The Coven

Solstice: Chapter 19

The lake was in turmoil now, water splashing out, thunder and lightening pounding in the sky, the rain was still falling hard. Lilly was on her hands and knees, her dress now ruined, searching through shurbs in the mud looking for a hex bag.

Lincoln was muttering words, playing with something in his pocket but whatever he was doing wasn't working, he swore under his breath, turned and tried again. Lilly shook her head and looked around, maybe it was in a tree?

She stood up and ran over to the closest tree, she use to climb them when she was a kid, how hard could it be now? She reached for a branch when her foot snagged on a bush. Falling forward Lilly landed in a puddle of mud.

She swore at the top of her lungs. It was almost midnight, they were out of time. She rolled over and was about to get up when Lincoln grabbed her hand and pulled Lilly to her feet. "This is pointless." She sighed, "We're never going to find it-"

"Lilly."

"Why the hell make this so hard to find-"

"Lilly!"

"-it's like, yeah save the world, but I'm not going to give you any help-"

"Lilly!"

She groaned, "What? Seriously? What is so important right now? We're all about to die or something."

"You're standing in a sage bush."

She looked down at the plant around her feet. Sure, it was sage, she didn't know any different, it's not like she was a gardener or something. She frowned and looked back up to Lincoln, "Great so we have the leaves of the plant we need for the hex bag, but not the actual hex bag."

"There's no better place to hide the bag then where you need it." Was the man's soft reply. For a split second Lilly was staring at him wide eyed, then she was back in the mud dragging her finer through the bush hoping to find what she was looking for.

There was nothing on the branches, nothing in the leaves. She dragged her fingers through the mud searching for the bag. Across the beach she could hear yells. She couldn't help herself, her head whipped around to see Jake being dragged into the water, Hailey and Sage holding on to him for dear life.

Ace and Mason were still looking, maybe? Something had Mason's attention he was staring at the lake holding out his arm as though trying to reach for someone. Lilly saw a ghost from her past, maybe Mason could see a ghost from his.

Her hands were still dragging through the mud as she watched her friends, her fingers caught on something. Excitedly she dug whatever it was out of the mud. It was a small burlap bag, pulled tight. Carefully she opened the bag, somehow the sage was withered and the blood was dry. It was the hex bag.

Quickly Lilly pulled leaves off the bush and tossed them into the bag, next she ran her finger across bark on a tress, cutting the skin, blood rolling down her wet skin. She put her finger into the bag and let the blood drop. One drop, two drops, three.

She closed the bag and buried it again. Whipping around she saw there was no change in the lake. The vortex was still there, the waves were still crashing and there was a dark shadow in the middle of the water. Jake's body was halfway into the water, Hailey was screaming for him.

What had she done wrong? She found the bag, she put in sage, she put in her blood, the blood of an Essex, why the hell was it not working?

Lincoln was beside her again, he grabbed her and moved her out of the way. "It's not working." He muttered. He was on his knees digging through the mud. He pulled out the bag and dumped out the contents.