Call Of The Witch (16 page)

I watched Lilith’s expression soften by
degrees. I didn’t know why she was hesitating, but I felt certain
my request was worth any inconvenience it might cause her. She
broke eye contact after what seemed like considerable
contemplation.

“
Okay, fine,” she said.
“We’ll do it, but I’m making no promises.”

“
No. Of course not, no
promises. I understand.”

She pointed to the bedroom. “Go get the black
mirror and the athame.”

I went back to get the items Lilith mentioned
while she gathered the things she would need to cast the circle. By
the time I returned, she was almost done sprinkling brick dust
along a faded nine-foot chalk circle already outlined on the floor
from the last time we called on the Coven. Once done, she began
assigning the candles, lighting and placing them accordingly, all
the while chanting whispers and ancient rhymes.

She set the four primary candles down in a
specific order: yellow, red, blue and green, the prime essentials
in necromantic rituals representing air, fire, water and earth.
Yellow went to the east side of the circle; the remaining three she
positioned on compass points following clockwise: south, west and
north. Her chant, again in ancient rhyme, mimicked the mantra
recited during the dusting of the circle.

As she finished that, I gathered up another
dozen or so candles, all of them white and in glass jars. I
arranged them on the coffee table, stacking them in pyramid fashion
to create an altar of sorts. Lilith handed me some matches to light
them, and then made off to the kitchen to gather the rest of the
elements we would need.

“
Okay,” she said,
returning moments later with two small finger bowls. “Are you
almost done?”

“
Lighting the last one
now,” I told her.

“
Good.” She set the bowls
down, grabbed the bottom of her tee shirt with both hands and
peeled it off over her head. “When you finish that, go on and strip
down. We’ll get started right away.”

“
Strip naked?”

“
Yes, of course, naked. I
want you wearing nothing but a smile.”

“
How come?”

“
Tony, we’re going through
the black mirror. Your clothes can’t go with you. Do you want to
get hung up in the void?”

“
The void?”

“
The emptiness between
dimensions. If you get stuck there, you can never return. You can’t
go forward; you can’t go backwards. You’re just stuck for all
eternity in the vacuum of nothingness.”

“
Hell, I don’t want
that.”

“
Neither do I. Now
strip.”

I didn’t argue. I finished lighting the last
of the white candles, stripped down to just the smile Lilith
requested and pitched my clothes into the corner. “Now what?” I
asked.

She pointed to the altar. We both took up
positions in front of it. She then set the two small bowls that she
got from the kitchen up on the coffee table. One bowl held water;
the other salt, the same ingredients she used the last time we
consecrated a circle. She placed the athame across the top of the
water bowl and whispered, “Mothers of the Coven, thy magick is
sure, cleanse this water. Make it pure.”

She nudged me with her elbow. I said,
“Cleanse this water. Make it pure.”

She placed the athame across the second
bowl. This time I was ready for her. “Mothers of the Coven, thy
magick is sure. Cast thy salt and make it pure.”

“
Cast thy salt and make it
pure.”

Then she took the athame, walked to the east
edge of the circle, pointed it at the yellow candle and blasted it
with a white-hot bolt of lightning. The discharge obliterated the
candle and set one quarter of the circle ablaze from east to
south.

Next, she annihilated the red candle with
similar results, and half the circle was on fire from east to west.
Though the flames were small, they were intensely hot, heating the
brick dust to a molten, bubbling mass in barely an instant. I
stepped aside and allowed her access to the last two candles. Once
she zapped those, the shallow ring of fire encircled us
completely.

She returned to the altar, picked up the
bowl of salt, and poured it into the water. She then dipped the
athame into the water and flicked it at the fire bordering the
east. She began walking the perimeter of the circle, flicking water
from the athame onto the fire and throughout the circle as she
progressed clockwise. Her mantra, as before, in whispered rhymes,
the likes of which I could not understand.

