Is she pulling out weeds?
“Not the dandelions, dear, they make a lovely tea, and their flowers do nicely with salad.”
Did she just read my mind, how is everyone doing that?
“Ah, those of us who are able to do so, must be close.” The woman turns toward me standing up as she does so. I have a good foot of height on her, she doesn’t even reach my neckline. She looks a little overweight, with grey-white hair neatly tied in a bun. She seems totally harmless, like a grandmother or something, but no grandmother I know glows in the dark. A light grey cloak hides her body… and any weapons. I know better than to trust little old ladies.
“Seriously, Amura?” she sighs. “But caution ensures longevity.” She lifts her cloak, and from beneath a flurry of moths and butterflies escape.
“Oh.” I know who this is. Even in a dark coven we’re taught about her, and we venerate her. I put away my knife and go down to my knee with head bowed. “Oh blessed be, mother of us all.”
There’s probably a more appropriate greeting for Gaea, the Earth goddess, if I were a white witch I’d know what it is. No wonder she can read my mind.
“Rise Amura, daughter of darkness.” Her hand is on my head. I don’t think she took a step to reach me and there was a good 12 or 13 metres between us. I feel a slight prick from my ear. Did she just catch her hand on one of my piercings?
“No, a drop of your blood for a tincture of the earth.” She holds a bloodied nail finger in front of me, then turns and pokes it into the soil.
I feel something rising from the ground into me knee and feet. The shiver takes away my breath, and I think I’m about to faint. “Wha, wha?” Am I glowing like her?
“Earth magik mixed with blood, a touch of the child has returned to her mother’s mother. The circle is complete, the broken link is restored, and the Earth is invested in you.”
I can feel power coursing through my veins.
“Daughter of darkness, keep well my children, both corrupt and pure. This task is set for you. You are more than darkness now, from my bosom may you grow.”
And with that a last glint of orange sunset flashes in my eye, reflected from a window of my cottage. After I blink, Gaea is gone.
***
“She was one weird ass, little, old lady.” Gil is standing on the porch, was she watching? I think so.
Both my hands are clutching some of the bare soil in front of me. What did she just do to me? Breathe, Amura. Breathe.
Gil is just looking at me nonchalantly, from the porch. “So that was really Gaea?”
“Yeah,” I answer. “How’d you know?” I’m gasping a bit, but I’m slowly coming back from whatever just happened.
“She introduced herself. Helped me find the way here.”
“You were trying to reach the cottage?”
“You, actually, I could tell that you were blinded.”
I’m smiling, that’s a familiar’s magik, Gil is coming into her power. “Are you sure it wasn’t you that led her here?”
Gil is contemplating that. “Oh, maybe it was me.”
I raise one of my hands from the soil, but as I do, sprouts of grass come up from where my hand had just been. Nooooo way! No. That’s not possible, I’m a dark witch, that can’t be possible. I move my hand back, and tendrils of clover appear. Holy cow! I just thought that. What else? How about a rose?
I’m on my knees now, and I’m building a rose bush between my hands, complete with fully blooming, blood-red roses!
“Hey,” I yell. “Ficketty feck, Gil. I have creation magik!”
Awesome.
Chapter 19: Green thumb
Sooo… I might have got a bit carried away and grown a substantial arbory around the cottage. I like it. Vines cover the house, and all manor of thorny creepers now line the magikal path. Well, hey, it couldn’t all be flowers…evil witch, remember. At the peak of the evening I’d grown a giant weeping willow that curtained the front of the cottage with a sweep of leaves. It went really well with the ones on the side.
Some of the greenery had even moved inside, a worn out door mat now bloomed a lovely soft flow of lemon grass, and my ottoman had a cushion of moss. Some of my old wooden furniture had bloomed with twigs.
“It looks pretty good in here,” Gil comments.
“Yeah, but what’s happened to me?”
“What do you mean?”
