“Mum was kind of strict.” she spoke softly, as if every word pained her. “But in a good way, the kind of way that keeps you on the straight and narrow because she made you expect it of yourself, not just live up to her expectations. My dad was the joker. Always pulling pranks. The number of times I came home to find Mum whacking him with a towel because he'd got her in another joke.” she smiled, tears shining a little in her eyes, then looked down at her book, trying to hide the fact she was crying. Almost as one, the others shuffled closer, ending up in a kind of awkward cuddle pile with everyone tangled with someone else. It worked, though. Sadie laughed and called them ridiculous, and when Rose wrapped her arms around Elsie, even she cried out her pain and felt better for it afterwards. Rose murmured something about the loss of her own mother, how she could feel her life all around her in the Earth, then gently pulled down a plant pot full of soil, concentrating her power into it until a single white rose grew where there had been nothing. Elsie stared at the flower, a kind of calm settling over her, taking peace from the knowledge that life never really ends, simply moves on to something else.
“And that's how she got her name.” Adam interrupted the moment, reaching over to ruffle Rose's hair. “We knew she was gonna be brilliant, Mum most of all. The day she was born, roses sprouted up all around the hospital. All different colours. It was crazy.” Rose blushed, punching him on the arm. “Shh.” she muttered, embarrassed.
Sadie, as ever, broke the silence which followed. “I think that's awesome. What a beautiful story.. and besides, we can all tell how awesome Rose is, right?”
There was a general murmuring of assent around the living room. Sometimes, witches were born with such an affinity for their natural skill that they affected the world around them. Lila said nothing, but her own birth had been marked by a baby in the next room coming back to life after being pronounced clinically dead.
One thing was for sure, Rose was someone to watch – she could be vital to the covens in the coming years, and if someone here was being deceitful, the young witch could well be in very real danger.
Chapter Six
Their task took them well into the night, and by the time Adam had realised that he was technically the responsible adult in the house and finally got up to carry his sleeping sister to bed, Troy and Sadie had passed out, the latter resting her cheek against Troy's shoulder. It was clear who would be getting the 'Sleeping Beauty' nickname in the morning. After play wrestling a marker pen out of Elsie's hand so that she didn't decorate their friend's faces with 'modern art' as she kept calling it, Lila stuck the pen just under the bottom of the sofa and sat against it, chuckling. Adam came back through, tilting his head back quickly, asking them if they'd like to come through with him. The girls stood, following him out into the back porch, where he took out a pack of cigarettes out and offered one. Both of them scrunched up their noses at it and he shrugged, lighting his own.
“Each to their own.” he mused, inhaling deeply. When he breathed out, the smoke furled out of his nostrils, reminding Lila of a dragon in the frosty air. “Bad for your health.” she teased, but knew she didn't have to tell him – not after how his mother had died. He gave a half shrug. “I know, but sometimes, everything just gets on top of me, and if I don't smoke or go punch a bag, I'm worried I'll take it out on the wrong people.” he answered, surprising Lila by reiterating one of the first realisations she'd had about him. More so that he'd willingly opened up about it, which also contradicted the same thought. Well, half right wasn't so bad, but she was going to have to work on not judging a book by its cover.
“I know what you mean.” It was Elsie who piped up this time. Lila remained quiet, content to listen. “Sometimes I feel like I'm just gonna explode.. over nothing. Especially since everything that's happened. I'm sorry if I take it out on you guys. It's just that, back home... It's not so easy to express yourself. Everyone knows you're in pain but it's just all... You're the leader now. Reel it in, contain your pain and deal with it, meditate, blah-de-bleeping-blah.” Elsie did not sound impressed by the coping methods every coven suggested. It was true; the further you stepped into the world of witches, the more removed you became from modern medicine. A lot of this was because magickal solutions could be so much more effective, but some of it was unwillingness to expose their DNA to human doctors – there were often 'tells'. Witch hunters were mostly a thing of the past, but they could rise again at any moment, drawn in by the congregations of witches, waiting for one to turn bad.
“I know what you mean.” Lila spoke quietly, almost as if she were afraid to actually say what was on her mind. The other two looked at her somewhat incredulously. “You? Really?” Elsie sounded sceptical, but did her best to reel it back in as if she were listening to someone in her coven telling her off. Lila smiled weakly, feeling a little self-conscious now that she'd been called out on it. “Yeah, even me. The fact that you can't tell is actually surprising, but then I'm used to my Mum reading me all the time.” she gave a soft snort, remembering just how easily her mother had noticed things. “I used to be worse. I guess since the funeral I've been trying to channel how she was. She seemed so strong, so sure of herself, and when she wasn't, my dad kept her standing tall.” Lila could remember them so vividly right now – when her grandmother had died (she'd passed on the mantle of the coven when she deemed herself old enough to retire), her father had been the one to shoulder the weight of both of their grief. She'd see it in little ways, the way he'd wrap an arm around her mother, draw little circles at the base of her spine with his thumb, probably stimulating her sacral chakra for emotional balance – he was intuitive in that way. It seemed like nothing could phase him, not even when everyone else seemed to crumble around him. It wasn't so much that he didn't seem to care – he did, very much. It was just that when other people needed a rock, he was that rock with no questions asked, and never for a favour in return (as much as he joked about charging chocolate chip cookies for therapy sessions).