Once done with that, she returned the bowl
to the altar. I placed the black mirror against the bowl, leaning
it back at a sixty-degree angle. Lilith waved the athame over the
mirror three times and began her final call.

“
Hear ye spirits through
this glass,” her words were decidedly louder and more pronounced
than before. “Turn to night and let us pass.” She pressed the tip
of the athame to the face of the mirror.

“
Let us pass,” I said
after she elbowed me lightly again.

Then she took my hand. All around us, tiny
lights began flickering in fleeting specs like shooting stars. I
felt a familiar tingle in my stomach and a cool numbing in my feet.
The room outside the circle faded to black and then disappeared
entirely.

Lilith pressed the athame to the mirror once
more. This time the tip did not stop after touching the glass.
Instead, it passed through it like an open window. The emptiness
swallowed the blade to the hilt, leaving no reflection and no image
beyond.

She withdrew the blade, and the sleek finish
of the black glass rippled. She let it settle before plunging the
blade forward again, this time without stopping. Her hand passed
through the mirror up to her arm and then to her shoulder, and in a
blink, we both passed through the ruffled blackness and found
ourselves suspended in the middle of absolute nowhere.

“
We’re here again!” I
said, referring to the last time Lilith took Ursula and me through
the mirror and delivered us to the strange realm of emptiness.
Nothing but ink-black skies surrounded us, yet Lilith and I could
clearly see each other as if our bodies offered the luminous energy
by which we needed to see. I remember looking down at my feet as
before, where from nothing came a silent rage of light, a tiny spec
that grew in exponential bounds. It charged us like a freight train
through a black tunnel, its light source getting brighter but
illuminating nothing around us.

I felt Lilith give my hand a gentle squeeze,
perhaps sensing my unease, and strangely, that’s all I needed to
feel relaxed. I allowed the rush of light to overtake us, the
breeze it carried raising goose bumps on my bare legs, arms and
buttocks. Lilith must have sensed that too, as I felt her warm hand
let go of mine and rub my butt cheeks briskly.

“
Easy boy,” she said, and
then gave me a final slap.

“
Thanks,” I said in a
voice so hushed I thought she didn’t hear.

She smiled back and whispered, “You’re
welcome.”

In that instant, the breeze that so chilled
me ceased, and a silvery light moved in like fog that bathed me in
utter warmth. I knew at once that the mothers of the Coven were
upon us.

Lilith stepped forward. She arched her back,
her hands high above her head, stretching on tiptoes as if reaching
for the impossible.

“
Mothers of the Coven
receive us. Embrace us thee as thou wilt.”

I don’t know how she knows to do these
things, but she does, and as a witch, I can say that she makes me
damn proud. At her command, a thousand souls appeared before us in
human form. Women of all ages came forward, all naked and glowing
in the light of the fog from which they came. Some looked like
Lilith, tall, young, beautiful with dark hair and eyes and perfect
bodies. Others were older looking, gray-haired, hunched over and
feeble.

And of course there were the children, young
prepubescent girls no older than Kelly. All bore rope burns around
their necks from when they were hanged. I did nothing to cover
myself, remembering Ursula’s words the last time we were there.
“`Tis no shame here,” she said after seeing me put my hands over my
privates. “They appear as we do for our sake, is all.”

Lilith offered outstretched arms and received
the witch I considered the matriarch of the bunch. She looked older
than most in the group, but not the oldest. “Merry meet, Mother
Abigail of Salem,” she said. “Blessed be.”

“
Lilith of New Castle.
Blessed be and merry meet.”

Lilith craned her neck to see past the old
woman. “What hath come of sister Katharine of Newburyport? Hath she
not the time for us this night of nights?”

The old woman shook her head. “`Tis not the
time she lacks but for timing’s sake. There is but another who
calls for her through the dark divide.”

“
Another
witch?”

“
Aye.”

“
In New
Castle?”

“
In Suffolk County
proper.”

