by Kali Emerson
I turned and saw The Coven staring at me, ogling at the power that I had just uncovered. They thought that we were going to be defeated, but for the first time I knew we wouldn’t. I couldn't do any of it on my own anymore. We were forced into a situation where I had to remain with The Coven to get Alex back. It had become clear that I was very powerful, but my emotions were effecting the dynamic of my magic. Just then another wave of witches came pouring out of the tree line with flashing lights of spells and conjur.
The crash of bodies sent shockwaves through the meadow. I lifted my hand high and crushed as many energies as I could grasp before falling, too weak to keep going. A younger girl came at me suddenly and I reached up to defend myself, but couldn’t. I hung my head ready to accept death. I would wait for Alex in the Astral Plane.
Then out of nowhere Morgan jumped in with a bag that exploded mid air and made her choke, falling to the ground dead.
“Ground up Belladonna.” She said so matter-of-factly.
Then I watched a man that had a gun pull the trigger. The boom echoed through the entire meadow and birds flew up out of the trees. It had been a larger gun than before and it happened too quickly for me to react the way that I did to save Callie. She fell down in front of me with blood pouring out into her already red hair. It soaked the grass around us and I watched in horror as the light faded out of her eyes. I couldn’t react to save her, although she had saved me. Without thinking I lifted my hand and crushed his energy just as I felt a sharp pain in my side.
He fell to the ground with a thump, and I reached down feeling wet red liquid coming from me as well as being surrounded by Morgans.
The world spun even more, swirling with the last bit of blood shed before the world got dark.
“NO!” I heard Callie scream and run to where we both laid, bleeding out. Morgan was already dead, and right as I slipped into unconsciousness I thought I’d been dead too. But I still heard what was happening around me. I realized that my body had shifted me into a coma-like state, to try and mend my body.
“No.” Callie whispered.
“Olivia…” She got a little bit louder.
“OLIVIA!” She yelled.
I heard Olivia’s light footsteps approach with two others.
“Olivia please bring her back. She wasn't supposed to die.”
There was a long pause.
“She was meant to die.”
“What? No. It isn't supposed to be this way, it can't be this way. I was supposed to die…NO!”
Suddenly, we heard an explosion in the woods that came from where all of the houses were. It was a bomb of some kind. Someone must have set them up while we were busy. A balloon of smoke came up over the trees, and the fires mirrored my vision.
They all left their things behind, and they would have to go on through life without them. I thought about all of the witches that lived there, how scared they must have felt. They were scattered all over, without their friends and people they had been living around their whole lives.
“We need to get out of here. They're setting the whole place on fire.” Gideon opened a portal and stepped through it.
“No. I can't leave without her.” Callie held on tighter to Morgan's body.
“Just leave her, what difference would it make anyway.” Hakeem sounded cold.
“It's okay. I will get us there. Lacus." Olivia said, touching all three of us to take us someplace else. I didn’t know who we left behind or who died.
We ended up in a dark and cold room. It knew it was empty except the eight of us that made it back, and Morgan's body. The way the footsteps and voices echoed, made me realize we were in some kind of basement.
“Where are we?” I heard Hakeem from across the room.
“Boston.” Gideon boomed.
“Why are we back in Boston?”
I sunk deeper, and faded out becoming completely unconscious.
17
Hakeem and Lucia didn't live in the village before, they were living in the apartment building The Coven used as a safehouse. All of the spies were exposed during the fight in the meadow and they no longer had a home to go back to. We started something that outed The Coven's existence to everyone and we were considered to be a dangerous group of people.
I had attempted to keep myself separated from them at first, but I couldn't be myself and go anywhere else. I was a wanted witch, and The Council had eyes and ear everywhere. I couldn’t go back to my condo permanently, but I was able to get most of my stuff up quickly. I had to take a few protected trips, and had Lucia come with me to help me since I only had one usable arm for a short time.
The Coven had locations for hideouts all in every state, and a few in Canada. They were safe guarded to protect them from any intruders. They found three more spies within our people and had them executed immediately and they had to relocate them to a new hidden place, in case that information was compromised.
There were six units in the building, three were two bedrooms and three were one bedroom units. Alex and I would get one of the two bedrooms, along with Hakeem and Lucia, and Callie. Gideon, Olivia and Gabriel took the one bedrooms, leaving one vacant for the time being.
The first night Callie slept on the bed in my spare bedroom. It had been painted a dusty rose color, and was decorated delicately with a white bed frame that matched both the dresser and the two night stands that sat on either side of the bed. A few pieces of floral artwork hung through the room and a white fuzzy rug was spread across the floor. It wasn't quite my style, but it wasn't my room.
She came to me before she went to bed. She was sad, and for some reason I was the only one that could give her comfort.
“I thought about killing myself.” The familiar words stung.
