by KT Webb
Inside the box, she found a beautiful crescent moon pendant carved out of Amethyst. It was attached to a choker fashioned from a thin brown leather strip. It was beautiful.
“According to the lady at the store, that stone is supposed to have magical properties.”
Lucy couldn’t help but smile at her friend. “I love it, but what made you get this for me?”
“I know you’re into all that Wicca stuff with your aunt, so I had to get this for you. Want me to put it on?”
Jeni took the necklace from her and gently fastened it at the nape of her neck. It fit perfectly. She gave her friend a quick hug before they both had to sprint in opposite directions to their next class.
Taking her seat in her American History class, Lucy couldn’t help but notice the substitute teacher seated behind the desk. Mr. Lund was never absent. The woman in his place was strikingly gorgeous. Her deep chestnut hair was wound together in a fishtail braid that rested on her shoulder. Lucy had never seen her before, but she was oddly familiar.
“Hello class. My name is Ms. Dunlap. I’ll be teaching in Mr. Lund’s absence. Please open your books to page 394.”
Lucy heard a few snickers roll over the class and she couldn’t help but grin at the unintentional Harry Potter reference. It was obvious Ms. Dunlap hadn’t caught on because she began her lesson.
“In February of 1692 America experienced an epidemic that left twenty people dead. Now, that may not seem like much of an epidemic, but the death toll isn’t what I’m referring to.”
Lucy looked at the page in front of her and felt her stomach clench. The Salem Witch Trials.
“The true epidemic was in the accusations that spread like wildfire through the citizens of Salem, Massachusetts. Can anyone tell me what made this so dangerous?”
Macon, a boy who always wore black and sat in the back of the class, raised his hand. He was undoubtedly only interested in getting the attractive woman’s attention.
“Cuz if I didn’t like you I could say you were a witch and get my friends to say it too. You’d be a goner.”
Lucy rolled her eyes. That had to be the most simplistic response she’d ever heard. She decided not to say anything. Everyone knew her aunt was a Wiccan. People talk in a small town. The last thing she wanted was to have people ask her personal feelings on something that had nothing to do with Wicca.
“That’s right. As a result, many innocent people died and the real witches were able to continue their practice without disturbance.”
Real witches? Who was this lady?
“Lucy Marks, please read aloud from your text.”
Lucy felt a shiver run down her spine at being singled out, but did as she was asked.
“In 17th-century Colonial America, the supernatural was considered part of everyday life; many people believed that the devil was present and active on Earth. This concept started in Europe during the fifteenth century and was carried over to the colonies. Colonists apparently used a kind of witchcraft to invoke charms for farming and agriculture. Over time, the idea of white magic disappeared and was replaced with dark magic. Eventually, all magic was associated with demons and evil spirits. From 1560 to 1670, witchcraft persecutions became common as superstitions became associated with devil worship.”
When she looked up, she found the substitute teacher staring directly at her. It wasn’t the look of a teacher listening to a student, it was much darker. Lucy looked up into Ms. Dunlap’s eyes and nearly fainted. Two very different eyes stared back at her. One was a brilliant green. The same shade of green she’d seen in the mirror, the same shade of green she’d seen in the terrified look in Grace’s eyes in her nightmares. The other was a black abyss; deep and lifeless.
“Very good. Now, I have a few things to share that you won’t find in your text book,” she hoisted herself up onto the desk behind her and crossed her legs.
“The chances of accusing a true witch of witchcraft are very slim. True witches are descended from only four family lines dating back to the end of the Iron Age in what is now Ireland. Only women can be witches and only the first-born daughter can claim her powers. The others who practice magic are only borrowing from the collective powers of true witches.”
The room was silent as everyone waited for the punch-line. She had to be playing a prank on them.
“It may seem unbelievable, but it’s true.”
“Sounds like a Halloween story,” called a kid from the back.
“Oh trust me, it’s no story.”
The bell rang. Lucy quickly gathered her things and stuffed them in her backpack. There was no way she wanted to stick around to talk to the strange substitute teacher.
“Miss Marks?”
She froze. She’d almost made it out of the room when Ms. Dunlap called her name. She turned slowly and waited for the room to clear.
“I have something for you,” she reached into her bag and pulled out a battered book with a pentacle on the front.
“Why would you think I would want that?”
“I know a witch when I see one dear. Especially a fellow daughter of Lughnasadh.”
Lucy recognized the name from Mallory’s traditions. It was the holiday that fell halfway between the Summer Solstice and the Autumn Equinox. She remembered being corrected on the pronunciation by her aunt. While the word looks like a jumble of letters that shouldn’t go together, she learned to pronounce it properly. Loo-knee-sah. She could remember Mallory practicing with her over and over until she said it correctly and was rewarded with a cookie.
