High Priestess

by Wendy Hewlett

“I haven’t done that for years.”

  It’s not something you forget, darling angel. You were doing it before you were a year old. I’ll never forget the first time you conjured energy in your hands. I put you in your playpen while I worked on some potions. All of a sudden the room was washed with a golden light and you were giggling. I looked over and you had a beautiful ball of golden light hovering above your palms. No one taught you how to do that, Rave. It’s something inside you. It’s part of who you are.

  She hadn’t forgotten drawing energy into her hands. She used to love the sensation of that warm, pulsing orb. It was just that she hadn’t done it since she was twelve years old. She cupped her hands in front of her and, slowly, a golden ball of energy emerged out of nowhere, hovering over her palms. She could use it to heal her wounds and save herself a trip to the hospital, but how would she explain it to everyone?

  “Holy, mother of God. What the hell is that?” Riley stood in the doorway with a pair of track pants over her arm. Her eyes bulged and her mouth was wide open. The room was filled with golden light and a warm, loving energy.

  Cat’s out of the bag now, Raven thought. She increased the size of the ball until it encased her entire body in glowing light. She watched in awe as the wounds covering her shins closed and sealed and the bruises faded. Then she drew the energy back in, the ball becoming smaller and smaller until it faded away.

  “What was that? Is that magic? What did you do?” Riley’s words came out rapid-fire. She rushed across the room and lowered to her knees to examine Raven’s shins.

  Raven held out her hands. “Could you unwrap these for me?” She couldn’t do it herself and she wanted rid of the Mickey Mouse look.

  “Oh, my God. I’ve never seen anything like this. You just healed your wounds, Rave. How did you do that?”

  “It’s just one of the benefits of being a Bowen.” She continued to hold her hands out, but Riley just stared up at her.

  It’s not just the power of the Bowen line that you have, angel mine. You have the power of your father’s people, making you the most powerful witch I’ve ever known.

  Except she didn’t want that power; hadn’t wanted it for a long time. She shook her hands in front of Riley. “Take it off. Please.”

  Riley rose to her feet and gestured towards the chair in the corner. Once Raven was seated, Riley took her right hand in hers, settling it on her lap. “Is that something you can teach someone?”

  Raven raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know. It’s just something I’ve always been able to do.”

  “Because you come from a long line of witches?”

  “I suppose. Hereditary witches can inherit the powers of their ancestors. The Bowens are a powerful line, but so is the Hayes line apparently.”

  “So you have powers from both your mother and your father?”

  “And their ancestors, yes.”

  Riley gasped as she removed the gauze from Raven’s right index finger. The scrapes and cuts were gone, as if they’d never been there. “Why haven’t you used your powers all these years? You have a very special gift. How can you waste it?”

  Raven rolled her eyes. “What do you think people would do if they knew what I could do?” Raven already knew the answer. She lived through the stares, the judgement, the suspicion. She’d been bullied, ostracized, excluded. All because she was ‘different’. “People fear what they can’t explain or understand.” She wondered how she was going to explain her sudden healing to Grayson and the therapist.

  “I’d like to learn more about your heritage and your religion.”

  Raven stared at Riley as she continued to unwrap her fingers. “Why?”

  “It interests me. Wicca sounds like a beautiful religion, seeped in nature and mysterious Goddesses.”

  “I guess. But, why would you want to know about my heritage if you don’t want me?”

  Riley stopped unwrapping the gauze and stared into Raven’s eyes. “Just because we’re not together doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”

  Raven flexed the freed fingers of her right hand and stood up. “I can take it from here,” she said, beginning to unwrap the fingers of her left hand. She didn’t want to be friends. She didn’t think she could handle seeing Riley all the time. At least, for now. It was too hard. “Do you think you could tell Grayson I need to go to the hospital for stitches? I don’t know how to explain to him or that doctor how my wounds have suddenly healed.” She didn’t look at Riley as she spoke.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Raven gathered up the gauze and put it in the trash bin under Ena’s desk then she went to the window, giving Riley her back, and stared out at the darkness. She was hyperaware of Riley, still sitting in the chair a few feet behind her. She wasn’t making any moves to leave, so Raven resigned herself to saying what was on her mind.

