by Amber Benson
“We’ve been asked to bring you this writ of dissolution,” the woman replied, eyes locked on Yesinia as she answered the question. “We believe your coven has been contaminated. Compromised.”
Neither Yesinia nor I had any idea what they were talking about. No one understood what was happening in our world; that evil had infected the Greater Council. The gossip channels had not begun to speak of the atrocities being enacted upon our sister covens in distant locales. The West was in the dark as to what was happening in poorer countries, places where human beings still feared magic . . . and where it was easy to destroy women like us.
We didn’t realize we could be next on the chopping block.
“I don’t understand,” Yesinia said as she ran her callused fingers through her thick dark hair.
Even though she was in her late forties, she didn’t have a hint of gray in her hair. Her face was unlined, her skin as soft and supple as a child’s, her dark eyes always alert and wary. This wariness came from being illegally transported into this country when she was a small child. She knew persecution and fear well, was always aware of what was happening in a room, where any strangers stood, and what they might be thinking.
She was protective of her privacy, and the privacy of our coven. From the rigid set of her shoulders, I could see that her instincts told her there was something very wrong with this man and woman.
“We will give you . . .” The man paused, seeming to enjoy the words as they rolled off his tongue. “Twenty-four hours. Twenty-four hours to dissolve your coven—anything you do that contradicts this edict will be considered a hostile act, and actions will be taken.”
“But that is not at all possible. We cannot—” Yesinia tried to protest, but the woman cut her off.
“It’s not a question of whether you can or cannot. It will happen. This coven—these blood sisters—will not meet again. It’s over.”
The woman’s words were well rehearsed. She’d given this speech before—I was certain of it.
“Who are you?” Yesinia asked.
If they were truly from the Greater Council then, I decided, the world had gone insane.
“We’re just the messengers,” the woman said, grasping a silver pendant she wore around her neck. It was the image of an ouroboros—a snake eating itself. “Understand. If you do not dissolve this coven of your own doing, it will be dissolved for you. One way or another.”
It was a threat—and not a veiled one.
“We will do no such thing,” Yesinia replied, her face alive with anger.
“Suit yourself,” the man said. “There will be repercussions. You have doomed yourself and your sisters.”
They left Yesinia’s house, but a residue of evil remained.
Yesinia called the coven together that night. Laragh, Honey, Evan, and I met there beneath the night sky in our secret spot, a grove of ancient madrone trees only a few feet from the edge of the Salish Sea. For centuries, blood sisters had done their work for the Goddess underneath the watchful eyes of this same moon and these sacred madrones.
We didn’t know that this night would be our last.
“We have been threatened,” Yesinia began after we called the protective circle and gave thanks to the Goddess. “Someone or something evil is on our island and they would want to stop us from doing our business here.”
The others—Evan, with his shy smile and curly hair; Honey, the oldest of us, but the most childlike; and Laragh, my identical twin—were unprepared for Yesinia’s words. I alone had divined the coming of the Devil with my spread.
“What can we do to stop it?” Evan asked “Can’t we go to the Greater Council ourselves?”
I loved Evan and his logical herbalist’s mind—and under different circumstances, he would not be wrong. But the world had spun off its axis and things were not normal anymore. I tried to explain this to the others, but they were bullheaded. Even my own twin, Laragh, our coven’s empath—and the one who was usually the most sensitive to change—did not believe something terrible would happen to us if we didn’t comply with the man and woman’s demands.
“It’s the twenty-first century, Niamh. Something as awful as the Salem witch trials could never happen again. Not here. Not in the United States . . .”
Everyone was in agreement. How could something so horrible happen now, in our modern-day world? Well, we didn’t have to wait long to learn the answer. It was as if Laragh’s words were the catalyst for the beginning of the end. For the evil my spread predicted to become reality.
Like silent beasts birthed from the night, they descended on the madrone grove with only one agenda: to destroy us.
The words had no sooner left Laragh’s mouth before I saw the first of them. I couldn’t tell if it was man or a woman, its gender swallowed whole by the pitch-black robe it wore. The gray mask tied to its face was like a second, more malevolent skin. Each of them carried an object of dark device: a palely glowing knife with serrated blade, a scythe borne on a stem of green metal, a machete with a blade as long as my arm, a rope coiled like a sleeping snake in its master’s hand . . . every item my eyes alighted on cut another wound into my heart.
Without thinking, I bent down and scooped up some smooth pebbles from the ground, slipping them into the pocket of my jeans.
“What the hell—” I heard Evan say as they fell on us, each member of their ranks armed with weapons of violence while we possessed none.
They streamed out of the woods like ants, their targets prearranged. Yesinia was the master of our coven, and they had decided to subdue her first. Circling her like dancing demons, seven of them stretched out their hands as if she were a bovine animal that needed corralling. She screamed as they attacked, a guttural cry of impotent rage, her face wild. She tried to fight them off with her bare hands, but she was outnumbered. There was little she could do but persist in fighting a losing battle.
