What was I thinking? This was a terrible idea. Probably one of my worst, and given my track record, that was saying something.
Here I was, standing in a field outside of New Orleans, 2505 miles away from home, all because a woman at a crystal shop had suggested I attend a magic retreat. Sure, this particular retreat was heralded as the best in the country, but given that I was a complete novice, did it really matter? I didn’t know up from down when it came to the occult. They could teach us how to use a Ouija board and I’d be happy. So why had I thought traveling so far from my house, using all my savings, was a rock-solid plan?
Because I was a lunatic with terrible decision-making skills, that was why.
I sighed and scratched my head. Then shook it.
But I didn’t turn and leave.
Something was missing from my life. Something that gnawed at my gut and frayed my nerves. I didn’t feel complete. For some reason I couldn’t understand, this was what kept drawing me in.
Well, not this, per se. Not the church I stood awkwardly in front of, strangely removed from civilization. Or the giant price tag on the journey. Or even the lying I’d done to my mother to come this far for something I probably could’ve found much closer. But witchcraft. Magic. The secrets hidden within the majesty of nature.
My mother thought I was in Eugene, Oregon, looking at haunted houses with my best friend Veronica. She would’ve lost it if she’d known the truth.
I shouldn’t have lied to her. It wasn’t that she was unreasonable, after all, it was that—
No, she was unreasonable. I’d already lied to her; I didn’t need to lie to myself.
The only way I could’ve gotten her permission to attend this retreat was if I’d sat her down in her favorite chair, plied her with a plate of brownies and an obscene amount of alcohol, told her what I’d planned while she was roaring drunk, and then snuck out before she regained her senses. In any other scenario, she would’ve forbidden it. Didn’t matter that I was twenty-four years old.
That wasn’t why it was a terrible idea.
I surveyed my destination—a large church flanked by weepy trees and surrounded by Louisiana’s flatland. Shadows draped across the oddly shaped structure, stones stuck together with mortar and tired souls. Large, gothic-style windows dotted the front. Gargoyles crouched near the roof, their mouths open and waiting.
There was no way this church had come from this century. Or this continent, for this matter. When it came to an old-world feel, New Orleans couldn’t hold a candle to this structure. The church was as out of place here as I was.
I blew out a breath and closed my eyes.
The dark cloud of intent hung heavy over the grounds surrounding the structure. Coated the walls and pooled at the base. Evil purpose existed in that church, I knew it. It lingered and it waited, hoping someone would mold its energy into a useable design bent on destruction. All it needed was the right tweak, and anything alive inside would meet its maker in a horrible, gruesome death.
Wow.
I ran my hand over my face. My imagination was running amok, even by my standards.
I glanced down the lane where brown dust billowed up from behind the retreating cab. My flip phone from yesteryear sat quietly in my clenched fist. Looking back at the church and the animosity hanging invisibly in the air, I thought this all through one more time.
On the one hand, I was going against everything my mother had always said—every rule she’d ever made—and throwing myself into the deep end without much more than internet searches, a wing, and a prayer. I was seeking insight and practical knowledge on something she had expressly forbidden me to pursue. Something she’d tried to guard against with threats and really itchy powders.
Something that had killed my father.
But on the other hand… I knew I had a little spark of magic in me. I knew it. Despite my mother’s favorite saying—all women have premonitions, intuition, and a natural talent for mischief, and you, Penny Bristol, have the same dose as everyone else—it certainly didn’t seem that way. My best friend Veronica couldn’t make a mixing bowl explode by filling it with the right combination of glue, sage, and honey. She’d tried, and nothing had happened besides wasted ingredients. My mother couldn’t make the pictures come to life in the untitled red volume stuffed between the dictionary and the book on medicinal uses of herbs in her workroom. She didn’t even view the passages the same way, like sleeping wonders waiting to be awoken by the soft whisper of words.
And wasn’t Greta the mail lady always eerily surprised when I recited for her what she’d just dropped off into our mailbox without seeing the letters for myself?
Well…she’d accused me of spying on her with hidden cameras, which was nearly the same thing. I felt like they belonged in the same camp.
All of those things hinted at magic flowing through my blood. Didn’t they?
You just have a temperamental third eye, dear. You get that from your father, God rest his soul. You’d do best to ignore it, lest you wind up in jail.
