DEAD PACIFICA

  Part 10

  “Again,” said Elaine Krane, Mother Supreme of the Coven of the Crone, her voice dry as old paper. “In through the nose. Take it slow. Fill the belly. Hold it as if you’re gorging yourselves with that Costco rotisserie chicken from last night.”

  The training hall, which was basically a small clearing in the woods behind Elaine’s house, smelled faintly of lemon-infused oil and burnt sage. The Coven stood barefoot on a circle chalked in white ash. In the center of the circle sat a cast-iron brazier filled with sand and kindling that had not yet been lit. The coven had been training and honing their craft for months.

  It was pyromancy week. The mother supreme had increased the training regiment of her coven into a boot camp to master the elements, finding new ways to wield them when just a year ago, they could barely turn a full barrel of water into an ice block. She had grown quite strict because of it, much to some of the members’ frustrations, but they couldn’t deny the results.

  They were getting better at it, and possibly more powerful than the other covens around Seattle.

  “Breathe, my darlings,” Elaine said, pacing the perimeter of the circle. “Fire begins in the lungs. If your breathing is sloppy, your flame will be sloppy. And a sloppy, dangerous flame is how we end up with second-degree burns at the ER.”

  They exhaled together. Once the brazier was lit out of thin air (using their minds), Lauren coaxed a thin ribbon of flame upward, drawing it toward her fingers. It trembled like a nervous animal before settling between her hands. Adrian shaped his into something neat and symmetrical, a tidy orb the size of a golf ball. Karen snapped her fingers and dragged a fistful of fire from the brazier like she was yanking a scarf from a magician’s sleeve. It pooled in her palm, swelling quickly until it was the size of a snowball, popping and shimmering. She laughed.

  “Karen, dear,” Elaine said sharply.

  “I’ve got it, Mother.”

  The flames licked higher, yellow deepening to hungry orange.

  Elaine frowned. “Do you want to be better than those gutter worms in Bellevue or those cocaine queens up in Magnolia? Control the fire. Concentrate!”

  Karen’s jaw tightened. For a moment, the fire wavered, reacting to the spike in her pulse. It ballooned outward with a low whoomph that caused Lauren and Adrian next to her to flinch back.

  “Careful!” Elaine said.

  Karen scoffed. “I said I got it.”

  “No, what you’re doing is letting it slip through your fingers again, and it will blow up like last time. Control, Ms. Sanderson. Control is the key. Put your passion and frustrations aside. Don’t overthink things, and just feel it. Clear your mind, girl.”

  Karen’s nostrils flared. Fire suited her, matching the rhythm of her temper. Elaine saw that as a problem and a bad habit to have as a witch. These practice sessions they did every week gave me a better glimpse of the coven’s strengths, and my archetypes were taking notes as well. I sent twenty-four nanites as small as a grain of rice to Elaine’s property to spy on them, easily penetrating the barrier and the coven’s protection spell without a flicker and the coven noticing.

  “I’m clearing my mind, mother,” Karen said while the flames around her hands licked and lapped outward.

  The mother supreme frowned, but it didn’t look like Karen’s fire was going to explode on her face again, so she focused on assessing Vivian technique instead.

  Karen Sanderson was their pyro chick. Of all the elements, fire clung to her the fastest. She was already brushing the edges of what Coach Hodge could do at his best, and she hadn’t even broken through her ceiling. If she ever learned to leash her temper instead of feeding it gasoline, she would be a terrifying pyromancer. But she was brash and reckless. Elaine had to rein her in more than once to keep her from scorching the others. Karen didn’t seem to mind. If anything, the risk made her grin sharper.

  The Ways—the arcane river that flows through the universe—is an addicting drug to mages. A single drop of it in your hands can do remarkable and awful things if you know how to wield it. Karen wasn’t the only one drunk from its reinvigorating energy. The rest of the coven, too. After all, they’d never cast this magic so potent in years.

  Adrian Cardenas was a close second after Karen when it came to pyromancy, but what he excelled the most was in sigils and runes.

  If a spell required to be written or drawn, he was the man for the job. Sure, it usually took hours, even days, to create spells into rolled-up scrolls. He drafted spells the way architects drew buildings. But when he cast them? Well, God help whatever stood in front of him.

