spell. Ptolemy supervised, directing them in drawing a half-circle diagram. Lines stretched out from it in rays, similar to Kitty’s communication spell, but with a few slight adjustments. More geometric than ornate, the completed spell was chalked innocuously on the floor as Bartimaeus scratched out the last few runes. At the apex of the arch, a blank space had been left. Almost reverently they all knelt, Bartimaeus handing Kitty the chalk as she regarded the bare patch of floorboards before bringing the chalk down. Her handwriting was nowhere near as calligraphic as Bartimaeus’s—her chicken scratch legible but not beautiful as she spelled the name out: Nathaniel   Chalk still in hand, she traced under the letters with a finger, the spell still cold and not yet activated. Together, Ptolemy and Bartimaeus reached out as well—and then another transparent finger traced along the top of the word. Glancing up, her gaze met with blue eyes, happy and calm in a way she’d never seen them while he was alive. “That’s what it was. I guess I just needed someone to write it down before I could form up properly. Took your time about it, didn’t you?” Surprise jerked her hand and brought her in contact with all three of the other beings in the room. Her vision spun and everything was very mixed up for a very confusing moment. Kitty was, for seconds or hours, not just Kitty anymore. Four souls rushed around and around in a feedback loop, bringing nausea to a body that wasn’t even really hers to experience it. It was like being back in the Other Place. Actually, it felt exactly like that, and the similarities echoed through their loop loud enough to bring the chaos to a balance. Carefully, they all extracted themselves from the morass—all but Nathaniel at least understanding the mechanics of the feat—and another moment brought Kitty solitude in her mind once more. She had fallen onto her backside, legs twisted awkwardly, and three beings of unearthly substance lay sprawled nearby. On seeing their mess, pushed up on her elbows, a giggle bubbled up from her throat. Then another, and another, until she couldn’t hold them back and collapsed onto the dusty floor, laughing until their was no more breath in her body. Around her, Ptolemy joined in first, then Nathaniel, then Bartimaeus, until they were all cackling like maniacs for long minutes.  Good thing the silencing nexus is still still up, Kitty thought faintly, which sent her and her friends off into more gales of laughter. They laughed until all their surprised energy had been spent in joy. Jittery adrenaline rush settled to a wondrous warmth in Kitty’s chest as she looked at her friends. There was no telling what they would need to do now. But as far as she was concerned, it didn’t matter. They were together, no one was dead in the traditional sense of the word, and the world hadn’t tried to end for two whole years. She didn’t get sappy often, but today seemed like the day to try—the most pleasant Hallows Eve and Saints’ Day she’d ever experienced, by far.

[estoika]

¿Que es ser bruje?

   El alzamiento de quienes toman una conciencia espiritual está en auge, el esoterismo, misticismo, brujería, son parte de esto. El siglo XX está repleto de luchas y de despertares en los pueblos, de igual forma en las religiones abiertas y que dan un mensaje de total libertad y de real libre albedrío. La brujería y el paganismo es historicamente la creencia más juzgada, condenada y escondida, a día de hoy, podemos decretarnos abiertamente brujes sin miedo a ser quemades. Ser bruje es una decisión personal, dependiendo de tu creencia verás cuando autoproclamarte como une. Yo por ejemplo, me declaré bruje ni bien lo descubrí, luego comencé a aprender. Algunes consideran necesario una iniciación, pero como dije, es una elección personal. La definición de bruje también es personal, pero a mi visión, ser bruje es ser revolucionarie, es defender a la naturaleza, aprender a usarla a tu favor, es entender y conectar con el universo, es honrar nuestres ancestres, es ser libre. Les brujes realizamos rituales, buscamos el despertar de la conciencia, ayudar a les otres, al planeta y a nosotres mismes. La conexión con une misme y la naturaleza (o el universo en general) en mi opinión es lo escencial, autoconocernos, y reconocer nuestra conexión con el todo, eso es lo que nos brinda poder, no un par de velas ni inciensos, si no el entender de qué  forma eso es parte de mí y porque actua en mi vida. ¿Porque la lavanda me brinda paz, calma, tranquilidad? Porque yo soy paz, calma, tranquilidad, y eso me ayuda y estimula a encontrar todo eso dentro de mí. El incio de todo es conectar, ser bruje es ser une con el todo.🌱

What is being a witch?

