Chapter Text
Zoey never got used to waking up to the scent of sage and sandalwood. Anyone else might have reveled in the gentle aroma, but to her, it was like being pulled backwards through time and memory, dragging her through every incense-heavy yoga class her mother had ever insisted she attend, and every New Age boutique she had dragged her to on weekend afternoons. Which she hated every second of it.
It wasn’t that the fragrances themselves were bad, more that they were so specifically, so stubbornly not the kind of scents she’d ever choose for herself. Instead of the soft, musky comfort of her grandmother’s old cashmere sweaters, or the bright, clean tickle of lemon rinds cut into her water at home, she woke to the world as curated by her roommate, Mira. There were days the scent was so strong it pressed itself into her hair and clothes before she even left the room, a kind of signature broadcasting to the rest of campus who she lived with and, by extension, who she was.
Most of her past mornings, Zoey accepted the situation with a kind of resigned theatricality—hurling herself out of bed in protest, as if the potency of Mira’s different incense sticks had personally affronted her ability to breathe—but now, she grew accustomed to it. The sweet temptation of sleep tried to pull her under, she’d stayed up too late again, fingers sticking to her keyboard and eyes burning from the blue light, even after she’d promised herself, she would finish her latest ideas for a song before midnight.
It was almost 7 now and her phone vibrated already, which woke her up in the first place, and she was irritated at herself for forgetting to put it into quiet mode before going to sleep. She grabbed her phone and was welcomed with a steady stream of notifications from overnight group chats: a new meme, three reminders about tonight’s K-pop club meeting, a string of increasingly unhinged all-caps texts from Andy, begging her to bring her famous Tteokbokki recipe to their next meetup. She dismissed the alarms that she wouldn’t need anymore, rolled onto her side and stared at the girl still sleeping deeply next to her.
The smallness of their dorm room, which sometimes could feel like a coffin, felt more of a cocoon right now. Warm air, thick with incense, since Mira insists on cleansing their room before they go to sleep, tried to press her into the mattress again. The pulse of soft music - her own, not Mira’s - still vibrated in the background.
The next thing she had forgotten before going to bed, and Zoey was happy once again that Mira was a heavy sleeper. She pressed a button on the remote control lying on the nightstand beside her and the music stopped. Her side of the dorm was a collage of color and noise, practically vibrating with its own energy: jewel-toned pillows, a patchwork quilt at the foot of the bed that she’d sewn herself during finals week of sophomore year (stress-relief that had become an obsession), and neatly lined up plushies that looked like they were guarding her bed.
A narrow strip of open wall was covered top to bottom in posters of K-pop idols, ‘90s girl groups, and an almost ironic smattering of classic rock legends to satisfy the aesthetics’ maximal requirements. Every horizontal surface was occupied: a makeup mirror propped against an avalanche of textbooks and notebooks full of lyrics, each with a too-specific purpose and a name scrawled in loopy, doodle-studded script across its front.
Stacked Vinyl’s on a shelf above her desk. Said desk itself was less a workspace and more a shrine to her strange, ever-evolving obsessions: towers of nail polishes, cans of Monster energy drink (each can a different color and flavor, the empties arranged in a pyramid on the windowsill), and an army of Funko Pop figurines, which Zoey insisted were not childish.
The LED lights she’d ordered after seeing some cool pictures on Pinterest were strung in a zigzag overhead, programmed to cycle through colors on the hour, but most mornings she kept them set to a blinding magenta, because “it’s impossible to be sad in a room that looks like the inside of a rave.” Even her laundry pile had a kind of vibrancy: socks with cartoon eyes, oversized sweatshirts with neon logos, a tangle of scarves in colors that would have made a colorblind person faint.
“Organized chaos” is how Zoey always described her room, to which Mira often just rolled her eyes and wordlessly opened one of Zoey’s cabinets - which resulted in an avalanche consisting of even more notebooks and papers. “Well, people visiting us won’t look into my cabinets, so it’s fine”.
“Whatever you say babe," Mira would say, and kiss the corner of Zoey's mouth.