“I don’t even know what you’re saying right now Ms. Dunlap.”
“Call me Odessa. I may not have been lucky enough to be the first-born daughter, but I still know a thing or two about our heritage.”
Lucy was struck by her choice of words; “our heritage”. What did that mean? She studied the woman again, her hair color, her eye color, and her rounded cheeks. The resemblances to her mother were striking, but her mother didn’t have any siblings.
“Who are you?”
“Well, I may not look like it now, but I am your great-great aunt.”
Lucy stepped away from Odessa. The woman standing in front of her had to be insane.
“Don’t be afraid, Lucy. You are something special. You are the only true witch from Lughnasadh left alive. All that power, it’s yours.”
Lucy shook her head and backed away. She tripped over a desk, but before she made impact with the floor she found herself levitating inches from the ground. Her body automatically righted itself and she was once again face to face with Odessa.
“What did I just do? How did that happen?”
Odessa leaned forward and whispered in her ear, “I want to protect you from the others. I want to help you with your powers.”
“What powers? What others? What are you even talking about?”
She didn’t get a chance to hear an answer as the next class began to trickle in. Lucy quickly fled the classroom. She had no idea what Odessa meant, but the woman had creeped her out. The last thing she saw before she made it to the hallway was the power-hungry gleam in the woman’s eyes.
Lucy
Chapter Seven
Someone’s Coming
The girl with raven hair was being swallowed up by the darkness again. Grace, that was her name. Her agonizing screams entered Lucy’s ears and zoomed straight to her soul. She couldn’t stop herself; she ran into the darkness ready to save Grace from the shadowy figure.
Three men came into view through the dark, swirling fog. Lucy felt her heart rate pick up—they, as one, focused on her. A woman stepped from behind them, her braided hair resting on her shoulder. Odessa.
Before she could react to the presence of the strange woman, someone grabbed her shoulder and jerked her around to face them. It was yet another girl around her age, with the same luminescent green eyes she and Grace had. This girl had long wavy blonde hair. She placed her hands on both of Lucy’s shoulders and looked deeply into her eyes.
“They’re coming for you, Lucy.”
She blinked in the darkness of her room. Who were these people playing starring roles in her dreams? Of course, she’d dreamt of Grace before, but who was the blonde girl at the end of the dream? How was it possible that they all had the same exact eye color? She thought back to her conversation with Odessa. Were they all related? Aside from her mother, Lucy had never met anyone with her eye color. Maybe Odessa was telling the truth.
It was just a dream; she shook her head at the amount of thought she was putting into things that weren’t real. Of course, she was only projecting her own features into random people she’d seen on the street. That was how dreams worked. After rolling onto her side, she adjusted her covers and pulled them up to her ears. She’d left her window cracked to let in some of the fresh spring air, but it still got cold overnight. Rather than closing the window, Lucy got out of bed, grabbed a sweatshirt and turned to climb back under her covers.
She stopped dead in her tracks. Someone was standing in the dimly lit road, facing her house. Due to the low lighting, she couldn’t be sure, but she thought they were staring directly at her window. As she stood frozen in front of the window, the person collapsed into a familiar smoky shadow. Blinking slowly, she closed the window, locked it and backed away. Lucy stumbled onto her bed.
Her pounding heart was the soundtrack to her panic. She strained her ears for any indication that she wasn’t alone. Hadn’t the girl in her dream warned her that someone was coming for her?
“Relax, Lucy. I’m not going to hurt you.”
She nearly jumped out of her skin as she sat upright in bed. Odessa was perched on the window sill. The window she’d closed was wide open, the curtain billowing in the breeze. Lucy narrowed her eyes. Appearing in her bedroom, uninvited, in the middle of the night didn’t exactly fill her with trust.
“What do you want?”
“I want to tell you a little story.”
“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t scream right now? My aunt would be in here in a heartbeat.”
Odessa smiled slowly. “She wouldn’t hear you right now. I may not have all the power coursing through your veins, but I have some tricks up my sleeve.”
The hair on her arms stood on end. She didn’t know if Odessa was telling the truth, but she wasn’t about to accept her word at face value. Lucy stared at the woman in front of her and screamed at the top of her lungs. The corner of Odessa’s mouth turned up as Lucy screamed. Nothing happened. No lights turned on across the street despite the open window, no footsteps pounded down the hall from Mallory’s room.
“Told ya.” Odessa launched herself off the window and onto the bed next to Lucy. “Now, story time.”
“The boys I’m helping are just trying to save their mother from an eternity of torment. Their mother was used by their father, then tossed aside like a piece of trash.”
Lucy waited for her to continue, refusing to give her the satisfaction of a response.
