The Coven

Chapter 7

Sean had left the badgering about going to visit Cleopatra, aka Cleo, ala immortal witch, aka apparently slightly psychotic, until the next morning thankfully. Lilly woke up early in order to avoid Sean and his nagging about going. Amazingly enough he was already awake and ready to pester.

He had begged her to bring someone to help her, like him, someone who knew how to talk to Cleo, like him, someone who could use his skills with powers, like him, to buy her some time if the conversation were to go south.

Unfortunately for Sean, he did not yet know how stubborn Lilly could really be. She explained to him several times before leaving that she would be find, Hailey drew her a map, and that if this Cleo character had a problem with her she would swear into the Coven and help them get back the journal.

This answer did not satisfy Sean, he argued more, then began begging but Lilly couldn’t let this opportunity pass. She had to talk to Cleo, she had to find out what it was she saw and how she saw real life in her dreams.

The road to get to the forest was easy to find, passing the gas station when leaving town and driving for another six miles to a fork in the road where one was to take a right. From there it was all landmarks, rocks and trees with drawings on them. Lilly had asked what the drawings were but Hailey had said they were tribal drawings from the first Coven to mark the roads.

The first symbol she saw looked like a sun, it was etched into a black rock by the side of the road. Looking quickly at Hailey’s jotted notes in six miles she was to make a left onto a gravel hiking path. In capital letters Hailey had written: LOOK OUT FOR HIKERS!

Tracking the miles, she took the left and kept her eyes out for the next symbol, a moon etched into a dead oak tree. From there she had to make another left going between two birch that’s branches formed what looked like an archway.

Thankfully she only spotted one couple hiking while she was driving, they shook their fists at her while yelling and swearing as she carefully drove by. Soon she came to the tree with the carved moon, farther down the trail was the birch trees Hailey mentioned. She drove through them, her side mirrors nearly nicking the trunk the fit was so narrow.

The rest of the way was apparently simple, drive straight for six miles until she found a quarry, go right around the quarry and drive up the path. At the top continue going straight until there is a cliff. As Lilly read these instructions she stopped at the head of the cliff like Hailey mentioned and looked for her next direction: This part sucks, get out of the car and walk down the path on the cliff, she doesn’t like vehicles near her house. Walk for about ten minutes, keep looking up.

Keep looking up? Why could this witch not live on a road with other people? There were some lovely houses back in Willow Creek, why could she not set her cauldron up there? Huffing and groaning, Lilly stepped out of the car into the heat of the summer. The air was still in the forest, the trees so close and so tall it was like she had shrunk down to a miniscule size.

Thank god she hadn’t worn flip flops like she always did in the summer, today she put on a pair of Norah’s converse sneakers. As she trudged down the rocks she could see slip marks from where others had fallen, she assumed members of the Coven as the fall was not far nor was it particularly dangerous, but who else would come out this way?

Jumping the last several feet to the bottom of the cliff Lilly was covered in sweat, wiping her forehead forgetting her hands were now covered in dirt. She continued walked, the forest filled with sounds of nature. She could hear a waterfall in the distance, birds chirping all around her. She had asked Sean about bears, he had told her there were some in the forest but if she saw one to try and act as big as she could.