  Two weeks ago, I watched him unroll a scroll he had been drafting for a month. A cutting spell. Nothing flashy. Just a careful exhale and a few words spoken with absolute confidence. And then the rotting trunk of a pine at the edge of the Krane property split clean in half, top sliding off the bottom as if an invisible guillotine had passed through it. A week ago, he dominated a wild black bear into submission from a scrollwork he had been working on for a similar duration, following its commands for a full day, even controlling its motor functions, before he walked it toward the steps of Mt. Rainier where its lair was.

  Mother Gertrude praised the way he phrased and structured his scrollwork, which she claimed not many wizards could do back in her homeland. It made my archetypes, more so for Old Growth, nervous though. Oldie had to rely on his fast reflexes to dodge such a quick arcane energy hurtling toward him at mach speed. Thankfully, Adrian didn’t have too many scrolls like that as it was not only time-consuming but resource extensive, too. He created two more scrolls of the cutting spell, reserving them for emergencies only. I found it interesting that he did not create a dominate spell for a human, believing it to be dishonorable, and he was not a degenerate like some other covens who performed a witches’ sabbath.

  When they delve, Karen and Adrian were the delvers I should watch out for. In a fight, they would be at the coven’s vanguard. Taking them out quickly would leave the others more vulnerable to my dungeon’s effects and my archetypes. But then again, it could be tricky and they might not go down easily. I couldn’t tell how much Resolve they had before the scenario started.

  Time will tell, I thought.

  “Joanna, lift up your head, sweetie. You’re pinching your throat with your chin,” the mother supreme said. “And again, don’t forget to breathe, people!”

  “Sorry, sorry, my fault!” Joanna apologized profusely.

  Though Joanna Pierce might be struggling with controlling her fire next to Adrian and Karen, none of the coven could hold a candle against her thumb for green witchcraft. She was the coven’s resident green witch and her garden was always the best-looking in the neighborhood. Joanna had a deep connection to the natural world from a young age, understood it, and had been the queen of the local farmer’s market for many years. She could create potions and elixirs that could remedy all of their troubles, and yes, even helped Karen concentrate if not for the latter’s pride that she could handle it herself (Karen considered potions were cheating). Joanna’s potions helped reduce the frequency of Vivian’s nightmares, severing my connection to her momentarily, which allowed the girl to sleep better at night, unlike Leo Grady.

  And then there was Madame Dallaire.

  Lauren Toomes was the wild card. Though not as gifted with scrollwork, the elements, or a green thumb, her expertise lay in divination—the old school way. Elaine invited Lauren and Vivian to live in her house for the time being, and twice a week for tea, she and Lauren worked on how to improve the latter’s unique skills. Among the lost craft over the centuries, divination had outlived what many practicing arcanists on Earth called The Great Dying of Magic.

  But not many mages, witches, and sorcerers could access it.

  Seers were a rare breed. Not all covens had one, and many seers had been unlucky not having an experienced seer to teach them the discipline. They had to learn it on their own, to drown out the noise when they received these visions, and to get more clarity from them, which was why Elaine insisted on these special sessions. Sure, Elaine’s strict methods had gone under Lauren’s skin many times (which was why she left the coven in the first place), but what Lauren saw in the mountains scared her back to the coven’s embrace.

  For many months, Lauren’s talent to glimpse the future had been an asset for the mother supreme and the coven. It allowed her to see where the coven was at its weakest, and corrected it. Though a seer’s visions cannot be summoned voluntarily, and was usually against their will, bombarded by a visions that often gave Lauren a massive migraine. The worst kinds gave her nosebleeds and left her bedridden for days.

  Lucky for me, there were two seers around my dungeon. One of them—a powerful one like Lauren—unfortunately was one of Xavier Yates’s lieutenants, and had been accurately predicting several of my moves, even when they were vague and the rest of the cult couldn’t comprehend what she meant. Half of the things they saw and said didn’t quite make sense until it was too late and it was staring them on the face.

