The Secret of the Sacred Four

by E J Elwin

  “Lizzie, Drowned Witch, repeat after me,” said Harriet.

  Lizzie, I could tell, was highly anxious about this entire situation, but her face was set with resolve as she spoke the words that Sylvie and Hortensia had before her. The only time her expression flickered was when Harriet touched the knife to her finger. The side of her mouth twitched almost imperceptibly, reminding me of the trembling movements of a bunny rabbit.

  The instant her blood made contact with the Silver Solvent, the rising steam turned a glittering blue, and I thought of how the ocean looked when I had first woken up in Jessica and Jasper’s house and looked out the window. A second later, the steam reverted to its silvery white.

  Harriet finally came to me, stepping to my right in the space between me and Hortensia.

  “Arthur, Burned Witch,” she said, “repeat after me…”

  “‘I vow to stand with my sister witches, in great love and great trust’,” I said in a clear voice, looking around at the the girls, who smiled at me.

  It was surreal, dreamlike, to be standing in these woods saying these words to people I had met only a day ago. I once believed that any ceremony in my life in which I made vows of love and commitment would find me standing in front of Connor, possibly next to an ocean. It was hard to wrap my mind around how quickly and impossibly my life had changed. Yet, I was wrapping my mind around it. I felt an inexplicable bond and familiarity with these girls even though the Ceremony wasn’t completed yet.

  “‘To live both the joys and terrors of this world, withstand what we must’,” I said.

  I noticed a glimmer of movement at the edge of the clearing, and saw Jasper finally move as he leaned in and whispered something to Jessica, who nodded and then glanced around at the trees. How long had it been since we’d removed our Cloaking Crystals and started the spell? How long before the Brotherhood traced us and made their way here? I told myself firmly that Jessica, Jasper, and Harriet had it taken care of, and returned my full focus to the Ceremony.

  “‘Together as one, no longer apart’,” I said.

  “Henceforth, this coven I trust with my heart,” said Harriet for a fourth time.

  “‘Henceforth, this coven I trust with my heart’,” I said finally.

  Harriet brought the sapphire knife to my right hand and poked my index finger as lightly as was possible while still drawing blood. The knife glistened in the light from my own fire crackling beneath the cauldron as she held it over the steaming Silver Solvent.

  The liquid bubbled frantically and the white steam turned a fiery blood-red. I thought of the Rebel Red jacket, the Blood Crystal glowing bright red over Connor’s grave, the red roses in Jessica’s Rose Room, the red bathrobe soaked in salt water… A second later, the steam went back to silvery white and the bubbles returned to normal. Harriet returned to her spot a few feet away between Hortensia and Sylvie, and resumed her chanting:

  “With blood and Benevolent Magick, do we seal this bond

  May these witches live in power and joy, here and beyond

  A coven like no other, four fabled witches bound for glory

  On this night looms a battle, a momentous point in their story…”

  I heard a rustling in the trees. It was distant, not right near our clearing, but vigorous, like someone was trying to shake the leaves off a tree. The girls and I looked at each other and I knew we were all thinking the same thing: it was no woodland creature making those noises.

  “Now they go forth, by each other empowered

  A bond unbreakable, here fully flowered

  Those who may try, will certainly fail

  To split this bond, of mythical scale…”

  There was another rustling, and this time, it didn’t stop. The sound of trees being battered became steadily louder and closer. It sounded like a pack of wild animals trying to stampede within the confines of the dense forest. My heart thumped nervously but I repeated to myself that the plan Jessica, Jasper, and Harriet had concocted would protect us. I noticed Jasper whispering urgently again in Jessica’s ear, his eyes flashing like lamps.

  “Tonight magic thrives, and witches will settle a score

  With faces of witch hunters, will our Four wipe the floor…”

  The rustling rose to a fever pitch, the stampede quickly approaching us. My heart hammered erratically. Lizzie looked down at the crossbow at her feet, and I knew she was itching to pick it up. Sylvie raised both her palms in front of her in a gesture that clearly said, stay calm, we’ll be fine!

