《Covens of Emsswell》


 Chapter 1

    Gwen really should stop smoking, a thought she had for a hundred times already as she puffed out a steady stream of white smoke like a dragon. The crisp cold air of mid-October outlined the fume in vivid clarity as it exited through her lips. She picked up the habit two years ago, it was an on-and-off thing at first. But lately, she has been getting real into the habit. She tells herself that she''d be able to quit if she wanted to. But a voice somewhere inside her head says that it won''t be as easy as she thinks.


    She has been getting those a lot lately too. Disembodied voices.  The smoking helps a bit to drown them out. The more she smoked, the less the voices persisted.


    Maybe there''s a correlation there?


    The sound of shoes against gravel alerted her. She has been doing this awhile now that she could tell how many there were. Out from the shadows of the Phil¡¯s Mart, came students. The familiar uniforms of Curnow-Slater with their blue tartan skirts and vest walked out. That brought back some memories. Her dad had once talked about sending her out there on the prep school thirty-minute drive outside of town. She sighed. Didn¡¯t think that the mere sight of a school uniform could dredge some memories. She took one last long drag of her cigarette and tossed the butt on the ground, stomping it for good measure.


    The two girls were younger, at least a year behind Gwen. They looked like rabbits ready to bounce or that this was a drug deal. She almost laughed to herself at the thought. Her boots made her taller by a few inches and the leather jacket and piercings didn¡¯t really provide a welcoming aura- - by God, she really did look like a drug dealer. The dangerous-rocker-chick vibes kind of dealer.


    ¡°Jesus, would you relax? This is not a drug deal.¡± Gwen told the two, their eyes casting back and forth as if a cop would pop out of the dumpster. "Look you either step forward or not, what¡¯s it gonna be?"


    "Hey uhm..." The blonde one came forward, face almost familiar. Emswell Island didn¡¯t have more than 3,000 people. Gwen might not know her name but there¡¯s always that familiar face you see as you walk around town. She was quite pretty and her clothes looked tailor-made for her. Which meant good solid cash, not credit. Students made up much of her customer base, most from the local public high school.  And of course, the occasional preppy from down the road that didn¡¯t want to have their credit cards confiscated by an overbearing parent because of schoolwork.


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    ¡°Look, we need a charm or something. We have midterms coming up and a crap ton of quizzes in between. Can you help us out?" Blonde said. Her friend, a redhead in a pixie cut tried to look busy, turning her phone on and off and glancing at the pebbles as if she was considering a career in geology.


    "I need you to be more specific than that. Something to help you concentrate and study? Keep you awake as you pull all nighters- -"


    ¡°I need something to help me ace a test¡­¡± Blondie cut in.


    "No problem. Although it¡¯ll take me two days to conjure up the charm and gather the items of power- -"


    ¡°¡­.The test is in two hours.¡±


    Now that, was a problem. Gwen absolutely hated it when customers want rush orders. This type of things are dangerous when rushed. She glanced up and saw Blondie and her friend took a step back.


    Gwen collected herself, took a deep breathe, and relaxed. Whenever her mood worsens, it manifests in more ways than one. Practicing magic has that effect on the soul, as if the fabric separating the physical and spiritual gradually softens the more you practice the craft. An electricity to the air or the natural light around her getting sucked in. Or in this case, her hair started floating even when there wasn''t any gust of wind present.


    "Then, I can''t help you. Sorry," Gwen turned her back and began walking off to her next appointment.


    "Oh come on! Please! Is there anything you can do?" Blondie pleaded.


    "No."  Gwen was about to pull herself over the wire fence, reaching atop.


    "I''ll pay double! No, triple!"


    Gwen stopped.  That was too good to pass up. And she needed the money.


    She turned around and stalked up towards Blondie and Red, mere inches away from their faces. Red grasped Blondie''s elbow for support, afraid that Gwen might put a curse on them like some witch. Which, Gwen was not, strictly speaking. She was just a dabbler. But these girls don''t know that.


    "Do you really want this? Because it''s going to cost you more than just money." Gwen uttered with as much venom as she could, drawing up that drug-dealer persona the girls perceived.


    "W-what are you talking about? What do I have to pay?" Blondie stammered, face almost white with dread.


    "I''m gonna have to take a piece of your lifeforce." Gwen left it hanging there, and let it sink in their heads. Their faces were dire, as if they had been told that one of them has cancer.

 Chapter 2

    Gwen felt proud scaring them good. If word gets out she¡¯s accommodating rush orders, it would be catastrophe. There was a deep-seated fear that Gwen fosters about this job of hers. One that keeps her on her feet and not get complacent. One that she would never dare admit to her father. For as much as magic can be wondrous, it can be downright horrifying as well.


    If used carelessly that is.


    Magic, as best as she can tell from what she¡¯d learned so far, can be found in the world around you. Magic was the art of influencing the tiniest miniscule of reality. Bending the rules just a little, but not outright breaking it. Normal people can identify what is real and what is magic, something that shouldn¡¯t be but is. Their hair would be standing at the back of their neck or seeing the same black cat twice and feeling a sense of deja vu. A sense of something amiss or peculiar at first, one¡¯s brain trying to find reason where there shouldn¡¯t be one. Almost kind of like some sort of glitch in the Matrix, by her reckoning.


    "I need to know what kind of test is it gonna be. Will it be Multiple Choice. True or False or Essay Writing?"


    "Uhm, multiple choice. Maybe a bit of True or False. W-why? Is it gonna be a problem?"


    ¡°Just needed a specifics for the spell. The more I know, the better. So here''s what''s going to happen: You¡¯re going to feel something. It¡¯s hard to put into words but the best way I can describe it is almost like a pull," Gwen instructed Blondie as she prepped herself.