  Chloe Foster and Vivian Yates were the newest additions to the coven, and were learning all of the disciplines for the first time. Though Chloe had less than a couple of years above Vivian, she was still considered a novice by the others. Throughout my observations, Chloe leaned more toward Joanna’s talents for herbology while Vivian had a knack for telekinesis, and gravitated toward Karen and Adrian’s talent for the elements and scrollwork. Vivian had only been training since April—only less than five months—and she was getting the hang of it better than the other acolyte, which irritated Chloe far more than she liked to admit.

  Chloe wanted to learn how to cast fire or turn water into ice, but she didn’t have the talent for it. To her, being “another green witch” felt like a downgrade. Too many witches were green witches. It was like being assigned to the kitchens while the cool kids practiced and played with all the cool stuff. Then Vivian walked in a few months ago and, after a few weeks of teaching from Joanna and the mother supreme, lifted a stone clean off the forest floor with just a few tries.

  It took her months just to do the same thing! It wasn’t fair. And she noticed how the mother supreme had begun to pay more attention to Vivian than poor, poor Chloe.

  “That frustration can be exploited,” I told Demon once, observing them through the thin membrane that separated their clearing from my awareness and through the nanites’ feeds.

  Karen’s recklessness, Joanna’s wise innocence, Lauren’s confusing glimpse of the future, Adrian’s limited resources for powerful scrolls, and yes, even Vivian’s naiveté with magic, I could exploit and manipulate it.

  Only the mother supreme herself was a blank slate.

  Her gifts lay in mental discipline: Illusions, abjurations, tricks of the light, among other things. Even before I was born as a dungeon, she was already gifted with mastering the control of water and conjuring complex illusions. She could even read the surface thoughts of others if she concentrated hard enough and as long as she maintained eye contact. She could touch and manipulate the Ways better than most witches in Seattle.

  She had a good teacher, after all.

  The former mother supreme came from a long line of witches who escaped from Salem. Back when magic still had a hold of Earth before the advancements of technology in the past three hundred years supplanted it. There used to be powerful witches then. Powerful warlocks and mages, too. Beasts and monstrosities from myths still wandered the Earth before they were hunted, trapped, or starved into extinction and ushered The Great Dying. Before the world was purified and magic waned to what it was today.

  And now, like the Miracle on the Nile, it was back again.

  They could feel it growing within and around them that made the other covens and sects nervous and excited, felt the strands of the power pulling them to the south like a sinkhole.

  To me.

  Elaine Krane had been afraid and worried after Vivian and Lauren knocked on her doorstep and told the rest of the coven what happened. Vampires. Werewolves. Mermaids. Demons. Undead killers. A single location concentrated with monstrosities was never a good sign, and more worrying that these creatures were co-mingling outside of their normal lairs and their strange behavior. Elaine forbade Lauren and Vivian from ever returning to the mountains.

  “A god is born,” Elaine told Joanna during the first week of Vivian and Lauren’s arrival, away from the others’ ears. Joanna had been her confidante for decades now since they joined the coven together as acolytes. Elaine was correct to suspect my birth was a catalyst to magic returning to Earth. “This is a bad omen, Joanna. We must prepare ourselves for what is to come.”

  “Had this ever happened before?” Joanna asked.

  Elaine was quiet for a moment. “The Old Mother once told me of what her Old Mother and their Old Mothers once told her when our coven sailed to Barbados after the witch trials. A howling storm appeared under clear skies, and all kinds of beasts erupted from the depths. Many died against it. They navigate across dangerous waters for days, tested by things they could not comprehend. Before they reached safety, they were rewarded by an entity.”

  “Like Vivian’s?”

  Elaine nodded once. “Just like Vivian’s.”

  “A vampire offered it to her. Can vampires do that? We’ve never known any of them to be that powerful, right?”

  “Not the vampire, Joanna. The mountain did.”

  “Well, what did the Old Mothers asked for? When they came home? The poor girl asked for her brother back by lifting the wolf’s curse. I thought that’s impossible, but she really believed it worked. No mage can lift such an ancient blood curse to the Sons of Fenrir. Karen and Adrian already did their research that the boy was at a correctional facility before the fire and a bunch of kids escaped.”