“It would be the only way to be with her. She's stuck in the Astral Plane waiting for me to die so we can have our eternal life together. If I died now, I wouldn't have to wait. She was selfish, so I could be, too."
She was right. If Alex had died I would have been gone already. I wouldn't have even had to think about it. I would have picked up the knife and did it right there. But Callie was too strong and too loyal to The Coven.
“I didn't want to leave you all to fend for yourselves. I didn't see it coming because it was outside of fate. Or something…because it was fate. She had to die." She sat and cried, talking herself in circles until she was too tired to keep her eyes open.
“Why don't we get you to bed. Are you staying here again?” She nodded her head. I didn't mind, because I was lonely too. She was in the other room, but I still felt her presence and it was better than none.
The living room was painted white. I moved my old furniture, which meant I had the same antique couch as before. The back wall had four windows spanning the entire wall, letting in an extraordinary amount of light. The TV and stand sat in front of one of the windows, facing the couch. Against the front wall was one bookshelf that held some of my plants and the books.
To the right was the kitchen. It was small, but workable for the time being. The window faced the same way as the living room windows. There was a nice view out into a narrow alleyway. To the left were the two bedrooms.
All of my jewelry and candles were laid on the dresser top, which sat against another set of windows. I looked at the bed and my heart got heavy. I thought about having to sleep alone again. I wanted to go right then and there to save him, but I knew I couldn't. I had to trust my gut and stay with them to figure out a plan.
My arm was in a sling as I recovered from the near fatal gunshot wound I had suffered in the meadow. If it weren’t for the high energy beaming through my body I probably would have. I was out cold for almost a week, luckily they had a makeshift hospital in the basement of the apartment building, which they converted into a joint living space for all of us. I couldn’t go back and live in my condo after what happened. They knew where I lived and since they had captured Alex already, Gideon assumed they would be after me next.
The n
ext morning we were supposed to meet everyone downstairs so we could go back to the village and assess the damage. It was a war zone. All of the shops and the houses within the trees were reduced to ashes. They laid there like piles of bones in the burnt earth. The whites of the wood that used to be, smoldering with red and orange embers still. The fires had been burning for a while.
Bits of black ashes rained down onto the grass, coating it like a fragile coat of paint. We walked forward, past the large building with all of the old books, burned to the ground too.
“We moved everything valuable out before they came, in preparation for this to happen.”
We quickly realized that only our dead were left, they had already come to collect theirs. There should have been seventy bodies in total. We made contact with the ones who escaped, so we'd know who we were looking for.
They were scattered everywhere. It had rained the day before so the blood was already washed away and sped up the decomposition process. None of them belonged to me, though I saw Alex’s face in everyone one of them. A lot of them had families, too. People who were going to miss them.
Gideon got down on his knee in front of someone too young to have stayed and fought. He placed his hand over his heart.
“Reditus” His carcass dissolved into the earth like dirt. Gideon got up and wrote his name down on a page of a small leather-bound book.
“What was that?”
“It's the spell that will release them back into the earth. Instead of burying everyone traditionally, we will feed them back into the earth.”
It made sense in a way, since there were so many of them to bury. We could work quicker and they would still be put to rest. I identified only five, but it was hard for me to get the spell to work. It wasn't a form of magic I was familiar with, and since I had just learned it I didn't have time to practice.
By the time we were done it was nearly lunchtime and I was starving. Everyone had been identified and released, so we all headed back to Boston again. I didn't feel like socializing because all I could think about was getting Alex back. I didn't want to wait anymore, and I kept going back and forth between leaving and going out on my own, and staying to follow Gideons plan.
I stood by the kitchen window looking out into the alleyway. How had I gotten here from where I was seven months ago? I just wanted to get away to go to school, and instead I found an entire new life with insane responsibilities and curses. I scanned the room and spotted my box of pot. I opened it and there were three joints left. I needed to be stoned for the meeting we were about to have.
Just as I put the paper to my lips I felt a familiar dizziness that sent me straight to the floor.
I was back in the meadow, alone. I turned to look at the sky, it was dark and gloomy. It was the middle of the afternoon but the storm clouds rolling in hid the sun away. I could feel him somewhere, there. So I started to look all around me and ran toward the tree line.
“Mara.” I heard a familiar voice behind me. I turned around so fast I almost fell. It was Alex's voice, but he wasn't there.
“Mara.” I'd heard it again from another direction.
I moved away from the tree line scanning every charcoal pile and shadow for his figure. I heard it again, and again as I frantically moved myself from one end of the meadow to the other.
Then I saw standing on the far side, a person running toward me. As they got closer I saw that it wasn't Alex, it was Fiona.
“Mara.” That time it had been her voice.
“Where's Alex?”
Then I was back in my own bed, in an unfamiliar apartment building with unfamiliar people. Unlike the bond Alex and I had, which was instantaneous and relentless, we didn’t really know The Coven after only a few months.
