A Witch's Feast

by C. N. Crawford

  “There is, as a matter of fact.” Munroe’s hand twisted her pendant. “There’s a family burial plot, but it’s walled in. It’s not safe because the ground isn’t solid. It’s locked anyway.”

  Family burial plot. Likely story. Fiona flashed her most innocent smile. “Oh, where is it? I mean, I just want to make sure I don’t go in the wrong place.”

  Munroe bit her lip. “It’s by the river, in the other direction from the willow tree.”

  “Can we see the outside at least?” asked Fiona. “It sounds… historic. One of the Founding Fathers must be buried there, right?”

  Munroe cocked her head. “I suppose we can go a bit closer. Follow me.”

  They trudged out of the gardens on a smaller gravel path that led through the labyrinth of hedgerows. Munroe led them through a winding maze of eight-foot-tall boxwood hedges. Following close behind Tobias through one winding turn after another, Fiona stared up at the cloudless sky. I have no idea where we’re going at this point.

  She scratched at a mosquito bite. “Munroe? How many slaves did your family own?” She knew this topic irritated her.

  Munroe halted, turning to frown at her, but Fiona wore a mask of innocence.

  “The labor force included over a hundred people. They farmed tobacco.” Munroe turned again, resuming her march through the hedges.

  At last, the maze opened to a clearing with a large stone wall about fifty feet long, covered in climbing plants. White flowers bloomed on the vines, and amid the plants, a rounded green door was visible. Magnolia and hemlock trees grew on either side of the enclosure, lending shade to the area. Through them, Fiona could see a shimmering glimpse of the James River.

  Beads of sweat sprung up on her upper lip. She smacked the top of her arm as she felt the bite of a mosquito, leaving a small smear of blood.

  “Well, you wanted to see it,” said Munroe. “It’s really not that interesting.” She sighed, wiping her hand across her forehead. “It’s hot out. Let’s go back to the house.” She strode into the maze again, and her classmates followed.

  “She’s enjoying this whole leadership thing, isn’t she?” whispered Mariana.

  Munroe flipped her glossy hair behind her shoulder. “I’m taking you to the southern terrace now.”

  They were around a quarter of a mile from the house. They trod between the hedges of the labyrinth, and the air filled with the whirring of cicadas. Fiona glanced at Tobias as they left the shade of the maze. He squinted in the harsh sunlight, his movements precise on the uneven path.

  Outside the house’s east wing, two men in black jackets stalked along the brick path. When the students drew closer to the house, Munroe pointed to the men. “Those are the guards.”

  One of them turned to stare at the students, and the hair on the back of Fiona’s neck stood on end. His broad, muscular shoulders were practically the size of a doorway. He blinked large gray eyes, and a pink tongue ran over thin lips. Dark hair hung limply over a pale forehead. The phrase that came to mind was cave-dwelling behemoth.

  Munroe spoke over her shoulder in a breezy tone. “The guards are very well-trained and experienced, so you don’t have to worry about witches. You’re totally safe here.”

  “Are you sure?” Connor asked from the back.

  Munroe turned to face them, frowning with irritation.

  Fiona glanced at Connor. Dark circles hung beneath his eyes. “It’s just that the witches are vicious. I saw Principal Mulligan’s body hanging from the gates, and my friend Marielle was crushed by a beam in the fire at Mather Academy.” His voice began to rise. “And I saw Eric shot in his stomach with an arrow.” He was shouting now. “He was writhing, and like, he didn’t even die right away, and then—”

  “That’s enough, Connor,” Munroe barked, her cheeks reddening.

  Connor’s eyes were wide with frustration. “But what if they’re trying to take over the whole country?”

  “I said that’s enough.” Her voice was icy. “You don’t want to scare everyone. There’s no point in dredging up every terrible thing you can remember. We’re safe now. I told you all. We’re not going to dwell on horrible things, like slavery.” She shot Fiona a sharp glance.

  Connor breathed heavily through his nose. Munroe turned back toward Winderbellow, and everyone followed her in silence.