  “High may they soar, a destiny enchanted to its core

  Love, light, and magic galore, Evermore, the Sacred Four!”

  Harriet shouted what I knew to be the last line of the Bonding Spell, and at the same moment, a masked face appeared in the shadows of the trees behind her. Then another one right next to it…

  The girls and I turned to see at least twelve members of the Brotherhood emerge slowly from the trees on all sides of the clearing. Lizzie muffled a shriek, and I was reminded horribly of the traitor witch and the way she had slunk out of the trees with her blood-red eyes.

  The masked men stepped into the clearing, surrounding us, but didn’t raise their guns. Every single one of them stood there motionless. Jessica looked around at them all and smirked.

  “Why don’t you all use those charming things on each other?” she said.

  The men jerked their heads in robotic nods and then turned on the spot in eerie synchronicity, each man facing the one next to him, looking like they were all about to couple dance. Every one of them raised their guns in the same well-practiced way, pointed them at each other’s faces, then all pulled the triggers at exactly the same time. The combined blast of twelve guns exploded through the clearing, out into the trees, and above into the sky, the pale crescent moon watching us all serenely.

  The girls and I looked at the twelve bodies strewn around the clearing, and together breathed a sigh of relief. We had known, of course, that the moment any member of the Brotherhood came within range, Jessica’s Sacred Roses would bloom and puff out the Persuasion Powder they’d had hidden inside them. I wondered if all twenty-four had bloomed. Initially, only ten members of the Brotherhood had come to Oregon in search of whoever had cast the resurrection spell, and now we’d just seen twelve. More would be coming.

  “Now, now, let’s focus, shall we?” said Harriet, as though the girls and I had merely nodded off in math class.

  “Where’s the violet fire?” asked Sylvie, looking at the cauldron. “Didn’t you finish the spell?”

  “I did,” said Harriet cheerfully. “You all have to repeat that last phrase four times, remember?”

  “Oh, right,” said Sylvie. I had also forgotten about that final part of the Ceremony, having been engrossed in Harriet’s chanting and then in the Brotherhood stomping through the trees. Sylvie, Lizzie, Hortensia, and I looked around at each other and silently decided the moment to start saying the phrase.

  “Evermore, the Sacred Four,” we all chanted together. “Evermore, the Sacred Four.”

  I was struck once again by the dreamlike quality of all this. The rhyming words, chanted in unison, sounded substantially more witchy than when Harriet spoke them alone.

  “Everm—” A gunshot rang out somewhere in the woods, and the sounds of another stampede began to rumble through the trees. It sounded angrier than the first.

  “Focus, focus!” said Harriet. “You’re almost done!”

  “Evermore, the Sacred Four!” the girls and I shouted. “Evermore, the Sacred Four!”

  We took a deep, expectant breath as we watched the cauldron, waiting for the violet fire that was set to come— but nothing happened. The silvery white steam continued to rise lazily into the air. Harriet stepped up to the cauldron and frowned down at the Silver Solvent.

  “That should’ve worked…” she said.

  Panic sparked inside me. Did we do something wrong? More members of the Brotherhood were charging toward us through the trees. What
if we couldn’t get the Ceremony right in time? I wanted to ask Jessica if all twenty-four Persuasion Powder filled roses had bloomed, but didn’t want to spread my anxiety to the others. Lizzie, however, didn’t need my panic to form her own.

  “What happened?” she squeaked. “What do we do?”

  The woods beyond the clearing vibrated with the coming attack, and I sensed that there were much more than twelve men coming this time. The Patriarch must have called in reinforcements to Oregon especially for the Sacred Four. I looked around at the twelve bodies and wondered if he was one of them. They all looked nearly identical in their black masks and head-to-toe black clothing.

  “Keep chanting,” said Harriet. “For some covens, it takes a little longer…”

  Lizzie looked none too comforted by this, and I understood how she felt. It wasn’t exactly encouraging to be one of those covens for whom it ‘took a little longer’. I would’ve expected us to blow right through this, being the Sacred Four and all. My mind instantly turned on me, spinning self-doubt. Was it my fault? Was I not focusing enough?

