Witchtown

by Cory Putman Oakes

  I don’t think I breathed again until I made it back to the apartment. Once there, I sank to the floor and let out a long, slow breath as the broom handle hit the ground with a sharp clatter and the contents of my basket spilled out in front of me.

  I didn’t venture back out again until it was nearly dark, time for the initiation ritual the mayor had mentioned yesterday. I wasn’t sure if all of the four hundred and two souls that Witchtown claimed on its sign were present in the center of town, but it was a very respectable showing. It made sense; it was the full moon, after all, and even the most apathetic members of pagan communities usually get it together to do something witchy at that time of the month.

  Personally, I was just glad to see that most of the townsfolk were robed. I had never been a big fan of the whole skyclad routine. My mother didn’t mind it, but frolicking in the nude with a bunch of strangers had never been my thing.

  Earlier, when she had at last emerged from her bedroom, my mother had seen my hair, done a double take, and given me a look she usually reserved for the likes of traveling Bible salesmen. But she seemed to have gotten over that now. She steered me through the crowd, one hand on the shoulder of my crimson ritual robe, straight toward Mayor Bainbridge, who was standing near the altar. It was a large and obviously permanent chunk of marble, inscribed with what I assumed was the Witchtown motto:

  To grow in knowledge

  To live in harmony

  To harm none

  I couldn’t honestly see myself getting onboard with any of that. But I guess it was a nice collection of sentiments. Sweet. Bordering on obnoxious.

  There were a number of older people around, especially near the mayor, but not a single one of them was wearing a silver ring. Well, the mayor had said the Natural didn’t practice anymore. Maybe she was too old even to attend rituals.

  My nerves started to hum. An elegant gray-haired lady who was introduced to us as the High Priestess signaled the beginning of the ritual. I tried to take deep breaths and not let my nervousness show, even as the High Priestess took her place behind the altar, sent the Quarter Guards to their respective posts in the outer circle, and motioned for my mother and me to stand to her right.

  Breathe, I reminded myself, as I followed my mother to the High Priestess’s side. Just breathe.

  My mother had failed me in countless ways over the years, but never in this. She had almost as much to lose as I did, if the good people of Witchtown were to discover what I was.

  It will be okay. This part is always okay.

  The twin moonstones around our necks would ensure that.

  The High Priestess took up a silver wand and left the altar. Starting in the east, she walked clockwise around the edges of the crowd, drawing a circle around us.

  “I consecrate this circle to the Gods,” she chanted. “A safe space between the worlds.”

  When she had completed the circle, the High Priestess returned to the altar. As she called each element, a torch in the corresponding quarter of the circle blazed to life. Two of the Quarter Guards used lighters, I noticed. The other two used channeled power.

  As I looked around, I realized that something about this assembled group was nagging at me. There was something odd. Something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

  I puzzled over it until the High Priestess raised both arms above her head and nine glass orbs that I hadn’t noticed previously rose into the air. Each one of them caught the light of the full moon overhead and began to glow with a gentle but vivid silver light. It had been comfortably light outside before, but now it was as if someone had flipped on a switch: it was as bright as daylight.

  “The circle is bound!” the High Priestess called, sealing it with her words. “Our work begins!”

  A fairly standard circle casting, really. Aside from the orbs. I had seen hundreds of variations on what, when you got down to it, was a fairly simple procedure of sealing off sacred space and summoning the elements to balance the energies of the circle. I’m not sure why I had expected the Witchtown ritual to be any different, but I had.

  I was going to have to watch that. Letting this town’s reputation get the better of me was going to throw me off my game.

  “Welcome, everyone,” the High Priestess continued. “The Goddess has blessed us with a beautiful full moon this night.”

  The High Priestess smiled. The orbs caused her black robe to shimmer and her face to glow with a light that made her look younger than she probably was. And very beautiful. The focal point of power within a circle always takes on a certain unearthly beauty, I had discovered.

  “Will Aubra and Macie O’Sullivan please approach the altar?”

  I tried not to visibly shake as I obeyed her command. The High Priestess was quite tall and I felt like a small child, gazing up at her the way that our respective positions required.

  “Aubra first,” she instructed quietly. Then, raising her voice so that all might hear, she intoned, “Aubra O’Sullivan, have you come to us tonight, under the full moon, freely and of your own free will?”

  “I have,” my mother answered.

  “Do you seek the ancient knowledge, the old ways, and the promise of rebirth?”

  “I do,” my mother answered again.

  I busied myself searching through the faces around me as my mother responded to the ritual questions. And then it dawned on me what was weird about the group assembled around us:

  No teenagers.

  There were little kids and adults, but I was the only one here within five years of my age. Maybe Witchtown teenagers were too cool for rituals?

  “I do,” my mother repeated, and this time there was more of a finality to it than her other replies. She took a silver chalice from the High Priestess’s hands and as she raised it to her lips, I felt a warm wind blow through the ritual space, playing with my newly shorn hair. The torches at the four quarters of the circle flared up, as if they had suddenly been called to attention. The flames turned a dark, crimson red, the exact color of the ritual robes my mother and I were wearing. All nine of the orbs above glowed red as well. There were murmurs of excitement and surprise.

