Page 15 of Night of the Witch
“Besides,” I say, “maybe I won’t be an elder at all.”
Mama starts rolling half the dough into a long tube. Her eyes go from her work to my face and back again. “Oh? Are the Maid, Mother, and Crone calling you elsewhere?”
I lean forward, apfelwein sloshing. Some of it puddles on the floor. “What if they haven’t spoken to me at all yet?” The words gush out of my mouth, just as accidental as the spill, another sticky mess I’ll have to clean up. “What if the Three never speak to me?”
Abnoba, the Crone, wise and ageless and bright, protector of our forests, and prime guardian of life.
Perchta, the Mother, goddess of rules and traditions, of the hunt and beasts.
Holda, the Maid, guardian of the afterlife, of winter, of duality and coming together.
They guide us, bless us, watch over us—and speak to us, sometimes. It is a quiet whisper, I’ve been told; a settling of your soul, a rightness you can feel to your very core. It was how Mama knew she would become our coven’s leader; Perchta, the Mother, appeared to her in a vision. It was how my cousin Liesel, just ten, knew from practically infancy that she would be the most powerful augur in a generation; Abnoba, the Crone, took great interest in her.
I have an affinity, like all other witches—the Well’s magic channels through me when I use herbs and potions, but every witch has an affinity that they hone from an early age, chosen through interest or need or aptitude. It is one of the laws that governs how we keep the Origin Tree’s magic uncorrupted: witches adhere to their affinity and the rules laid forth by the forest folk for how each affinity may be used. Plants and potions have always come naturally to me.
But no goddess has spoken to tell me of a mightier destiny. Nothing more has stirred in me at all.
Well—that’s not true, is it?
I shake the voice away, flinching at the shiver that races down my spine.
Mama sees the way I twitch. She braces her hands on the table to give me a level look, one that instantly makes me want to defer to her, bow my head in surrender. But I hold her gaze.
“Friederike,” she says, and her voice is full of such tenderness that tears warm the backs of my eyes. “Do you trust me? Do you believe I am a worthy leader of our coven?”
I sag in my stool, my spine hitting the wall. “Yes. And I know what you’re going to say—since I’m your daughter, my blood will ensure that the Maid, Mother, and—”
“Absolutely not. Blood has nothing to do with the Three connecting to you. Don’t speak for me, child.”
I go silent, lips pressed together.
“I wasgoingto say,” her eyebrows lift, but she’s smiling, “that I do not allow anyone unworthy in our coven. Even my own kin. If you don’t trust yourself, trust me, and my necessity to protect this family. You’ve seen the sacrifices I have made to keep us safe. The Three will speak to you when they are ready to guide you; be patient.”
Her eyes peel away from mine.
After a moment, she adds, “Do you still hear the voice asking you to use wild magic?”
There is no emotion in her words.
Will you lie to her, hm? What use is there in lying? She sees your truth.
“No,” I say instantly. “Not for years.”
She nods with a grunt. A breath catches in my throat as she punches the remaining dough, hard, shaking the table.
“If you were someone unreachable to the goddesses,” she tells me, “I would have thrown you out long ago.”
Smoke billows.
I cough, running through the haze—no, no, Mama! Liesel—I’m coming, I swear, I’m coming—
I run, and run, but the smoke swirls and thickens, swelling all around, and I wheeze in it, lungs filling only to deflate in hacking coughs—
A jolt rips through me, and I fly awake. Hard. The reality of lurching out of sleep hits me like I drank too much apfelwein, jagged tendrils of a headache pulsing across my scalp and down my neck.
I sit there, gasping, hands on my head.
I fell asleep.