At the same time, three of them surrounded Honey, who was so shocked by their arrival that she stood stock-still, eyes wide like a woodland creature caught in a car’s glaring headlights. They grabbed her roughly by the arms and forced her to her knees, pinioning her arms behind her back.
I watched as tears trickled down her cheeks, glistening like diamonds in the moonlight—but I could do nothing to help her. I was already dealing with monsters of my own.
Laragh and I stood back to back, our identical faces wearing (I assumed) the same fierce expressions. Dark brown hair worn long and loose, pale green eyes, lashes dark even without makeup, and pale skin. She was me and I was her . . . and neither of us would be taken down without a fight.
“Don’t touch us,” I growled through clenched teeth.
Feeling Laragh at my back gave me the confidence to lash out, and lash out I did. I pulled the first pebble from my pocket and found my target, never before so glad to have learned to skip stones as a child. My aim was true, the pebble catching one of the masked creatures square in the face, shattering its nose. It howled in agony and dropped to its knees.
Of course, another one immediately took its place.
“No!” I heard Laragh shriek, the sound coming from a few feet away. I turned and saw my sister being dragged away from the open grove of trees, toward the darker, more thicketlike section of the wood.
It wasn’t a decision. I ran toward my twin, pain screaming through my body as one of the robed figures pulled out a serrated knife and slashed Laragh across the back. I saw the blood, a wave of dark liquid soaking the fabric of my sister’s cream brocade blouse. I could feel her pain like it was my own and it was as exquisite as the sound of a bow being drawn slowly across the taut surface of a violin string.
I fell to my knees, skinning my hands on the rocky ground.
—Niamh
Laragh was in my head—something that hadn’t happened since we were small children.
—Run, Niamh . .
. please . . . don’t let them . . . get . . .
The words died away. I lifted my head, looking up through wet lashes, but all I could see were the robed figures disappearing into the woods with my sister, her limp body held aloft in their arms.
“Laragh!” I screamed. “Laragh!!”
My throat burned as I called out to her one more time. My only answer was the whoosh of the wind as it whistled through the madrone trees.
My sister was gone. Dead or unconscious . . . I did not know which.
A hand gripped my shoulder and I automatically slammed my elbow into its owner’s thigh. I heard a grunt and then:
“Niamh, it’s me. It’s okay. They’re gone.”
Evan stood in the moonlight, holding his leg where I’d elbowed him. He had a bloody nose and a split lip, and he held most of his weight on his left side. A horrific gash—from what horrible instrument of violence I couldn’t guess—had split apart the flesh at his waist, soaking the hem of his T-shirt in blood.
“Evan,” I gasped, but he shook his head.
“I’ll live.”
I stood up and threw my arms around Evan’s shoulders. I was afraid if I didn’t hold on to someone, I would lose my mind.
Laragh.
An anguish unlike anything I’d ever known ricocheted through me. I could hardly breathe. My sister was gone and my soul felt as if it had been ripped in two. Evan understood and held me tight. Even though I’m sure with his wound that it was beyond painful for him to do so.
* * *
When I was finally calm enough to look around, I saw we were the only ones who had not been taken. Laragh, Honey, and Yesinia were gone . . . and the grove felt empty without their presence. I’d spent so many lovely hours here in this magical place, and now it was destroyed forever.
“Where did they take them?” I asked—even though I knew neither of us possessed the answer. “We have to find them.”
That was when I heard the sound. A clanging of bells that rippled through the air and shook me to my very core. Someone was at the Red Chapel in the Woods.
Evan took my hand and we ran.
I grew up on this island. I know those woods like the back of my hand, but somehow, that night, they were alien to me. Every branch, every root and stump blocked my way or caught my flesh, pulling and tearing at me as if to stop me from my fool’s errand.
As we crashed our way through the woods, it became apparent that the gash in Evan’s side was not okay—that it was bad and only getting worse with the wear and tear we were putting it through. I realized he was not going to be able to keep up with me. But when I stopped, both of us out of breath and almost wheezing, he glared daggers at me.
“I’m going with you.”
He leaned against a gnarled old shore pine, hand pressed to his side. Even there in the semidarkness of the moonlit night, I could see the blood seeping out between his fingers. He could argue all he wanted, but his own body was going to betray him.
“Stay. Please. I’ll be back,” I said—and I meant it. Even then I think I knew I would not be able to save anyone else that night. And maybe not even myself.
He took out his cell phone and tried to dial the police, but he gave up quickly.
“My cell won’t work, they’re probably using a signal jammer . . .”
He slipped the phone back into his pocket and winced, then tried to rouse himself enough to follow me.
“We were always on our own,” I said, and gave him a sad smile. I took off and never looked back—especially when I heard his sobs.
The moon was not my friend. It illuminated things I didn’t want to see. Or maybe it was my only true friend, letting me see the event that would purify my heart and start me on the quest. The one from which I will probably not come back.
No one knows who built the Red Chapel.
(But I know who burned it down.)
