Bewitched and Besotted, Opening Chapter

The Ousherian Witch

There were six reasons the old witch believed that today, of all days, destiny controlled her coven. It was today that the witch smelled Death, a scent so pungent yet sweet that she chose to turn a blind eye to those six reasons.

Understanding those six reasons was what it meant to be an Ousherian witch. 

Sure, the other witches had their tricks, too. They all had their wickedness and their darkness and their magics, but none like the Ousherian. The Ousherian heard whispers in the air, saw figures within shadows, and listened to the earth whenever She had something to say. The Ousherian witch was a giver, a taker, a listener, a talker. 

Today, the old witch would claim that she was Ousherian for one last soar of the sun east to west, then she would die. That was the only time all three witch types were the same — when the cruel touch of death clawed for them. She would bleed red and her grave would be dug exactly four feet from where she died, exactly fifteen feet into the earth, and on her grave they would place exactly seven lotus flowers. 

As the old witch stood in the cooking hole within her coven's hut and started to notice the six things, only relief registered in her heart. Perhaps it was that her life on the earth beneath her had stretched for far too long, over too many periods of darkness and through too many days of blinding light. Or, it was that allure of the gentle caress of Death, the smooth knuckles over her cheek and the guttural purr that fell from His lips.

The first reason may have been the most obvious, yet it was then that she found herself lost in the aroma of death around her. 

It was as she heard the kettle whistle over the fire behind her, one hand reaching for the screaming clay, the other reaching for the pot of mugwort leaves to her left. Except there, like the last five days, the small chamber was empty.

“No mugwort,” she ushered under her breath as a breeze slid through the hut, taking her words and ripping them from her throat. A low groan came from the old witch as she frowned. It had been her job, every morning for as long as she could recall, to make the Mystic of her coven their morning mugwort-tea. So why had she, for the sixth day in a row, forgotten that there was no mugwort? 

Well that’s easy – only the worst of things came in sixes. 

The Waylain witches would claim that understanding such a thing on the sixth day was a coincidence – nothing more, nothing less. The Carpaten witches would say it was fate, a path carved from the stars above and accentuated by the bleeding moonlight. But the Ousherian witches, they knew the truth – that it was neither one nor the other, but both. That it was everything that lined up to make such a thing happen.

The old witch finally removed the screaming kettle from the fire, just as two of the younger witches trod the winding path of the huts staircase from the cellar beneath. Just as they usually did, Elowen and Fleur walked side-by-side, never letting their shoulders part for so much as a breath. Yet today, they did not exchange in their light pleasantries, the noise as joyous as the scent of meadow-flowers. An inexperienced Ousherian witch might have considered this the second reason, but it was not. It was what was said next by Fleur, seconds before her face popped into the cooking room.

“Elowen, you moron! You had one job today. Check the star paths. Was that really that hard?”

“It’s not a big deal,” Elowen squeaked, her voice as quiet and frail as it had ever been. “We’ll just tell the High Ones that we must reschedule.”

“You are a moron!” Fleur bellowed as she levelled out on the main floor of the hut, sparing only a second to check over her shoulder. When she saw the old witch, she flashed her a false smile full of fangs and turned her steaming temper back to her friend. “The Mystic says we must go today. She was very clear about it, Elowen. If you had been there, you just might have understood how desperately she tried to convey that any detour from her words would mean the death of the coven.”

The death of the coven.

The old witch's eyes pinched as the realization heaved itself on her shoulders. 

This, most would conclude, was the third reason. 

“Oh, she’s an absolute twat, Fleur,” Elowen hissed, finally finding her voice after taking one too many glares from her friend. “Our last Mystic wasn’t like this. All this one seems to crone on about is death death death.”

The old witch offered them a sincere smile as she tucked some rosemary into the boiling water.

“Well maybe if the old Mystic had talked more about death death death, she might have seen her own one coming!” Fleur had filled herself with such fury that she nearly knocked into the old witch on one of her many theatric spins. “Oh, Aurelie! I did not see you there, little hag.” Such a title, if spoken by a human, would have resulted in a tongue being removed. But from Fleur, her fiery mouth and her forever-narrowed eyes, the old witch could do nothing but smile. Truthfully, the old witch was only relieved that it was not Kalia who had ascended the stairs – not even the promise of death would drive the old witch to look directly at that particular witchling.

Elowen was more elegant in her movements, stopping just before the old witch – Aurelie – and cocking her head to the side. “Is that the mugwort tea for the Mystic?”

“There you go, Elowen,” Fleur crooned, “you can take it to her and explain your fuck-up.”

Death of the coven.

Aurelie, instead, interjected the two young witches at last, her voice as decrepit as the layers of skin on her face. “No need, girls. This old hag finds herself in need of using her legs, before they crumble up on her entirely. Move out of the way, little whisps.”

“Little whisps?” Fleur cackled, one hand on her stomach as she shoved at Elowen. “You show your age, hag. Neither myself nor Elowen have been little whisps for at least ten rotations.”

“Nine, me–” Elowen began, only to be cut short by the glare Fleur offered. “But your offer is kind, Aurelie. The Mystic is within her tent.”

