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┏━━━━━━𖤐━━━━━━┓ chapter twenty nine: and all the king's men ┗━━━━━━𖤐━━━━━━┛
"In the civilized countries I believe there are no witches left, nor wizards, nor sorceresses, nor magicians."
— L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Marlene loved watching survivalist reality shows. Mostly because she had a wicked sense of humour and found something incredibly hilarious in other people's misery. It was a very particular sort of entertainment — lounging on the couch with a wide assortment of junk food and criticising a very lost human being who couldn't for the life of them find their way through a wild forest. Somehow, you always think you're invincible from your living room. Though Marlene had no such illusions anymore.
The irony of the situation wasn't lost on her as she wound her way down a decidedly unbeaten track in search of a remote clearing where she could hold the blasted ritual. Marley was surprised by the number of hikers she met along the way. Why they willingly subjected themselves to this trial by exertion was as lost on her as jogging. That made Marlene think of Sam, and her mood plummeted to the deep caverns of hell.
There was no way to escape her thoughts, trapped in the green jungle of misery, where she'd get an occasional slap on the face by a tree branch as a reality check. She wondered what he was doing now. The last time Marley had spoken with Dean, they were still in Massachusetts, on their way to Housatonic to help out an old acquaintance. Sam hadn't reached out once, though. And why should he?
With a bag full of a questionable set of objects, Marlene finally found a quiet little meadow. The sun was very much high in the sky and wasn't blocked by tall trees, too, which was certainly a plus.
Ever the diligent student, Marley laid out the necessary items, lit up the candles and put down a small mirror so that it caught the sunlight, as per her father's detailed instructions. Making sure everything was in order, Marlene unfolded the wrinkled piece of paper she'd been clutching in her hand all the way here, and ran her eyes over the incantation.
Well, here goes nothing
"Vorpes luysi artats' volumy haytnvum e anhogi apaku lchaknerum," Marley read out, frowning at the butchered pronunciation — it was much worse than she'd remembered. She supposed not speaking a language in years would do that, "...aydpes el petk' e lini vor t'ap'arrakan gtnum artats'volumy iren e arrjevum gtnvogh ughu."*
With an awkward grimace of self-doubt, Marlene looked up from the paper. Sure enough, nothing'd happened. Or had anything? She wasn't sure what to expect, but something had to be different, right? Frowning in befuddlement, Marley looked around the meadow. Perhaps, it had been the horrendous pronunciation or the simple fact that the paranoid witches had given Arthur a fake incantation. They were paranoid, after all. That's the kind of thing you'd expect them to do.
