The Coven

Chapter 12

Lilly’s dreams were plagued with the vision of all her encounters with the hooded man. The first dream she had of him was when he was in the bookstore but he would slowly turn to face her and attack, talons out.

The second dream she had after waking covered in sweat and terrified was when she and Mason met him in the forest, except this time Cleo was standing beside them telling them that he’s a hunny bunny and to be nice. Once again the hooded man attacked them with his talons out, this time though he managed to sink his claws into Mason’s chest and Lilly watched helpless as the boy bled out eyes fixed on her as though she were to blame.

Lilly had bolted awake after this dream too. She looked at the clock and saw it was almost five in the morning and the sun was starting to rise. Slowly she left her bed and went into the kitchen to get a glass of water though she was tempted to see if Sean kept any alcohol in the apartment. Unlikely.

What was wrong with her? Actually many things were wrong with her. For one she was being chased by a sometimes invisible dead man. Second she was hanging out with witches and hex bags. Third she really wanted to go to Mason and talk to him. He was the only other person who had seen the hooded man.

Downing a glass of water and splashing more water into her face she slowly made her way back into Norah’s room, dropping on the bed like a stone with her face smothered into the pillows. She needed to leave soon. Norah’s funeral was later today, finally. When that was over with she was gone, never going to come back. Hopefully never see the Coven members, or the hooded man.

As the night ticked on and the sun rose higher in the sky Lilly could not get herself back to sleep. It was far too hot, too sunny and she was too afraid to close her eyes after all the dreams she had been having that night. All she wanted was her bed, her family and her cat back home.

After eight she heard Sean moving around the apartment making breakfast. With nothing else to do and no point of trying to sleep she got dressed and took her seat beside Sean, “Are you opening the store today?”

He shook his head, though he kept his eyes down on his toast. Today was going to be hard for him as Norah was the only family he had left. Now he was alone at the age of twenty-one running a bookstore in a lonely town. “Sean?”

He took a deep breath, and then another. Lilly didn’t want to push him into talking but who did he have to talk to? She had never seen him spend time with anyone outside of the Coven, and even then it was only at meetings or when a member came to the store.

“I’m fine.” He said quietly, he had barely touched his breakfast.

“Holding everything in doesn’t help.” Time to be a family member, a friend, she thought as she turned to face him. “She was your family and it’s hard. My grandmother passed away two years ago but I talked everything over with my cousin and we helped each other through it.” And here she was again, trying to comfort a cousin.

Sean shook his head and pushed away from the counted, “I don’t want to talk about it.” His tone was forceful but flat, there was nothing behind his eyes but sadness. Lilly didn’t want to pressure him more so she let him go sulking away to his room. When the door was slammed she sighed and slumped in her seat.

She was such a hypocrite telling Sean he needed to talk to someone about Norah while she was sitting there with a secret of her own. Looking quickly at the clock on her wall she did have time to dart down the road and go to Mason’s, talk to him about what she saw and what happened assuming his family would let her near him.

Grabbing her keys out of the bowl she dashed down the stairs and into her car, speeding to Mason’s lovely magazine perfect home. Sage’s car was not in the driveway but three others were along with a motorcycle, a damaged motorcycle. Something must have happened to it when she and Mason left it in the forest when running away from the hooded man.