by Y G Maupin
Witchscape
A Southern Coven Book
Y.G. Maupin
YG Maupin
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty One
Twenty Two
Twenty Three
Twenty Four
Twenty Five
Twenty Six
Twenty Seven
Twenty Eight
Twenty Nine
Thirty
Thirty One
Thirty Two
About the Author
Copyright © 2020 YG Maupin
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means- electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other- except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the author.
One
T sat with her back to the computer monitor, staring off into the distance, lost in her thoughts at the end of the school day. Anyone who would have walked into her classroom at that moment would have thought that she was looking up at the clock on the wall, like her students, ready for the day to end. But she wasn’t clock gazing. She was remembering, in pieces, the dream she had in the early hours of the morning, before she was fully awake.
She had been walking in her nightgown in the backfield filled with lavender and sunflowers. The field was a short walk from her back door, through the grass, past the pecan tree that never really produced nuts, and past the chicken house. Through the lavender field, a little over an acre long and close to five acres wide, began a wooded area of live oaks and elms. She could feel the cool breeze on her bare arms as it blew through her thin cotton nightgown and glided over her tan skin. It caused the little hairs on her forearms to stand, as well as her breasts to tighten and her nipples to constrict. It was chillier because spring was only days away so the late winter evening still had its say. The sun wouldn’t be up for another hour and a half. The breeze has strengthened as it passed her and overran the branches of the wooded area and the massive branches waved and danced. T’s toes curled as she walked over the soft, silky fertile soil of the lavender bushes, past each waving fragrant branch. She walked slowly, outstretching her arms as she neared the end of the field. Her feet met the soft, dewy grass that covered the floor of the woods and she had reached down and drawn her nightgown up and over her shoulders, off and dropped onto the grass in a pile at her side. Naked, she felt a power ebb and flow like the sea; Through the soles of her feet traveling up her legs, her hips, her ribs that caged her beating heart, and air filled lungs up her neck, around her head and up out the top of her scalp.
There was a slow pulsing energy that was growing stronger with each breath that she took, as the breeze softened and the woods quieted down. The sound had stopped and further back, farther back into the trees past anything that she could clearly make out, she saw a glow of a fire and a figure made its way toward her, weaving past saplings and low brush, winding its way closer towards her.
As it beckoned to her with an outstretched hand, she felt a voice behind her. It was her cat, Molly, looking at her solemnly. T turned back and the figure was closer, almost close enough to make out what it was when she woke up in her bed. The quilt kicked off onto the floor and the gentle breeze that she had felt in her dreams, streamed gently through her opened window. Her phone showed the time as 5:12am. Her alarm would have gone off in 18 minutes, but she beat it. Molly stretched at the foot of the bed and purred as she sauntered over and licked T’s elbow.
T rolled out of bed, stretched her own body, standing on her tippy toes and reaching for the sky. Then she felt the floor give way as a slight tremble rolled through the hillside. It lasted about 5 seconds and then ended. Silence outside. This movement had caused the morning attendees to wake up, stop, and attend. Now this was something of notice! She wondered how many residents of Parker County had felt that one! And so her day began with a call from Mother Nature, Gaia, telling its inhabitants to venerate her- to remind them they were still at her mercy.
T’s shoulders slumped down as she felt the length of the day drag her down. She was staying at school to finish grading the midterm exams for her last two classes and then entering them in the online grading system. If she were to make it through poorly diagrammed electron fields, and second guessing what her chemistry students really meant in their convoluted answers, she was going to need a refill on her coffee and to stretch her legs for a good minute. There was a quick tap at her closed door and an oval face peaked from the corner of the window. It was Sharon, and she pointed hurriedly to her watch then motioned with her eyes to the clock on the wall. Her silly friend then mimed drinking from a bottle, head bobbing with inebriation as she tilted the invisible bottle back. T smiled and motioned for her to come in. She tried but the door was stuck, so T got up from her desk and stretched her way to wakefulness and yanked on the stubborn door.
“Locked? Hmm, wonder what’s going on in here?” Sharon slyly murmured, as she glided in like a pudgy jungle cat.
“No, it’s just been sticking these last couple of days. Are you done with your grading?”
T walked over to her desk, opened the bottom drawer, and fished out her canvas book bag and purse. She started placing report folders and her laptop inside, crushing the sandwich she had made in a hurry that morning, and had lost the desire to eat at lunch, opting for a salad from the lunchroom instead.
Sharon threw back her egg shaped head and let out a loud, quick guffaw. ”Ha, of course I have. NO, just kidding I still have two periods to enter. Come on let’s go, let’s get this party started.” She shook her hips and danced around in place.
Sharon had been teaching high school for fourteen years and it still was as fascinating now as it was when she first taught. She never really took herself seriously and secretly wished that more people felt like her, because frankly, she was getting tired of the weird annoyed looks from the rest of the faculty, who acted like they were too good to be dancing between rows of desks or had become zombified from the daily drudge of higher public education. It was a Wednesday, which meant that they would be gathering for wine at Sarah and Alice’s parlor room in historic downtown, where they could watch the people passing by the front sidewalk and comments would flow like the wine, as to who had left whom and who was getting fatter.
