Chapter Nineteen
Michelle slept deeply into the afternoon of the following day.
The ecstasy of letting Lavinia drink her blood had worn off, but the memory filled her with a delicious shiver of satisfaction.
She caught herself running a fingertip along the raised scabs where Lavinia’s fangs had pierced her skin.
It was odd, how right it had felt. She’d thought it would be disturbing, having someone drink your blood.
But now, she felt like she understood. Thinking of Lavinia drinking from anyone else, though…
That created a pang of envy that was difficult to rationalise.
Michelle didn’t have much time to muse on this though, as when she finally rose that Monday afternoon, she found that Arran had left a message for her. She had been summoned, sorry, invited to meet a bunch of witches.
“What if I don’t want to go?” she’d asked Lavinia when the vampire had shown her the cream-coloured envelope that had arrived that morning.
Michelle felt relieved that the message came as a simple letter rather than anything more supernatural and disturbing, but the message felt ominous nonetheless.
Lavinia had shaken her head. “I don’t think you’d want to find out.” When Michelle had asked more questions, she’d only said that she didn’t know much about witches. Vampires and witches avoided each other whenever they could.
“Will it be dangerous?” None of Lavinia’s warnings made Michelle feel more confident about this meeting.
“Not to you, I don’t think,” Lavinia had said. That didn’t particularly help assuage her fears either. It all felt like a confusing case of mistaken identity. Lavinia had told her they would be testing her for some kind of magical abilities, which was ridiculous. She didn’t have any magical powers.
If she had, she wouldn’t have been living in a tiny apartment for the last five years.
Wouldn’t she have been able to magic herself to richness?
Shouldn’t she have felt, you know, special or different in some way?
Michelle had always felt perfectly ordinary.
She was never the smartest kid in class, nor did she particularly struggle more than the other kids.
Nursing school had been tough, but she worked hard and got her degree.
She was special, say, to her mum, but to the rest of the world, Michelle was just…
normal. If she’d been harbouring these amazing magical powers, wouldn’t she have known, somehow?
They were meeting the witches in some field half an hour’s drive away.
Michelle had asked whether it wouldn’t make more sense for the witches to come to the mansion, but Lavinia had explained that Thornblood was protected by various measures that prevented magic.
“Iron in the walls, underground salt circle, that kind of thing,” she’d said, like any of that meant anything to Michelle.
Additionally, the vampires didn’t trust the witches not to spy on them or to try to find faults in their anti-witchery protections.
The witches, on the other hand, seemed not particularly keen to be surrounded by a brood of warrior vampires on their own turf either.
So, a neutral space was negotiated, away from human eyes.
“Couldn’t they have chosen anything indoors?” Michelle asked as they walked the last couple of hundred yards through a grey drizzle of rain. It beaded on her coat, somehow soaking her hair.
Lavinia shrugged beside her. Vesta simply said, “Witches.”
It had been decided that Vesta would accompany her, in addition to Lavinia.
Lavinia herself refused to budge from Michelle’s side, and Michelle was incredibly grateful for her familiar presence now.
Vesta, too, was formidable in her own way.
She was almost impossibly beautiful, with waist-length blonde hair and alabaster skin, wearing loose flowing dresses that somehow just skimmed above the dewed grass.
She was what Michelle imagined a goddess would look like, and she found herself somewhat awed by her presence.
Michelle had also seen several daggers disappear between the folds of Vesta’s dress.
She might seem serene and angelic, but Michelle was certain she could hold her own in a fight.
Despite Vesta’s pristine beauty, Michelle found her eyes being drawn to Lavinia.
She marvelled at the green of her eyes, brought out by the grasses and hedges they walked past. Of the two, she very much preferred Lavinia’s clean handsomeness, a slightly more down-to-earth loveliness, than Vesta’s ethereal beauty.
They made their way to a muddy path striated with old knobbly roots.
The track slid between two rows of tall hedges, and they entered a clearing sheltered by the far-reaching branches of oaks, their leaves yellowing in the October breeze.