The building was here on this island seemingly from the start—almost as if it had been created by inhuman hands and left as a gift. Island legend offered many possible architects, but I’d always liked the idea of a ghostly builder the best. Thick planks of redwood—trees that are not indigenous to these parts, so where did they come from?—red cedar, and red alder all planed with precision and care. It was a building built by someone who knew of the golden ratio and had incorporated it into their design.
Normally I found the chapel pleasing to the eye, with its parallel lines and crisp angles, but now in the dead of night it looked menacing. Set back away from the woods, the square building had been built on a piece of flat grassland overlooking the water. The bell tower—with its leaded, stained-glass windows—stood out from the peaked roof as though it were in bas-relief, the shadows giving the steeple that topped it a sinister air.
I stayed away from the clearing and its grassy carpet, keeping myself well hidden among the trees. To step beyond their protective canopy would’ve been madness. The robed men and women were at the Red Chapel in force, gathered on its front lawn.
Wrapped in the faraway darkness, I couldn’t tell if there was anyone within their numbers that I knew. This was my island and I was friends with most of its year-round residents—and quite a few of the summer people, too. I was sure that none of them would’ve participated in anything like this—something so violent and cruel and unnecessary . . . at least I hoped not.
They’d crafted a pyre of driftwood on the rocky shoreline behind the chapel, a column of wood piercing the middle of the thing like a divining rod buried in the dirt. I watched as they wound Honey and Yesinia through the crowd, robed figures on either side of them keeping them in line. Yesinia could barely walk, her face puffy and bruised. Her captors were holding her up by the arms, dragging her along. They’d beaten her until she’d given up and now she looked just like a dead woman walking.
The powerful coven master I’d once known was broken.
Honey had fared better because she probably hadn’t put up much of a fight. She was always the first among my coven mates to run from confrontation, and I was sure this time was no different. Her face was clean, but her eyes flicked back and forth in their sockets like those of a hunted animal. She had to know what was going to happen to her, but she managed to stand tall even in fear—and I was proud of her for this small show of confidence. She was not the kind built for hardship. When Death rode the land on its pale horse, she would be among the first of its followers.
I searched the crowd for Laragh, but she was nowhere to be found. I hoped this meant they had other plans for her . . . but in my heart I was terrified she was already dead. The only thing I could hold on to was that the part of me connected to my twin still felt intact. I decided that if she were gone, I would’ve felt her go.
“—been charged with witchcraft—”
I’d been so wrapped up in my own worries for Laragh that I’d missed my blood sisters arriving at the pyre. Now they both stood at the foot of the wooden mound, Honey clinging to Yesinia—or holding her up, I couldn’t tell which.
Perched on the bed of a red pickup truck, one of the masked men towered above all the others. From the timbre of his voice as he led the others with his skillful oration, I was certain that he was in charge.
“—how do you plead? What is your answer to this charge?”
Yesinia refused to speak, but I saw that some of the fire had come back into her eyes.
“Please, why are you doing this?” Honey cried, desperation riding on the back of her words. “We don’t hurt anyone—”
I saw Yesinia lift her hand, trying to silence Honey, but it wasn’t any use.
“Then you plead guilty as charged!” the masked man shouted back at her.
Honey turned white as a ghost.
“No! That’s not what I said—”
The masked man was on a roll. Like a frothing evangelist at a tent revival, he lifted his arms i
n the air and began to scream at her:
“You are an abomination, witches! You retard the evolution of mankind and keep us in the Dark Ages. You separate us from our fated destinies—”
“No, no, no!” Honey wailed, but the wind had picked up, stealing away her piteous sobs.
“The Flood is coming, and you and your kind will no longer hold it back—”
Honey wailed and kicked out at her masked captors as they dragged her against her will up onto the pyre. They yanked her arms behind the wooden column, securing her wrists together with thick coils of rope. They wrapped more of the same fibrous rope around her ankles, binding her to the wood and preventing any chance of escape. She sobbed as they worked, tears flowing harder with each subsequent binding.
Yesinia bore the same treatment without comment. There were no tears from her, only the stillness of stone. Part of me wanted her to rail against the injustice of what was happening, but I knew in my heart it was fruitless to fight. No one was coming to rescue either of them.
The end would arrive one way or another.
Of course, we witches know that “the end” is not really what it seems. That our physical forms may die, yet our spirit/energy goes on. But it’s one thing to intellectually understand that death was a doorway to a different plane of existence, and another to be a human being who desperately didn’t want to die.
Yesinia was a master. She had merged these two parts of herself and was ready for the leap forward.
Unlike Honey, she didn’t fear death.
“Light the pyre,” the leader of the robed figures called out to the crowd, two of them coming forward with gas cans in their hands.
They soaked the wood with gasoline. It was so strong, I could smell its pungent, oily stink even from my faraway hiding place. Set against the stark white moonlight, the whole abomination seemed surreal. It was as if I were watching a horror movie and I couldn’t turn off the television screen.