  “The Old Mothers asked for power,” said Elaine. “Power and knowledge. Our coven have existed to this day, enjoying the remnants of that blood pact. An entity powerful enough to summon a hurricane, and yes, even lift lycanthropy is a dangerous foe to have.”

  “If you believe what the old books tell us, the old gods are dead or have left. Are you telling me some of them are still alive after all this time? Did the old mother tell you what the entity even was?”

  “They described it as a divine being,” Elaine said. “And that’s what must be happening in Point Hope. An awakened god growing into its powers, maybe it has been there for a long time, slumbering, and the poor girl stumbled into it. Maybe those satanic cultists that died there a year ago woke it up! I mean, it’s no coincidence that since Lauren brought that girl with us, our powers are growing, too.”

  Joanna nodded. “The timing does makes sense, I guess.”

  “I think we are tapping into its residual energy, dear. That’s why our coven must be careful. Gods are beings with fraught temperaments. A living god on Earth after more than two millennia? We must be very careful, my friend.”

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  I shouldn’t be surprised that humans with the ability to tap into The Ways could sense me, even if weak, even when they didn’t understand what I was. Elaine, and like all other covens around the world, had been practicing their craft more frequently than they had ever done since their coven’s inception. I placed them on a list, sorted by Oracle, twenty-nine covens within a thousand miles from my dungeon, doing the same thing what the Coven of the Crone were doing.

  It was a party.

  After training all weekend, Adrian, Lauren, and Joanna held a feast, with some help form the bounty of the latter’s garden.

  They took control of Elaine’s kitchen and carried everything out to the long wooden table on the back patio with string lights flickering overhead under the sinking summer’s sun. A whole rosemary-garlic chicken roasted until the skin was bronze and crispy, stuffed with lemons, onions, and thyme. Charred carrots, beets, sweet potatoes, and parsnips from Joanna’s garden tossed in olive oil, cracked black pepper, sea salt, and honey. A large bowl of kale and arugula salad with goat cheese and pecans. And a thick pot of roasted tomatoes and white bean stew with a sourdough bread baked from scratch.

  Also, Karen snuck in and baked some chocolate fudge brownies from a box from Safeway and mixed it with a little bit of grandaddy purple, which made the evening quite relaxing for the coven.

  Chloe brought out a guitar and played a song over a small bonfire, and she had a very lovely voice. If this witch thing doesn’t work out for her, she should be a singer instead, I thought. Lauren shared some stories when she used to live in San Francisco and the crazy antics she got into as Madame Dallaire. And Adrian shared one of his funny poems from his journal—called Why Did You Hit Me?—about a car accident he was in a few years ago, caused by a drunk rich teenager, who sent him to the hospital for two weeks while the guy only got a broken pinky.

  At some point in the evening, Elaine took her heart medications and went to bed early, tasking Joanna with keeping the others from misbehaving. I took a peek in her bedroom. Elaine paused by the nightstand and picked up a picture frame. The glass caught the lamplight. Inside it, a thick-bearded man in his forties grinned at the camera, eyes crinkled, arm slung around a younger version of Elaine. I assumed he must be her late husband who died twenty years ago. She set the frame back carefully, aligning it with the edge of the table.

  Elaine had all kinds of pictures in her bedroom and across the house. She had four daughters, all grown and lived not far from her and with families of their own. Only her youngest lived the farthest in New Orleans, still unmarried to this day at thirty-one, who Elaine kept reminding every time she called her. None of them suspected that their mother was a witch, and none of them had the gift to wield it. It was a constant disappointment for Elaine.

  Magic had served Elaine well. It had given her clarity when the world was a confusing hellscape. Power when she felt small. Purpose when grief threatened to hollow her insides. She wanted her daughters to inherit that bounty. To feel the current of the Ways humming beneath their skin and at their fingertips. To understand the world was alive and everything was possible. But the gift had skipped them. Or perhaps she had failed to pass it on. Sometimes, during those long, lonely nights in this house that felt too large for one old woman, Elaine wondered if it was her fault. If, in her pursuit of knowledge and power, she had broken something inside herself. Twisted some unseen cord that should have tethered the gift to her bloodline.

