The RavenFlight Witches

Chapter Five

 As they walked out of the woods, back towards the farmhouse, Ella felt the pull of the clearing, of Lamoreia, slowly fading. By the time they reached the back porch, Ella wasn't even certain it had been real. She sat heavily down into a chair and put her face in her hands. This is crazy, she thought. Or I am really, truly going crazy.

"Ella," Jeremy said. "What do you need? What can I do for you?"

His voice, was gentle, concerned, and Ella wanted to be touched by it, but she couldn't process any other emotions but confusion and fear at the moment. She shook her head slightly, then more vigorously. "No," she stated simply. "NO, NO, NO!! None of this is real. I don't know why, but the two of you are trying to make me think I'm losing my mind." She shot both Jeremy and her mother an accusing look.

"No, Ella," Julietta said. "No, we are not. I told you, Jeremy. I told you she wasn't ready for this."

"She witnessed a Full Moon Circle, the Ritual of Union, Juli," Jeremy said. "She has no choice, now. We can only assist her in taking her rightful place."

"Stop talking about me like I'm not here!" Ella spat at them. "I have no choice?? Are you for real? How...what...," Ella stopped, took a breath. "No, I just can't deal with any of this. I won't do it. I won't accept that I'm a witch. I won't have sex with strangers while other strangers watch. I won't be Supreme Master of anything. And you can't make me." With that, Ella stood, went inside the house and up to her stifling bedroom.

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Ella stripped down to her bra and underwear and collapsed onto her bed. She had never felt so exhausted, both mentally and physically. She once again felt her mind shutting down, like it had last night and she tried to fight it, wanting to be able to think clearly. She sat up, stood, began pacing around her small room.

She didn't know where to start. In the clearing, she had accepted it all. She hadn't liked it but had not been able or inclined to deny it. Had that been some sort of trick? Had her vision of Lamoreia, what she had heard, been real or some kind of waking dream?

Ella had always been a level-headed girl. She wasn't prone to day-dreaming or fantasizing, so she had a hard time believing what she'd experienced wasn't real. But she had an equally hard time accepting it was real because it was just so...well, crazy. Wasn't it?

She decided the only way to tackle this was one step at a time, like a research paper. First, the witch thing. Could she believe witches were real? She had read about people who called themselves Wiccans, who supposedly practiced spells of sorts. Her understanding was that it was sort of like a religion to them. She had also read about people who worshipped the Devil (who, apparently, was just a myth) and supposedly received power.

Was it possible that there could be a middle ground, that her family were all witches of some sort, able to perform spells and receive power from an otherworldly being?

Ella nodded slightly to herself. She supposed it was possible. She could accept, at the very least, that her mother and Gran and Jeremy believed it to be true. So could she believe it? That she was a witch? And would that, just by itself be such a terrible thing? Maybe it would be cool to do spells, to learn just what all this power they were talking about might mean.

Okay, Ella thought. Let's say I'm a witch. Can I live with that? Sure, why not?

Continuing to pace, she considered the next thing, the idea that she was meant to lead the RavenFlight coven. Maybe my first order of business will be to change that dumb-ass name. She smiled. Supreme Master. What did that mean, exactly? She had been Class President last year and was likely to be voted Student Council President next year. She had strong leadership skills and got along well with most everyone. Would leading her coven be so awful? She imagined it would be strange at first, trying to be a leader to strangers and people much older than her, especially since she didn't even know what being a Supreme Master of a coven of witches meant. But...Okay, yeah, I know I'm a good leader so I guess I could figure it out. She suddenly wondered if there were other young people already members of the coven, classmates even. She struggled a bit with this whole line of thinking...coven was such an alien word but she was trying to embrace this idea.