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 societysaw 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.