  Elaine couldn’t deny that inadequacy was a strain in her relationship with them.

  Or, if she was inadequate herself.

  Her only legacy was the coven.

  She loved her daughters fiercely. That was never in question. But even a mother’s love could not render her immune from feeling disappointed.

  Downstairs, laughter flared as someone tossed another log onto the bonfire. Elaine changed into her nightgown, moved to the window, and parted the curtain just slightly. The backyard glowed in amber light. Karen and Adrian gesturing animatedly. Lauren leaning back in her chair, arguing in measured tones about some band Elaine had never heard of. Joanna listening, hands wrapped around a mug. Chloe and Vivian quieter than the rest. She could tell from the latter that her mind was a million miles away from here.

  Vivian felt her gaze on her and she looked up to Elaine’s bedroom window. For a heartbeat, their eyes met across the distance even when the girl didn’t have a good view of Elaine from where she sat. The mother supreme offered her a small smile before she closed the curtains and climbed into bed.

  Then, she dreamt of a never-ending yellow meadow under an empty blue sky, of the everlasting fire that roared from the mountains in the horizon. She dreamt of herself, standing in the meadow, small against the vastness of its vista, and watched the flames crest the mountains like a second sunrise, helpless to stop the wind from blowing the inferno coming her way and devouring this beautiful meadow into black dust. She dreamt of a cold burning that never wreaked any pain on her flesh, only a certain knowing of its ruination that one day, she too would turn into dust and be forgotten.

  As I pulled away from the witch’s dream, I caught Vivian walking away from the bonfire.

  She cut across the yard and into the woods while the others were still busy talking, using her phone as a flashlight. The sound of the bonfire dulled behind her, swallowed by the foliage, which was nice now that she could finally clear her head. God, she needed it.

  She found her way back to the clearing, the circle of ash faint in the dark, the brazier sitting cold and black at its center like a yawning mouth. The smell of sage still lingered here, mixed now with the damp soil and the metallic hint of the coming dew.

  From her jacket pocket, she pulled out an envelope. It was already open, edges soft from being handled too many times. She had read what was inside at least a dozen times in the past three days. And she still hesitated to open it.

  She took a deep breath and extended her hand out toward the brazier. Flames ignited from within, a blooming orange glow dancing across her face and watering eyes. She pulled out a single folded piece of paper and read the two words repeating through four lines with an ominous final command:

  COME HOME.

  COME HOME.

  COME HOME.

  COME HOME.

  COME.

  Her throat tightened. Behind the paper, the Polaroid slid loose and dropped into her palm, and her childhood home in Green Hill stared back at her. There was no doubt her brother sent this. What was worse: the letter was sent to the care home facility where Grandma Margie had been staying for the past few months. Vivian took her grandmother out of Point Hope the moment she learned the fire at the correctional facility and multiple people escaped. They had never accounted for her brother.

  He’s still out there, she thought. How did he know where we are?

  Vivian tried to imagine something kinder. That he’d run far away from the mountain. Far from the thing that had taken hold of him. That he’d found some quiet town where nobody knew his name. That maybe he’d gotten better. That maybe he’d stopped looking for her. It would have been a mercy if he died in the fire instead. But that was just a pipe dream. Of course, her brother was still looking for her. He never let go. Xavier worshiped the entity in the mountain with such murderous obsession; she saw it in his eyes while their grandmother lay bleeding on the kitchen floor.

  He wanted them to join him.

  She could never.

  It gave her the creeps seeing it all over again. She crushed the paper in her fist, the Polaroid bending with a dry crackle, and hurled all of it into the brazier. The flames seized the edges immediately. The photograph blistered, the image of the house warping, curling inward as if the structure itself were trying to retreat from the inferno.

  It was a clear message: Xavier knew where they were. Knew their grandmother’s location. Thankfully, Lauren had already moved her to a different facility.

  “What are you burning?”

  Karen’s voice came from behind her and Vivian jolted.

  Karen stood at the edge of the ring, arms crossed, weight settled into one hip. The firelight caught in her dark eyes like a cat watching a mouse. “What are you doing? You know what, never mind.”

