by Mindy Klasky
When I got to the street, I was amazed by two facts. First, David had found a parking space directly in front of the Peabridge. In Georgetown, that alone practically required some working of magic.
Second, and even more shocking, was the car that waited for us. A Lexus. Black. With onyx leather that melted under the moonlight, and walnut trim that whispered old money.
David held the passenger door for me as Neko clambered into the backseat, grumbling about the indignity until David shot him a loaded glance. Neko settled the book carefully on the leather beside him, taking the opportunity to plant himself squarely in the center of the wide backseat. He bounced slightly as David pulled away from the curb, and I expected to hear him shout “Are we there yet?” at any moment.
When Neko failed to fill the silence, I asked, “Do you know where we’re going?”
“Of course.”
David handled the car expertly. While the streets of D.C. were never empty, traffic became lighter as we moved out of Georgetown, crossing the Key Bridge into Virginia and the western suburbs. I realized that we were heading into one of the toniest neighborhoods around, an area of estates that were set far apart, with long brick fences lining the roads, and wrought-iron gates that kept the riffraff from invading.
I wanted to ask David a hundred questions. Where exactly were we going? Who was waiting for us? How many women were in the Coven? What would happen once we arrived? How, exactly, was I supposed to prove myself, and what were the penalties if I failed?
I knew, though, that I’d get no further answers. David had already told me precisely what he thought I needed to know.
Just as the dashboard clock flashed eleven forty-five, David took a right turn off the winding road. He punched a secret code into a camouflaged control panel, and a wrought-iron gate the height of the Eiffel Tower swung open on silent hinges. We drove up the longest driveway I’d seen this side of Gone with the Wind, passing between sentinel ranks of oak trees. The car’s high beams made eerie shadows on the trunks, and more than once I caught my breath, expecting some supernatural guardian to swoop down upon us.
I realized that my fingers were woven into a nervous clump, that I was rubbing my thumbs against each other like an obsessive maniac. Before David could issue another useless reminder for me to relax, I closed my eyes and took a trio of calming breaths. I leaned back in my seat and tried to imagine Neko standing by my side, tried to remember the feeling of his aura reflecting my own, his ability to mirror magical strength back to me, quietly, calmly.
My trick worked well enough that I was surprised when David braked to a stop. “Ready?” he asked.
My eyes sprang open. I was expecting to see Tara—massive columns, solid red brick, and a curving double staircase with servants at the ready. There might even be a barbecue out back, fragrant smoke rising from the grill as belles and beaux flirted with one another. A horse or two wouldn’t be out of place, whickering friendly greetings and begging for sugar lumps. And come to think of it, a mint julep wouldn’t be half-bad. Or a Baileys Irish Cream. With or without decaf coffee.
But I was completely wrong, so mistaken that all remnant flirty thoughts of Graeme and our mid-week decadent dessert outing fled from my mind.
Toto, we weren’t near Tara anymore.
The house in front of me might have been designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, if he were in a particularly ostentatious mood. The walls were made of stone slivers, set without mortar to form horizontal patterns under the moonlight. I could make out windows high above us, arcane designs cut into their wooden frames. I could see two—no, three—chimneys, rising into the midnight darkness. A walkway led around to our right, hinting at a doorway that remained out of sight.
David led us down that path. I silently congratulated myself for choosing sandals, they were nearly silent on the flagstones, and I didn’t need to worry about turning an ankle in the dark. Neko stuck close behind me; I could hear his breath catch as he shifted the heavy book in his arms.
When we rounded the corner, a low voice called, “Halt! Let all who would approach the Coven identify themselves and give good reason for their presence.”
I blinked, and then I could make out a man in the shadows. A large man. A large man, wearing a dark cloak, despite the oppressive late-summer heat. A large man, wearing a cloak and holding a gleaming, naked sword.
I almost ran back to the car.