    Magic still has to obey some laws of the natural world, despite the goal is to bend it to ones will. One such law is: No one can create something from nothing. That¡¯s where Items of Power comes in. Stuff you can find in nature. Wherein the hands of normies, they may be just random knickknacks you can pick off from a simple hiking trip to the woods: Bird feathers, natural forming crystals, wood bark or even the silly looking rocks you can find along the riverbed. But at the hands of a practitioner? These can be a potent mix. For a practitioners job is to tap into the latent energy within these individual items, binding the wild energies into one another, and enact the practitioner¡¯s will. Sort of like coding.


    Gwen bit back a sigh. Again with another Matrix reference?


    Not Gwen¡¯s fault her dad, at one point, repeatedly watched the first Matrix every night for seven days straight. Followed by the remaining sequels the week after. Every now and then she has to fight back the urge to get herself a pair of shades. Gwen shivered from the cringed.


    Come on, girl. Focus!


    Although she made this method sound dire, it wasn¡¯t the first time she had done it. She made it sound like she was going to give heart transplant where it should be around the degree of something like a blood transfusion, not life threating if done in small amounts. It was easy enough. She just had to be careful not to draw too much or she¡¯ll put the girl in a coma. Plus, she needed to sell this to rack up a rep. Word would soon travel around.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to ask you three times. I need your full-hearted consent on this." Gwen put a hand over Blondie''s temple and another one holding her hand. Blondie was cold and almost shaking with fear.


    "O-okay."


    "Seriously, I need you wholehearted consent, no hesitation whatsoever. It¡¯s that you have to accept."


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    "W-what then?"


    "Then you¡¯re gonna feel like shit for the next couple of days. Silver lining is, this is more potent than the Au Naturel method. The spell could last days whereas the latter method could last for only a few hours. The downside? Is just you¡¯re gonna have like a cold for the next day or two. Okay, here goes."


    At first nothing seemed to happen. Blondie was almost fidgeting at her spot while Gwen held her, eyes closed.


    Unbeknownst to her, time slowed to a halt for Gwen. Gwen had opened her eyes and the earth itself stopped in its rotation, birds went silent and the universe went still. This all happened in barely a millisecond and yet she felt it all with absolute clarity. She blinked for an instant and everything went dark and cold. One moment she was standing at the spare lot at the back of Phil''s mart, the next she was adrift in the middle of a void. Darkness surrounded her but Gwen wasn''t afraid. A bit uneasy but not terrified. She knew where she was and that was within Blondie''s astral subspace. Or just outside of it at least.


    Gwen waited for a bit.


    Perception of time here was a bit weird. Could be a few seconds, could be a few hours. It was all relative. She didn''t know exactly how long she was standing in the void nor when Blondie''s Astral form appeared in front of her. There was nothing at first but after another blink, Blondie appeared as she was, only in spirit form. A mental projection of her real self in the real world, adrift in the void. Her eyes were closed and she still wore her uniform. Only difference was that a light exuded from her, her life force. Gwen floated towards Blondie''s form and reached out until her hands were touching Blondie''s spirit. Gwen''s hand hit something solid and then, with a little bit of effort, her hand went inside Blondie. Almost like liquid.


    She only need a small amount of energy. This was a person''s life force they''re talking about after all. Gwen pulled her hand back and collected a small palmful of shining golden light. The next step was to detach herself from the Blondie''s Astral Subspace. It took Gwen weeks for her to learn how to detach to another person''s astral form. Or it seemed weeks to her anyway. It wasn''t a physical act, not quite. It was all a mental act, sounds simple but quite difficult when put to motion. She went on days not coming out of her room and had another fight about it with her dad. But after almost a month of seclusion from general society, her mind finally caught the gist of it. It was a very satisfying feeling despite reading online how kids her age from family covens have the skill mastered at before they were seven.


    Gwen opened her eyes and here she was again, back at the lot of Phil''s mart. Blondie breathed out suddenly as if she had been holding her breath and nearly wobbled on her knees. Gwen could hear birds again and the rush of the fall wind traipsing through the island with the soon-to-be winter chill.


    It wasn''t visible to the naked eye, not even to Gwen''s but it could be undeniably felt. Pure power in the palm of their hands. The wind rushed from and around Gwen''s palms as if heralding the coming of a small hurricane. The space there seemed to be distorted like seeing heat come out of the road. Blondie''s eyes were wide with amazement, as well as Red''s.


    "T-that''s my life force?"


    "Yup. Got a pen?"


    Five minutes later, Gwen had imbued the pen with a charm that would allow it to redirect to answer correctly. Blondie ,or anyone she allows to use, would feel a tugging motion to what is the correct answer.


    "You''re going to start to feel woozy. Don''t worry, all you need is sleep and rest as you''re body start to recuperate naturally from the mana shock. So I suggest you bounce fast before you start to feel weak."


    "T-thanks! That was awesome!" And they were off, all giddy as their grades were secured and having seen a practitioner of Magick firsthand. Gwen had to stop herself grinning like an idiot. In just little over as two years she was able to make a somewhat stable living with magick. But it was still nowhere enough to survive in the cities ones she hits the road. Thinking of the future put her in a dour mood, It''s as if she was losing sight of what it means to be young. She earned several day''s pay in just barely half an hour, those don''t happen often. Plus, Gwen charged four times than what was normal, taken into account of the rush job and the use of Life Force. She was well justified. Besides, those girls must be rich as hell to be going into Curnow-Slater anyway.


    So, stopping any thoughts of future woes, it was time for a little celebration.