In direct and deliberate contrast, Mira’s side of the room was best described as “moonlit temple with an indie concert vibe” - at least according to Zoey. The dividing line down the middle was invisible but absolute. Mira’s bed was always made, tucked so tight Zoey wondered if Mira had attended military school before, and knowing the stories about her parents, it could be a real possibility. Soft string lights were flickering in the dark like candles, not like the bright kinds on Zoey’s side. Dark velvet drapes framed her bed, which was layered with deep plum and black blankets, and a pile of celestial-patterned throw pillows.
On several hanging shelves were flowers, some high and spiky, some hanging out of their pots and nearly reaching the floor. Her room wasn’t less stacked than Zoey’s, but, apart from her obvious liking to all macabre, you had to look twice to see what else Mira was interested in.
Crystals (that she insisted had to be “cleansed in moonlight” regularly), tarot decks and bundles of dried herbs were neatly arranged on shelves, surrounded by posters of indie rock bands, synthpop duos and even some vintage metal acts. A spell circle was painted in black above her bed, doubling as both protection and décor.
Her desk was bare except for a laptop (always closed, pristine), a row of perfectly sharpened pencils, notebooks filled with either dance choreography ideas or spell notes, and a glass terrarium in which a single, somehow-alive succulent basked under an LED grow light.
“You’re staring again”, Mira murmured, still curled up under the heavy blanket they shared, voice muffled by one of her pillows.
Zoey chuckled softly, a warm sound that seemed to blend with the morning light streaming through the curtains.
Mira felt the ghostly caress of her fingertips skimming over her back, a tender touch that sent a shiver of delight racing down her spine.
“Because you look like something out of a fantasy novel right now”, Zoey replied, her smile evident in the warmth of her voice. “All that black lace and tousled bedhead, very ‘dark enchantress’. Very sexy”.
The lace of Mira’s nightgown caught the soft glow of the rising sun, etching shadows that danced along her skin with an almost mystical allure.
Mira groaned dramatically, the sound low and playful. “I’m a dance choreography major, Zo. Not a vampire”. Her voice was still heavy with sleep but laced with amusement.
“Well,” Zoey teased, leaning in to kiss the back of Mira’s neck, which resulted in goosebumps that spread like ripples across the surface of water, “you drank that beet juice last week and said it ‘tasted like raw vitality’”.
“That’s because it does”, Mira insisted, turning over to face her, just in time catch Zoey’s exaggerated grimace of disgust. Mira’s eyes – sharp and piercing – were always a little too intense this early in the morning. “You just don’t have taste”.
Zoey rolled her eyes, a familiar gesture that spoke volumes. “You say that about everything I don’t agree with”.
“Because I’m usually right”, Mira countered, her tone light yet confident.
“And you just dissed yourself; you know that right”? Zoey pointed out with a teasing smirk.
Mira merely grunted in a nonchalant manner, a sound that held more affection that should be possible, and leaned in to kiss her girlfriend, slowly and lazily, as if the world beyond their shared cocoon of warmth and comfort didn’t exist. In that moment, there were no class schedules, no looming deadlines or overdue assignments. Just the gently rhythm of their breathing and the profound, unspoken connection between two people who had grown from being roommates to friends, to something harder to name and easier to feel.
They had been dating for six months now – officially anyways. Unofficially, their relationship started with whispered confessions shared in the stillness of early mornings. Those tender moments when their hands would subtly graze each other during late-night practices had sparked something neither of them admitted out loud just yet – both too scared to break the special bond of their friendship. Everything changed during an “accidental” kiss during a thunderstorm, which both initially avoided talking about, letting the electric charge of the moment, that didn’t only come from the thunderstorm, hang in the air like the storm itself.
Eventually, they did talk, a heavy conversation that changed their whole relationship – and at the same time it surprisingly didn’t change that much. They had shared a profound closeness from the start, the public displays of affection and secret make-out sessions in the cozy confines of their room were simply a delightful addition to their bond.
Now, their kisses were as integral to their dorm room as the collection of posters on the walls and the verdant plants spilling from the windowsills – quiet and familiar but still exhilarating. Like harmony and melody intricately woven together, they were meant to be, as if the twisting paths of fate had always intended for their souls to intertwine. That’s what Zoey said at least, she had a way with words that Mira could never achieve, and hearing her talk about their relationship like that always made her swoon - something she would never admit out loud.