What had I been thinking? How had I let David drive me out here, miles from nowhere? Why hadn’t I realized that I might become the victim of a strange, sword-wielding cult?
My story would be all over the newspapers and would fill the airwaves for weeks. Gran would put out a weeping appeal for my safe return. Even Clara would screw out a tear or two for the cameras. The tabloid press would interview my boss, who would say that she hadn’t noticed anything unusual prior to my disappearance. They’d shove microphones in front of Melissa, who would push past the paparazzi to get inside Cake Walk, where she would grimly turn the sign to Walk On By in an attempt to free herself from the media circus.
“I am David Montrose, Warder of Hecate.” David’s voice resonated in the dark nook. He did not seem surprised by the man, did not seem the least bit startled by the sword. He intoned, “I bring with me a Daughter of Hecate, Jane Madison, who travels this path with her familiar.”
“You may pass, Warder of Hecate.” The man stepped aside, lowering his sword a fraction of an inch. “Welcome, Daughter of Hecate, and be honored in our safehold.”
I expected David to step to one side (hopefully, the side between me and the glimmering sword.) I thought that he would be a gentleman and let me walk before him. Instead, he squared his shoulders and raised his chin, striding past the armed guardian with only the faintest of acknowledging nods.
As my warder stepped over the threshold and into the house, a silver tracing flared up on the ground. A five-pointed star spread on either side of the door. It was surrounded by a perfect circle, a circle that shimmered with magical force. I knew immediately that the pentagram was a protective field, a barrier even stronger than the man with the sword.
David stepped through the glowing light, shuddering slightly until he reached the far side. He extended his hand, and I knew that I had no choice. He had brought me here because I had been summoned. He had told me that I would be safe.
I stepped over the threshold.
I felt the force field like an electric charge. It jolted up my neck, made me catch my breath, forced me to blink my eyes against a sudden light and then a crashing, terrifying darkness. Neko pressed close behind me, and I knew that he had passed through the pentagram as well.
He wasn’t afraid, though. He was excited—alert and ready, attentive as he always was when we worked our magic. He was a cat, toying with a new mouse. He was charged, in his element.
I shook my head and followed David through the foyer and into the house.
The hallway opened onto the largest room I’d ever seen in a residence. The space was divided into a half-dozen conversation areas, elegant groupings of chairs and love seats (alas, no davenports belonging to the Countess of Wessex, as near as I could tell) that encouraged quiet, earnest discussion. A variety of tables was scattered about, sporting enough lamps to fill a showroom. All of the lightbulbs were subdued, as if the entire room was on a dimmer switch.
There must have been two dozen women present, all talking in voices low enough to match the lighting. I felt as if I had stumbled into a supersecret midnight meeting of the Junior League. Each woman looked more composed than the one before. There were a few girls, relative youngsters who looked as if they had only recently graduated college, but most had twenty or more years on me. Three women on the far side of the room looked like they’d be more in Gran’s demographic.
No matter their ages, though, the witches looked fit and healthy. There was an air of determination about them, a razor-edged intensity that marked the multigenerational gathering as special in some indefinable way.<
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I’d been so confident in my black dress and my fused glass jewelry, but now I saw that cashmere and pearls would have been more appropriate. As if I owned cashmere. As if I owned pearls. I thought about hissing a rebuke to Neko for approving my outfit, but I knew this was neither the time nor the place.
In one cluster of women, a faint laugh rang out, and I wondered if I would ever get to hear the punch line. I caught a sudden gasp of surprise from another group, the universal sound of shocked gossip that begs for more details even as it warns away the impropriety of telling tales out of school.
A doorway arched to my immediate right, and I could hear a low hum of conversation emanating from behind an oak door. A low hum of masculine conversation—I immediately pictured an Edwardian smoking lounge, with welldressed aristocrats cradling snifters of brandy as they pulled on fat cigars.
“David Montrose.”