  In front of the east entrance was another marble statue—this one a slumped and weeping angel, his vacant-eyed face discolored from the rain. The dark lines streaking his cheeks almost looked like tears.

  Munroe stopped in front of it and waited for everyone to catch up before gesturing up to the angel’s mournful face. “I wanted to show you this statue. This is a statue of Great-Grandfather Edgar as an angel.”

  “It’s beautiful,” said Sadie. “Some day I want to have a statue—“

  “Edgar was a great man,” Munroe cut her off. “He helped with the medical treatment of women driven mad by their dubious moral virtue. You know, women of the night.” She turned to her classmates again.

  “Wait—who?” asked Jonah.

  “Prostitutes,” said Fiona.

  “Hot,” Jonah chuckled, raising a hand for a high-five that no one returned.

  Fiona raised a hand again. “Edgar sounds amazing. How did he cure his hookers?”

  Mariana piped up, “I saw a show about female hysteria in the Victorian era, and doctors used fire hoses aimed right at the women’s—”

  “I don’t know the details,” Munroe snapped. “He just cured them. There was no fire hose. Now if you follow me up these steps, I’ll take you on a little tour of the lower level.”

  They followed a brick path to an arched glass door that led back into the house. When Fiona’s eyes adjusted to the dimly-lit interior, she glanced around at the dark-wood, vaulted hallway with a faded Persian rug.

  Munroe led them through an open door into an enormous rectangular room with patterned gray wallpaper and stained-glass windows. From a player piano somewhere in the house, a waltz filtered through the air. An old rug covered the hardwood floor, embroidered with an image of a bonfire—swirling flames of orange and yellow thread. Orderly rows of high-backed chairs faced a chalkboard on wheels in front of an empty marble fireplace.

  Munroe opened her hands. “This is the room where we’ll be having our classes. In the evenings, we’ll study in the drawing room. There are only nine of us, so we’ll all be following the same schedule. My parents have hired tutors. We start tomorrow morning at 7:30 with math.”

  Math at 7:30. If any doubts lingered in Fiona’s mind about the sinister cult-like quality of Munroe’s family, this put them to rest.

  “Follow me to the informal dining room.” Munroe turned on her heels and opened a door opposite the chalkboard.

  Along with her classmates, Fiona shuffled into a red-walled room with a round table. High above, carvings in the ivory ceiling depicted angry animals and chalices wrapped in vines. From a painting on the wall, a mutton-chopped man glowered, his cheeks sagging.

  “This is where we’ll eat breakfast and lunch. And that—” She pointed to the portrait. “—is Edgar. He was quite handsome in his time.” She cleared her throat. “They had different standards then. There’s one more important room.” She glanced at Tobias and grabbed his hand, leading him out into the hallway.

  Fiona stifled a gagging noise. Why did she need to hold his hand? Was this a sign of some kind of complicity between Tobias and the cult?

  The students followed their new leader across the hallway into a long, rectangular dining room that contained a banquet table large enough for twenty people.

  A dull light glinted off golden wallpaper decorated with red and blue star-shaped flowers. A great gnarled and gilded chandelier hung over the white cloth and china on the table. Alan whistled as he looked around the room.

  “This is the formal dining room, where we’ll eat dinner. Dinner is at six every night. You’re supposed to dress up.” She grimaced at Fiona’s tight-fitting cartoon prin
cess T-shirt. “Well, I’ll be dressing up anyway. Any questions?”

  Sadie flung a hand in the air. “What about the rest of the mansion?”

  Munroe pointed across the hall. “Sitting room and office over there. And in the northern wing…” She counted with her fingers. “There’s the morning room, ballroom, music room, tea room, and the red drawing room.” She forced a smile. “Happy?”

  Jonah raised his hand. “Where are the computers? Mine burned in the fire.”

  “My parents don’t believe in computers,” said Munroe. “I mean, like, they believe they exist. But they don’t want us to use them.”

  There was a low muttering, as though Munroe had just confessed her parents would be conducting unsanctioned medical experiments. Which, Fiona suspected, wasn’t entirely implausible. “Is there anywhere else we can’t go?” she prodded. “Besides the crypt?”

