‘You’ll have to ask them.’
‘Will I meet them?’
I didn’t answer because I couldn’t. I didn’t know the answer.
‘What’s going to happen?’ Lydia asked. ‘Or are we just taking a sweet barefoot stroll?’
She’ll see soon enough.
The words whispered through the static leaves but if Lydia heard them, she didn’t show it.
‘We need to keep moving,’ I said as we reached the end of the avenue, holding my breath until Lydia passed underneath the final tree without incident. ‘We don’t have much time.’
‘Much time for what?’
‘You’ll see soon enough,’ I said, a strange echo to my voice. ‘Follow me.’
By the time we reached the woods, Lydia wasn’t speaking to me. The trees trembled with anticipation, branches, boughs and trunks twisting this way and that, opening up a path that had been walked by a hundred witches before me. I thanked them all, my skin electrified, every brush of every leaf sparking a chain reaction in my body I could not and did not wish to control. Doubt had pulled me out of shape but now I was exactly where I was supposed to be. I felt infinite. Our magic sang on the air, loud and clear, and drew us onwards.
‘Do you know where we’re going?’ Lydia asked, breaking the longest silence she’d ever kept in her life. She sounded hushed and uncertain, all of her exuberance smothered by the pitch-black night around us.
‘It’s this way,’ I said with a nod, the path as clear to me as if it were lit up with neon lights. ‘Can’t you hear it?’
‘Hear what?’
I looked back to see her holding onto herself, one arm pulled across her chest and gripping the other tightly.
‘You don’t need to be afraid,’ I said, the ebb and flow of energy directing me. ‘Look up.’
She did and she gasped. A velvet sky stretched out across forever, studded with every star that had ever existed. Whatever was about to happen, had already begun and all that time I’d spent studying dissolved into my blood, leaving my conscious mind and seeping into a place where it already seemed to live.
‘This is the place.’
My voice was firm and strong. No point lowering it out here, we were completely alone. The woods, the earth, the air and sky, and directly above us the new moon shone down, a pure slice of light and a promise of what was to come.
‘Em?’ Lydia said as I squatted down to dig my hands into the dirt, silk against my skin. ‘Em, what’s happening to the trees?’
‘They’re acknowledging you,’ I said without looking up.
Freezing rushes of fear shot out all around her but I couldn’t understand why. Everything was perfect. The trees sighed with happiness as they wove themselves into a ring, protecting us from harm. Not even a wolf could touch us here, we were completely safe.
‘A new moon represents new beginnings,’ I intoned, the words flowing out of me as easily as air. I circled Lydia, so full of love for my friend, for all my sister witches, alive and dead, I could barely breathe. ‘A new moon allows us to set our intentions. A new moon welcomes you, Lydia Virginia Sarah Powell. Wilcuma.’
‘Wilcuma yourself,’ she muttered back, spinning around to keep her eyes on me. ‘Can you stop? You’re making me dizzy.’
‘All of those who came before and all of those to come. We ask you to acknowledge us.’
‘Acknowledge me,’ Lydia said in a booming voice. ‘OK, ow?’
She winced when I took hold of her wrist and pulled her down to the ground until the pair of us knelt in the dirt. The sacred circle drew magic from the moon, funnelling it from the sky to infuse the air around us with an energy so intoxicating, I had to tighten my grip on Lydia’s wrist to stop myself from floating away.
‘You’re hurting me,’ she said with tears in her eyes, twisting against my grip, but I couldn’t let her go, not when our sisters were so near. ‘Em, please, I’m scared, tell me what’s happening.’
‘Just listen,’ I replied, pulling the long, pointed dagger out from my sleeve and placing it on the ground between us. ‘Just be.’
The fear in her eyes evolved into terror but it made no sense. Why couldn’t she feel the love that surrounded us? The stars burned brighter and I felt Lydia’s magic coursing through her as her lips opened and she sucked in the deepest breath.
‘What’s happening?’ I heard her say as the world darkened around me. ‘I feel like I’m going to explode and – Emily, your eyes?’
