An empty chair can be an accusation or an invitation, depending on how it is kept. Keep this one warm and lit, and it becomes a place the absent cannot help but return to fill.
This working reaches toward the one long gone from the table, holding their place with such steady tenderness that the world itself begins to expect them. A house that keeps a place keeps a pull; every laid setting and lit candle is a small gravity, and gravity, given time, is never denied.
The Working
- Choose the chair the wanderer once favoured, and set it at its accustomed place at your table.
- Lay a full setting before it as though they might arrive at any hour, and place a bowl of clean water at its centre.
- Ring a bell over the empty place to wake it to its purpose.
- Light a candle beside the setting and pour a small circle of salt around its base to keep the place pure.
- Speak the verse over the chair each evening as you tend your own meal, replacing the water whenever it clouds.
- Never sit in the chair yourself and never clear its setting; let the place stand ready night after night.
- When at last they come, seat them there first, pour the kept water at the threshold, and let the ritual close in gladness.
The Incantation
Chair kept warm and table set,
the place is yours, and waiting yet.
Water clear and candle bright,
salt to keep the seat aright.
However far your roads have run,
your place is held, your seat is one.
Come to the table, come and stay,
the door is open; find your way.
This is slow magic and stubborn, meant for the long absences that ordinary calling cannot mend. Keep the place faithfully, and one evening the chair will not be empty.