“
Be it Ursula of
Salem?”

“
Nay, `tis not blood of
thine nor mine, but that of kindred spirit.”

“
Do I know
her?”

“
If not now, thou shalt
know in time.”

“
I see. Mother Abigail,”
Lilith reached back for my hand and pulled me forward. “We come
seeking your help. We need the power of the Coven to find a lost
child.”

Abigail pointed past Lilith at me. “And who
art thou, this mortal man with thee?”

“
This is my husband,
Anthony of New Castle. He’s a witch. I took him through the rite of
passage.”

“
Husband you
say?”

“
Yes.”

“
I recall no ceremony of
consummation.”

Lilith turned and gave me one of her looks. I
suddenly realized why she was so hesitant in asking the Coven for
help in finding Kelly. “I know, Mother Abigail. Tony and I got
married here before the eyes of the Coven, but we haven’t yet the
chance to consummate.”

“
Doth he cherish not the
vows of matrimony?”

“
No, it’s not that. It’s
me. I’m the one who’s been putting it off. He wants to do it. He
does. He tells me all the time. I keep him waiting.”

“
What hath thee against
this worthy thane?”

“
Nothing. He’s a good
man.” Lilith wrapped her hands around me and pulled me in close. “I
love him as I have loved no other. I want to be with him forever
after.”

“
Then what pray tell keeps
thee from thy sacred obligation?”

“
`Tis no one or no thing,
Mother Abigail, I swear, but for my whim is all. We’ll do it soon,
very soon. I promise. It’s just that this girl, Kelly of New
Castle, she needs us now. She needs our help to find her. Will you
please, I beg of thee.”

Lilith unlocked her fingers and eased away
from me in measured steps. Approaching the seemingly endless line
of onlookers, she said, “This child is lost. She is scared. She has
no one. I’ve tried to locate her through scrying, but I came up
empty. I think if we focused the powers of the Coven, together we
could find her. What say you all?”

“
This child, be she a
witch?”

“
No, ma'am, she is but a
mortal, born to a mortal man and woman.”

“
We shall
confer.”

Mother Abigail turned to the others, splayed
her hands in silent survey and returned to Lilith. I could tell
from the look on the old woman’s face that the news was not
good.

“
Lilith of New Castle,”
Abigail began. “Ours is not a coven of convenience. Thou doth not
but call when thy whim it doth fancy. Such is not the purpose of
the Coven. That and more for certain. What fate doth lie in mortal
hands doth lie beyond our reach. `Tis with heavy heart we return to
thee these words.”

“
What are you
saying?”

“
We cannot help you or the
child.”

“
But Mother Abigail, we
have come––”

“
Our decision is made,
Lilith of New Castle. So say we all. Go now in health. Fair thee
well and prosper until again we meet.”

With that, the women of the Coven faded back
into the silver fog. A brilliant flash of light followed and a gust
of wind as abrupt as a sneeze blew it all away. Once again, Lilith
and I were alone in the darkened void of nowhere. I started to say
something to her, when the invisible bottom fell out from under us.
I grabbed Lilith’s hand and took a deep breath. The sensation for
falling lasted only a few seconds. I felt a sudden jolt as my feet
met the floor. My knees buckled, but I didn’t fall. Slowly, the
room around us came to light. I straightened my back and waited for
the dizziness to pass. I was still holding Lilith’s hand. She
looked so beautiful in the fading firelight of the witch’s circle,
but in her eyes, I could see great disappointment.

“
It’s my fault,” I said,
“isn’t it?”

“
What is?”

“
I didn’t do the
consummation ritual with you. That’s the reason the witches didn’t
want to help us. They think I don’t take witchcraft
seriously.”

“
No. That’s not it. You
heard me tell them it was my fault we hadn’t done it.”

“
I heard you, yes, and
thank you for that by the way. But you didn’t fool anyone. They
knew I was the one that put it off. I’m sorry for that.”