“Are you going to class?” Zoey asked, prying herself away from her girlfriend.
She sat up, her fingers gently combing through her sleep-tousled hair, which fell in soft waves around her face. Her voice was gentle, yet there was an unmistakable undercurrent of responsibility – the kind that came from being the more grounded half of their relationship.
Mira stretched like a cat; her limbs draped over Zoey like she wasn’t there.
“Not today. Professor Langdon’s lecture is about Romantic composers again, and I basically know all that boring stuff by heart. Like, is it so hard to teach something new for once? Besides, I have plans”, Mira said, voice dropping conspiratorially at the last two words and a grin creeping onto her face, twisting the edges of her mouth into the sort of smile that had always spelled trouble.
Zoey didn’t take the bait immediately, even if she wanted to groan out loud. She still sat at the edge of the bed, her gaze shifting from her girlfriend to the window, where some birds were beginning to sing their morning songs.
“Not another one of your plans,” she said, not looking away from the window. “Because the last one almost got us kicked out of the dorm room, do you remember that? I’m still not convinced the RA isn’t secretly plotting against us.”
She felt the shifting of the bed as Mira moved and felt the dip of the mattress as she sat beside her. Her long hair was spilling over her shoulders and framed her face when she leaned forward.
“She’s powerless and you know it”, Mira said, her voice stubborn and sure of herself. “Also, she’s afraid of me and my little rituals. Did you see the way she wouldn’t make eye contact at the laundry room?”
She paused, propping her chin on her hand, her eyes glowing while letting the memory replay in her mind. “She is scared I will hex her. That’s the thing about power and the unknown, Zoey. Once you have it and can wield it, you never want to let it go”.
Zoey eyed her from the side and frowned. “You sound like a villain”.
Mira ignored her and both fell quiet, the memory of the fire alarm incident on both of their minds. Nearly a year had passed since Mira’s first try to harness the arcane – a spontaneous urge to cleanse their room of whatever evil was living in it – or what else was the reason Mira couldn’t concentrate anymore? Definitely not her hot roommate she caught herself staring at. No! It had to be something else.
This cleansing had quickly gone sideways in a spectacular fashion – Mira had insisted on burning a stick of what she claimed was “spiritually sourced palo santo” in their room. The smoke had been thicker than expected, maybe because she burned three at once, the smell sweet and woody, curling along the ceiling and draping their beds in a haze of incense more befitting a temple than a college dorm.
The fire alarms, ancient relics from the late 90’s, weren’t happy about that and erupted with banshee-like shrieks, sending two entire floors of nightwear-clad students into the freezing court at 10 in the evening. Zoey nearly peed herself from being so scared that this was her last night at the campus and even Mira was pale around the nose. The sound of the shrieking had lingered for days after, haunting them even in their sleep, but the story quickly became a legend – as had Mira’s reputation for troublemaking. The students said she threatened to put a spell on them and only because of that they were allowed to stay.
The reality was a bit more boring: they’d been spared official punishment only because a maintenance inspection had revealed that the alarms were old and faulty, the wiring corroded. Mira, ever opportunistic, had threatened to turn this into a campaign against the campus for “neglect of fire safety” and the next days she composed an open letter to the administration, which she made Zoey co-sign. In the end, they came to an agreement – Mira would stop whatever she was planning and they could stay without a punishment, the only thing left was a faint, pleasant ghost of palo santo, which scented their sheets and cloths for weeks after.
“This plan is way better, more arcane”, Mira whispered, her excitement nearly tangible in the air.
Zoey finally turned to face her. “You said that last time too! I remember the word being ‘transformative’, and then you started speaking in Latin, which I didn’t even know you spoke, and I had to google it to make sure you weren’t cursing me.” She crossed her arms, but a small smile fought its way through, betraying her mock seriousness. “So, what is it this time? Are we exorcising the communal fridge?”
Even Zoey swore that old thing was possessed with a demon that turned their food bad in a matter of hours.
Mira chuckled and stood up, pacing the small perimeter of their shared room. She moved with the careful, nervous energy of someone who’d spent too much time thinking through the details. “Not the fridge, which is a good idea by the way, I will try to remember it for later,” she said, pausing to look out of the window. “Something bigger.”
