by K. A. Poe
“Do any of the other Clan members even go to school ...?”
Mathias shook his head, silvery strands falling across his eyes. “We all focus our time on the Clan and Artemis believes that it’s wisest this way ... but, unlike you, few of us have parents that can make our choices for us.”
“Right,” I grumbled and angrily followed Mathias away from Artemis’s empty room. I wished I could just blow off school completely. I only had a couple years left, but that was time that could be better spent with the Clan.
Mathias led me into the lobby, where Noah was lounging on the couch with a bag of chips and a movie playing on the flat screen TV. Elijah and his sister were no longer present, but the game controllers were both out as if they’d only just recently left. Noah muted the TV and grinned up at us.
“What’d you do to piss off Castus Young?” he addressed Mathias with a playful smirk. My expression had clearly given away my mood.
“I didn’t do anything. She’s upset about ... other things. We can’t find Artemis, and she’s ready to commit fully to the Clan.”
Noah’s expression turned serious and he sat up straight, his eyes on me. “You do know what that means, don’t you?”
“Yes. Well … no ... I don’t know.” I was honestly a little worried about what he was going to say.
He looked me dead in the eyes, his expression growing ever more solemn. “It means that you have to spend the night with me,” he said confidently. “It’s a requirement for all the new girls. Like a sort of initiation.”
Mathias shot him a dark look and scowled. “That’s how you wish things were, but fortunately for everyone else, it’s not. I’ve already explained to her what the requirements are.”
“Way to ruin my fun, Forsythe. But, hey, it may not be a requirement, but the offer still stands if you’re up for it.”
To my surprise — and evidently everyone else’s — I laughed. “As flattering as that is,” I said, “I’m going to have to pass. I just want my Mark already. I want this to all be official.”
“Then so shall it be,” Artemis said from the doorway, surprising us all.
Chapter Seven
The light from the moon and stars glowed through the branches overhead as Mathias led me through a dense copse where we were supposed to meet up with other members of the Clan. Despite the thick sweater coating my skin, the chill of November seeped beyond the fabric and sent shivers throughout my body. There was a light dusting of snow coating a floor of dead leaves, and silence hung all around us, save for the occasional hoot of a lone owl hidden within the trees.
“How much further?” I asked quietly. My feet had grown tired from the thirty minute walk from Haven to these unknown woods.
“Not far,” he answered without looking back at me. His shoulders looked tense and he’d scarcely spoken a word since Artemis agreed to perform the ritual. I couldn’t understand why — didn’t he want me to become a full member of the Clan?
Focusing hard, I cleared my mind of everything but Mathias and his mind, hoping to sneak even a brief glimpse — but I was faced with nothing but empty silence. Lydia must have been right when she said I’d been allowed into his mind before.
“Did you know that I can feel that?” he asked and finally looked in my direction. There was something different about his eyes that I hadn’t noticed earlier in the day — a slender ring of silver around his otherwise green irises. Had that always been there?
“You can?”
He nodded and stared ahead once more, following a trail through freshly-walked on leaves and blotches of muddied snow; I was beginning to regret my choice of shoes as moisture soaked through the material of my sneakers. “It’s kind of like an itching sensation in the back of my mind, for lack of a better description.”
“That’s weird,” I muttered mostly to myself. “How was I able to hear your thoughts that night at the party?”
“I let you; it was the easiest way to find you. After all, I couldn’t read yours.”
There was a muffled sound of voices and movement up ahead and I could feel my pulse quicken. “Is this the same thing they do for every new witch?”
“Every witch initiated into the Clan goes through the exact same ritual. I did it, Noah did it, every other witch you have come to know did it. It’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“You said it hurts, though,” I reminded him and gulped.
He offered me a warm smile as he glanced over his shoulder at me. “There are many painful things we must endure in life in order to reach our goals. The only question then is which ones are worth it? I will be right there with you throughout the entire thing.”
