They'd only just discovered magic maybe six months prior in February, and Rachel felt more than ready to take things up a notch.

As far as Rachel knew, she—along with Mason, Rika, Ryan and a few others—was the first in history to ever cast any sort of spell or ritual besides the Three Gods. She'd spent a few weekends delving into every history book she could get her hands on dealing with the occult or spellcasting. None of them seemed connected to what they'd discovered, nor did the Gods offer up any suggestions about where magic had come from (though Rachel secretly suspected they knew). Nor did the Internet, as she spent yet another weekend searching every website, every obscure forum, every social network she could find her way into for similar experiences to theirs.

Magic was real, and had apparently popped into existence only a year ago, in a small college town in the middle of the forest in Washington—and no one knew about it.

They'd taken to it voraciously, and they experimented with it. Everyone in their original group was eager to try out new ideas, come up with new and exciting variations on the simple spells and rituals they'd already learned. So it was Rachel DuValle who possibly attempted the first ever ritual on her own mind, on a windy afternoon in September. It was dangerous and unprecedented, something she certainly might not have walked away from.

Rachel had shuttered herself in her bedroom, the door locked and wedged shut, with towels and blankets pressed against the edges of the frame. The curtains to her bedroom window, overlooking the steep hill and thick forest behind the apartment complex, were drawn tightly closed, and a second pair of heavy blackout curtains were carefully wrapped around those, with a layer of duct tape holding them against the wall to shut out every tiny piece of light. Her bed was pushed into the corner of the room, leaving a wide space devoid of anything and everything she could remove.

There was still a layer of carpet, of course, but she could only do so much to remove potentially influencing objects before she started making permanent changes and breaking her lease. Rachel still needed a roof above her head—at least for the moment.

Before plunging her room into total darkness, she laid out chalk in a diagram described in the page, grinding it into powder and sprinkling it in the circles and patterns she'd seen in her mind. At eight different points around the circle, she placed a tiny amethyst crystal, set in a small tealight holder to keep it standing and pointed upward. She'd spent hours carving them to perfect points that would sit neatly in the circle. Finally, to complete the simple design, she needed to place the object she was enhancing in the center of the circle.

Which, in this case, was her own brain.

Rachel pulled off her clothes nervously and set them neatly against the wall. She wasn't sure how much of an effect they might have on the ritual, and she wasn't about to find out. It was already clear to her that other objects crossing the line of chalk while the ritual was in progress could send the entire delicate process tumbling into something… undesirable. She wanted to be as careful as she could, given that she had nothing to help her. There were no guides to find on the internet, no research papers or books she might consult. It occurred to Rachel she was a pioneer, exploring things no one had ever thought might be possible.

It was exhilarating. She carefully removed her small earrings and set them atop her clothes. Fully nude—not a single errant object between her body and the environment—Rachel turned to face the chalk circle, finally closing the door and plunging the room into total darkness.

Gingerly, excitedly, Rachel stepped into the circle. She'd expected something more dramatic to occur, but nothing happened. All she felt was the shivers running up her legs and her spine, a perfectly normal reaction to the cold air hanging around her skin and the abject fear slowly seeping into her bones. Was she about to do something she would regret for the rest of her life?

Rachel dismissed the doubt. She wasn't one to hesitate in the face of discovery. She might be forgetful sometimes, but she was driven by curiosity and a passion for knowledge nonetheless. Her next step, taking her to the exact center of the circle (if her practice runs were accurate), was far more assured.

With apprehension mounting in her chest, Rachel sat down cross-legged, shut her eyes tight, and set her fingers to her temples. With every ounce of effort she could muster, Rachel tried to draw at the energy of the crystals around her, mentally pushing at them in the way the page had described.

At first, nothing happened. She began to fear she'd gotten something wrong, and let her eyelids slide open. Of course, in the pitch black this did nothing whatsoever, and in fact she couldn't tell she'd even opened them again except for the slight air current that tickled her eyelashes. Then, as she blinked once more, faint hazy lines simply appeared in the air, like strings stretched out into the black void.

They were like insubstantial lines of fog, a plain gray color that she could easily have missed had there been even a speck of light in the room. The lines formed a simple web, starting at the tip of each crystal and arcing lazily up to reach her body, where they crossed inside to presumably meet somewhere inside her brain. As Rachel turned her head to look at them, they seemed to drift along with her, like they were attached to a particular point inside her skull. She raised a hand to touch one, but it simply passed through without note, as if the cloudy lines weren't there at all.

Stupid, she berated herself. It's attached to your mind; of course your hand's not going to do anything.

Instead, Rachel attempted to project her will mentally, drawing at the lines hanging in the air. It was a strange process, feeling a piece of what she felt was her being—her soul, perhaps, if she believed in such a thing—leaving her body to grasp at something external. She felt disembodied in the literal sense of the word, as if her eyes were suddenly a camera now observing herself from a distance, even as her view didn't move in the slightest. As she watched, the foggy connections began to flow toward her, lines of small clouds rushing inward to her brain.

Rachel could feel the changes already beginning. Her memories felt clear and crisp, and the blood rushing through her skull seemed to accelerate even as it grew quieter. She felt like she could concentrate more easily, absorb her surroundings more quickly. Where once she had trouble paying attention to one person at a time, Rachel knew intuitively she could now focus on any number of things happening around her with ease.

She rose to her feet like a coiled spring, even as the streams of energy continued to rush into her. There were so many things she could be doing now. Her mind felt awake and potent, as if she'd been sleepwalking through her life until now. She wanted to start catching up on all the wasted time right away. Impatience got the better of her, and Rachel took a step toward the edge of the circle.

Immediately, the cloudy lines broke, and a whistling sound echoed through the room, like wind rushing through a field of bones. As the only faint source of light, their disappearance plunged her room back into total darkness. Rachel trembled, quickly taking a step back to her spot, but the whistling only grew louder.

Then, a piercing whip crack, followed by the ringing sound of glass striking glass.

Another crack sounded, and she felt something slash through her calf, igniting sharp pain across her entire leg. She stumbled, and her hand felt the drip of blood on her leg.

As the third crack sounded, Rachel leapt for the door. She slapped the light switch just as a shard of crystal embedded itself into the wall near her torso. Rachel watched in horror as the fourth gemstone exploded, sending the little metal candleholder flying as shards ricocheted in every direction.

She tore the door open, pushing aside the makeshift barrier, and flung herself out into the hallway and the waiting arms of Will, who'd been rushing to investigate.

Four more explosions followed, as loud as gunshots. She trembled in the hallway, while a confused and horrified Will held the wound on her leg closed. As the last one subsided, her ears still ringing, Rachel finally looked back at the closed door. A putrid scent of smoke and burning hair ebbed from the gap under the wood.

She pushed the door open, heedless of Will's protests, and saw the floor littered with shattered purple crystals.

Despite the carnage, despite her bleeding leg and torn pile of clothes littering the corners of the room, ripped curtains on the walls and fragments embedded in the walls, a tiny smile formed on Rachel's lips. It had worked, even with the dramatic and unexpected ending. Every new memory was like an open book. Even old memories were suddenly frozen, perfectly vivid as far as she could recall at that instant. Her brain felt like it was on overdrive. She pressed herself closer to Will as her leg continued to burn in agony, letting the adrenaline work through her system.

With her newfound wisdom, Rachel immediately resolved never to do something like that again.