“Define bigger,” Zoey replied, but Mira wasn’t listening.
She’d knelt to the floor and was tugging at the warped drawer beneath her bed, the one that was stuck unless you twisted the knob just the right way. She extracted a battered shoebox, and from it, a bundle wrapped in a black thin paper. She sat it on the bed with exaggerated delicacy, as if she were handling a living thing.
Zoey eyed the bundle suspiciously. “If this is a Ouija Board, I’m moving out”.
Mira grinned, and for a moment, she looked almost innocent. "Nothing as cliché as that,” she said, shooting Zoey a mock-wounded look. “I have standards”.
She unwrapped the paper, revealing a stack of really old looking yellowed and hand-written pages, clippings from what looked like antique journals in between them. The ink was faded, some parts nearly not readable anymore. Mira smoothed one out on the comforter, tapping it reverently. Zoey’s arms were covered in goosebumps; she felt that those pages were ancient.
“What is that?” Zoey asked, shifting uncomfortably on the edge of the bed.
“A find. Or, more accurately, a rescue,” Mira said. “This is from the university archive sale. They were cleaning out the old humanities building, getting rid of anything that wasn’t digitized. I found this in a box marked ‘miscellaneous’, buried under a bunch of moldy theater programs and a playbill singed by someone named Dracula. I swear it was calling to me! The archivist said she would have just tossed it if I hadn’t shown interest.”
Zoey leaned closer to inspect the papers, the faintest scent of mold stinging her nose and she made a mental note to change the bedsheets in the evening. “Is it… poetry?”
Mira shook her head. “I don’t think so. It’s more like… instructions. There are diagrams, see?”
She traced one with her finger: a circle bisected by a jagged line, ringed in strange glyphs.
“I spent all of last week in the library trying to translate the annotations. It’s a mixture of dead languages. Latin, Greek, something Proto-Germanic. I think it’s a ritual.”
Zoey blinked, waiting for a punchline. “A ritual for what?”
Mira’s eyes flashed with intensity. “For opening the ‘Threshold’,” she said, rolling the word around in her mouth. “That’s what the text calls it. The Threshold. I think it’s a way to contact something… in another realm.”
Zoey laughed, unable to help herself, the sound a mixture of nervousness and skepticism. “Mira, you can’t even keep a cactus alive. What makes you think you can handle—what, communing with the supernatural?”
Mira shrugged, unbothered. “The cactus needed more sunlight. This is different. I’ve read the whole thing a dozen times. There are safeguards, counter-rituals, incantations to close the circle. It’s all here. It’s not only communicating with the supernatural though, it’s a summoning, And I want you to help me.”
Zoey stared at the stack of papers, then at Mira’s unflinching face. She tried to recall every disaster that had followed Mira’s “plans,” from the time they’d tried to make homemade liqueur in the bathroom sink (exploding the glass carafe) to the incident with the tarot cards that somehow led to Zoey finding a live possum in her laundry basket. Each time, she’d sworn never again. Each time, Mira had convinced her otherwise.
She gulped and turned away, trying to hide her nervous smile, but Mira saw. She came over to Zoey and took her face into her hands, palms warm and gentle, then she leaned forward and placed a kiss onto the tip of her nose.
Her voice was gentle as she spoke again. “If this whole thing makes you too nervous you can always say no baby. Don’t feel pressured to say yes because you want to please me.”
The look in Mira’s eyes conveyed just that, but also said 'I need your help and I want to do it with you and nobody else'.
Well, it wasn’t like there was anybody else she could ask. She had tried to involve other people before, she’d hosted “witchcraft nights” before, complete with snacks, crystals and tarot decks. But her other friends, as sweet as they were, always seemed to think it was just for fun or a quirky persona Mira had crafted for laughs. But she believed in what she did, and seeing it mocked still hurt. They’d pat her on the back and smiled politely as she tried to explain the use of tarot cards, and then drift away to discuss real-world matters like grad school or internships. When she talked to long about her “weird” hobby, their eyes clouded with something that might be concern or maybe just secondhand embarrassment, and despite herself she felt her own cheeks flush with heat.