I felt a little better, until we entered a clearing up ahead and my vision was filled with twelve or more cloaked figures forming a circle. All of their faces were concealed by the hood of their cloaks — I couldn’t identify any of them even if I tried. We approached the circle, my fingers nervously tugging at a thread on my sweater, and someone in a deep blue cloak stepped up to me. I knew at once that it was Artemis.
“Artemis,” I addressed him, watching from the corner of my eye as Mathias joined the rest of the group. He donned a black cloak of his own and, with a final smile in my direction, pulled the hood over his silvery hair. So much for being with me throughout the whole thing ...
“We do not have names here,” Artemis spoke, his voice resonating through the woods and distracting me from my thoughts. “This is the precise location where our chapter of the Castus Clan became what it is today — a society of witches, sworn to protect others from the harm of our enemies — the Nefastus, Creatures of the Night, and even some Mortals. It is here that we first vowed to use our gifts only for good, and if we ever strayed from our paths, we would accept our fate as Exiles. It was here that we were Marked by the Crescent, the symbol of Hope. Hope for new witches without guidance, hope for humankind as a whole.”
Behind Artemis, I could see a half circle made out of tall, rounded stones—carved into each one were letters that I couldn’t decipher from where I stood. The circle of witches stood a foot or two in front of the stones, their heads bowed as they listened to the Clan leader.
“Do you, Madison Young, vow to live by the rules of the Clan, to ensure the safety of other witches, to fight against the Nefastus if ever war breaks out amongst us, to aid your fellow Clan members, to never stray from the path of the Castus Clan, and to bear the Mark of Luna henceforth?”
My mouth was suddenly parched and I couldn’t find my voice. I cleared my throat and looked up into his dark eyes. “I … I do.”
He stepped aside, revealing a raised stone dais with a golden crescent etched into the base. Upon the top of the dais was a thin blue-tinted phial with a stopper. Artemis grasped the phial gently and turned toward me once again. Murmured voices caught my attention — each of the cloaked figures had begun chanting a phrase in another language. Their voices grew louder and louder when the phial was offered over to me.
“Potandum usque ad lunam. Potandum usque ad lunam. Potandum usque ad lunam.”
The moonlight overhead seemed to intensify each time the phrase was spoken. My hand shook as I reached out to grab the blue-tinted bottle, and I retracted my hand. A sudden wave of fear swam throughout my core and I was beginning to wonder if this was really what I wanted. The Clan had never seemed so frightening before. With a shaking breath, I clasped my fingers around the thin phial and removed the stopper. A scentless mist rose up from within and tickled at my nose.
“Potandum usque ad lunam.” Artemis’s voice was now added onto the many.
I drew back my head, pushed the mouth of the bottle to my lips and let the slippery liquid slide down my throat. It was flavorless — like water — but as cold as ice. For a moment I thought that this entire ordeal could be some sort of hoax, like an initiation into a sorority or a fraternity. Then my heart started to race and a rush of heat came over me, silencing the false assumptions. I began to panic as I searched the crowd for Mathias,
but everyone had their heads lowered and it was impossible to know who was who. They all seemed to mesh together.
The skin on my chest began to burn and then itch. It felt as though the pain was snaking its way toward my collarbone. I pulled the collar of my shirt aside and looked down. At first, there was nothing, then the feeling intensified. Even in the darkness I could see the color of the skin changing from white to pink, then to red. What seemed to be small chill bumps appeared on the irritated skin that began to grow and blister. I screamed in pain as the skin began to boil. I felt my knees buckle and I wavered as I grasped my chest. I cried out in pain again, but I could hardly hear myself — and what I did hear sounded inhuman — primal and agonized. The burning seemed to crawl across my skin like a curious, hellish insect, filling my body with uncomfortable and unbearable heat and pain. I couldn’t take the pain anymore. I collapsed onto the ground and began to cry, though no tears came — the heat so intense that it devoured all moisture. I looked up toward the sky as my back arched and I continued to scream, each vocalization scratchier and more painful than the last. The moon seemed to glow blue, then red. Faces, shadowed and hidden by their hoods, crowded my vision, encircling and framing the moon. Just as my body could stand no more and blackness was taking me, someone’s cool flesh met mine and I felt myself ascending from the ground.
