Chapter 3

The Laws of Similarity

'Law of Similarity: Basically, this means the map is the territory. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it is a duck. This law is used in making voodoo dolls, though a picture of a person can be used also... '

A couple of days later Katy stood before the mirror on her closet door looking at her nude body. She looked from the top down. If only she was taller. Sure, she had no breasts, but there were plenty of girls her ages that were still flat chested.

But there was not one single girl in her middle school that was as short. For the last two years of school, she had to sit in the front row just so the teacher could see her when she raised her hand.

Well she was tired of it, tired of hearing "don't worry you'll get your growth spurt". She had read the whole "Here a Geas." over the weekend. Then she had gone back and reread it. She had burned up a whole box of candles practicing that one spell. Boy, did she get that one down!

Looking over at the table near her bed, Katy snapped her finger and pointed. The candle on the table flamed up. Smiling, Katy snapped her finger again, pointing at the same candle and its flame went out. She figured that one out on her own. If visualization was needed, then just reverse that and the flame went out.

The first time she tried to put it out, it did not work, but knowing that the flame the candle spell was getting a boost from the book she just kept practicing. It took until the next day before she finally was able to put it out. After that, it became easier. When she started lighting the candles with just a snap and point with visualization and no verbal spell she knew that she had it. Now she used a verbal spell until it was easy, then she could drop the verbalization of the spell.

But new spells almost always required verbalization, and also some spells requiring ingredients.

Looking once more at her childish body, she shivered, hoping that she was not making a mistake. She slipped her nightgown over her head and stepped into her slippers. Picking up the piece of paper that was her final draft of the spell she was going to try, she headed down stairs to her basement laboratory.

Over the last couple of days, since she started reading the book, she gathered up all kinds of ingredients for spells. It was amazing what a spell could use. No bat wings or eyes of newts needed. Most, if not all, of the items were symbolic. Like the communion cracker and wine that symbolized the blood and flesh of Christ.

That was something! She wondered if her parents knew that communion was a magical ritual. Wouldn't they freak if they knew!

She shut the door to the cellar while turning the lights on. Opening one of her cabinets, she pulled out the cast iron cauldron she found after more than a dozen phone calls. The dagger was from the knife store. That one had been easy. The handmade broom was harder. She set them on the clear work area near her lab sink.

She spent most of last Sunday rearranging her lab. Her Dad created the lab for her a year and half ago. Lately as she became more interested in physics, she was not using it much. Every so often, she would come down and try something out that she had read about in a book. But more and more of those experiments were more physics then chemistry, so her lab had grown. Chemicals were around the sink, Physical, mechanical and electrical items on this side and along the side wall. On the far side of the sink were a few biological items. Mainly though, it had been the physics that she found interesting.

She pulled the sturdy folding table from under the stairs and set it up in the middle of the floor. Then she unfolded a table cloth she found at the new age store, putting it on the table. It was silky white with a circle enclosing a pentagram.

She might not need all the items she gathered but it was a ritual, not just a simple spell, so she wanted to do a full preparation.

Pulling out a box full of candles, she placed four of them at the cardinal points around the circle. She checked the marks on the floor to be sure the table legs were correctly placed. The cauldron went in the center of the pentagram. She was ready.