  “Natural,” I heard more than one person mutter.

  My mother opened her eyes. The flames returned to normal, and the red light faded from the orbs.

  She returned the cup to the High Priestess’s hand, caught my eye, and winked.

  The High Priestess turned to me and all of a sudden, my palms felt sweaty. I fought the urge to wipe them on my robe.

  “Macie O’Sullivan,” the High Priestess went on. “Have you—”

  She was interrupted by several loud popping sounds. A split second later, all of the orbs shattered, raining bits of broken glass down on us.

  I ducked instinctively and covered my head. Beside me, I could see my mother doing the same. There were several more popping sounds—​gunshots? Were those gunshots?—​and more glass fell down all around me. There was a lot of screaming.

  I kept my arms over my head until the glass stopped coming down and an odd silence settled across the square. Cautiously, I raised my head.

  The High Priestess was still standing on the other side of the altar, but now she had her back to me. She, and everyone else in the circle, was staring at the roof above the mayor’s office.

  There were three men up there, all wearing brown robes tied at the waist with a rope. The ones on either end were holding rifles, which I assumed meant they had just shot down the orbs. They stood motionless, flanking the middle figure, who held a large, leather-bound book and had his hood pulled up so high it covered most of his face.

  All three priests were wearing crosses made of thin branches with featherlike leaves and heavy bunches of red berries. Rowan. I would have recognized it even if the branches hadn’t been tied together with red twine. The old rhyme popped into my head, unbidden.

  Rowan tree, red thread;

  Holds the witches all in dread.

  Rowan. As toxic to witches as
silver is to a werewolf or Kryptonite to Superman. Learned witches, anyway. You need angelica to take down a Natural. But the priests probably hadn’t heard about Witchtown’s newest arrival yet.

  The central figure stepped forward and pulled back his hood, revealing hollow, cavernous eyes and an almost-bald head. He opened his book and began to read, and for a bizarre moment I thought he was going to read us the rowan rhyme. His words, loud and deep, shook the entire square and sent uncomfortable vibrations up through my feet.

  Evil shall come upon you,

  Which you will not know how to charm away;

  Disaster shall fall upon you,

  For which you will not be able to atone;

  And ruin shall come upon you suddenly,

  Of which you know nothing—​

  “Stop!”

  My mother’s voice rang out, strong and clear, beside me. She raised her arms toward the men on the roof. Her eyes rolled back into her head, as though she was going into a trance.

  For a long moment, nothing happened. Then one of the men holding a gun let out a yelp.

  His rifle clattered to the roof and bounced twice on the shingles before it dissolved into a puddle of liquid metal. The second priest held on longer, too long, so that when his gun melted into goo, it oozed over his hands, leaving him stuck holding a pile of dripping molten metal. He screamed just as half a dozen other figures, dressed in black and carrying guns of their own, appeared on the rooftop.

  “Freeze!”

  The Witchtown security forces closed in, but as they did, the center priest reached into his robe and pulled out three metal canisters. Without hesitation he threw them down into the square.

  There were three explosions, a lot more screaming, and three swiftly spreading clouds of smoke.

  The screaming went on and on, and there was a strange smell, kind of sulfurlike, to my sensitive nose. The curly tendrils of smoke blanketed the sacred circle in seconds, blocking out the light from the moon and turning the space into an eerie void. I couldn’t see much beyond the end of my own nose, but I could feel the jostling of people around me, all scrambling in different directions.

  “No!” the High Priestess’s voice rang out in the midst of the chaos. “No! Do not break the circle!”

  But it was too late for that. People were running blindly through the smoke, desperate to get out of the square. The circle had no power to stop them.

  I was beginning to wonder if I shouldn’t run as well, and if so, to where, when I felt a very solid hand grab me and pull me into the smoke.

  “I’ve got her!” a voice yelled. “I’ve got her!”

  Chapter Four

  “Let me go!” I yelled.

  I tried to pull away, but succeeded only in getting my feet tangled in my robe and falling down.

  The person who held my arm stopped for a second, yanked me back onto my feet, and then continued to drag me along.

  “Come on!” he said. “We’re almost out of the smoke!”

  He was right. The smoke was starting to thin out. We had left the chaos of the ritual area behind us and were making our way quickly through the downtown area.

  North. I was pretty sure we were headed north.

  I was a little bit confused about my abductor. He was in front of me, so all I could discern was that he was tall, with broad, muscular shoulders and very short brown hair. I was relieved to note that his robe was blue (not brown) and that he was not carrying a gun. He was not one of the men from the roof.

  Since the size of his shoulders alone made it clear there was really no point in fighting him, I picked up my pace so he wouldn’t have to pull so hard.

  Weirdest kidnapping ever . . .

  We passed through a moss-covered archway into a wooded area. There were pine trees all around and I felt claustrophobic until we broke into sudden open space.

  My captor let go of my arm.

  We were in a grove, probably fifty yards of circular space surrounded by tall trees. The main light, aside from the moon above, came from a large torch that had been stuck in the center of the circle, next to an overturned log. There were people milling around on the other side of the circle, maybe three dozen or so. About half of them carried flashlights.