Tossing and turning, I groaned and opened my eyes. I reached a hand to my cheek and blinked, having felt as though someone else’s hand had recently rested there. Two brilliant green orbs caught my attention and I gasped — although it was a strained, hoarse sound. Searching my surroundings beyond Mathias’s concerned face, I found myself looking at plain white walls and there was no sign of Willow or my mom — even her bed was gone. I struggled to sit up but Mathias gently pushed me back down.
“Where’s all of my stuff? Where’s my mom? Where’s —”
Realization washed over me and I relaxed against the cool pillow behind me. This wasn’t my room; it was his.
“What happened? Why am I in here?”
“You went through the initiation, remember? And I didn’t think your mom should see you ... like this. She has enough to worry about as it is, and if she knew you had passed out in the woods after being administered a potion that made you permanently one of us, she probably wouldn’t take it too kindly. You are fine, though.”
My memory was foggy aside from the half-circle of rocks and the stone dais. Then I remembered the moon. The potion. The pain. My hand shot up to touch the spot over my heart where it had blistered and burned — how long had I been out? I wasn’t sure. The pain returned mildly and I pushed down the collar of my shirt to reveal a mess of twisted and burned flesh, puss already forming in the interior. Seeing it again intensified the pain, and I grimaced at the unsightly mess.
“Why is it ... so hideous? Yours doesn’t look like this! Is something wrong with me? Did I say the vows wrong?”
To my surprise, he laughed. “It takes time to heal. Within a week — possibly less if you’re lucky — it will resemble the same glowing crescent that I showed you at the lake. There won’t be a scar or anything; it’s not like a normal burn.”
I nodded slowly, taking in the information with a sigh of relief. “What time is it anyway?”
“Noon. You missed school, but —”
“Oh, no,” I grumbled and tried sitting up again; he didn’t stop me this time. “Mom’s going to kill me after the stupid argument we had yesterday about how important school is.”
“One day can’t hurt.” He seemed rather confident about this, but I wasn’t so sure. “I had hoped that maybe you would take me up on that offer ... to go out. Since you were sort of preoccupied yesterday evening.”
“Yeah ... sure. What did you have in mind?” I lay back down and stared up at the ceiling.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. And while I appreciate your gift of being able to summon food, I thought maybe we could go out and enjoy some time outside of Haven and, in your case, school. There’s a diner not far from here that serves breakfast all day, so you don’t even have to have lunch if you’re in the mood for breakfast.”
I smiled and turned my gaze over to him. “Sounds good to me. Let me just go to my room and change into something clean ... and that will hopefully hide this ugly thing.”
Mathias frowned and looked serious. “It isn’t ugly. Even if it did remain in the state that it is now, it would still be beautiful, if only for what it stands for.”
Unsure of how to respond to that, I just nodded and rose once more to a sitting position. “With all of those figures in the woods, I wasn’t sure who anyone was aside from Artemis.”
He nodded. “There were a few members that no longer live here at Haven. There are Clan members all over the state — all over the world, even — and many are still closely involved with Artemis. Some of the ones present were older members that were teenagers here when I was growing up.”
“Wow,” I said quietly as I imagined him as a young boy. At what age did his dark locks turn into strands of silvery snow? “I didn’t know where you were ... I tried looking for you in the crowd, but everyone just blended in with each other. Are you the one that picked me up?”
At that, he grimaced. “No. I wasn’t close enough ... I would have if I hadn’t been on the opposite end of the circle ... Alan got to you first and he brought you here.” He paused and traded his grimace for a blank expression. “It’s common for new witches to collapse during the ritual, even if they have a high pain tolerance. Artemis says that the process replenishes your energy and cleanses your system, and it’s such a strain on the human body that it’s normal to pass out even if the pain doesn’t get you. I remember vaguely when Elijah had his Mark imprinted. Everyone was shocked that he didn’t collapse or anything ... but knowing what his gift is, it didn’t surprise me.”