I’m leaning on my kitchen counter contemplating what I’ve just done. It isn’t me. It’s not just that I have more magikal powers, greenery isn’t really a dark witch thing. The coven members may know where to pick up a few poisonous nik naks, like belladonna, hemlock and the like, but we don’t grow it ourselves. Somebody with enough evil, like Hatchesput, positively wilts plants as she passes them. No, this isn’t right.
“Those words, ‘pretty’ and ‘good’, they shouldn’t really go with ‘dark witch’.”
“Well. I might not get all the witchy stuff, but I’d say you’re not really dark any more, Amura.”
“What?” My head snaps around to Gil.
She just shrugs. “Creation magik isn’t dark.”
Shit. She’s right. Not only that, this magik is well beyond what even a white witch can do.
“I’m not in Kansas anymore.” What the heck am I? I need to talk to Master again. He’s a ficketty fecking angel, he may know. Damn it, he probably does know, whether he’ll tell me or not is a totally different question.
“Hmm, let’s sleep on this,” I suggest to Gil, but I know I have to get up early enough to catch Teddy at the coffee shop.
***
Oh, what? The clock radio is still blaring at me? Doesn’t a girl get some plusses with creation magik? Like, can’t I magikally pop out of bed all bushy tailed or something?
I blast the bloomin’ radio to pieces…arrrhhh. And hide my head under the pillow. No, no, no! Don’t want to get up. But shite, I have to try and catch Master.
There’s absolutely no upside from this new magik in terms of waking up in the morning. It’s cold, I’m naked, and I can’t magik any clothes on. Grrrr.
There’s nothing for it, I get up, do a quick bottom shuffle in front of the mirror (though I can’t really see myself, as there’s hardly any light yet). I magik clothes, piercings and some makeup on, then head for the door. I’m not even stopping for my wake up coffee this morning, I’ll have to make do with one at the café.
Gil is asleep on the couch, but I don’t disturb her. I don’t want her to know about Master.
Hang on. I halt as I reach the door. Familiars aren’t like anybody else, they’re absolutely faithful. Compulsion makes it so, there’s no reason why Gil shouldn’t know about Teddy. She would never tell anyone, and I may need her to know at some stage. She could act as a go between.
I kick the couch. “Gil, get up, we’re outta here.”
“Sleeping,” Gil replies.
I kick the couch again. “Up!” I order.
“Not a school day,” actually it is. School may seem like a lifetime ago, but it has only been a few days since we were distributing carbuncles to kids.
“Up!” I kick again.
A pair of eyes, break away from the darkness where I know Gil is lying, and they startle me. They’re slit like cat eyes! I’m sure of it.
But in the next moment, Gil turns on the lamp next to the couch. “Why are you torturing me like this?” And there’s no cat to be seen. Had I imagined it?
“What? Come on, up.” I grimace her way. “Time to be told a secret or two… I, have a love life.”
“Huh!!” Gil is instantly awake. “What do you mean you have a love life?”
I shrug. “Do you want to meet him?”
“Hell, yeah.”
***
A few moments later and we’re in the alley near the coffee shop. But something is wrong. It’s meant to still be dark in Sydney, it’s early in the morning, we’re here at Teddy’s early morning ‘time’. Well it is dark, but not in the street that the alle
y exits into. There’s a really bright light shining from the café.
“What’s wrong?” Gil is concerned.
“It’s that light. I t shouldn’t be there.”
“What light?”
“The one that’s lighting up the whole street.”
Gil just looks at me like I’ve lost it, or something. “There’s just the street light.”
What? Doesn’t she see that light? It’s not a street light, it’s really weird. It’s bright, but it seems, diffuse. Okay, I guess we’re going to see what this is. “You can’t see that light?”
Gil just shakes her head at me. “I’m not seeing whatever it is you think you’re seeing.”
But I don’t just think I see this. We’re moving around the corner so that the café is visible, and … it’s Teddy. The light’s coming from him, it’s all around him, and… and… I can see wings. Wings of light.
I just stand there staring at him. My mouth is open.
After a moment or two he notices me. I’m still just standing there, looking at him.
