Eva #2
I stand in the center of the room and clear my thoughts. I’ve been hesitant to conjure anything since Sorren showed up in my house, but a common little summoning charm shouldn’t be too risky.
I picture my grandmother, with the pendant around her neck. The way she would rub it between her thumb and finger. How she would bend down and trace the lines with her finger, showing me how to draw one without lifting up my pencil.
I listen for her soft voice saying the rune’s charm.
Draw six petals, never changing.
Come together, rearranging.
Trap the one who calls me foe.
Protect me from the idle woe.
In a dark corner of the attic a box shakes, its contents rattling against each other. I open my eyes and smile at Sorren, “Look at that, I do know how to summon after all.”
I flip open the lid, and the iron daisy wheel flies directly into my hand.
That evening, my thumb finds the charm again and again, rubbing it absently while my mind wanders somewhere else entirely. My mom notices what I'm wearing and quirks her head, curious why I've got it on.
I tuck it under my sweater and put my hands in my lap, doing my best to sit still.
Fiddling with the necklace has kept me from bouncing my knee or scrolling on my phone through the coven gathering.
I always get dirty looks from the rest of the witches when the phone comes out.
It’s not that I’m not paying attention, it’s that playing a mindless game helps me focus better on what they are talking about.
My hands feel like they always need something to do.
The regular business of the coven seems to take longer than usual. I faintly hear them chatting through the coven’s assets over the noise of my thoughts.
The tarot reading room is struggling along, not many repeat customers since the cards have been inconclusive. The witches who were once powerful readers have been losing their sight the longer the leylines are closed.
The booth at the farmers market is slow as well. The only business that’s thriving is the café. I know my little coffee shop is an important piece of the coven’s financial situation, and I’m proud I can contribute in that way. But sometimes, like today, I feel the mounting pressure.
The financial reporting agenda item comes to an end and up next is open discussion.
My heart rate picks up with anticipation.
It’s time we put all our cards on the table.
If Paige doesn’t bring up the coven separation, I’m going to.
This should have been discussed years ago.
I look around the room, noting all the witches who already know, versus those of us in my generation who were kept in the dark.
I stare Aunt Paige down until she meets my gaze. She nods, knowing what I’m thinking without me having to say.
“Now for open discussion,” Siobhan says. She pushes back her long silver streaked hair behind her shoulders. Her wisdom has held us together through the struggles of the last ten years.
That’s my signal.
I open my mouth to speak, but Paige beats me to it.
“It is time we discuss a dark time in our coven’s history.” She pauses to look around the room. “This is a painful thing for many of us to even think about, let alone discuss. Many of us lost women we loved. Our sisterhood was torn apart by dark forces.”
“What are you talking about?” Willow, a witch a few years older than me, asks.
Her mother takes over for Paige. “Two generations ago, a witch in our coven discovered a magick that went against what we stand for. Rather than putting love and energy back into Mother Earth, it took from Her. The witch found that by hurting others, it unlocked a dark power.” My mom looks to her sister, who continues for her.
“She learned to portal to the underworld, a place no witch had stepped foot in for centuries. She disrupted a peace that had been negotiated long ago by attacking a demon.” Paige’s face is hard as she tells the terrible story.
I try to picture it—a witch crossing into a place none of us were ever meant to go. My stomach twists at the thought of what kind of arrogance that must have taken.
Siobhan steps in, looking around the gathered coven as she says, “Some believed this power was wrong, while others were taken in by the possibility of heightened magic. They debated it for years, each side hoping they would convince the other.”
I can't imagine living with a disagreement that long, watching the people I love slowly become strangers.
“Instead of coming together as a coven, factions formed.” Mom’s voice is full of pain as she concludes the history lesson.
“They couldn’t agree on anything, and both sides became more and more entrenched in their beliefs.
Ultimately, a difficult decision had to be made, and thirty-four years ago, a vote was taken.
It resulted in half the coven leaving, severing the sacred bond and forming their own coven in Holloway,” Mom says, the sadness in her voice putting a lump in my throat.
I look around the room again, but this time instead of with a critical eye, I look at these women who are family to me, and imagine how painful it would be if half of them walked out.
This isn’t just history to these women. It was a family, broken in two, and they’ve been carrying the pieces ever since.
In this moment, I finally understand what I'd somehow missed all these years. Since my first lesson on being a witch, it’s been ingrained in me that our magick exists for good.
It’s for healing, protection, and nurturing—never to take.
We've never fought to open the lines because we craved more power.
Power was never the point. The point was hope.
Every line open means more healing, more life, more light poured back into a world that desperately needs it. Our magick has never been measured by what it could conquer, but by what it left behind.
My anger at being kept in the dark evaporates. They weren’t trying to hide anything from us. They were grieving, and I can’t bring myself to blame them for their decision.
“Did they continue the dark magick?” Willow asks, quietly. All of us feeling the heaviness in the air.
“We aren’t sure. It’s been our hope the practice ended when that generation passed beyond the veil.
Truthfully, we chose to ignore it. We didn’t know what to do, and so we turned a blind eye,” Paige answers the question on all of our minds with the cold-hard truth.
The air crackles around us, the sadness and shame pulsing off the witches in the room.
“Could this have something to do with the leylines going dormant?” I ask, trying to find a connection there.
“The timeline doesn’t match up. It was the 1970s when the magick was first used. We think some were doing it in secret for a while, or maybe it stopped and then started back up. The coven split in 1992, and the lines didn’t close until 2013,” Siobhan explains.
She has a point, but I’m not totally discounting the potential connection. There is no way it’s just a coincidence.
“There is no doubt in my mind that the fog was cast by the Holloway coven. It’s right around when Lena Moore showed back up, talking about how our coven is struggling,” Mom announces.
“When the severance happened, there were conditions. They were to never return to Raincrest,” Siobhan says, definitively. “I don’t want to jump to conclusions.”
“I think we should do a protection spell around Raincrest to keep the Holloway witches out,” a witch calls from the back of the room.
“What would that do?” Paige answers. “They know all the same magick we do.”
“Let’s stay vigilant and focus on what is happening with the fog.
If another Holloway witch comes, we can escalate it to the council,” Siobhan proclaims, referring to the advisory group that resides over the covens in our region, drawing the meeting to a close.
With a wave of her hand the candles around the room extinguish, and the house lights come on.
In unison we say, “The circle is closed, yet unbroken.” The words we say at the end of every coven gathering now have a new meaning. Not so long ago, it was broken, and I’m not sure it ever truly healed.