There had been only one other family that lived in the Littleton Mansion before Sarah had bought it at Alice’s insistence. They were the Conroy’s and they had left Georgia, grew in size in South Carolina and ended their lives and their legacy in the north of Texas. Four daughters and one son had arrived with the widow Conroy, whose husband had passed away while in the Low Country leaving her his vast fortune made in carpeting and rugs. The widow added to the kitchen, another fireplace and gas lighting. All four daughters and her pride and joy, Francis Lamar Conroy, had married in that front parlor.
When Mrs. Conroy passed at the age of 91 in 1929, she had her viewing right there in the middle, her coffin over one of the finest Aubusson rugs in the whole state of Texas. None of the widow’s daughters wanted to return to claim the home, much less live in it after their mother died. They had all moved away to the big cities, Dallas and Houston. Their families wanted nothing to do with whatever legacy their parents had thought to leave them. They were busy creating their own in
this new modern era, away from the fields and orchards of small town life. When Francis, Jr. inherited the mansion from his father in 1971, he requested it be placed for sale and that all the items contained therein placed for auction.
That was how Sarah and Alice found it, twenty years later, with all the items intact. Nothing sold. Nothing left the old house, not even the newspapers from the fifties and sixties, that had rolled around and were almost completely dust in the front yard littering the oaks. Sarah had bought it as is, without walking through it, because Alice had insisted that this was THE place. The place that they had been dreaming about renovating and living out their retirement years as they indulged their love of books with a bookshop across the street. And this is where they still were more than twenty-five years later, closer to thirty, all the richness and quiet power that had built up in the walls over the years.
Wine Wednesdays had been Alice’s idea. Alice was the more social and impish of the two. She wore her steel grey hair in a tight bob and the black frames of her thick glasses sat on a heart shaped face. She had worked as an attorney and litigator since the early 80’s and had made a killing, lost it all and gained it back with the software boom in the late 90’s. She had met Sarah at a Woman’s Day march in Atlanta in 1994 and they had been inseparable ever since.
Sarah was tall and willowy, with hair to her hips and a quiet mouth. She had divorced a hateful, abusive man that had come from a very wealthy family in Georgia. She was granted a very large sum of money to move away from the family fortune and to never speak the family name ever again. She had been like a lost soul, floating from city to city, looking for something to catch on to, somewhere to belong, someone to belong to. She had been a writer of poetry and taught history and women's studies in the Carolinas. She had been visiting an old colleague in Atlanta when the march came up and they both laughingly agreed to join it. As the rally got heated and Sarah was pushed to the ground, a small insistent hand reached out to her and helped her up. That day Sarah looked into the most serious eyes in the most ridiculous body she had ever seen. And she had fallen in love.
They traveled everywhere; Greece, Switzerland, Costa Rica. It was while they were in a little shop in the Cotswolds that Sarah had a flash of an idea. They would open a bookstore and fill it with the books they loved and the people that were their kind of people, intelligent, tolerant and fighters for equality that would come in droves and be their patrons. Alice snapped the Diary of Tildy Wright shut and rolled her eyes at Sarah.
“Dearest heart, our kind of people don’t want to be out and about. They like to remain hidden. Besides, I’m pretty sure that the days of the brick and mortar bookshop are coming to an end.” The eyebrows of the English shopkeep shot up in alarm as Alice assuredly waved her hands to the contrary and mouthed, “nothing to worry about” and turned to face her partner.
“Almost done? Let’s see what you have?” Like a petulant child, Sarah had dropped the books to her side and her head hung down, almost low enough for her chin to reach her bosom.
“I believe it can work. I feel it deep within me, a calling to be out there, teaching, instructing, letting our people know that they can be free to practice and worship as they wish,” Sarah started out slowly, but began to build up. Alice crossed her arms and let her go on. Sarah had gotten this impassioned before, while on an excursion in Egypt, where the ancient air and mysteries that reside in all of them were awakened.
Sarah snapped her head up at Alice and was correct in what she had felt. Alice was incredulous.
“You think I'm joking, don't you? Huh. Tell me you don’t feel it too every time we walk in a field, or gather near the stones or honor and bless the gods and goddesses in the groves?” Alice put out a hand to signal to stop, but Sarah kept on going.
“We both have felt it. So strong, as to make us sick because you know what it means when we finally find our home. You know it will be our end and yet you chose to run away from our path by circling the globe under the guise of ‘research and experience’. Alice, we still have a long way to go and we don’t know how long it will take to find our home. But we must end this game of running away from the inevitable. We need to pass on our message and hope that the new people can feel what we feel, too.” Sarah’s passionate plea ended almost as quickly as it had started, and now somberly, she walked toward the counter to pay.