“Sooo, which one is he?” Gil obviously can’t see what I’m seeing.
“The angel,” I say. I’m snapping out of it a bit. I don’t know if I can go up there now, though.
“The what?”
“The angel,” I repeat.
“But which one is that?”
Oh, Teddy has changed since Gil last saw him. The moustache is gone, and he’s sporting a shaved bald head. He actually looks pretty distinguished.
I take a deep breath. Let’s do this. I walk into the café with Gil in tow and sit across from Teddy. I don’t say a word. Gil sits next to me. A minute later they bring me my coffee, and Gil her watered down swill.
Teddy hasn’t said a word either, he’s got a slight grin, and every now and then he takes a sip of his coffee.
“Have you always been like that?” I eventually ask him.
“Like what, exactly?” he’s not grinning now.
“There’s light all around you. And…” I lean in close to him and whisper this so that only he, I and Gil can possibly hear “… and I can see your wings.”
That’s startled him. He’s not drinking his coffee now. He’s pursed his lips. “What exactly can you see?”
“I can see a light coming from you, it lights up the street, but it’s coming from all of you, so I can still look at you. And I can see wings, wings of light around you.”
“That’s my true self, Amura. How are you able to see my true self?”
Now, it’s my turn to purse my lips. “Gaea, the goddess, came to visit me. She gave me magiks.”
“God? God came to visit you?”
“No, not your god, Gaea. Gaea came to visit me.”
He’s shaking his head. “God and Gaea are one in the same.”
What? That can’t be right. “That can’t be right. Your God, he’s a man, a male. Gaea is an old woman, a female.”
“She can appear as a young girl, a woman, a crone. He can appear as his son, as a spirit, in other forms.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Hmm, maybe I need to explain this in a different way.”
I’m sure I only blinked, and in that blink, the bald Teddy is gone, and a young blonde haired woman appears before me, though the light still surrounds her. “I can take any form. Male, female. It doesn’t matter.” And before anyone in the café can even notice, it’s Teddy sitting across from me again. Did I really see that? I’m sure I did.
“In our world, spirits that have passed the veil don’t exist as male or female. Those things don’t matter there. We angels don’t exist as such either. Here, we can be anything and so can God. If you have seen Gaea, then you’ve seen a face of the one you call, ‘my God’.”
“But, but that can’t be right. The dark covens have always venerated Gaea.” This was blowing my mind.
“Amura, is right, that doesn’t make sense.”
“Oh, sorry, you’re Amura’s familiar, Gil, isn’t it?”
I’d forgotten to introduce them. What, with Teddy’s light and all. “Oh, sorry Gil, this is Theodore Master, he’s the angel you saw the other day.”
“But he doesn’t look the same, this is a different fellow,” Gil replies.
“I take many forms, Gil. But Amura can always find me.”
“Wow. So you’re a real angel… and you and Amura…”
“So about Gaea?” I bring the topic back on track. “She can’t really be God, can she?”
Teddy just shrugs. “God has many forms, not all of them are the same. Some of his manifestations can be quite terrible. Gaea, is the Earth’s mother, but you already know that. What happened when you met her?”
“She cut my ear, and buried a drop of my blood in the earth.”
“You were touching the earth when that happened?”
I nod my head.
“Ah,” he replies, “then you’ve been blessed with Earth magik. Your ability to see my true self is part of that. You’ll be able to catch glimpses of the true nature of many people, creatures and even places.”
Something popped into my head when he said that. “I thought I saw Gil with cat eyes this morning. Could that be part of what you’re saying, too?”
He’s smiling at the both of us, Gil’s mouth has just dropped open. “How do you know that I’m a cat?”
“What?” I look at Gil, “what do you mean you’re a cat? You’re not a cat.”
Teddy is chuckling, he’s laughing at me. “Hey!” I give him a good clip on the shoulder, he feigns pain, but he just keeps laughing at me, even harder now.
“Sorry, it’s just that your friend has always been a cat. I’m surprised you didn’t know.”