“She found out she was pregnant, and her broken heart was temporarily mended. A seer told her she would be having three sons. After they were born, she realized they were more like their father than she’d anticipated.” Odessa paused for effect. “They were dark and contained great evil within them, but she loved them just the same.”
“Does this story have a point?” Lucy demanded.
“Their mother was only trying to get back what was rightfully hers. Their father was meant to be with her, but when he left her, he returned to his wife in Ireland. Understandably, their mother was angry. She decided to punish her lover for not claiming their sons.”
“So, this whole thing is some kind of lover’s quarrel? What does this have to do with me?”
“Their mother was a sorceress named Carman. She posed a major threat to those in power in Ireland; they decided to get rid of her. We need your help to get her back.”
“And how could I possibly help them?”
“Our ancestor was one of the witches responsible for what happened to her. She was one of the witches who sent my friends away and killed their mother.”
“You said the mother wasn’t dead. Which is it?”
Odessa looked like she was deep in thought. “She’s not exactly dead, but she isn’t exactly alive either. She’s just not in our world anymore.”
Lucy raised an eyebrow. “So, you think she’s a ghost? How would you even know?”
Odessa leaned forward, her mismatched eyes seemed to sparkle in the darkness. “I saw it, but she’s not a ghost. Her spirit is very much alive in the Otherworld.”
The teenager couldn’t help but feel nauseated by the difference in Odessa’s eyes; it wasn’t that they didn’t match. It was that they seemed out of place, almost like they weren’t hers.
“Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Spirits? The Otherworld?”
“You will. Just think about what I told you; when we meet again you can give me your answer.”
With that, Odessa disappeared. She was alone in her room, the window was closed again. She took a deep breath and pulled the strings on her hood tightly around her head. Lucy pulled her covers over her head and tried in vain to fall asleep. When it was finally acceptable to get out of bed, Lucy took a hot shower, got dressed and made her way downstairs. The sound of water hitting tile told her Mallory was in the shower, so she poured herself a bowl of cereal and sat down at the kitchen table.
“They’re coming for you, now!”
Choking on her cereal, she tried to place the source of the warning. She was still alone in the house. Lucy wondered if she was going crazy; she was hearing voices and seeing people disappearing in the middle of the street.
Lucy grabbed her laptop and did a quick search for “true witches”. She didn’t find anything of consequence. She searched for “Odessa Dunlap” but found nothing. The woman didn’t even have a social media page. Mallory came downstairs and started a pot of coffee.
“You’re up early. What’s going on?”
“How much do you know about my mom’s side of the family?”
Mallory frowned. “Not much. She didn’t really talk about it. I know her parents were gone before you were born, and there was no other family to take you when they passed away.”
“Do you know the name Odessa?”
She shook her head. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Aunt Mal, can I tell you something?”
“Anything.”
“Even if it’s weird? You have to promise not to lock me up or something.”
Mallory laughed. “Of course. You can tell me anything, even if it’s weird.”
She didn’t know why she felt so nervous. Mallory was the one person she could share her crazy dreams with. She was the only person she knew that would never judge her, but this wasn’t exactly normal, even by her standards.
“It started with a weird dream. . ..”
She told her everything. Lucy gave the details of her dreams about Grace, her encounter with Odessa, the strange happenings at school, and the ominous warnings she’d been receiving. To finish her tale, she showed Mallory the notebook she’d written in and the illegible, repetitive warning she’d scrawled across the page.
“Wow.”
“I know. It seems pretty crazy, right?”
“Well, it would sound crazy to anyone but me. I know you Lucy. You’re not one to make up stories, and I wouldn’t be a great Wiccan if I didn’t believe that there are unexplainable or supernatural things happening around us every day.”
“So, what do you think of what Odessa said? Could I be a ‘true witch?’ It seems a bit odd that she would say those things to me right when all this craziness started.”
“I don’t know. I’ll check with some of my friends and see if they’ve heard anything like that. It would make sense though; anyone can be a Wiccan and I’m pretty sure we all tap into power that doesn’t necessarily belong to us.”
Lucy’s mind was at ease knowing Mallory was backi
ng her up. She’d almost forgotten the whispered warnings when a frantic knock sounded at the door. It was only seven in the morning. Why was someone at the door?
Mallory went to answer it while Lucy cleaned up from breakfast. She could hear the raised voices coming from the front room and wondered what was going on. She peeked around the arched doorway that led to the kitchen. Lucy dropped the plate she was holding, and it shattered on the floor.
“You!” Lucy was staring at the face of the girl who’d spoken to her in her dream. The very girl who’d warned her someone was coming for her.
“Lucy! Thank goodness we found you. We’ve got to get you guys out of here before those men find us.”