Spirits in Isolation

Words of the Week 4.25

The columns shone silver in the moonlight, stretching up to the dappled sky like broken fingers, chipped and cracked and leaning. There was little left of the hermetic structure. But somehow the less building that stood the more unsettling it looked in the darkness.
Simon stepped cautiously onto the flagstones and immediately stubbed his toe on a fallen masonry block. James was building a fire in front of the raised block of the alter, on which he had put a picture (torn from their mythology text book) of Hermes.
This had sounded like a fun jaunt in the bright sun sitting on the grass in the quad.
He watched James lay out a series of glass jars on the alter stone.
“I thought you said we were going to try call up some ancient Greek ghosts, not perform hermetic rituals.”
James grinned brighter than the moon. “Oh come on, like you wouldn’t want a little extra gold in your pocket.”
“James.”
“It’s fine. I told you, I have done this before.”
“That’s not as reassuring as you seem to think.”
“You are going to be fine Si, I promise. We are going to call up the ghost and then we are going to trap it in this nice safe hermetically sealed container.” He held up a box made of glass and lead.”
“Hermetically sealed, eh?”
“Meh, close enough.”
“Were did you even get that?”
“Its my sister’s jewellery box.”
Simon found himself smiling irresistibly. In moments like this he wished he could spirit James away, to keep him hermetically, somewhere where no body could blunt his spirit or take away his bright joy.
“Alright.” He sat down next to the fire, feeling the heat wash over his skin. “What do you need me to do?”