  “Every time I see you and you make it clear you won’t take me back, it’s like ripping open the wound again. It hurts, Ri. I can’t keep doing this. It’s killing me.”

  “Rave, you cheated on me. How could I ever trust you again?”

  Raven slowly turned to face Riley. She was sure the pain was evident in her expression, but she couldn’t help it. Nor could she help the tears threatening to spill from her eyes.

  “Why would you want someone you don’t trust as a friend?”

  Riley’s mouth dropped open. “You know what they say. Once a cheater, always a cheater.”

  Raven laughed, although she didn’t find it funny. “Not in this case.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because I know what it cost me and the price was way too high.”

  “Then why did you sleep with him, Rave?”

  Raven turned back to the window and squeezed her eyes shut, remembering Riley telling her she was too closed off. She desperately wanted to open up to Riley.

  “I wish I had the answer to that. Jax has been my best friend since we were toddlers. I’ve never been interested in him that way. I’m still not interested in him that way. I don’t know what the hell happened, what possessed me to sleep with him. I can’t figure it out.” Hell, she wasn’t even interested in men. She’d been over it in her head hundreds of times over the past few weeks and still couldn’t make any sense of it. It went against her very nature.

  You have to wonder if you were under a spell.

  “Why the hell would anyone do that to me?”

  “What?” Riley asked.

  To keep you close. Listen to me, Rave. Adara’s powers have increased tremendously. If you were spending all of your time with Riley, she wouldn’t be able to access your powers.

  Raven’s mouth dropped open. As much as she didn’t want to believe it, it was the first explanation for her behaving out of character that made sense. Was that why Adara took her in and made sure she didn’t reconcile with Ena? To steal her powers? Oh, dear Goddess. Adara raped me, Raven thought. She raped both Jax and I.

  Oh, sweet angel. Please don’t think about it like that. Think of the precious child you’ve been blessed with.

  “Rave?” Riley’s hand touched Raven’s shoulder.

  Raven jerked away from her touch. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I need you to go.”

  * * *

  Raven stayed at the window until she heard Riley, Grayson, and Dr. Shoal leave. When she wandered into the living room, Kiran and Mick’s conversation ended abruptly. She was getting tired of people talking about her.

  “If you have something to say about me, say it to my face, not behind my back.”

  “Sorry, love,” Kiran smiled and raised his eyebrows. “Your hands look healed.”

  “Yeah, a little magick healing session.”

  Kiran got to his feet, walked to Raven and took her hands in his, examining them. “Your work?”

  “Yeah.”

  His eyes met hers and he grinned. “You’ve got your granny’s healing powers, love. She’ll be thrilled.”

  “My granny?”

  “Aye. Ruari Perseph
one Hayes. High Priestess of the Highlands Dragonfly Coven in Inverness, Scotland. She’s also a very powerful and renowned psychic.”

  Well, that explained where her psychic powers came from. Ena had skills, but nowhere near as powerful as Raven’s had been and when she needed help to control her psychic abilities, Ena hadn’t been much help.

  “Will you show me how you heal?” Kiran asked.

  Raven shrugged. She couldn’t see any reason not to. She cupped one hand out in front of her, palm up. A golden glow appeared first, like a mist becoming thicker. It formed into a ball, bathing every corner of the room in soft, golden light.

  “Brilliant,” Kiran breathed. “May I touch it.”

  With another shrug, Raven gave a little push with her hand and the ball floated towards Kiran. He held out his hand and the glowing orb hovered just above his palm. “Oh, aye. You’ve a beautiful energy, love. It’s like being held in a warm embrace.”

  Mick dropped her butt onto the couch. “Wow. I’ve never seen anything like that.”

  Raven drew the orb back to her and let it dissolve.