Alice stood in the occult section. Where earlier she had been chuckling at some of the titles of the drivel that she had seen on the spines of the books she now dropped slightly at what lay ahead of her. She looked down at the leather-bound diary of the hapless midwife and knew that Sarah was right. No more trotting in dusty libraries, drinking bad Greek wine, and sleeping in until 11am. Alice sighed again, hoping that the indignation she was supposed to be feeling would show up, but it was more like resignation.
Playtime was now over, time to put in the work that they both felt a deep love and responsibility for. Alice and Sarah had joined together under a new moon, while standing in the still water of a volcano lake on the Yucatan coast. Bare breasted and hair unbound they made solemn vows of eternity followed by eternity as partners on this Earth and the next incarnation. And they had been quite serious about it, Sarah had insisted that they drink after the pledge. Alice squared her shoulders, drew herself up to her full five-feet-four-inches and strode toward her future, as her wife had insisted. She started by adding the Tildy Wright book to the small pile already on the counter of the bookshop.
They all had been meeting informally in the front parlor for at least three years now, starting around five o’clock when Sarah and Alice would close up their bookshop one street over from their home, followed by Anesta who would be leaving her family’s business, Duke’s Funeral Home and Crematory, to drive the 10 minutes from near the interstate to arrive near five thirty. Beryl would pick up Birdie from the daycare center where she wrangled children after Beryl had left the pharmacy.
The parlor would be full and every stuffed chair, ottoman and sofa had a woman of varying ages, sizes and color perched, slouched or meditating with a glass of wine in their hands. They peered through the lace curtains, chuckled at the stares that would meet them back, and pondered what rumors they were feeding the community as well. They were learned, strong women with science and research at their grasp and wrapped in their lives. Oh, and they were all witches too.
Two
T and Sharon arrived in separate cars to the home off of Main Street, parking in the back. Sarah and Alice’s VW Bug and Mercedes were parked in the back along with a gray Benz that Anesta had been driving since she graduated from Tulane University. T was so tired and her shoulders slumped, as she slogged her way to the front steps and through the front door.
“Hello? It’s me and Sharon,” she called out, leaving her shoes at the door and making her way to the kitchen.
Sharon giggled and ran a victory circle in place on the rug in the main room under the chandelier. Anesta stepped out of the parlor, half in and half out.
“What took you so long, ladies? I know you aren’t staying after for detention,``chided Anesta, cradling a glass of red wine.
“No, nothing like that,” struggled Sharon, leaning on the door jamb as she pulled her boots off. “It’s midterms and we have to enter grades before Spring Break. Lots of grades to catch up on.”
T appeared from the kitchen with a sandwich in her hand. Sharon put her hands on her hips and raised her eyebrows. T stumbled in and took a bite. “I keep forgetting to eat while I’m at lunch and it seems like I can never catch up. Today’s salad wasn’t enough. Don’t judge me.” She finished off the sandwich and walked into the parlor.
Sharon followed. “I’m not judging. Just wondering how it is that you can eat so fast?”
Sarah stood at the large picture window with her back to the entry. Alice was sitting at a large desk directly across from the entry, carefully reading a large book and sipping on some tea.
“What, no wine?” asked Sharon, mak
ing her way to the old-fashioned beverage cart for a glass.
“Not yet,” murmured Alice. “But I’ll catch up. By the way, T. How are you feeling?” she asked, dropping the last page from her fingertips.
“Better, thank you. I think I might have been allergic to something that got caught in my clothes or maybe a new perfume.” T examined her forearm and ran her right hand over it. She had had an itchy rash earlier in the week that had been causing her to lose some sleep. Beryl had suggested calamine, Anesta recommended Benadryl, and Sharon had offered a dried toad. “Cured my eczema,” she had suggested and gave a sweet smile.
“We’re here!” barreled Birdie through the front door, struggling with a large box and a cloth bag clinking with wine bottles.
Beryl doffed her clogs and made a beeline to the parlor. Birdie sauntered in holding the canvas bag of wines aloft as a tribute. “Let the drinking begin”
“It’s already started, sweetie. You will need to catch up,” intoned Sharon, from her place on the rose patterned chaise.
Birdie let the bag slide quickly down to waist level and smiled a devilish grin. “Challenge accepted!”
The grandfather clock chimed seven later that afternoon and the women were deep into their fourth bottle. T sat at the opposite end of the couch from Anesta, who was braiding Birdies long, blonde hair into a French braid. Sharon was fully stretched out on the chaise. Sarah and Alice were in the kitchen, putting a tray of fruit and crackers together.
“Hey, did y'all feel that earthquake this morning? Blessed be,” marveled Birdie, from where she sat cross legged on the floor.
“No,” Anesta answered quietly behind Birdie.
Everyone at the funeral home had been talking about it. There had been a couple of new cracks in the foundation that they had all silently cursed, because as additional expenditures to discuss at their next family meeting, but other than that, there was nothing else that was affected. Anesta had slept through the tremor due to the extra sleeping pill she had taken that night. She had been having trouble sleeping these last few weeks and Beryl had recommended a prescription sleeping aid, which Anesta’s cousin had called in.