  “Well, obviously you can’t go in the attic, but there’s no reason to anyway. The floor isn’t finished, so you’d fall through the ceiling.”

  Does she really expect anyone to believe her? Rules be damned. Fiona was going to find out exactly what was going on at Winderbellow.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Tobias

  Alan’s gentle snores filled the room. Tobias could see his reflection in a mirror lit by the moon. His vision was different now—sharper and more penetrating. He could hear things—distant birdsong, and the river lapping at the banks.

  He felt a sudden pang of desire to see his familiar, Ottomie. He wasn’t as close with Ottomie as Oswald was with Meraline, but even so, the separation was starting to eat at him like an ulcer.

  The mark on his chest and his new power ignited his emotions. In the past few days, he’d been torn between wanting to kiss or to fight someone at all times, and this morning he’d had the strongest impulse to run his fingers over the back of Fiona’s absurdly tight T-shirt. But with his heightened senses, sometimes he was merely struck by the simple beauty of the world around him. Earlier today, the golden light trickling through hemlock leaves and the lonely cries of the river gulls had left him breathless.

  He stared at himself in the antique mirror, a faint golden glow around his skin. Though his rage had intensified, it now had a sharp focus. He now knew exactly what he needed to do. He gazed at the blackened wick of a candle below the mirror. Since he’d arrived here, he had yet to practice any spells.

  The symbol on his chest burned with a dull heat as he muttered Queen Boudicca’s Inferno. When he finished the Angelic words, a fist-sized flame blazed around the tip of the candle. With a smile, he snuffed out the flame with his fingers.

  Just as he’d thought. The magical aura he could create was now several times stronger.

  After pulling open the top drawer of the dresser, he took out the sheathed athame. With one last glance back at Alan, he crept toward the door and slipped out.

  He tiptoed over the worn rug in the hall. On the stairs, he rolled his feet from the outside in so that his footsteps were undetectable as he glided down the stairs. He snuck through the drawing room and through the glass doors, taking his opportunity to slip out silently when the large guard had his back turned. He no longer needed the invisibility spell to go undetected.

  He crept through the gardens, listening to the rustling and whispering of the trees. A bright moon hung below the Milky Way like a fat jewel dangling from a silvery belt. Chorus frogs droned over the sound of the river’s gentle waves. This time, I will fight the battle against Rawhed alone. It had been a mistake to drag his friends into Maremount—a world they little understood. How could they understand the savagery of a place where children could be slaughtered in the street for breaking rules? They’d grown up with easy, sheltered lives.

  Tobias had trained for years, fighting demons and practicing magic. There was a war going on now, and the untrained were a liability. Maybe Eden would still be alive if his Boston friends hadn’t followed him into Maremount.

  But death seemed to hover around him like a miasma. He’d tried to keep the memories locked up—his father pushing his mother and sister on the wagon after the plague came. But the memories clawed at their cage, and after seeing Eden die, there was nothing he could do to keep them from running wild.

  He crept along a path shrouded by magnolia trees, until the lights from the house were no longer visible. Focus on your task, Tobias. He would need total seclusion for this next spell. A little incantation like lighting a candle might not create much of an aura, but there was no telling what kind of chaos a conjuring might invite. Any nearby demon or wight would come to greet him.

  Tobias slipped deeper through the trees along the riverbank, the night breeze cool against his bare arms. He’d learned how to conjure with the Ragmen. In fact, it was how he and Oswald had practiced pike-fighting against demons. Only knowledge of a demon’s true name could summon them. Unless, of course, you had a different sort of power over them—if you’d dispatched them to the afterlife. But it was a dangerous sort of magic, and he certainly wasn’t going to involve his Boston friends in a spell like this.

  Just a few feet from the river, in an overgrown copse of trees, he paused in a small clearing. Moonlight glinted off the water, and thick undergrowth curled from the marshy ground under his feet. Using the athame, he traced a circle close to the ground. Then, in the center, he drew a triangle. As he completed the final swoop of the athame, flames blazed around him, and an electrifying power flowed through him.

