Around a couple more bends, the view opened with the ocean stretching on forever in the distance. The gigantic house was framed by trees and the insane view. In front of the house, a woman sat on a gold blanket reading. She looked like she’d come from a bygone age in a long white dress that had a high collar and sleeves that went down to her elbow, but even though it was conservative in most aspects it was nipped in at the waist, highlighting how tiny it was, and how curvaceous she was. The kicker was the way the skirt, which had a load of embroidery detail on it, was fanned out over the grass. All of that, combined with the way her hair was curled and pinned up, a few stray pieces waving in the breeze, made her breathtaking. She almost looked Edwardian with the dress and the way her hair was styled. I felt like someone should be painting her, she looked so picturesque.
We pulled onto a graveled area and parked. I felt insanely underdressed if this was how they rolled in the coven. She looked up as we walked past, but I was the only one who turned and waved at the beautiful woman. She winked at me, but didn’t wave back, so at least she wasn’t rude. I tugged on my flowy Rolling Stones t-shirt and pulled it down, so it covered more of my waist, not that it was a crop top or anything, but it only just met the waistband of my jeans, which now seemed like such a bad choice. I should have gone with a dress or something. I mean witches were always usually depicted that way, right? Although none of the witches I knew dressed like that, even now. Deva was in pants and a shirt, while Beth was in jeans and a t-shirt like me, though they looked nicer quality than mine. Carol was the only one in a skirt, but I knew that was just because she liked skirts, I mean, she wore mostly skirts and dresses so it would have been weird for her to show up in pants.
Deva knocked on the front door using the gigantic knocker and just like the gate, the door opened. A woman was heading toward the door as we walked into the big, cheery entryway. She was as opposite from the lady on the front lawn as she could’ve been. She wore a long, breezy, slightly wrinkled, tie-dyed dress with flowers woven into her hair and seemed to float, or glide, more than walk. Well, at least I didn’t feel quite as underdressed anymore.
“Come in, please,” the woman said. “I’m Hildy, and I’m a crystal witch, unusual I know but we’re really just a subset of earth witches.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder as though she’d just told us she was a unicorn, but since I had no idea what she was going on about, she just looked like any old horse to me. That was a little unfair, she didn’t look like a horse, she was beautiful, just like the woman on the front lawn, but something about her personality made me feel a little sour toward her. She cleared her throat after clearly not getting the reaction she wanted and said, “Now, the gate wouldn’t have opened if you all weren’t some sort of witch.” She looked at us with eyes sharper than her boho-hippy dress would’ve made her out to be. “I know you ladies.” Hildy turned toward me, pinning me with her gaze as she seemed to assess me. “But you’re new.”
I nodded. “Yes, ma’am, I’ve only recently come into my, uh, powers.”
She hummed and turned toward a big set of double doors that stood open. On the other side, two younger-looking witches wearing jeans and tees pointed their fingers at ping pong balls, which bounced into little plastic red cups. “Are they playing beer pong?” I asked with a laugh.
Hildy turned and smiled indulgently. “It helps our younger members practice their precision magic while still having fun. Follow me, please.”
We walked through another room and a woman stood from a plush chair beside a mirror where another young witch studied herself. She snapped her fingers, and her outfit went from a casual cotton dress to a long, formal ball gown.
Hildy held out her hand and waved at the woman who had been observing the clothes changing. “Khat, would you care to join us?”
The older woman nodded as she looked our group over. “Of course. Deva, Carol, Beth, lovely to see you again.” She walked toward us, but again it was more like she glided toward us, just like Hildy had.
“Tea, ladies?” Hildy asked.
No joke, a teapot, cups, saucers, a sugar bowl, and a little jug filled with milk came trotting out of a cabinet and over to the table where they floated up onto the wood surface before settling down like a cat in a sunbeam. If I didn’t know better, I would think I was in a fairy tale or an enchanted castle.
“That would be lovely, thank you,” Carol said as she sat on one of the wingback chairs that surrounded the coffee table.
The teapot poured itself into a cup and saucer that had set themselves up together and the sugar bowl and milk jug went waddling over to the cup. Carol picked up two sugar cubes and dropped them into the steaming liquid before adding a splash of milk. The steam that rose after that formed a heart shape and she smiled down at it before looking back up at us.
I was pretty sure my jaw was hanging open.
Birds chirping drew my attention away from my friend for a moment and though I saw them, they weren’t what I expected. All kinds of finches, sparrows, and bluebirds hopped around, but they were inside the wallpaper. The trees were obviously painted or illustrated somehow but the birds looked completely lifelike. It made me rethink that short story about yellow wallpaper I’d read in my English Lit class.
Khat opened a door to a sitting room and the coffee table and wingback chair holding Carol began to shuffle into the room both with a surprisingly graceful gate that didn’t spill a drop of tea from the pot or Carol’s cup. I wanted to ask if I’d accidentally taken drugs before we came over, that was how bizarre it all was, but when Carol grinned knowingly at me, seeming perfectly at ease being carried by her chair as she went by sipping on her tea, I knew I was stone-cold sober.
Once we had followed Carol and Khat in, I could see that the sitting room had no birds in the wallpaper and no tiny doorways for anything to come in or go out. In fact, the only way into and out of the room was the door we’d all just filed through, which, for some reason, made me uneasy. “Now,” Khat said. “What can we do for you?”
“We need some help, if possible,” Carol said. I’d noticed that she sort of took the lead with the witches, whereas Deva was quiet, and Beth was practically nonexistent at my side, which was unusual for her. I reached out and clasped her hand in my own, giving it a squeeze of support and encouragement as Carol said, “We need to find out if there was any major magic done on a specific night.”
Khat flicked her finger and the teapot poured tea for the rest of us as we all sat down in the chairs that were already in the room. I’m not going to lie though, the idea that the chair under me could come to life had me perching on the very edge, ready to jump up at any second.
Hildy pushed her curly hair out of her eyes. “Well, it’s doable.” She and Khat exchanged a look, but I had no idea what it meant.
Khat arched an eyebrow at us and said, “But you’d better be prepared for whatever we find.” I knew that they meant to be kind with their warning, but we weren’t exactly in a place where we could rethink things. We needed answers, and if they had a way of providing them then I’d take whatever the consequences were.
Apparently, we all felt the same because we all nodded in unison. “We just need to get to the bottom of all this,” Deva said, glancing worriedly at Beth who was barely even looking up from her cup of tea. There had been no steam heart for her, or me for that matter. I wondered what it meant, probably nothing, just the teapot being weird, I mean the thing could walk and act on its own so who knew what the steam might do.
“Finish your tea,” Khat said, her eyes gentle, but her mouth drawn into a thin line. “And then, we begin.”
Begin? How exactly would we find the answers we sought?
I had a feeling things were about to get even weirder.
14
Emma
“Come on,”Carol said, smiling at me. “I think you’re in for a treat.”
We all stood and walked away from the tea, which had been delicious, with my curiosity piqued. “What kind of treat?” Part of me hoped it was food. All the intensity I’d been feeling when it came to visiting the witches and being by Beth’s side and protecting her was giving me a serious case of stress snacking. The problem was I had nothing to snack on. At this point I’d even take those crackers that my mom used to give me when I was sick that were basically cardboard with some salt on them.
