Chapter 32 This is Where We Rise
Nine women gathered in the early morning before the sun could grace the grounds of the graveyard.
They had each awoken with a sense of what was to come.
They were on the precipice of something great - good or bad.
But as they quietly met in Ursula's garden, fog curling around shins, each of them with jars of moonlight and mugs of coffee or tea, they knew that what they were about to fight for was more than just their coven.
That alone would be enough.
But this was bigger.
This was about women. This was about taking back the power that a group of people decided they shouldn't have, merely because they didn't understand it, didn't have it themselves. Maybe some even feared it.
Throughout time women were always one group of powerful people's decision away from losing their rights. It was written in history, in blood and poison. It was rooted in how society saw women - a threat that they called weak in the hopes of it manifesting.
Women laughed at weakness.
Their wombs laughed. Their shoulders which carried more weight than advisable smiled at weakness. Even as their minds worried over the lies sold to them about their own weakness, their bodies and their souls and the magic in everything they touched knew - there was no such thing as a weak woman.
It was powerful, this knowledge. A power so bold that a new lie is woven around the bones of a woman's age, calling her spoiled or expired.
How do we keep her from finding out the secret? the world has whispered throughout time.
Keep them apart from each other.
The power of a woman is strong. But the power of women who show each other their worth and celebrate it; that is unstoppable.
And that was a power they would need to fight for.
They walked silently, the sounds of the morning forest the music, and the inner voices of fear and uncertainty loud to each of them.
Tilly could feel it all.
Every dip of the stomach, overwhelmed beat of a heart, racing of the mind. It was all so poignant that she couldn't focus on her own fears and the old voice of anxiety that had been coming knocking lately.
She felt her sisters here, hands linked around the gravestones of women before who were not trusted to be themselves.
There was a sudden rush of rage; red and fire filled Tilly and she looked around the circle as others did the same, looking for the source of whatever they were feeling.
What was that?
Who was that?
And then they watched as ten apparitions appeared in the center of them. They were indiscernible, all the same size with no distinguishing features, but each had a milky light in their center, pulsing and bright. A lifesource.
The lost souls.
They watched entranced, afraid to breathe as the ghostlike figures merged together into one large figure, the lights combining into a large moon hovering between them beautifully.
Maybe it was their souls, joining in whatever this was.
They silently watched as it shot up into the sky, a silent moment of pause as darkness swallowed it before an explosion of light appeared above the treetops.
A moonlight firework that pulled gasps, hands clenching hands, eyes wide as they all watched. The falling silver embers fell like shooting stars in the sky as early light kissed their tails, bringing out the reds and oranges of the leaves as the sun ascended.
There was an eerie calm that surrounded them all and everything quieted. The trees did not sway, the stars faded into the rising sheet of morning, the frogs stopped their billowing and the crickets quieted their song.
A swelling of the world around them made the ground and the trees bend unnaturally, the night sky dipped down like it meant to touch the tops of their heads and they held their breaths until everything expanded and then snapped back.
Their confusion turned to surprise when they realized that there was another figure standing among them.
She was tall with thick and slightly chaotic red hair hanging over her shoulders and breasts, her body covered in a flowing cape of green. She looked out of place, not from this time or space, and yet how she held herself and looked around at the women spoke of power.
A stab of anger and bloated pain filled Tilly. Her eyes cut to Crystal who watched the newcomer with a sadness that Tilly knew - deep betrayal.
"Margaret," Crystal finally said, drawing everyone's attention to where she stood.
"Margaret, like your Brutus?" Jen's whispered voice held sparks.
The woman in question turned her eyes to Jen, calculating before she turned back to Crystal and walked toward her with her hands out.
"Crystal," her smooth voice was higher pitched, lending her a youthful quality.
When she stopped directly in front of Crystal, they watched silently as she slowly placed her hands into the woman's outstretched ones.
There was no friendship here. Their eyes didn't soften, their mouths didn't turn up in an, oh thank goodness it's you.
But there was history in the way that their hands clasped and let go, the way that Crystal's eyes shuttered in protection and the other woman's sought hers out.
