“What walks around the circle will not enter if it has been closed.” June looked up from her mother’s journal. “At least, that’s what Mom always said. She was good at the protective stuff. All those finicky rituals linked to passive defenses that required patience, I mean. Dad and I both preferred taking the offense.”
Peter stood over the circle, starkly drawn with white chalk, a single foot breaking the line surrounding June’s office. “Mum’s the same way. So. This thing will keep evil out?”
“Um.” She swallowed. “Well, to an extent.”
Green eyes studied hers. “And it will work, up until that undefined extent?”
“Well.” June shuffled some student blue books that precariously balanced above the TV tray that served as her desk. “As long as we did the ritual correctly.”
He sighed.
“And as long as nothing disturbs the circle,” she added. June shoved the booklets back. Two of them landed on a chalk marking – one she’d finished not five minutes prior – and puffed dust into the air.
Eyebrows rose. “And our backup plan is what, exactly?”
June felt her face heat. “There might not be one.”
Peter sighed again. “We’d best ring Mum to get this right.”
***
This week’s prompt was from Parrish Baker: What walks around the circle will not enter if it has been closed.
Mine went to AC Young: It was a new dawn, in more ways than one.
Find more responses and prompts, over at More Odds Than Ends!