  We resumed our chant, and I resolved to focus harder, to want it more.

  “Evermore, the Sacred Four,” we said together. “Evermore, the Sacred Four…”

  The cauldron continued to emit its lazy white steam, and my heart smacked against my chest. I knew we had weapons and powers but there was something that told me we needed to complete this Ceremony, that it was crucial in order for us to win against the Brotherhood. I couldn’t understand why, especially since Harriet had said we were already more bonded than any other witches in history, but I just knew, as sure as I could be of anything, that we needed that violet fire to burst from the cauldron.

  “Evermore, the Sacred Four… Evermore, the Sacred Four…”

  The woods rumbled and rattled around us, and I could see the fear in Lizzie’s blue eyes as they flicked to the edges of the clearing and then back to the cauldron. Sylvie and Hortensia stared into the white steam with matching looks of steely determination.

  “Evermore, the Sacred Four… Evermore, the Sacred Four!”

  Jasper darted suddenly across the clearing, wielding his katana, his eyes gleaming like headlights, and came to a skidding halt in front of a tree behind Harriet. I watched him as I chanted. He hesitated for a few seconds, his back against the tree trunk, before lunging out from behind it with surprising speed and agility, and plunging his katana into the darkness of the trees. A second later, he dragged out the body of a masked man, skewered on the end of his sword.

  “Focus, Arthur, focus!” shouted Harriet. I tore my eyes away from Jasper as he shoved the man off his blade and dashed to another tree.

  “Evermore, the Sacred Four! Evermore, the Sacred Four!”

  “Jess, on your right!” shouted Jasper, and it was the first time I’d heard his voice since he cast his Sight Heightening Spell.

  Jessica pressed her back against her tree and raised both palms. The tree on which she rested, and the two trees next to it, abruptly came alive, snapping and brandishing their long branches, which had taken on the nimble, tentacle-like quality that the two trees behind Huerta’s Restaurant had. I heard what sounded like bull-whips smacking against bare flesh, and the muffled yells of at least two men.

  Jasper darted across the clearing again, katana held aloft, and stopped at a point several trees away from Jessica. Again, he hesitated for a second, his eyes glowing and unblinking, before plunging his sword into the darkness and unearthing another member of the Brotherhood, blood gushing from the midsection of his twitching body.

  “Evermore, the Sacred Four! Evermore, the Sacred Four!”

  A masked man was thrown into the clearing, held in the clutches of a long snakelike tree branch that was bashing him around like a rag doll. He had just enough time to look up at us and raise his gun, when a knife from the gleaming array on Jessica’s black velvet cloth suddenly shot through the air and buried itself in his neck. The branch holding him dropped him at the edge of the clearing like a sack of potatoes, apparently losing interest in him now that he was dead. I glanced at Harriet and saw her right palm outstretched in the direction of the fallen man.

  “Keep chanting!” she shouted. “Take each other’s hands!”

  I took Lizzie and Hortensia’s outstretched hands in mine, and watched as they gripped Sylvie’s. A charge like the one that passed through me when I shook Sylvie’s hand in the Purple Haze, sparked in my hands and surged up both of my arms, much stronger than before. I felt our collective will as we shouted our incantation into the night.

  “Evermore, the Sacred Four! EVERMORE, THE SACRED FOUR!!”

  Fire burst from the cauldron at last, a glorious torrent of violet flames at least six feet high, but it wasn’t the only thing that happened. A blinding ring of violet light exploded from the raging fire, passing right through me and the girls before we’d even realized what happened. I blinked around at the clearing, my eyes dazzled by the light, and heard myself gasp.

  A massive glittering dome made of crackling sparks of violet light had exploded into being around us, encircling the clearing and rising high above us in a wide arch. It was like being inside a giant crystal ball, like the one we’d used to find the girls, except this crystal was alive, flashing and twinkling and moving with a smooth fluid quality like molten glass.