It was her mother, though, who had been there for her when she'd had a rough day at school, struggled to fit in with the outcasts, never mind the civilians. There were other witches at her school, yes, but they usually made a point to stay away from each other, too worried that they'd be overheard talking about the coven or some piece of witch-only knowledge. One person saying something offhand could be taken as being a little quirky, but several? That's when people started throwing around words like cult, and Satanists. Not that witches believed in Satan. Or Hell.
“Earth to Lila.” Adam quipped, but it wasn't until she'd blinked out of her rampaging train-off-the-tracks daydream and actually thought about it that she got the joke. Okay, so she could be a little slow. Oops. “Sorry. What was I saying?”
“You were telling us about your Mum and dad seeing through your troublesome teenage ways.” Elsie intoned dramatically, though the grin she offered was friendly and teasing – much like those she shared with Troy, and Lila could now tell there was nothing malevolent beneath it.
“Oh, yeah, I -” she began, but a piercing scream from inside the house made them all snap to attention. Not again, Lila begged silently, before they were all racing into the house. Troy and Sadie were in the process of waking up, trying to figure out if they'd been dreaming or if someone really had screamed. If they were okay, though... Oh no. Lila's heart sank almost in exactly the same moment Adam gave a yell of panic, bolting up the stairs two, sometimes three at a time. The others followed, ready to give backup if needed. None of them were prepared for what they found, though.
At the top of the stairs, just shy of the landing, lay Rose, in a crumpled heap. Her eyes were open, but vacant, and Adam scooped her up, babbling almost nonsensical words with the occasional, “No, wake up!” phrases heard. Lila stepped forward, even as he rocked, crouching down and finding the pulse point on Rose's neck, just below her jaw. There was a strong pulse, which was almost more perplexing than there not being one. “She's alive.” Lila announced, to a collectiv
e sigh of relief. Reaching up, she closed the girl's eyes. “Adam, I'm really sorry, but I think she's in a coma; I can't feel her spirit.”
Her eyes met Sadie's, knowing they both remembered the conversation in the car. This meant that Rose had been pulled across to Death and couldn't get back for some reason or another. Her body was still alive, which was a good sign, but there was nothing they could do for her here. They had to take her to a civilian hospital, risks be damned. Even though Adam resisted as she tried to take her smaller form, he couldn't hold her back from all four of them at once. It was evident that the Earth witch was in no hurry to move, clearly too shocked by these events to really think beyond keeping his sister safe at that exact moment. It was hard, knowing that whatever had attacked her had to be nearby and only seeing people he'd come to trust.
Lila knew how that felt; even now, she studied her companions, wondering if this was perhaps one of their doing. How could it be, though? She herself had witnessed Sadie and Troy waking up, and Elsie and Adam had both been with her, not that she could imagine Adam doing anything to his own sister. It had been evident from their conversation earlier that the two loved each other, even if they did make fun of one another. No, the idea of Adam doing anything to hurt Rose was preposterous, and no one else had any real reason to, did they? Unless their reasons were taking her out of the game, stopping her from using her powers. It still didn't answer who 'they' were, though. Perhaps it had been the spirit who had lied; casting dissent between her and her friends could only work in their favour if they were making a move.
Though, that made no sense either. Spirits couldn't act of their own volition on any night except for Samhain, and even then interacting with people physically was nigh on impossible. As Troy picked Rose up, the only one strong enough to do so on his own, she let her mind wander. Sadie was with Adam, comforting him, and Elsie had hold of the unconscious girl's hand, keeping her from catching a chill as they walked out of the house and to the car. Lila decided to stay in the house, letting the others head off to the hospital without her as she set about examining the house for clues.
Heading into Rose's room, she felt a chill run up her spine, but dismissed it as mere apprehension given what had happened that night. The window was open despite the chilly November air, thin curtains rippling in the breeze. It was unsurprising, really, that everything in the room was decorated in a pale green or other complimentary colour. Earth elementals would naturally be drawn to Earth tones in the same way that Water elementals were drawn to blue hues.
Moving over to the window, Lila closed it and secured the latch, though not before examining it for any sign of forced entry or spiritual after effects. There were none, so she could only assume that either Rose liked her room icy cold, or she had attempted to use the window as a means of escape before running into the hall. The very fact that she had been found in the hall and not her bedroom suggested that she'd been aware of the attack – somehow, Lila just knew that's what it had been, not some misadventure into death (besides, Rose may have been powerful, but powerful enough to go beyond her element? It was unlikely, to say the least).
With the way her skin was crawling in this room, Lila knew that there had to be a spiritual element to this, somehow, but she couldn't risk attempting something like a séance, not if the spirit involved had been powerful enough to pull such a gifted witch away from herself. There was a chance that if she ventured into death after Rose's soul, the same fate could await her. All it would take is for her to be pulled away whilst warding herself, and she would struggle to ever return. If that was what had happened to Rose, though, it did leave the possibility that the young witch would find her way back. Maybe she could at least find a way to help her do that.