  Kiran grinned and clapped his hands together. “Shall we get started then? We’ve a lot to do.”

  “Yeah,” Raven answered. Anything to get her mind off what Adara may have done.

  “The first thing we need is a protection spell. I don’t want to take any chances of Adara harming you again.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out several items. He handed a small white sack tied with a white cord to Raven. “This is a simple, but powerful, protection spell.”

  Raven took the sachet from him and tucked it into her front pocket. She didn’t have to ask what was in it. She was very familiar with protection spells. Ena had made her practice them regularly. Besides, she could smell the cinnamon, cloves, anise, and peppercorns.

  Kiran stepped towards Raven and lifted a silver chain around her neck. Hanging from it was a silver circle with a pentacle in the middle. The words humus, spiritus, aura, caminus, and aqua were printed around the circle. “The pentacle is a powerful symbol of protection. Wear this and keep the herbs with you at all times. Aye?”

  Raven nodded and placed her hand over the pentacle. She could feel its power and energy and felt protected, safe. “Thank you.”

  With a nod and a smile, Kiran said, “It’s yours, love. It belonged to my granny, Saffron Eaglesham Hayes. I think she would have wanted you to have it.”

  Raven felt her eyes pool. It was weird having a whole new family she didn’t know and a father who seemed to love her despite just meeting her. Unconditional love. That’s what she was feeling from him. “What about you? Shouldn’t you have protection?”

  Kiran reached into his pocket and pulled out another white sachet. “Aye, I have one, too.” His eyes all but twinkled. “As does Mick. You can use your wee ball of golden energy to protect you as well. Use it as a shield.”

  Raven blew out a breath. “I feel like I’m preparing for battle.”

  “That we are, love. That we are.” Kiran picked up a duffel bag and nodded to the door. “Off we go, then.”

  They walked from the house to a clearing in the woods where the coven gathered for ceremonies and celebrations. Kiran set up the altar on a granite rock at the front of the clearing with supplies he brought in the duffel bag. Then he cast the circle, using his athame. Raven was surprised when he followed this by sprinkling salt around the perimeter of the circle.

  “Do you really think we need that?” The salt was another source of protection.

  “We’ll take no chances, aye?”

  Raven nodded and watched as he evoked the elements at the four quarters of the circle - earth to the north, air to the east, fire to the south, and water to the west. She wasn’t sure why he was bothering to cast the circle in the first place. They weren’t here to perform a ritual. But, she remained quiet and let him do his thing.

  When he finished, he walked up to the altar and turned to face Raven. “I’ll need to initiate you as a coven member.”

  Raven’s eyes popped. “Why?”

  “Because I’ll be bringing you into our circle tomorrow evening and presenting you as my choice for our new High Priestess. You need to be a coven member for me to do that.”

  “You do realize I have no desire to return to the coven?”

  “If you choose to leave the coven after we oust Adara, so be it. What level did you reach before you left the coven?”

  “I was second-degree.”

  Both Mick and Kiran looked surprised.

  “At twelve years of age?” Kiran asked, his voice a bit higher than usual.

  Raven nodded.

  “Do you feel confident in being re-initiated at that level?”

  What did it matter? She wasn’t going to stay in the coven. “I guess.”

  “Alright, then.” He pulled several ropes from his duffel bag and turned to face Raven again.

  She’d been through enough initiations, and seen many more, to know the drill. She removed her clothes, set them aside in a pile, and stood before Kiran to allow him to bind her. Then she knelt in front of the altar.

  “Care to join her, Mick?” Kiran asked with a smirk.

  Mick laughed. “I’ll be joining at some point, but not quite yet.”

  CHAPTER 16

  RAVEN LAID ON her back staring up at her bedroom ceiling afraid to move a muscle. She was barely keeping the nausea at bay. If she didn’t make it into the bathroom soon, she was going to have a hell of a mess to clean up. The knock at her bedroom door had her about to growl at Mick when she heard Riley’s voice.

  “Rave? Can I come in?”