Three figures stood in front of the majestic trunk of a willow.
The witches, Michelle assumed, though they looked just like anyone else.
It was almost disappointing, in a way. All morning, images of pop-culture witches wearing pointy hats and floor-length black cloaks had darted through her mind.
Lavinia had also warned her that the witches might resort to tricks, like appearing out of thin air.
A nervous laugh tickled the back of her throat at the solemn looks of the three figures, one a child, one a bearded man in his twenties, and an older woman.
They looked no more sinister than a family on a day’s outing in the woods.
The urge to laugh faded when they stopped within a couple of paces from the witches.
It wasn’t just that Michelle feared what would happen now, although she did.
Nor was it the solemnity with which the three gazed at them.
There was something uncanny about the space itself.
There was no sound besides the whisper of the leaves of the tree—no birdsong.
Even though Michelle was a London-born city girl through and through, she had spent enough school holidays camping in the British countryside, and none of it had felt like this.
It was like a blanket cloaked them from the surrounding area; like they were enveloped by something, some energy.
She couldn’t explain it rationally, but she could feel something like electric static tingling and raising the tiny hairs on her arms.
Lavinia gently pressed a steadying hand onto her back. She hadn’t even realised she’d lost her balance.
Vesta spoke first. “As per the council’s request, the Sisterhood presents Michelle Hughes.”
“Thank you,” the man in the middle said.
He was tall, and his red hair and beard shone golden in the grey light.
With his flannel shirt and heavy work boots, he exuded the rugged air of a man comfortable in the outdoors.
“Michelle, my name is Arran. These are Althea,” he gestured towards the older woman at his right hand, “And Balor.” He indicated the child on his left side.
The boy looked to be about eight and wore a simple moss-green tunic over loose trousers.
Michelle didn’t like the way he looked at her: there was something in his face that didn’t suit the youth of his body.
There was nothing of the energetic clumsiness of the child in the way he stood, or the disdain in the corners of his mouth.
The worst, however, were his eyes. They were completely black, showing not even a sliver of iris or white.
Michelle forced herself to look back at Arran, a cold shiver running down her spine.
“Hello,” she said uncertainly.
“All witches potentate are tested through the same three trials: earth, soul, and sky. If you have any magic in your veins, it will answer the call. If there isn’t…” He shrugged. “We will be on our way, and you may return to the Sisterhood.”
“And if I do? Have magic, I mean.”
“Then you will be subject to our laws and will complete an apprenticeship according to our custom.” Lavinia’s hand on Michelle’s back twitched. Michelle, too, tensed. Arran’s words sounded pretty damn ominous. She had no intention of going anywhere with these people, least of all the creepy child.
“The first trial is earth, which will be administered by me.” He gestured for Michelle to step forward.
As she did so, Lavinia’s hand slid away from her back.
She wished she could go back, flanked by the vampire warriors.
They were intimidating in their own way, but they made her feel safe.
These witches, on the other hand, she didn’t trust at all.
“Hold out your hands, palms up.” Michelle did as he directed.
Arran took two stones from his pocket and placed one in each of her palms. They were crystals of some kind, still somewhat warm to the touch.
One was a chocolate brown, roughly textured.
The other was a beautifully polished and clear violet.
She held each of them, feeling the slight weight of them in her palms. She looked back at Arran, who frowned.
Was she supposed to do anything with them? Make them move or something, like telekinesis? Before she could contemplate this further, Arran snatched the stones back. “Right,” he said, and returned to his companions. Michelle couldn’t tell whether he was disappointed or merely annoyed.
“The next trial is air, which will be administered by Althea.”
The older woman stepped forward now. She wore her grey hair in a braid down her back, and her grey eyes reminded Michelle of the stone of an ancient fortress.
“Your hand,” Althea said, and this time a soft white feather was placed in her palm. Its barbs waved gently in the breeze, but the feather didn’t lift off into the wind. Again, Althea observed her for a moment, then took the feather back.