  Before Vivian could respond, Karen reached out into the air and lowered the intensity of the flames, holding back the oxygen from feeding it. Then, with a swift flick of the wrist, the half-burned Polaroid tore free from the coals, ash trailing behind it like a comet tail. It hovered for half a second in the air between them, then shot cleanly into Karen’s waiting hand. Karen glanced down at the image, then turned it outward toward Vivian.

  “Cute place,” Karen said lightly.

  “That’s private,” Vivian snapped. She lunged for the photo, but Karen pivoted away. “Give that back!”

  Karen’s brows lifted. “Oh, I see how it is.” She tipped the photo just out of reach. “You know, lots of people are keeping secrets in this coven lately. Aren’t we supposed to be all sisters?” She paused. “And Adrian.”

  “There’s no secrets.”

  Karen’s smile sharpened. “Say that again. You sound like the Mother Supreme.”

  Vivian stayed quiet.

  “I always wondered why she let you in,” Karen went on, voice syrupy. “And Lauren—God. After what she said to Mother Elaine when she stormed out of here a few years ago? Whew.” She pressed a hand to her chest theatrically. “You should’ve seen the fire in that woman. Mad respect. Then, she came back here towing you along. Not very Madame Dallaire of her.”

  “I already told you. There were—”

  “—Monsters, yes. In the woods, right? I know why you’re here, but not the nitty-gritty details. You know us witches. We love to gossip.”

  “Can I have that back, please?”

  Karen ignored that. “I have been meaning to talk to you. I think that’s overdue. And I should have, given I’m one of the older members and you’re an apt pupil with pyromancy these days and I’m the expert around here.”

  Vivian shook her head. “I’m not even at your level yet.”

  Karen placed a hand over her heart. “Wow. Jeez. A compliment. Thanks.”

  She raised the half-burned photo again, studied the warped house one last second, then flicked it back into the brazier. The flames licked greedily at the glossy surface, chewing through the porch, devouring the upstairs window.

  “So,” Karen said, brushing ash from her fingers. “What’s the story? Why are you skulking about out here and burning photos? Only sketchy people do these things, right?”

  Vivian let out a heavy sigh. “Fine. I received a letter.” She didn’t even know why she was telling her this. It was none of her business.

  “Oh?” Karen leaned in, interested now. “Fan mail? From a high school sweetheart?”

  “No. Ew. It’s from my brother.”

  Karen frowned. The coven knew about her brother turning crazy and she had to run away from her, but every witch had a rough life before they found their coven. That’s just the facts Karen believed in. Well, maybe except Joanna, who probably had a lovely childhood and just joined the coven because she had no one else.

  “He found you?” Karen asked quietly.

  Vivian nodded.

  “Does Lauren already know? Mother Elaine?”

  Vivian nodded again. She was frightened; it was hard to admit to herself. Almost burst into tears, and cursed herself for crashing out in front of Karen Sanderson of all people. But she held her tears and turned to look at the fire instead. “He sent it to my grandma.”

  “Oh. Did you—”

  “Lauren already took care of that.”

  “Well, good. Fuck that asshole. Did he threaten you? What’s in the letter?”

  Karen stepped forward, angry, which surprised Vivian. Unfortunately, when Karen looked into the brazier, the letter already curled into blackened ash.

  “I…I don’t know. I think he wants me to come home to Point Hope,” Vivian said.

  “You don’t want to do that.”

  Vivian hid a smile and shyly curled into herself. She sank into one of the folding chairs near the fire.

  Karen studied her, then her eyes widened. “Holy shit. You are planning on going there.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Girl, don’t lie to me.”

  “It’s personal, okay?” Vivian shot back. “You don’t even know me.”

  Karen dropped into the chair beside her, leaned sideways, peering at Vivian’s face. “Well, that’s because you never open the fuck up. Like bitch, what are we even doing here? Ever since you arrived, you have been, you know, super cagey. And I get that. I respect that people have boundaries…”

  “Hey, I talk. As far as I can remember, I talk a lot.”

  “Not without substance, babe,” Karen said. “Yeah you talk to us, but we don’t really get to know you. The mother supreme forbade us from asking you questions about whatever the fuck happened to you, but that shouldn’t keep the rest of you a secret from us. Like…oh! Your favorite color. Maybe your favorite food? What TV show you’ve been obsessing over? You don’t have to hide any of that. You’re safe here.”

