The Coven

Chapter 22

The sun was shining high in the sky and its unbearable heat beating down. Lilly felt the top of her head burning, her skin was going to be beat red that night and she was going to be sore but none of that mattered because they were going to find Sean, Darcy and Mason.

Sighing she looked up to across the small river where Jake and Hailey were kneeling down to the ground as though they were actually hunters looking for their prey. Jake nodded his head north while Hailey was shaking her head and pointing west. There were two trails.

“It’s useless.” Sage said softly as she came up to stand beside her. The other girl looked as tired as Lilly felt. Her normally perfect hair was pulled into a loose bun on her head, her clothes and skin were dirty and what was left of her makeup was running down her face. Sage was truly upset about the situation and it made her almost human.

“It’s not useless.” Lilly replied trying to comfort the girl without physical contact. “We’re going to find them, they’re going to be all right.” The more she said it out loud the more she felt like that outcome would be true.

But they had tried to fight one of the hooded creatures and failed miserably, what chance did they have with two of them plus whatever created them? Not only were they going to lose Sean, Darcy and Mason but probably their own lives. Though this never deterred her from her quest, Lilly wondered if the thought of death had crossed the minds of the others.

As they trudged through the forest as time went on, the more time she had to think about everything she had learned the night before from Jake’s grandma Jessie. First the hooded creatures were a man and a woman who were suppose to be human sacrifices in a powerful ritual that went wrong and the two lost their souls, Sine Anima, Jessie had called them meaning soulless.

Second she learned that Norah had the book of spells not because she wrote it or stole it but because the Essex family, the original Coven members, had actually written this powerful book and it had been passed down through generations. What did this mean about the past generations of the Essex family? Had someone been a bag egg or was that gene passed down too? Was Lilly going to end up like her forefathers and end up being evil?

“I know what you’re thinking.” Sage said, the girl had hardly left Lilly’s side. “If it means anything that Pratt family was considered pretty nasty back in the day, we’re not so bad now.” Lilly nodded her head and smiled at the girl but what she said had no comfort. Sage was a friendship abusing bitch and what she had met of the rest of the family they weren’t much better, but Sage continued talking at Lilly’s silence, “I know I don’t seem like it, and my mom is distant and Mason is harsh but we’re good people, even my dad. People change over time, Lilly and no matter what your family book suggest you, your mom and Sean are good people.”

Taken aback and confused Lilly stopped walking and stared ahead. Sage smile and trotted down the path catching up with Jake and Hailey. Sage was just nice to her...Sage just said not only good things about her, Lilly, but also about Sean and Norah. That girl was seriously worried if she was starting to act nice to the people who could help her save her cousin.

“Lilly!” Jake called over the hill. Running as fast as she could, Lilly jumped over the small stream and ran to the others who were huddled around something on the ground.

“What are we looking at?” She asked pushing her way between Jake and Hailey. Lilly looked at the ground to a footprint, smeared with blood, Mason’s maybe? Cringing she closed her eyes and looked to Jake who had two fingers in the blood. “What are you doing?”

He frowned and bit his lip, which were now swollen. “Trying to figure out if this is an old trail of blood or a new one.” He looked around for more tracks, walking away from the group and dropping down again. “They seem to be leading north.”