These trials were incredibly puzzling. Was she supposed to know what to do with these stones and the feather?
Were they expecting some sort of magic trick?
If that was the case, they were certainly barking up the wrong tree.
All of Michelle’s life had been perfectly ordinary until a couple of weeks ago.
Althea returned to her place without a further word, but she wore a sour expression. Michelle felt like she had somehow disappointed her.
“The final trial is that of soul, administered by Balor.”
Michelle repressed the urge to step backwards as the creepy child approached her.
She held out her hand again, expecting some other thing to be placed on it.
Instead, the boy grasped her right hand in his, his black eyes boring into hers.
Thoughts flitted through her mind: the sound of drawers opening and closing, nimble little fingers leafing through pages, the searching beam of a lighthouse converging, converging.
The thin layer of sweat on Balor’s warm, small hand clung to hers.
A rustling of leaves, snatches of long-lost voices.
Then Balor, without warning, cast her hand away from his.
His unnerving eyes slid away from her, as if she were of no more interest to him than a speck of mud.
He stepped back to his fellow witches, and Michelle stopped herself from wiping her hand on her jeans.
It was ridiculous, but somehow it now felt unclean.
The witches didn’t speak to each other to compare notes or impressions. They didn’t need to, apparently.
“The trials have concluded,” Arran said.
“And?” Whatever these tests had been, Michelle was pretty sure she had failed.
There had been no majestic surge of amazing power, or latent trickery that she could suddenly access.
She had no idea what that would look or feel like.
All she knew was that she felt just like she always had, except perhaps some additional embarrassment over standing in the middle of a clearing with a couple of vampires and triad of witches.
Balor answered, his voice eerily high yet resonant. It was as if every word had an echo that chased his speech. “Your magic is infinitesimal. It is a spark without a flame, a minute flicker of desperation.”
“Does this mean I have to come with you?” Michelle didn’t voice her second question: does this mean I’m a witch?
Althea sneered. Arran, only barely more political, said, “No. It would not be worthwhile to train you. Perhaps the flame could have been ignited in you when you were still malleable and young. It will now stay dormant.”
Barely a witch then. Perhaps not even a witch at all.
It was an incredible relief. While Michelle liked Practical Magic as much as the next person, she couldn’t imagine going with them.
She briefly imagined having to live with the creepy child, his unrelentingly black eyes following her throughout her day.
It was the stuff of nightmares. “Right. Well. Thank you for your time.” The platitude came out rather limply, but she didn’t know what else to say.
The witches, now that the main event was over, seemed to have lost any interest in her. Arran turned to Vesta.
“Regarding our shared enemies. We are closing in on the warlock. Once they are caught, we will share any further information we can glean from him with the Sisterhood to seek out the rogue they are in communication with.”
Vesta inclined her head. She made it look graceful and natural. “The Sisterhood thanks the Council for their generous openness regarding this issue. We look forward to a return to normality and our accustomed peace and prosperity.”
“Indeed.” Arran nodded to Vesta and Lavinia and, without any further glance to Michelle, the three witches turned, walking straight into the solid tree trunk they had stood in front of.
Michelle blinked twice, not trusting her eyes.
As they stepped into it, the bark somehow became translucent, as if made from the thinnest of weaves, and the witches were swallowed up into its depths.
Michelle had seen some weird things over these last couple of weeks—hell, she had even done some strange things, like offering her blood to a vampire—but this took the cake.
Lavinia shook her head. “Told you. Damn witches.”
“Not here,” Vesta warned. With a graceful gesture of one arm, she broke the hold that this show of the impossible had cast on Michelle and guided them out of the clearing. Walking back to the car, Michelle fell into step beside Lavinia. “The witches freak me out.”
“They unsettle me too. Many of us think they do so on purpose.”
Michelle shivered, and not because of the grey drizzle steadily drifting from the clouds. “I’m glad I don’t have to go with them.”
Lavinia glanced down at her, her green eyes darkened by the leaden sky. “Me too.”