Mira knew what she wanted, knew what she liked, even as a kid, and for a long time she didn’t care what people thought of it. But the older she grew, the harder it was to ignore the stares and hushed whispers. It was easier to just stop trying to include her friends in her hobby. Zoey was different though. Zoey never pretended to believe, but she also never made Mira feel like a joke. Which probably was the first step in falling in love with her.
There had been a time, last spring, when Mira had been sick for two weeks straight with a fever that left her sweating through bedsheets and talking to shadows in the corners of her room. Zoey was always by her side with food and water and little post it notes of encouragement when she had to be at a lecture, and when Mira was well enough to sit up, Zoey sat with her in the dark and they binge-watched old cartoons and took turns reading tarot for each other. It was the first time Mira could remember feeling truly seen and not as a burden – not as a curiosity or a cautionary tale, but as herself.
Now, Zoey sighed and stood up, padding in mismatched socks to the tiny coffee machine on one of their shelves. “I don’t know why you keep convincing me to do these things,” she said, her voice softening. “You know I don’t believe in any of it, right? Maybe the ritual will backfire or something, since I’m not exactly a true believer. Maybe it will affront whatever you will summon.”
Mira smiled, noticing how Zoey said that she would summon something and not if. “That’s the good part. Most rituals are more about the act itself than the belief. It’s like baking. You follow the instructions and see what happens. If you don’t believe bread will rise but you do the steps, the bread still rises.”
Zoey snorted, her back turned as she fiddled with the coffee machine’s stubborn power switch. “Are you comparing summoning something to making bread?”
Mira shrugged, delighted. “You can’t prove it’s not the same.”
There was a pause, punctuated by the soft burble of the coffee machine finally springing to life.
Zoey poured two cups, sugared to near-syrup for herself and black for Mira, then turned to face her.
She didn’t answer right away, and Mira wondered if maybe this would finally be the time Zoey refused, if the years of agreements had at last hit the limit.
But then Zoey, holding both mugs, fixed Mira with a look that was half stern and half affection. “What exactly are you trying to do with the ritual?” she asked. “Because if it’s anything like the love spell, I swear—” She paused, eyes narrowing in mock accusation.
“You’re not still on that, are you?” Mira’s cheeks burned.
She wasn’t proud of the love spell incident. The time she’d tried — and spectacularly failed — to hex Zoey’s ex had ended with Mira vomiting up a mouthful of rose petals and Zoey’s ex calling at three in the morning to serenade Zoey with a ukulele cover of “I Will Survive.” After that, Zoey had banned all spells involving the words ‘love,’ ‘devotion,’ or ‘eternal binding’ from their apartment.
“Nothing like the love spell,” Mira said, perhaps a little too defensively. “It’s… look, I’m not totally sure what it is yet, okay? That’s why I need help. The notes are all really vague, but from what I’ve pieced together, it’s about opening a Threshold, like I already said. Like, a portal to somewhere else. But not hell,” she added quickly, “or at least not hell the way people think of it. More like… a different layer of reality.”
Zoey raised an eyebrow, handing Mira the coffee. “So, summoning. You want to call up something from the cosmic beyond, but you’re not sure what it is?”
“It’s not dangerous,” Mira lied. “It’s all protected. There are countermeasures and everything. Besides, the notes say only beings of beauty and passion can come through, so worst case scenario, we get a hot ghost.”
Zoey stared into her steaming coffee for a moment, considering. “A hot ghost.”
Mira nodded, coaxed by caffeine and Zoey’s dry humor. “Or maybe a muse. Or a minor deity. The text is ambiguous.”
Zoey exhaled, half a laugh, half a sigh. “You’re lucky I’m in love with you, Mir. And that I don’t believe in demons, otherwise I’d be gone already.”
That made Mira’s heart seize in her chest. There was always a strange, feral joy in these moments — the way Zoey could roll her eyes and still end up here with her, every single time. It felt like the only real magic Mira had ever managed to conjure. Mira sipped her coffee and set the mug down carefully, her hands suddenly unsteady. She got up, crossed the tiny space with two strides, and kissed Zoey on the cheek, the gesture light but deliberate.
“I know. I really am lucky.”