I gritted my teeth and shoved my mother’s voice away.
I did have a bit of magic. I knew I did. And I was tired of pretending I was normal when I felt anything but. I was tired of being an outcast, however much I tried to fit in. If there was a hope that I belonged here, belonged anywhere, I wanted to check it out. Just once.
And really, what harm could any of this do? I’d read reviews and testimonials about this retreat, and they’d all been glowing. It even had a positive Yelp score. The setting—just outside of New Orleans, in a rustic church—only made it more delightful. According to my research, and I’d been fairly thorough, this was an ideal retreat for beginners.
My smile turned into a grimace as I looked at the church.
Rustic wasn’t the word I’d use.
Decrepit was a better choice.
“Haunted with the blood of the lost” was a string of words that might also apply.
“Soul eater” and “life stealer” would have also been accurate choices for the online brochure.
I worried a rock with my toe.
Did I listen to my temperamental third eye, which definitely failed me at least half the time, or my heart, which said I needed to learn this side of myself, if only to see if these feelings were real?
I sighed. This was stupid. I was an idiot, but I hadn’t come all this way to balk in the final hour. Sure, there was a Cloud of Doom hanging over the church, and yes, the ancient building was somehow in a place it did not belong. But after twenty-four boring, dutiful years spent living in my mother’s shadow, it was time to seize the day. To stretch my comfort zone.
Doing my best to ignore the butterflies filling my stomach, I stepped forward. My feet didn’t make a sound on the squishy grass. As I moved closer to the large wooden door, energy prickled across my exposed skin and soaked into my middle. My guts danced with unease.
Summoning my courage and hoping all this was all just a trick of my imagination, I grabbed hold of the large iron handle and pulled the door open.
A musty smell accosted me, like I was unsealing a centuries-old chamber that had been closed up tight. Cold, damp air replaced the warm stickiness from outside. A few wooden benches dotted the mostly empty floor in the spacious room.
A cluster of men looked up in expectation and the room fell silent—their conversation halted, their eyes hard.
“H-hi,” I stammered, then cleared my throat and straightened my spine. I knew a thing or two about bullies, thanks to all of stupid Billy Timmons’s tormenting, and one thing you couldn’t do was look small and weak. I might as well paint a big red target on my forehead. “H-hey.”
It would have to do.
The closest man, a burly guy with a permanent sneer, hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “In there. You’re late.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled, and gave them a wide berth.
I paused at the door at the back of the large main room. It wasn’t a great idea to wander through this pit of doom blindly. I needed to scout out exit plans in case my temperamental third eye wasn’t being temperamental at all.
Turning back, I noticed another man walk in through the main door. Young, gangly, but stiff, he walked into the cursed church like he owned it. He patted the satchel at his side, and I realized all the men had accessorized similarly. Not a lot of originality in man-purses for this crew.
To the right and left there were single doors that presumably led to smaller rooms beyond. Unless flying brooms were real, and these guys lent them out at the retreat, the windows along the front of the building were much too high for a person to break through in a mad dash. Unless there was a back door, there was only one reliable exit.
Letting out a slow exhale to release some of my pent-up anxiety, I quietly opened the door the burly guy had indicated and stepped through, not disturbing the sudden raucous carry-on of the men. The back room spread out before me, and I had to stop and take it all in before I could look for my contact. It wasn’t your average setup.
Understatement of the century.
Running the entire width of the church, the space was unexpectedly gigantic—equally as deep as the previous room. The hard, uneven stone floor stretched out in front of me, shinier than the walls. Polished, almost. Ahead, a big fissure cut across it, four feet wide and as long as the room. I inched forward to see if it was a fire pit, or something like that, but as I progressed, the bottom remained elusive. It had to be pretty deep. “Feed the snakes with a virgin” kind of deep.
Beyond the pit was a slightly raised area where a big cauldron sat off to the left, and a podium stood in the center. Maybe that was where they’d lecture? I excelled in school. That method of fact delivery was fine by me. Though…the strange pit separating the professor from the students was jarring. Would we be thrown to our deaths if we didn’t pay attention?
A sludgy, get-out-of-there-while-you-still-can feeling rolled over me, prickling my skin, as I caught sight of a group of women chatting in the corner on my side of the pit. They all leaned over a shared sheet of paper. One reached forward and traced a line with her pointer finger.