“What do you guys mean? Gil’s not a cat.”
But Gil is looking somewhat embarrassed, and maybe a little insulted too. She puts her hand on my arm. “Sorry that I’ve never told you, but my family and I, we’re descended from the priests of Egypt, from the temples of Bast, we can take the form of cats. It’s why I can be your familiar, I’m only part human.”
My mouth is hanging open again, and I’m just staring at Gil. This is too, too, much. Then to top it off, Gil pretends to drop something on the floor, and as she ducks beneath the table, I find myself looking at a yellow and green eyed black cat. I’m pretty used to magik, but gee this is a lot to take in. Gil transforms back as she comes out from beneath the table. I’m just flabbergasted.
I take another sip of coffee to settle my nerves. A few moments drag by, with silence between us, but at this stage I can’t think of what to say, first I find out that Teddy actually has honest to goodness angel wings, then that Gaea is a guy, and now that Gil is a cat. This day just keeps getting better.
“Okay,” after a while I finally break the quiet that’s settled between us. “What else can I expect from this new magik. Are there any other surprises in store?”
Teddy isn’t going to tell me. I can see it in his eyes. “What did Gaea say?”
“Not much, she mentioned something about protecting her children. I expect she meant Susan.”
“Children, not child.”
Gil and I look at each other. “Wait. There’s someone else? Another child of Gaea?”
Teddy just flips us another shrug in response. “What possessed you to look after Susan in the first place?”
Strange question, he knows the answer. “The covenant, you know that. If one be taken so might we all. We’re obliged to aid our sisters.”
“The covenant,” he repeats. “Tell me, Amura, you know the words of the covenant pretty well, but have you ever actually seen one of the three original copies?”
“Well, no.”
“You should have a look at one. There’s something there that might answer a few questions for you.”
Hmm, I take another sip of coffee. He’s giving me hints. He’s not allowed to tell me things, but he’s giving me hints. I get that.
“What about what I asked you before?”
“Huh?” Teddy asks.
“Has anybody been on ‘your turf’?” I reply.
He rubs his hands together, and looks directly at me. But he’s hesitating, he’s thinking about how to word this. “Nobody new.”
I snap back to attention. That’s it? That’s all?
“But you should go to school today. You’ve missed too many calculus classes.”
And with that, the ficketty fecking angel is gone.
Chapter 20: Torture chamber
“Well that was bloody useless. He was no bloody help.” I’m really annoyed now.
“I expect it’s another clue. The bit about the covenant, that is,” Gil ponders aloud.
“Yeah, and the bit about going to school, too.” But I wasn’t going to let that ‘other’ issue go. “So since when have you been a cat?” I lash out.
“Ummm, always,” Gil shrugs.
“Like, really?”
“Oh, and how long have you been going out with the angel for?”
Oh, she’s got me there. “A while.”
“Humph.” She snorts.
“Humph.” I retort. And I fold my arms, we’re in a mini staring match, but we don’t have time for this. I break into a smile. “Okay, we’re even, we have bigger things to deal with.”
“Yeah what are we doing now?”
“Pulania, we need to speak to her.”
In the next instant I’m on the phone. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Comes the answer, but there’s a lot of ice there. She’s still mad at me.
“Umm, we need Susan.”
There’s no answer. I sigh, how do I kick start this conversation,
“I haven’t told you how it went at Susan’s aunt yet.”
“No, you haven’t.”
Oh, the chill.
“Humm, well, I could.”
“Okay then,” I can hear the sigh on the other end of the phone, “come on over.”
***
A few moments later we’re at Pulania’s place. It’s an old decrepit looking house a bit like mine but made of crumbling stone instead of wooden boards. It’s in the middle of Edinburgh city, though it’s shielded from the surrounding buildings and sidewalk by a screen of trees. You can barely hear the traffic going by, you wouldn’t even know she was on the Royal Mile from the house side of the property. It’s a great place for shopping, pubbing and general evil doing.
The Dark Witch Page 8