The rise of those who take a spiritual conscience is booming, esotericism, mysticism, witchcraft, are part of this. The twentieth century is full of struggles and awakening in the towns in the same way in open religions that give a message of total freedom and real free will. Witchcraft and paganism is historically the most judged, condemned and hidden belief, to this day, we can openly declare witches without fear of being burned. Being a witch is a personal decision, depending on your belief you will see when you proclaim yourself as witch. For example, I declared myself as soon as I discovered it, then I began to learn. Some consider an initiation necessary, but as I said, it is a personal choice. The definition of witch is also personal, but in my vision, to be a witch is to be revolutionary, it is to defend nature, learn to use it in your favor, it is to understand and connect with the universe, it is to honor our ancestors, it is to be free. We bruges perform rituals, we seek the awakening of consciousness, help others, the planet and ourselves. The connection with myself and nature (or the universe in general) in my opinion is the essential thing, to know ourselves, and to recognize our connection with the whole, that is what gives us power, not a couple of candles or incenses, if not to understand how that is part of me and why it acts in my life. Why does lavender give me peace, calm, tranquility? Because I am peace, calm, tranquility, and that helps me and encourages me to find all that within me. The beginning of everything is to connect, to be a witch is to be united with the whole. 🌱

[prcserpina]

this might be a strange question, but from how lovingly you curate this blog i just think you must have created the loveliest space where you live/in your bedroom. can you tell us how you’ve decorated it/your favourite parts about it?

this question made my heart so warm. yes! my bedroom is nothing special, she’s all bits and pieces & a lot of stuff i brought to halls last year when i was all about the rose pink vibe. so it’s all very much honey-coloured wood, creams & whites, light pinks & lilacs. 

my favourite part is probably my dresser because it’s dotted with lil bits and pieces i love - a rose gold jewellery stand in the shape of a tree so my earrings hang off it like lil sparkly fruits (i am such an earrings girl), a glass candle jar w pressed flowers in its walls, a little pink & gold flamingo ring dish, my amethyst & rose quartz crystals, my perfume bottle. my bed is right by it & my sheets are white w tiny little lilac flowers, & the frame is strung up w heart-shaped fairy lights (there are other sets around the room too); between the lights i’ve clipped on photos of my friends & family w little wooden pegs.

in various places around the room i’ve stuck painted postcards onto the walls from bruges, paris, & the city i live in now - there’s a little “paris area” above my desk with a postcard leeza wrote me while i was there, a monet bookmark & letter from friends, & the photos my friend bean printed from the disposable camera she brought with her when she visited me there for a weekend. she got the pictures printed & posted them through my letterbox before i went off to uni a year and a half ago. 

currently i have lilac tulips (they were a i’m-sorry-about-your-breakup-i-love-you-you-got-this present from my best friend & flatmate) in a mason jar on my windowsill, a mirror, my mini mandir w photos of my grandmothers who passed away & a lil ganesha statue & radha-krishna painting inside, an old photo of my parents from the 90s - the windows are my favourite part of the room, they cover almost half a wall so i get the most beautiful light coming in in the morning. 

there’s a fluffy white rug in the middle of the room that i lie on when i’m sad (it fixes everything). my record player sits on the floor to the right, a branch w pink flowers is propped up on the dresser next to it. in the corner i have a little table/stool with my makeup on it & a rose gold hanger above it for necklaces & bracelets, there’s a white blanket (that we also use for movie nights) & pink fluffy cushion & i tend to sit cross-legged on the floor there to do my makeup in the mornings. i put fairy lights around my mirror to try to simulate that cool movie-star vibe, in reality they just provide enough light for me to not poke my eye out when i’m trying to put on mascara in the dark so i still love them.