“Or dancing around outside, her nose to the air, a foul song on her breath,” Fleur chuckled as she linked arms with Elowen at last, the two of them disappearing from before the old witch.

While the old witch looked her age – a number that even she had forgotten – she did not move in such ways. She was nimble and soft, quick and alert as she moved from the bogged-over hut and towards the small clearing to the east. There, erected from the ground and decorated with moss and mud, was the Mystic tent.

In her long lifetime, Aurelie had seen at least a dozen Mystics come and go from her coven. It wasn’t as if they didn’t share the same gracious lifetime as the other witches, but that their wisdom and their connection with the spirits often led them to untimely ends. Some witches did not wish to hear the dark truths that they subconsciously searched for, and when a Mystic offered it to them – well, the coven was in search of a new one by the next cycle of the night sky.

Fleur had been correct, though. This Mystic in particular was Aurelie’s least favourite, too. Most of them had an air to them, commanded a certain type of aura that made a witch sneeze repetitively or feel as if there were little claws in their skulls. Not this Mystic, no. She was strange – she somehow personified a sunflower even though she looked like death, and the haunted shack of her home always seemed to be illuminated with a golden light. Such a thing was unnatural to a Mystic.

Aurelie pushed through the half-hinged door of the tent, ducking and narrowly missing as a large gemstone came crashing down above her. It was a raw gem, not glistening or polished in any way but as black as the midnight sky.

Onyx.

Aurelie gasped as she looked down at it, as the shards of it splintered across the soft earth and she nearly stepped on them. 

This – though she wished it were otherwise – was the fourth reason.

“Aurelie,” the Mystic hummed, her dimples present and violent as she grinned at the old witch. There she sat, in the depths of what should have felt like a damning cave but this morning felt like the first breaking of light across the horizon. Whether or not the Mystic understood the omen that had just appeared in front of Aurelie, was hard to say. The Mystic did not comment on it.

“Mystic,” Aurelie croaked, grimacing as she stepped over the shattered onyx. “I bring you your mugwort tea.”

“Ah,” the Mystic droned, frowning at the concoction that Aurelie handed her. The mug it sat within was dark, the light tea swirling around but never quite catching any light. “That, you did.”

Aurelie flinched as she watched the Mystic take a sip, hoping to keep such a look from her face as she pretended to glance around. She had been within the Mystic tent a thousand times in her lifetime, so the sight of the hanging plants and flowers, gems and ropes, feathers and animal carcasses were no longer a surprise to her.

“This mugwort,” the Mystic said before coughing several times, “it tastes just as foul as the last…” then the Mystic halted in her words, her breath catching as she lifted two eyes to Aurelie. “The last five.”

There was understanding in the Mystic’s eyes. That, or the usual look of absurdity that Aurelie rolled her eyes at – that Fleur had scoffed at.

“Well thank you, Aurelie,” the Mystic smiled, offering the old witch an escape. Any other day, she would take it. But not today.

Death of the coven.

Aurelie straightened her spine and tried her best to soften her face, taking to her alter-ego of the frail, old woman that she needed around humans. “I passed Fleur and Elowen on the way here. I offered to pass along the star path.”

The Mystic watched her with curiosity from behind the brim of the mug, one of her brows twitching upwards. “Go on, then.”

“The Sharp Star is bright as of this morning, the clouds bending and warping themselves around it. The moon, as you know, still sits heavy within the wax. A bridge is slowly forming between the east quarter and the north quarter. But most strange of all is the birds – not one dared to block Elowen’s sight while she gazed.”

To lie to a Mystic was one of the greatest offences as a witch. 

This was the fifth reason.

The Mystic nodded several times. “All great signs, then! I shall notify the others, we shall continue as planned.”

“Am I… Am I to join this venture, Mystic?”

The Mystic narrowed her eyes, the insides of them brightening until the pupil was no more. Seconds later, as she gasped back air and her eyes solidified again, she nodded. “Yes, dear Aurelie. Yes, it seems you are.”

Aurelie and the Mystic looked to one another, one last time. And in that look, they said their goodbye.

Hours later, as the sun dropped beyond the forest surrounding them, the coven embarked on their journey.

Only a small trek was needed. Enough to head into the thickets of the bushes around them, within the low light of the midnight sky, forever protected by the shadows around them. It was a necessity, occurring once every moon-cycle in order for the witches to gather resources, to fill their storages with enough gathered goods. Such ventures were hard to plan, even harder to execute, mostly because of the Mystic and her continuous desire for the coven to veer itself away from death. 

Death death death.

The old witch could hear the chant, the melodic ring to it, right up until her last moments.

She could hear the symphony as the humans, adorned with their clothes of metal and their glinting swords, charged them. 

And as she looked up – as one lone warrior charged at her with his sword high in the air, her eyes catching on the onyx embedded into the handle – the music stopped. It was when he plunged that sword into Aurelie’s chest, when the metallic sheen to it shifted into that of glass, when the whole sword shattered like a mirror around the old witch, she understood.

This was the sixth reason.

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