A woman materialized in front of us. Okay. I shouldn’t say “materialized.” It wasn’t as if a fog swirled into the room and then a woman magically appeared. It wasn’t like there was a flash of light and then she stepped forward. It wasn’t magical.
Rather, she moved with perfect grace. Perfect grace and balance and…majesty. Instantly, I knew that this must be Teresa Alison Sidney. Her greeting to my warder toppled the entire room into silence.
“Coven Mother,” David said, and he inclined his head in a gesture that would have been a bow in another age, in another land.
Coven Mother. Not that there was anything the least bit maternal about her.
Teresa Alison Sidney was the sum of all my nightmares from high school. I knew instinctively that she was one of the Popular Snobs; she’d created the cliques that the rest of us could only dream of joining.
She was tall, probably close to six feet, and slender, and she carried herself in a way that advertised the hours she spent at the gym. Her midnight hair fell straight around her face; its black depths gleamed blue in the dim light. It curled in a soft natural flip just above her shoulders, as if it had never heard of a breeze, or humidity, or any other summer challenge. I couldn’t read the color of her eyes in the darkened room, but I would have given my eyeteeth if they weren’t slate-gray.
She wore a perfectly tailored cashmere sweater—short sleeves in acknowledgment of the heat outside, but bloodred, as if we’d already moved the calendar forward to the heart of autumn. Her charcoal trousers must have had an invisible zipper on the side. They were impossibly slim and cut to exaggerate the length of her legs. She wore a single strand of pearls around her neck, and each earlobe was kissed by an unadorned milky sphere.
“Warder,” the Coven Mother said, and the title made David stand a little straighter. “You may join the other men in the front room.”
There was no question in her voice, no uncertainty. She was not asking David his preference or giving him any option. He was being ordered from my side, as certainly as if the Red Queen had shouted “Off with his head!”
Unable to stop myself, I reached toward him, brushing my fingers against his sleeve. He shook his head, once. “By your leave, Coven Mother,” he said, nodding deeply before stalking away from Teresa Alison Sidney.
Away from me.
I watched him open the door to my right. There was a momentary pause in the male banter within, and then the noise swelled louder, all greetings and laughter and casual bonhomie. I swallowed hard and reminded myself that at least Neko had been permitted to stay with me.
Teresa Alison Sidney’s smile was as perfectly manicured as the hand that she extended to me. Her fingers were cool in mine, sleek, as if she spent part of her life as a seal or a mermaid. “And you must be Jane Madison.”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, Coven Mother.” I answered her perfect nightingale trill with a peacock screech. I knew that there was something else I should be saying, something else that I should do, but my mind was blank, numb. I wondered if I had lost some basic faculties when I crossed the silver pentagram into the room. Maybe some silent spell had stolen away my most basic social abilities.
I felt a jab in the small of my back and I took a half step forward. Even as I racked my brain for something to say there was another jab, a poke deeper into my spine. “Jane!”
The whisper broke my trance, and I half turned around. Neko was shoving the book toward me as if it were an infant needing a diaper change. I scowled, more embarrassed than ever by the awkward presentation of my gift. I should have wrapped it, no matter what David had said.
I turned back to Teresa Alison Sidney. “Coven Mother. I, um…I brought something for you. A small token of my respect.”
She turned her head to a perfect angle, her lips twisting into the smallest of smiles. I dared to glance at Neko, steeling myself to take the heavy book from his arms. I forced myself not to picture dropping it, not to imagine the pages splayed and torn on the inlaid parquet floor, in case dreaming had the power to make it so in this strange place of witchy energy.
As soon as my fingers touched the citrine binding, though, a wave of calm washed over me. There was peace in the crystal, confidence. I remembered the power that I had felt when I bound the book. I threw my shoulders back and displayed the volume for all to see.
And I was rewarded with a collective gasp of awe from all the women in the room.
Even Teresa Alison Sidney, even the perfect Junior League matron, even she was surprised by the riches that I held. “For you,” I said, as I extended my offering. “For you, Coven Mother.”