  He closed his eyes and envisioned the demon he’d killed—Ms. Bouchard, Mather’s former art teacher. As a succubus, she was beautiful when sated, but a withered hag when her aura grew weak. The mark on his chest began to warm.

  “I call upon the succubus Amauberge Bouchard!” His heart raced as he chanted the conjuring spell, stabbing the athame into the earth. The flames rose higher, warming his skin.

  Behind him, a gurgling sound rose from the river’s edge. Tobias turned, adrenaline coursing through his veins. Through the trees, he could see a form emerge from boiling water—hunched shoulders, curling silver hair and glistening skin. The creature crawled out of the muck, her breath loud and raspy. She rose to her full height, prowling forward on withered and shaking limbs. When she stepped into the moonlight, Tobias saw her long teeth bared in fury.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Fiona

  The clock ticked over the slow whistling of Mariana’s breath. Fiona pulled sheets up around her shoulders as a wet, perfumed scent floated into her room from the garden. It was a cozy setup in the alcove by the window, but her heart raced whenever she closed her eyes.

  Each time her muscles relaxed into sleep, her mind greeted her with images of her burning schoolmates, or the gallows monster snapping Eden’s neck. And when the hair rose on her arms, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something dangerous was brewing by the river.

  She rolled over, trying her other side and stretching out her legs. What is Tobias doing now? Is he asleep like everyone else?

  A tapping noise interrupted her thoughts. She turned to see a bat fluttering outside the warped windowpanes.

  She smiled, sitting up and throwing off her sheets. Byron. It was just as Tobias had said: her animal familiar had found her. She pushed the window open and the bat flew in, flapping near the ceiling. She swung her legs over the edge of her bed, watching as he swooped around the room.

  “Mariana! My familiar is here.”

  “Cool,” Mariana mumbled, rolling over and pulling the covers over her head.

  As Fiona’s fingers curled around her sheets, a small voice startled her. Are you going to talk about me as though I’m not here?

  She jumped. Her familiar hadn’t spoken out loud, but his voice arose in her head like a thought. He drew in closer, circling her. “Hello?” he asked in her head.

  It felt awkward talking to an animal. “Hello,” she muttered, staring at her hands.

  “Ah. Not very strong socially, are we?”

  “You’re talki
ng in my head,” she said defensively. “And you’re an animal. It’s a little weird.”

  “I can hide behind a doll to appear human, if that would make it any better.”

  Fiona shuddered. “A doll talking in my head would be far worse.”

  “Are you going to name me?”

  “Yes. Byron, after my favorite poet.” She threw off her covers, forcing herself to look at him flapping by the ceiling. “Did you see anything weird going on outside? I can’t sleep. I thought I felt an aura nearby.”

  “Something drew me here tonight.”

  I knew it. She pulled her hair into a quick ponytail. “Who’s conducting spells?”

  “I don’t know. Something by the river, but I didn’t see what it was. The spell is drawing in magical creatures.”

  Fiona shivered. “Shall we go out for a look?” She stood, cracking the window wider to peak out into the misty night. A few guards stood watch around the back of the house. Near the drawing-room exit, the pale behemoth stood as still as a mountain. On the other side of the door, a mustached man shuffled from side to side, looking out into the gardens.

  She chanted the transformation spell, bracing herself for the painful metamorphosis. As she uttered the last word, her skin tingled with the magical aura. Her skeleton condensed. Wings erupted from her fingers, her muscles contracted, and a downy fur blossomed on her back as she rose into the air.

  In moments, her agonized body felt weightless. She circled the room. As her throat emitted high-pitched squeaks, the space transformed, its crevices and protrusions now wrapped in ultrasonic waves. Mariana’s chest rose and fell in sleep, and a mosquito wavered near the ceiling. The clock’s ticking was almost deafening.

  She darted through the window after Byron, the night air exhilarating on her wings. She swooped over the gardens, her heart leaping with the thrill of flight. The grounds were dark at this time of night, but it didn’t matter. Echolocation allowed her to perceive every contour below—flowers bending in the breeze, insects flitting through the air.