  “I don’t watch a lot of TV nowadays.”

  “Try me. This is a safe space.”

  Safe.

  Was anywhere truly safe? She wondered. Vivian’s mind betrayed her immediately. All those people dying in front of her eyes, even the way Nina screamed as those werewolves tore her in half. The way Xavier’s whole body exploded, and emerged a predator with golden-yellow wolf’s eyes.

  “Well, I also don’t know anything about you. About everyone,” Vivian said, trying to deflect the conversation.

  Karen scoffed. “Fine. I’m a schoolteacher for eight years now. I teach social studies for rowdy fourth graders who are mostly on the screen these days and obsessed with trends and going viral. I have no confidence whatsoever with the next generation’s capacity to take in long-form information. But I think I’ve mentioned that before in passing. Um, what else? Ah! I love 80s rock bands. I go to concerts a lot. I was divorced five years ago. Th marriage barely last two years with this guy named Benny, who I met at my cousin’s wedding. Total raging asshole by the way who took my apartment in the end, and this very expensive toothbrush I got from Japan. And I don’t have kids with him, thankfully. Gosh, this makes me sound like a mess, but I’m not. I’m fine. Still angry about the toothbrush though. He won’t give it back.”

  “Um, do you need help with getting it back?”

  Karen smiled. “I like the spirit, sister. But honestly, it’s just a fucking toothbrush. I’m allowed to be salty about it though. Thanks for the offer.”

  “I have shitty exes before.”

  Karen’s smile broadened. Maybe a little push to get the girl to open up to her. “As for the others, Chloe just graduated last year from college and she’s working for this big tech company in the city. I think she makes more money than us. Both Mother Elaine and Joanna are retired. Lauren’s unemployed, as you can see.”

  “Actually, she works at the new McDonald’s close to here.”

  “Fuck off. Since when?”

  “Two weeks ago.”

  “Huh. Well, good for Madame Dallaire, I guess. Who am I missing? Oh! Yeah. Adrian is a forensics sketch artist for the police.”

  Vivian’s jaw dropped. “Wait, really?”

  “Oh yeah. He’s very good at it, too.”

  That explains his scrollwork, I thought.

  “Okay, now your turn,” Karen said.

  She rubbed her palms together, feeling the faint grit of ash between her fingers. “My favorite color is green,” she said finally. “Dark green. Like pine needles.”

  Karen blinked. “Okay. Progress.”

  “I hate olives. They taste weird. And I don’t like them on pizzas. I don’t even want them on anything. They’re like raisins to me.”

  Karen snorted. “Oh. Sorry for laughing. Please continue.”

  “And I like—” Vivian hesitated, embarrassed. “I like coloring books. Especially the ones for adults. It helps me relax just doing it for an hour or two. And I found a job as well. I don’t want to live under her house and just rely on Mother Elaine’s generosity. It doesn’t seem fair to her.”

  “Oh? What job?”

  “As a grocery clerk,” she said. Vivian had ten million dollars on a bank account that she won from her delve, but she had rarely used it ever since she left town and paid off Lauren’s debts as a thank you to her, and paid for Grandma Margie’s needs at the care home facility. “I stock shelves, do inventory. I take the night shifts because Mother Elaine is awake during the day, and that’s usually the time she teaches me magic.”

  “Are you liking it so far?”

  “It’s not so bad.” Vivian shrugged. “Some days are shit. Some days aren’t. There are good people.” A faint smile tugged at her mouth. “There’s this guy—”

  Karen’s eyes sharpened instantly. “Oh? A guy, eh?”

  Vivian froze. “You know what? Forget I said that.”

  “Too late.” Karen scooted her chair closer. “You cannot drop ‘there’s this guy’ and expect me to sit here like a prudish nun.”

  Vivian groaned. “You’re unbearable.” This was the longest conversation she had with Karen ever since she joined the coven. She was surprised that Karen was into gossip. Vivian reckoned she shouldn’t be.

  “And yet, here I am. Details, girlie,” Karen said.