I teetered back and forth in my head again, about whether or not I would go along with their plan. But I decided I had to go back. Fiona was waiting there for me, and maybe she had Alex.
I quickly got dressed, and grabbed a protection sachet just in case. I didn’t know how to defend myself, but I thought if I were really in danger and could use my magic I might be able to muster up the strength to pull energy like I had before.
“Lacus” I stepped into the air, and came out right in the meadow. I didn’t want to waste any time. If she had been trying to contact me like she did in my dream, she could have already been waiting for me here. I couldn’t tell if it had been a vision, or if she had reached out to contact me.
“Mara.” It was Alex's voice. I tried to shake it off. Then I heard it again, and again just like my vision. Fiona emerged from the woods headed straight toward me. She stopped a few feet in front of me and I could see her face clearly.
“I know you thought Alex would be here.”
“I'm protected, so don't try anything. I just want him back.”
“That's not going to happen and you know it. You chose the wrong path and I'm making you correct it. You're not meant to be here. This is a second chance. Just come with me and it'll all be over and you won't have to die.”
“Why would I die?”
“Well, we're going to kill the two of you if you don't come. They were just going to kill you right here in the village but I convinced them you were savable. I'm giving you the chance to make this all right.”
“Don't listen to her.” I turned my head to see Olivia standing a few yards away from us.
Fiona pulled something out of her pocket. It was a spell bag. She held it up in the air like she was going to throw it at me but I put my arms up using my magic to create a small zap of electricity, knocking the bag out of her hands.
“You're gaining more control. That's good!” She laughed and took a few steps back.
“I can't go with you.” I wanted to save Alex but I didn't trust what she said.
“Just come with me and you'll see.” Her arm was still out stretched.
“You're not going with her” Olivia whispered in my ear.
“She's tricking you right now. What she's putting in your head is wrong. Shake her out, don't let her in."
“Stop talking, you old witch. Let her make her own decisions.”
“No!” I yelled at Olivia and she dug her arms under mine and lifted me up.
“Get out of her head.” She yelled.
“Or what? You don't even have an offensive power. You're useless and weak.”
“Lacas.”
We jolted back into my apartment. Olivia was still holding on to me. I turned to her and let out a loud sob and fell into her arms, and we fell onto the floor together.
“It's okay. It's okay to be sad. We'll get him back, I promise.” She rocked us back and forth petting my hair.
“Don't do that again. It's too dangerous. There's too many of them and we can't risk her showing up with that boy again to take away your power, then taking you too.”
“I wanted her to take me. She's going to kill Alex.” I was still sobbing.
“They won't kill him, and they won't kill you. She only said that to get you upset. They need you for themselves. They want to try and change the prophecy.” I sniffled and wiped the tears from my face, and sat up.
“He's safe. I promise. He probably isn't comfortable but, we can work through that when he comes home.” We stood up together, and she placed her hand onto my wrist, gently squeezing affectionately.
“We're going to bring him home. You look awful, and you need sleep. I'm going to leave now, but please don't go again.”
“I won't.” Olivia made it easier to start to trust them. I would try to get some sleep.
“We need to get your head protected so she can’t do that again. They’re developing her magic too. She’s an empath, a very strong ability.” Olivia pulled out a small jar of oil and pressed it into my forehead. She whispered something in a language I didn't know. The energy from the oil burned hot on my forehead.
“What do you mean?”
“She doesn’t just feel emotions, Mara. She can transfer images into people’s minds just by
thinking about it.”
“Does it have to be true?”
“No. Let me help you to your bed.” She helped me up and we walked across the room and through the doorway together.
“You need to change out of these clothes.” She suggested.
She grabbed a lacy pair of black underwear and a t-shirt that had Star Wars on it from one of my drawers. She helped me get into it and under the covers.
I laid there in my fresh sheets and clothes but my dirty body. Olivia got up off the bed and stood by the doorway, turning off the lights.
“Sweet dreams.” She said, gliding out the door.
I felt the cold sheets under my skin, and the air hung stale. I heard some sirens in the background and a few cars driving by. It reminded me of how I felt when I first moved to Boston.I turned over to my side, watching the empty bed. The sheets still laid flat against the mattress, and the pillow was untouched. I pictured his hair draped over the top of the pillow and spilling down the back.
He could look at me for hours. I thought about his hands caressing my cheeks and moving down my shoulder. The intimacy I had with him was something not of the earth, though we were bound to it. My exhausted mind led somewhere else. I was thinking about how his lips felt pressed against my neck, pushing into me with his hands wrapped around me. I longed for his touch, and through all of the sadness came a fiery rage. I hated Fiona for what she did.
I started to drift off forcing myself to rest. Then through the protection I felt someone else in my head.
“Mara?” It was familiar, and for a moment I doubted the authenticity of the voice because of how well deceived I had been before. The doubts faded away as I was overwhelmed with comfort and a sense of love I could only have felt with one person.