  One of the ones without a flashlight strode across the circle to meet us. When she passed beneath the torch, I saw she was an intense-looking brunette in a dark green robe.

  “Took you long enough,” she chirped to my kidnapper.

  His massive shoulders shrugged.

  “They got pretty far into the ritual before they were interrupted,” he explained.

  “What was it this time?” the brunette inquired, sounding annoyed. Her hair was impeccably styled into casual-looking waves that almost made me regret my hasty hack job on my own hair.

  “Guns and a Bible reading,” my kidnapper answered, sounding bored. “Snipers took out those orbs Maire likes so much.”

  That made the brunette smile. She was very pretty. In a ferocious kind of way. Neither the smile nor the smattering of freckles across the pale skin of her nose did anything to soften her appearance.

  “Good,” she said. “I hate those stupid things.”

  “And there were smoke bombs,” the giant added. “They smelled terrible. Didn’t they, Macie?”

  “Terrible,” I agreed, trying to make my voice as casual as his. “Um, what am I doing here?”

  The brunette slugged my kidnapper on the arm.

  “You didn’t tell her? What did you do, drag her off like some barbarian thug?”

  The thug leaned down and kissed her sweetly on the mouth.

  “I was being dramatic. I know how you love it when I’m dramatic.”

  The brunette rolled her eyes, not quite hiding her smile. Then she turned to me and put out a businesslike hand.

  “I’m Autumn Forster,” she said, then gestured toward the thug. “This is Royce. Please excuse him.”

  “Sure,” I said, as I shook her hand. What else was I supposed to say?

  Autumn grinned, her eyes sparkling with intrigue. She gestured to the grove at her back. “Welcome to your real initiation, Macie.”

  “I’m not following,” I admitted, squinting in the dim light to get a look at the people gathered behind her. Some were in robes, but most were not. Not that anybody was skyclad, thank goodness—​they were mostly in jeans. There was one girl in head-to-toe black with spiky, angry-looking hair, but everyone else looked fairly harmless. They were all within a year or two of my age.

  Apparently the young people of Witchtown preferred to initiate their own.

  “She gets it,” Autumn surmised, watching me closely.

  I looked back in the direction we had come from. I couldn’t be quite as blasé about what had just happened as they could.

  “What exactly was that back there?” I asked. “Did anybody get hurt?”

  Autumn laughed at that, and Royce let out a snort.

  “Oh, no,” he said, snorting again. “That was just the Zealots.”

  “The Zealots?” I repeated.

  “Yeah. They’re like extreme Christians. They’re camped outside the wall, and they pull stunts like that every now and then.” Autumn went to explain further, but then her attention shifted to something behind me. “Kellen, are we ready?”

  I froze at the name.

  “All set” came a familiar-sounding voice. He stepped into my eye line a moment later, carrying four unlit torches and a white candle. I wondered again how I could have possibly mistaken him for Rafe. It wasn’t just the details, like his lighter hair. Kellen gave off an entirely different vibe. And from the available evidence, his smile came a lot easier.

  “Macie, this is Kellen,” Autumn said, relieving him of the white candle. “Kellen, this is Macie.”

  “We’ve met, sort of,” Kellen said, and grinned at me. He pulled a small vial out of his pocket, which I thought was kind of weird until he tossed it to Autumn and said, “Water. The rest is already on the altar.”<
br />
  “Great. Let’s get started.”

  At Autumn’s direction, everyone spread out around the edges of the grove and linked hands to form a circle. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw the girl in black fade quietly into the woods, rather than join hands with anyone. Autumn stood importantly on the other side of the log, facing me. Royce hurried to stand on her left and after Kellen handed out the torches, he came to stand on her right.

  It was all a lot more relaxed than the formal ritual in the square. Autumn used a random tree branch for a wand and the elements were called with a saltshaker, a stick of incense, a candle, and the water vial from Kellen’s pocket.

  If anything, the lack of formality just made me more nervous. When Autumn raised her arms to invoke the Goddess of the Forest to guide the ritual, I clutched my moonstone and invoked a Goddess of my own.

  Laverna, I implored. Extend your darkness and obscurity over my misdeeds.

  Autumn lowered her hands and cupped them widely around the candle flame. The smile drained from her face and a look of concentration took its place. When she raised her eyes to meet mine, they were full of utter seriousness and something else . . . something that meant she was channeling power. From the candle, from the circle, from all of us. I couldn’t feel it, of course, but that didn’t mean my vows weren’t going to be bound by more than just my words.

  The thought made me shiver a little. I tried not to show it.

  Darkness and clouds. Darkness and clouds . . .

  “Macie O’Sullivan,” Autumn began, her voice rich with ritual authority. “Do you claim the name of ‘witch’?”

  “Yes,” I said, and tried not to look like I was bracing myself for a thunderbolt, or whatever else might strike me down for trying to claim a title I didn’t deserve.

  Let me seem just and pious.

  Autumn continued.

  “Do you vow to serve the ancient ways?”