Abandoning any hope of finding out specifics from her intuition, Lila returned to a more physical search. Running her hand over everything, she searched methodically, unsure of what she was looking for but determined to rule out every possibility. She even pulled furniture away from the wall, looking over and under, fingers skimming over every surface to test for even the stickiness left after spilt tea or any other remnant of recent activity. She couldn't help but be a little grateful that Rose didn't keep a diary (which a search of her drawers had revealed) – even when it was most necessary, she hated invading privacy like that. Perhaps because a diary contained someone's innermost thoughts and feelings, it had always felt a world apart in what was okay and what wasn't. Searching like this and perhaps finding something incriminating was one thing, but to steal someone's deepest emotions felt wrong.
Finally, after what felt like hours of searching, Lila's fingers closed around a bundle of cloth stashed under one of the slats of Rose's bed. Pulling it out carefully, she barely needed to look at it to recognise what it was. A hex bag. Pulling open the string which bound it, she frowned at the ingredients. It contained everything needed to lull someone into a deep enough sleep that they wouldn't notice something like their soul being carted off into death, so why had Rose woken up? This was no spell for the faint of heart. If it had worked fully, none of them would have had any clue why the young witch had failed to wake up, or that she had been attacked at all. Most likely, they'd have attributed it to the recent spiritual activities, but a hex bag spoke explicitly of those alive; their power could only be controlled from this side of death. Even as she considered the possibility of someone climbing in through the open window, Lila dismissed it in the same moment. The presence of this bag meant only one thing.
One of the four other witches in this house tonight had attacked Rose.
Chapter Seven
By the time anyone returned to the house, Lila had fallen asleep on the sofa. She'd spent the night burning the hex bag to release its power, hoping that doing so would help Rose. The rest of her time, she'd spent concocting her own bag, this one to bless Rose and give her guidance into what was real and what wasn't. It probably wouldn't help,but she had to try something.
The first she knew of anyone's arrival was Troy sitting beside her and gently shaking her shoulder. “Hey, Li'?” he murmured, sounding exhausted. She came around weakly, scrubbing at her eye with the heel of her hand in an attempt to focus. She hadn't had nearly enough sleep recently, and it was beginning to show in the dark circles around her eyes and her pale skin. She was pretty sure she looked like a zombie – she didn't want to look in the mirror and validate this. Though, at least she was a zombie with great hair – whatever that bath had done, her hair was still showing. Thick and full, shining with cleanliness, it hung in developing ringlets over her shoulders.
“Troy? Wha'ssup?” she slurred, pressing the back of her fingers against her open mouth as she yawned, tears springing to her eyes instinctively. Troy gave a weak smile. “No change, but her brain activity is good, so that's something, right?” Lila nodded hesitantly, and Troy gave an understanding look. “I know. Sadie explained to me on the way home, the whole getting lost on the wrong side of life and death. How does that work, by the way?”
Lila sat up, giving a half-frown. “Well, it's kind of like a border, I guess. When you're separate from your body, at first you feel really warm and like you're comfortable, ready to fall asleep.. and then you give into that and pass through.. uh.. I guess it's what I'd imagine walking through a bubble would feel like. You feel it pop as you pass through, and it feels like there's no way back. That's when you can get stuck. The wards you use on your body act like a key though – they open a rip between life and death that you can get through. If you haven't protected your body though, someone else could come through.”
“So Rose could be possessed?” Troy looked alarmed.
“Well, uh.. I don't know. If she knew enough to put wards on her body, or if someone did it for her, maybe... if she's warded it wrongly, no one will get in, not even her. Or she could not have warded it at all, in which case it really depends who's hanging around and if they can get through the border. Some can, if they're strong enough.” Lila explained.
Troy gave a shudder, seeming cold all of a sudden. “Can you put those wards on permanently?” he asked, gazing at Lila as if she were the answer to all his problems – which she could be.
“Yeah. Are you asking me to do that for you?” she quirked an eyebrow, waiting for him to respond. When he nodded almost timidly, she sighed and got up, gathering the items she'd used for the counter-hex bag. “Come on, then. Let's go into the garden. This house really isn't a great idea for anything like this – the wood has absorbed the spiritual energy, probably because Rose is lingering, and her affinity affects the surroundings.”
To his credit, Troy didn't jump out of his seat and squirm with discomfort over the house being seemingly 'haunted'. He rose to his feet at a natural pace, following her out to the garden. He watched quietly as she made a circle out of salt, stepping in just before it was closed. Together they began calling the quarters (calling out to the guardians of each watchtower for protection and acknowledgement: north, east, south and west). As each was named, a physical representation of the aligned element was placed in that quarter (a candle, salt, a bowl of water and a stick of incense, burning). Finally, Lila alone called upon spirit, centring herself within the circle and calling out to accept its energy into the circle. She chose to do this part alone, purely because it was her affinity and very few circle castings actually invoked Spirit, merely acknowledging its presence, invited or not. Kneeling, a movement Troy copied, she placed a smoky quartz crystal in the centre of the circle with them.
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