“I’m kind of surprised the Mark even stayed on his skin.”
“While he may be able to cure himself of any mortal wound, nothing is known to be able to cure injuries caused by or infused with magic.”
“Oh, I see.”
“But enough of that for now. I will meet you in the lobby in fifteen minutes? Is that enough time?”
“Plenty. Just hope my mom isn’t in my room …”
“She’s not.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw her leave earlier when I was out there. She left with your dad.”
“Oh …”
“Is something wrong?”
“No,” I lied. “It’s fine. See you out there.” And with that, I retreated to my room.
Chapter Eight
The restaurant was filled with people and their noise. I was surprised just how busy it was for a random weekday. Didn’t any of these people have jobs or school? Then again, what was I doing there?
Mathias sat across from me with a loose strand of frosty white hair escaping from behind his ear, only to be brushed back with annoyance. He had just given his order for a bacon and cheese omelet, along with my apple cinnamon pancakes and a side of hash browns, and now was rolling his straw wrapper into a ball and looking thoughtfully in my direction. I looked back at him with a smile, and my eyes couldn’t help but wander to the rim of silver around his irises.
“Has that always —”
He interrupted me mid-sentence and said, “The snow’s really piling up out there.”
Blinking, I glanced out the window beside us, where the curtains were drawn down to where only a few inches of the outside world was visible. Sure enough, there was a thick blanket of white, shimmering snow covering the roads and sidewalks; it hadn’t been that way when we’d walked over. The color of the snow reminded me of everything that was Mathias — his hair, his silvery eyes when he used his ability, the pure gentleness that was him.
“Penny for your thoughts,” he said after setting down his glass of cola.
“What? Oh ...” I sat there looking dumbfounded. “Just thinking about ... the sno
w. Have you ever seen an up-close picture of a snowflake?”
He shook his head. “No. Just little white flecks, right?”
I grinned and watched him resume pushing around the rolled up wrapper. “They are so much more than that. They’re gorgeous; they look like tiny glass sculptures, and are exactly what cutout paper snowflakes look like.”
“I always wondered why snowflakes were cutout into shapes like that, actually. I seriously just always thought that was an artistic way of showing it.”
“Well, now you know,” I said and paused. “When I was little and it would snow ... it always felt magical to me. The way it fell from the sky as if in slow-motion and landed on the ground, sticking there. The way it sparkled under the sunlight ... that was magic to me. And now, now magic is that and so much more.”
Mathias stared at me with a crooked smile and there was amusement lighting up his eyes. “You have a wonderful way of looking at the world.”
“I don’t really think so. My mom — Eila, I mean — she thinks snow is a nuisance. It covers the streets and causes people to miss school and work or slip and crash, it builds up so high that it keeps you locked up in your house. But while she complained about it, I just admired it. I think she just holds a grudge against it because one time when I was eleven she slid on a patch of ice in the driveway and broke her ankle.”
I wasn’t surprised when he laughed, because even I did — mostly at remembering the moment. There was a pang of sadness at the memory of my adoptive mother, and I wished she was still a part of my life.
“She’ll come around, you know.”
“What?” I muttered, looking at him in shock.
“Eila. She’ll get through this, and you’ll be on speaking terms again. She’s still your mom, after all.”
“For a second there, I might have thought you could read minds.”
“You don’t have to read minds to see it in your eyes. The sadness. You miss her.”
I nodded and scooted my hands off of the tabletop so our waiter could set down our plates. Before he had a chance to leave, I quickly asked for ketchup and he promptly returned with a bottle. “Thanks,” I said and sprinkled a light dash of salt onto the crisp potatoes, followed by a layer of ketchup, which I spread over the top with my knife.