  Vivian sighed. “He’s around my age. Maybe a couple years older? He’s part of the meat and seafood department.”

  “Is he handsome?”

  Vivian blushed, and just merely nodded.

  “See?” Karen said quietly. She didn’t want to push Vivian out of her comfort zone too much. “That wasn’t so hard. First steps.”

  Vivian’s smile faded as quickly as it came. Her gaze drifted back to the brazier. “He’ll come here,” she murmured, The humor drained from her tone. “My brother. He’ll find me.”

  “Mother Elaine won’t let that happen. She’s tough, you know. And you’re not going back there. He’s testing you. Trying to rattle your nerves. Don’t give him the satisfaction.”

  “Lauren’s trying to track him,” Vivian said. “Figure out his next move. She and Mother Elaine are working together. They’re just not telling me much though.” Another beat. “He was with me when those monsters attacked us. He became a werewolf.”

  Karen’s head snapped toward her. “Your brother is a werewolf?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “But that’s not how that works. The curse is one of the oldest, most powerful things we know. Half the lycans in the country blame witches for it, and I’m pretty damn sure we didn’t start it.”

  “It got broken, okay?” Vivian insisted. “But it broke my brother, too.”

  “I’m sorry,” Karen said. “You should tell the others.”

  “I will. I just…need a moment to breathe.”

  They sat in silence for a while, staring at the embers on the brazier.

  “We should head back to the house. It’s getting quite late.”

  “You can go. I’d like to stay here for a while.”

  “After what you told me? There’s no way I’m leaving you out here alone even with Mother Elaine’s protection spell around her property.”

  Some part of Vivian doubted their magic was powerful enough to keep me at bay.

  Eventually, Vivian relented and walked with Karen back to the house. The others were still at the backyard. Chloe fell asleep on the chair while Joanna and Adrian were talking about some new documentary on Netflix.

  Lauren leaned over immediately. “You okay? You were gone a while.”

  “I’m fine. I just need some air,” Vivian said. “Karen knows by the way. Mostly everything about—” She couldn’t bear to say the lake’s name.

  Lauren’s gaze flicked to Karen, then back to Vivian. She nodded once, but she didn’t press further.

  As the night went on, one by one, people drifted inside. Lauren and Karen ended up washing the dishes in the kitchen while the others went to bed. Adrian had to leave since he had an early shift the next day.

  “Can I ask you something?” Karen said, pulling Lauren aside.

  Lauren didn’t pretend. “Is this about what Vivian told you?”

  Karen nodded. “Is her brother really a werewolf?”

  “Used to be.”

  “Come on now.” Karen barked a short laugh. “We both know it cannot be broken except…you know…the wolf’s put down for good.”

  “Look, she encountered something in the mountain, alright? It took her brother, several other people too, and at the end, she made a wish as a reward.”

  “A reward?”

  “Yes. She wished for the curse to be broken.”

  “And…it worked?”

  Lauren shrugged. “It surprised me, too. Believe me. I didn’t detect a hint of the wolf’s blood on that boy when I was at the hospital.”

  “What sort of thing can grant wishes? A genie?”

  “Certainly not a genie. I don’t think they are real. The mountain tests you. And if you pass its test, you are granted a reward. It can be anything.”

  Karen leaned back. “Anything?”

  “Don’t give me that look. It’s something you don’t want to ever face,” Lauren said. “You shouldn’t ask me these questions. I told you enough. Mother Elaine wants this to be hush-hush. We’re talking about a very powerful entity none of the grimoires speak of.” Lauren was quiet for a moment. “Just forget about this, okay? The less we talk about it, the less attention it brings on us.”

  “Lauren, you’re shaking.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just…talking about it is not easy.” She paused. “If you were there, under its shadow, you can feel its presence suffocating you, breathing down on you. It’s not something I ever want to experience again.”

  “You should go to bed. Take a shower.” Karen dropped the topic. “I’ll finish up here. There’s only a few plates to clean, and I’ll shove them into the dishwasher anyway.”

  Lauren didn’t argue and climbed up the stairs. While alone in that kitchen, Karen couldn’t help but think about the entity that had half of the coven terrified.