"Thank you for coming," Crystal finally said.
"Wait, you called on this cheek-kissing Judas? On purpose?" Bess's tone was filled with shock and derision.
The woman swung her gaze to where Bess stood with her arms crossed and eyes hard.
She tilted her head, her thick hair shifting over her shoulder as she narrowed her eyes.
They were wider apart than was usual, making her face seem open and wide.
"Interesting," she hummed. "A lot of power in this ring. "
Ursula and Eloise shared a look and both stepped closer to Bess as Margaret stared at her.
"Spirits feel welcomed here and the earth clearly bends itself to you." She was looking around the ground and up to the tops of the trees and the sky. They watched her map out their sacred place.
"No thanks to you for binding Crystal's magic," Bess said.
Both Ursula and Eloise sighed.
Her dark eyes swung back to the teenager. She walked toward her slowly, and Ursula put a protective arm around her shoulder which Margaret's eyes clocked, but it didn't deter her until she stood directly in front of Bess, looking over her face, her eyes scrutinizing and calculating.
"You're young."
The statement made Bess frown, uncertain how it was meant but Ursula spoke up.
"Back up."
The command was strong and Margaret raised an eyebrow before she did just that. She said through a half smile, "Be careful with much power in bones so young."
Ursula squeezed a confused Bess to her tighter.
"Margaret, you have a few people here that belong to The Covenant."
Her wide eyes found Crystal again and she nodded. "Yes. Astra leads The Covenant's sector for illegal magic. She's quite smart and ambitious."
"The only illegal magic here is theirs."
There was a flash in her eyes. "Bold statement. Could it be born from our bad blood, Crystal?" She stepped toward Crystal again. "I know you harbor anger with me, and I understand it. But our world needed stronger boundaries."
"Our world didn't need rules about who is good enough, by your definition, for magic."
"But if we don't have rules, then just anyone can use magic."
"You know that's not how magic works," Crystal responded evenly, calm.
They watched her with her relaxed shoulders and head high, her voice strong but unbothered.
"We always took care of dark magic and its wielders.
You wanted to control who handled pure magic and that never was ours to control, to give or take away. "
"Difference of fundamental opinion."
Crystal hummed. Old arguments, the grooves of which had been carved out between them long ago.
"Bad blood aside, your mentee has overstepped. And more interesting to you, has used dark magic."A flash in Margaret's eyes showed how dangerous Crystal's words were."Astra would not use dark magic. That is not up for debate, regardless of fundamental disputes."
What wasn't said, but tucked between her careful words and tone was an implication of Astra and her great mentor finding disagreement.
Crystal wondered how deep those grooves went.
She wondered much more than that, but as that wasn't her battle to fight, she didn't touch it.
Crystal flicked her hand. "If you don't want to investigate, then your presence is no longer needed."
Her shift, her air of indifference and the ease of her movements when she turned away from Margaret the leader of the most powerful coven was remarkable.
"Astra is lying," Tilly blurted. She had been holding the words inside of her since she first suspected it.
The woman tilted her head. Every move she made was calculated.
"I could feel it," she explained. "Dark magic has taken over our town, just look around. Feel the air."
Margaret lifted her eyes surveying their surroundings again. The trees swayed, pushing the autumn cool air back and forth.
"The use of dark magic will be investigated," she said slowly. "But it was reported as used by you. The Lost Souls Coven. Catchy name, if not a little dramatic."
Crystal smiled at her. "Come ladies," she beckoned and they followed after her, each with one last look given to the woman who watched them with serious, narrowed eyes.
"You know," Crystal paused, not looking at Margaret, but turning her head just so. "Your betrayal left something inside of my bones. I grew. I survived. I flourished." She turned her head fully until her blue eyes touched the other woman's. "I wonder if you would."
And then she continued, leaving behind those words like a living thing at the feet of the most powerful witch in the world to grapple with.
"What do we do?" Jen was the first to speak as they walked from the graveyard to the house.
Everyone naturally looked to Crystal who still had her head tilted to the sky, her delicate neck white and vulnerable. Tilly thought that she looked so human at this moment.