Nervousness ate through my middle like a cancer. I skulked closer while trying not to fidget, my unease at meeting new people warring with my desire to seem confident. One of the women glanced over, her pale skin framed by a thick mop of black hair. She nudged a portly woman next to her, and her neighbor jerked up her round face to study me.
I smiled, something that probably looked strained. “Is one of you…Tessa?” I asked.
The rest of the women looked up, the expressions ranging from curious to surprised. An older woman with graying hair bobbed around her face took a step away from the others. Her eyes narrowed as they studied me.
“I’m Tessa,” she said in a cautious way. “And you would be…?”
“Penny. Penny Bristol. I emailed you. Several times. About the retreat?”
Silence filled the room, only interrupted by one woman shifting. Her shoe scraped against the stone floor.
“The retreat on…witchcraft?” I said, hoping that might jog someone’s memory. This was a little awkward, to say the least. The retreat’s Yelp page was going to get a piece of my mind.
“You’re so young,” Tessa said, stepping closer.
I frowned, swiftly running my gaze over their group. While I was certainly the youngest, I didn’t stand out that much. The next youngest probably had fifteen years on me. That didn’t seem like much of a cause for ageism.
Although perhaps it could be said that Billy Timmons had a point, and my large alien eyes, the clear skin I tried desperately to hide from the sun for fear of sunburn, and the wilting posture I couldn’t shake at the moment (if only they’d stop staring!) conspired to make me look much younger than my actual age.
“I’m twenty-four,” I said confidently.
“Yes,” Tessa said. “And you were able to cross the barrier.”
“I…didn’t see a barrier. There was just a lane, some strange grass, and this church.”
“You passed through the doors of the church.”
My smile had probably turned a little toothy at this point. Holding it in place was starting to get difficult, because of course I had passed through the door. I was standing right in front of them. What other way would I have gotten in? With a Batman belt and some climbing gloves?
“Yes,” I said.
“Yes,” she repeated.
“This is the witchcraft retreat, isn’t it?” I ventured.
A couple of the women chuckled softly and the group as a whole twisted and turned, looking at one another. A smile slowly crept up Tessa’s face.
“No,” she said, cool as day. “That was last weekend. We had a shift in plans. I thought we’d contacted everyone.”
I could feel the blood drain from my face. Coldness washed through my body, followed by a blast of alarm. I’d paid for the tickets and lodging with my scant savings. I’d lied to my mother, flown halfway across the country, and suffered a constant stomachache from the spices that seemed so prevalent in the French Quarter, all to attend a retreat that I’d missed? Even if they refunded me for the retreat ticket, all that other money was out the window.
“She passed through the barrier, so there must be power in her,” the portly woman said, studying me with a narrow-eyed gaze. “Maybe this misunderstanding was fate.”
Fate, or my grabby spam folder…
A gleam sparkled in Tessa’s eyes. “Yes. Exactly right, Beatrice. I had not thought of that.” The women continued to exchange those quiet, knowing glances before shifting their attention back to Tessa.
“Okay, young Penny.” She smiled at me, an inclusive, sweet, witchy sort of expression. This was why I’d signed up in the first place. My sigh coincided with my shoulders relaxing. “Our coven must take responsibility for the confusion. As such, we will invite you into our fold for our activities here today. You may watch and participate as you can, depending on your power and your experience level—” I held my tongue to prevent myself from telling her I had very little of one, and none of the other. “We’ve been called here for a specific purpose, and you’ll get to experience that. Think of this as a rare gift, because it is not often a new witch, such as yourself, would be invited to something like this.”
Excitement built within me. It was a gift, definitely. I would get a real glimpse of the forbidden world of magic and the sisterhood that went with it. I could scarcely wait. “Thank you,” I gushed.
The door to the main body of the church burst open. A few of the men from earlier sauntered in, their man-purses proudly draped at their sides.
“What are you still doing here?” one of the men said to Tessa in annoyance. “They’re getting ready to cast the spell outside. Time is running out, and they need to bring in the vamp.”
Did he just say vamp? As in…vampire?
I grinned, clearly hearing things, and earned a scowl for it. Or maybe he just had resting snarl face.