  A wave of nausea kept her from answering. She rolled to her side, dropped her legs over the edge of the bed, and nearly tossed her cookies right there and then. She hobbled into the bathroom and fell to her knees just in time to hurl into the toilet. Riley was right behind her, grabbing a clean wash cloth and running it under the tap. Raven was too involved in losing the contents of her stomach to pay her any mind. Then the cool damp cloth at her nape felt too good for her to shoo Riley off. She hurled until she was sure her stomach had turned inside out. This whole pregnancy thing was a bitch.

  With a groan, Raven leaned back against the cool glass wall of the shower. Riley came at her with a freshly doused wash cloth and Raven held up her hand to stop her. “What are you doing here, Ri?” She asked in a scratchy, raw voice.

  Riley cocked her head to the side. “I thought about what you said last night and I’m calling bullshit. There’s no reason we can’t be friends.”

  Had Riley not heard how painful seeing her all the time was? Hurting Riley again was the last thing Raven wanted to do, so she took a moment to try to figure out the gentlest way to say what she needed to say.

  “You keep telling me I have to stop trying to get you to take me back, but you keep coming over here, giving me mixed signals. I can’t get over you, Ri, if you’re around all the time.” She felt like a complete shit when Riley’s face dropped.

  “Oh, I see.” Riley folded the wash cloth into a neat square and placed it on the counter. “I’ll just …” She waved her hand towards the bathroom door. “Go, then.” She was out the door in two steps and then came to a halt. Turning slowly, she met Raven’s eyes. “Could I just ask you a question?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “The rumour at the hospital is that you came in and threatened to hire the most expensive lawyer you could find to sue them for wrongful dismissal if they didn’t take me back. Is that true?”

  “You didn’t deserve to be suspended. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Riley’s eyes drifted up to the ceiling. She nodded a couple of times before turning and leaving. Tears flooded Raven’s eyes and she fought to keep them at bay. Leaning her head back against the glass, she wondered why the hell she should bother getting up off the floor.

  Within minutes, Mick was standing in the doorway. “Geez, look at the state of you.”

  “Shut up,” Rave
n croaked.

  Raven swallowed her pride and let Mick help her up. They’d spent half the night with Kiran preparing for the gathering of the coven and still Raven felt completely unprepared. It wasn’t like she was really going to become the coven’s HPS, but it had her nerves frazzled just the same.

  The warrant to search Adara’s house came through at eight in the morning, but Raven was holding off on serving it until Adara left for the gathering. She didn’t want her tipped off until they could play out their operation and hopefully get Adara to confess.

  Kiran and LaCroix arrived at Raven’s after breakfast. Unfortunately, LaCroix had Dr. Shoal in tow. Raven sat down with her in her bedroom and stared blankly out at the lake. She knew she had to do this or LaCroix wouldn’t let her participate in the days events, so she resigned herself to opening up as much as she could.

  “How long will this take?”

  Dr. Shoal looked at Raven with warm eyes and a slight smile. She was dressed casually today in skinny jeans and a flowy white blouse. “That depends on you.” She pulled a notebook and pencil out of the messenger bag she’d deposited beside her chair and set them on her lap.

  “I wasn’t close to my mother.” Raven figured that would ease Shoal’s concern at least a bit.

  “Do you regret that now that she’s gone?”

  Damn. She wasn’t expecting that question. Thinking about the twelve years she lost with her mother was painful now that she was convinced Adara kept them apart. She should have done more herself to repair her relationship with Ena.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  When Dr. Shoal just sat quietly waiting, Raven took a deep breath then told her the story starting from the fight she and Ena had on the night she left home right up to what Raven had seen on the video of Adara saying she talked to Raven, but she refused to see Ena.

  “Really, you’ve lost both of the mother figures in your life in a short period of time.”

  “Yeah, pretty much,” Raven said, but she didn’t want Dr. Shoal to think she lost her entire family. Thinking of Ena’s words, Raven said, “But, I gained a father.” And a daughter. With that thought, a warmth spread through her body, centring around her heart.