  I squinted out at the trees through the sparkling haze and saw the various fallen members of the Brotherhood on the ground at the edge of the clearing. The glittering wall had pushed them out and away from us so that some of them were shoved up against tree trunks. More masked men emerged from the trees on all sides, like rats emerging from a sewer, and then stopped short at the wall of light. Some threw themselves at it and were sharply repelled, like trying to bring two magnets of the same charge together. Others butted their guns against it, but made no dent.

  My memories and my sense of logic caught up to my amazement, and I realized what it was: a force field, like the one Harriet had cast around her house to stop the Brotherhood’s bullets. But no one had cast this one. It was a wondrous and unexpected gift to accompany the completion of the Bonding Ceremony. I was sure it was a result of our power as the fully bonded Sacred Four, a spectacular showcase of the new magic that Jasper had spoken of earlier. I looked around and found him in the twinkling violet haze. His eyes were still unblinking bright blue lamps, but thick shining tears were falling from them, down his cheeks and into his beard as he looked up at the shining dome. Jessica’s eyes were also glassy with emotion as she gazed up at the barrier with her brother, his katana dripping with blood, the ongoing attack of the Brotherhood momentarily forgotten.

  Lizzie and Hortensia looked as awestruck as I did, and I leaned around the roaring fire to see that Sylvie shared our exhilaration. They looked stunned by the spectacle but also ecstatic, no doubt at having managed to complete the Ceremony, but also at having acquired a powerful new magical weapon in the process. We continued to hold hands, wordlessly acknowledging the pivotal change that had just taken place in our lives. The frenzied violet flames shooting out of the cauldron looked like the exhaust of a rocket, only shooting upward instead of down.

  In the blink of an eye, the fire suddenly changed color. It was now blood-red, the color the steam had turned when my blood dripped into it. The girls and I shouted in surprise, but before anyone could wonder aloud what was happening, the fire changed from red to glittering blue. A second later, it was a glimmering purple, then an inky jet black that was somehow as visible as the other colors, flashing with glints of gray and the twinkling violet surrounding us.

  Then the fire went wild with color. The inky black became blazing orange, then sunny yellow, then a startling forest green, then a beautiful ocean blue that was the color of Connor’s eyes, then back to the violet it had started as, before running through the colors all over again. It was like watching someone flick rapidly through TV channels if the channels were nothing but flaming color, a manic hyperactive rainbow of
fire. I saw Harriet watching the colorful blaze with a look of pure wonder that was almost childlike. For a second, I saw the little girl Harriet, the one who’d had the Sacred Four prophecy read to her by her mother as a bedtime story.

  Then, something happened that made every single one of us oooh and aaah like children. The flashing rainbow from the roaring cauldron suddenly extended to the crackling force field around us. The swirling sparkly dome no longer shined in just violet but in every color of the rainbow, switching between them as quickly as the fire did and then blending them in all at once; blue here and red there, a glimmer of green here and a flicker of yellow there. I thought again of what we must look like from above— now, a gleaming, multicolored eye with a fiery pupil.

  I knew that no one in the world had ever seen a sight quite like this, and I was filled with pride, elated that I was part of something so special, and that I had friends to share it with. I glanced at Harriet, at Jessica and Jasper, and then at my sister witches. They looked back at me, and together we looked out through the force field at our enemies trying to break into our circle. We were about to win.

  PART III

  TRANSCENDENCE

  CHAPTER 19

  The Battle of Tillamook Head

  The multicolored fire continued to burn but had come down to a normal level— or at least, normal for a fire burning on the surface of a liquid inside a cauldron. It now burned the way the bright blue flames burned inside Harriet’s cauldron when we did magical disguises. The rainbow force field continued to stand as firmly and shimmering as it had when it erupted.

  The girls and I still held each other’s hands. I knew, without knowing how I knew, that as soon as we let go, the force field would come down. There were now at least twenty masked members of the Brotherhood outside the twinkling dome throwing themselves against it, but no matter how hard they tried to break through, our magical barrier wouldn’t budge.