Scirlin's Exhumation

For those of you keeping track, today is the ninth day of the Scirlin Head working. Today I dug him up. Again, I got up early and was at the site an hour before sunrise. As I was walking to the site I saw a figure ahead of me on the sidewalk, maybe a block or two away. I feared that I might have to delay if someone were hanging around at the crossroads.
I hadn't told you yet that the crossroads I chose, and that was approved by Scirlin, was a place where three roads intersected. It is several blocks from my home but it is on the city bus line (on my way to work each morning) and there is a municipal landscaped area (that very few people would care if I was digging in). It is pretty well in public. I figured it was better to hide in plain sight than to be skulking around my neighborhood digging in the neighbors' yards. (Scirlin hadn't approved of any of the intersections within my immediate sphere of influence, like my driveway.) But because it was at a bus stop there was always the danger of company.
I recited the Astrachios prayer and asked God to help this working go smoothly. When I arrived at the spot I was alone. I recited the Astrachios prayer again. I called to Scirlin to end his slumber and arise to join me. Then I dug him out of his shallow grave. The earth had settled in his eye sockets and the dirt in general was muddy and smelled like brandy. I had the head wrapped in a bag to protect the unfired clay from melting and as I picked him up I could feel that one of the horns had broken loose. C'est la vie. I guess that's what he looks like now. I put the head in a tote bag. I thanked God, I thanked Scirlin, and I thanked the spirits of the place where I had him buried. Then I lit a stick of incense in thanksgiving. Then I left, leaving the incense burning. As I walked I had a few glimpses of a figure from the corner of my eye and, of course, when I looked directly no one was there.
In the original operation it is said that on the eighth morning a spirit will arrive to ask for the brandy. None did with me but I am encouraged by the figure attending me as I walked to and from the last day of the burial.
But I haven't opened the bag up yet. As I write this dawn is breaking and the head is in a tote bag on my work table. I'll wait to open it and wake Scirlin fully once I have a chance to suffumigate properly with invocations and prayers. Now, however, is time for me to get my day started.
The work is not done yet but the getting up at 5am part is.