She looked at me for a long moment, blatantly scanning my face for my intention. I hoped that she could see my earnest desire to fit in among my witchy sisters, to find the collective support that I’d never known in high school, in college, in any social aspect of my life. I hoped that she could tell I wanted to join this clique more than I’d ever wanted to join one before.
She glanced down at the volume and completed a tiny nod of recognition. The title might not be stamped upon the cover, but she knew the treasure that she held. I couldn’t say whether she was able to divine the name by magic, or whether she had studied catalogs of valuable holdings in the past. She met my eyes, though, and said, “The Illustrated History of Witches.”
“I thought that you could make good use of it.”
“I can indeed.” She set her hands upon the green moroccan leather. “Citrine,” she breathed. She closed her eyes and inhaled through her aquiline nose, drinking in the power of my binding.
Now, standing in this magnificent space, surrounded by a showroom of furniture and a gaggle of perfect women, I wasn’t sure that I had made the right decision when I wrapped the crystal’s power around the book. Maybe I should have been orderly. Maybe I should have been uniform. Maybe I should have followed the letter of the occult law, tamping down every single spark of individuality and creativity in my witchy soul as I bound the citrine to the History.
But I hadn’t. And it was too late to make any changes now.
Teresa Alison Sidney looked at me with an expression that spoke volumes. I read her surprise at the binding I had chosen. She had clearly expected something more traditional—something more submissive, more humble. But I also read a flare of greed on her face—pleasure at the physical gift I’d given, certainly, but speculation about more. Speculation about the collection that nestled secure in my basement, even speculation about Neko. Somewhere, in the organized chaos of my citrine binding, Teresa Alison Sidney read her first taste of what I could bring to the Coven.
Or what they could take, if I failed to pass the admission test the Coven Mother set for me.
Teresa Alison Sidney said, “Thank you, Daughter of Hecate. Your offering to me, and to the Coven, through me, is most valued.”
I bowed my head in reply, trying to imitate the precise angle that had symbolized David’s proud humility. “Thank you, Coven Mother.”
She pulled the book in closer to her side, balancing its substantial weight against her hip. Before it could become too heavy, though,
or before—heavens forfend—it could crease her perfect trousers, a shadow glided up to her side. “Connie,” she said, not even bothering to look at the newcomer. “Put this in the library.”
Connie ignored the dismissive note of command, taking the volume as if it were a valuable crystal vase. She darted a glance at me and then licked her lips in quick agitation. Like me, she was dressed all in black, and she seemed to disappear in the room’s dim light, even when I looked directly at her. Her gaze skipped around, avoiding direct contact with any of the witches, and her nose twitched like a rabbit.
I felt Neko stifle a move toward her, and suddenly I understood. Connie was a familiar.
Just as Neko betrayed his feline roots, Connie expressed her own animal past—a rabbit, I realized, or I knew absolutely nothing about witchcraft. I darted my own quick glance around the room, and I saw that several of the women, several of the witches, had shadowy companions lurking silently by their sides. The familiars seemed to fade away in the room’s darkness, almost becoming invisible beside their witches.
As Connie carried off my gift, Teresa Alison Sidney treated me to a slow smile. “Again,” she said. “My thanks.”
And then, a clock began to chime. All eyes in the room swung toward the corner, to the ornate tall-case clock. Witches and familiars, we all listened to the well-known Westminster sequence booming from the magnificent timepiece. After the song was done, there was a pause, long enough for me to measure the sudden, heightened tension, long enough for me to clench my fingers into fists. The tolling of the hours began—deep, sonorous tones. One…two…three…each note resonated through my body, winding me tighter, raising my expectations.
I realized that all of the women were responding to the clock in the same way, even Teresa Alison Sidney. Each of us clenched a little more as the clock counted off the hours, and when the twelfth note struck, every one of us was staring at the Coven Mother. Every one of us was waiting.