“We were just leaving,” Tessa said frostily.
“See that you do,” he spat back.
“Vile,” one of the women murmured as Tessa turned with a straight back and marched for the nearest door. Unless there was some sort of spatial trickery afoot in the church, the door would lead to one of the smaller rooms adjoined to the main room I’d entered. “Just because they’re mages, and we’re witches, they think they’re on a higher level than us.”
“They are on a higher level than us,” someone said as Tessa opened the door. She stepped through and gestured for us to follow her.
“In magic, sure, but not in social status,” Beatrice replied.
“They’re barely mages, anyway,” a gaunt-faced woman said. “They were witches before they were somehow elevated in status. Oh how quickly they forget.”
Apparently the term witch applied to both women and men. There you were. I’d already learned something.
“They were?” someone asked as we entered a rectangular room with another large black cauldron set up in the middle.
“Yes, didn’t you hear?” Gaunt Face said. “They were witches before the high mage approached them. Then, suddenly, they became mages. I find it all rather suspect.”
“And I think it’s a golden opportunity,” a woman with a tight bun replied. “I’ve never heard of that ability, but if it’s true, I want in on it.”
“It could be illegal!” someone spat out.
“We use magic,” Tight Bun said with a scowl. “We have one foot in the human world and one foot in the magical world. What is illegal in one place might not be illegal in another. I vote for leveling up and showing those boys out there what a bunch of determined women can do.”
“Yeah!” Beatrice pumped her fist. It didn’t take much to rile her up, clearly.
“In the human world, you go to jail,” a woman with a large bosom said. Her tone was flat, logical. “But if you break any of the rules set by magical people, there is no telling who you’ll have to face. Can you imagine Roger sending his shifters after you? Would you want Vlad as your enemy?”
The group collectively shivered. I widened my eyes, playing those words over in my head again.
“Do you mean shifters like…shape shifters?” I asked in a small voice. I felt ridiculous for even voicing the words.
But no one heard me. Or if they did, they weren’t interested in answering.
“Maybe this is a test,” Beatrice said with a pinched mouth. “So far, the high mage hasn’t asked any women to join his army, but here we are, helping out. Ready to defend the church and battle evil. Maybe this is a trial.”
“Sorry, wait…” I blinked too many times in an effort to wrap my brain around this new string of information. “Battle evil?”
“Ladies,” Tessa said as she held up the sheet of paper they’d been poring over earlier. She made a circle in the air, indicating they should circle around the cauldron. “Let’s get started. We’re behind schedule.”
“Okay, but—” Beatrice grabbed my upper arm and moved me to a place within the circle they were creating. “We’re not here to fight or anything, right?” I asked her.
She smiled and turned her eyes skyward. “Don’t be silly. We’re on potion duty. The mages will do the fighting. Now…” She resumed analysis of the paper, probably missing the alarm I knew was plastered across my face. Or maybe she just didn’t care. “This is very advanced. Lots of steps. We’re going to have to be careful or this defensive measure won’t materialize.” She brought up a pointer finger, and I thought she was going to jab the paper. Instead, she threaded it into the hair at her temple and scratched, the dry sound making me crinkle my nose. “Let me just look over it…”
As I was eyeing everyone to gauge whether they’d give chase if I ran, a strange sensation crawled up my middle. I gasped as it opened up like a blooming flower, spreading tingles and heat through my body. I noticed the small piles of herbs and other ingredients placed at intervals around the cauldron. My mind sparked with recognition of each item, adding to that strange feeling in my middle.
I knew what all the herbs were from studying my mom’s book on medicinal herbs and reading book after endless book on the subject in the library, but I also had a sense for how particular herbs fit together. Like, sometimes when I cooked, I could feel which ingredients would work best with what in order to obtain my desired outcome.
But the feeling had never been this strong. I had never been this sure.
I glanced up at the high ceiling. Then shifted my gaze to the stained glass windows at the front of the room. That cloud of evil intent still hung heavily around the church, but the energy within it sang. It called to me. Begging me to use it. To shape it.
I took the sheet of paper from Tessa before even registering I’d moved. Instead of sprinting for the door and calling for a cab, I slipped my phone into my pocket, adjusted the canvas purse draped against my side, and lifted my chin. I was assuming control. I had no idea why, or what would happen next.
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