Which Witch is Which?

It was Halloween and a full moon; the perfect night for Julie and her friends to have a little get-together. This is what she had been practicing for the past year. As an amateur practice of the dark arts, there was few opportunities to gain the power that this night was able to offer. She planned for this exact moment over the past month and she had acquired everything that she needed except for two things and these were going to be collected later that night.

Julie made a few calls and discussed the plan for the night with each of her coven mates. Although they were only sixteen and seventeen years old, they felt confident in their plan. They had a plan to meet at the edge of the cemetery an hour before sundown.

At first the coven consisted of just the girls. Julie took her time finding her friends and for her it was easy to leave her old group, as they would pick up people and drop people every day. Besides Julie there was Deirdre. She was a little older than Julie, but didn’t really fit in with anyone else at school. She was the girl that dressed in dark clothes and people would make up stories about. She was an easy mark for Julie and the first to join.

Next there was Zilla. She was new to the school when Julie immediately befriended her and took her into her group. She was quiet and fairly nice, but one day she told Deirdre that her mother made them move here when she was being picked on at her old school. What she left out on that day was that she jumped on the girl that bullied her and grabbed her hair and smashed her head into the sidewalk repeatedly.

Zilla suggested that they bring in Rebecca. She met Rebecca in her physical education class. The first day of school, Silla was in the locker room when Rebecca came late. She started to change into her gym clothes when Zilla saw some of the other girls whispering and a couple pointing. Once Rebecca pulled down her pants, Zilla heard laughter and saw why. Unlike most girls that wore panties, Rebecca was the only girl who wore men’s boxers. Rebecca finished dressing out for class without a change in her manner. It was out on the track that one of these two girls made a horrible mistake and called Rebecca a name that may have been spot on, but not politically correct. In a blink of an eye, Rebecca popped the louder of the two in the throat with her hand and then gracefully spit in the eye of the other.

The first boy that they invited was Jacob. When Jacob was fourteen, he was in the same clique that Julie was in. He was an oddity then but not as much as he is now. He was smart, cute, and athletic. Two years later, he was still all those things, but now he has come out as gay and quickly was disbarred from the popular people. This was one of the reasons why Julie disappeared from that group as well.

The last person that was brought into the coven was Henry. He had little going his way in life. He was neither smart nor handsome. He wasn’t popular and didn’t play sports. But even though he didn’t play sports, he was rather strong for being sixteen years old. Julie found him sitting on a bus bench one day with a dead raccoon in his lap. The raccoon still had its tail and Henry had a knife and was peeling the skin from the carcass. When Julie asked him what he was doing, Henry calmly said that he as going to make himself a hat, just like the guy in some movie he saw. When she asked him if he found it on the side of the road, Henry said no and told her how he attracted it with a hot dog and then got it with the knife. He said he was a little upset that the raccoon did eat the hot dog, but he could get that back.

The group started meeting in Julie’s house on the weekends and would play with a Ouija board or have a séance. One day Zilla came in a little late to the typical séance night. In her hand was a paper bag.

“Guys, you have to stop. I have something crazy to tell you.”

“Zilla, we were in the middle of this and now the spirits have left. Thanks!” Deirdre had a tone of disappointment in her voice.

“Well, hold onto your skivvies, people, you’re in for a treat.” And Zilla proceeded to reach into the paper bag and pulled out an old book that everyone could smell as soon as it came out of the bag.

“Oh my God. What is that? It smells worse than my grandmother.” Rebecca’s face grimaced. “And she’s dead.”

“This book is older than any of our grandmothers.” Even through the smell Zilla beamed with excitement. “I bought it on the dark web and used my mom’s credit card. But for five thousand dollars, it’s worth it.”

“What book could be worth five grand?” The skepticism in Julies voice was apparent to everyone, but she was not alone.

“I was looking for this every day for the past two months, and two weeks ago I found it online. It’s called ‘Livres des Ombres’ and it’s worth so much more than that.”

Julie’s eyes lit up when she heard the name. She was forced to learn French when she was younger and she knew what the “Book of Shadows” was all about. It was said to be just a legend. She had talked to Zilla a couple times about it, mostly just to sound impressive, but Zilla took the information and ran with it. Now she held one of the most powerful books in the wiccan world in her hand, and had little idea what it could be capable of.

“When did you get it?” Julie asked with excitement.

“Today, I took it out of the box it came in and put it in a bag. Then I ran all the way here. I didn’t even open it. To tell you the truth, I’m sort of afraid to.”

“I’ll check it out for you,” Julie said. Her voice strangely calm. “If that’s okay with you?”

Zilla held the book out to Julie and Julie took a few steps towards her and gently took the book. She didn’t immediately open it. Instead, she caressed it, gliding her finger across the edges and the cover, then down the spine. Julie lifted the book towards her and bent down to meet it. As she did, Julie’s mouth moved as if telling the book a secret. As a final gesture, Julie kissed the book with all the seduction of a chippie making contact with a little faunlet.

Everyone in the room felt a shiver go through them at the same time. Julie opened the book ever so slightly and then shut it back up again. She looked up at Zilla and handed her back the book.

“Its good,” she said to Zilla and smiled as she looked at the other members in the room. “No more séances or Ouija boards. We’re changing our focus.”

For the next few weeks, the group took turns listening to Julie as she read the ancient book, first in French, then in English. They would meet at Julie’s house each weekend, bringing things that they remembered from the readings from the book. Some of the items were exact matches of what she read, while others were the closest approximation of the ingredients. The items included different hairs and different bodily fluids. There were parts of animals that Henry gladly collected. There were odd items like looking glasses, lead beads, air from different places and directions. The largest collection of items were parts of plants which were hard to find as some were not native to their area. But after a couple months, they had almost everything that they would need.

Now, here it was, Halloween and Julie had a plan. If she did everything just right, she would be able to do anything – anything. Just the two things left.

The six members of the coven met at the edge of the graveyard an hour before sundown. They walked through the newest part of the cemetery and made it to the older tombstones. Unlike the graves they walked through to get here, these graves were ignored and dilapidated. Henry walked over to the farthest set of tombstones and came back to where they initially stopped with a pair of shovels. He stuck one into the ground and took the other one and started digging up a grave.

Julie and Zilla grabbed Jacob and continued walking through the graveyard towards the neighborhood up ahead. Rebecca and Deirdre took turns helping Henry dig. They had to be done before the sun went down and Henry was well on pace to do it.

Julie, Zilla, and Jacob made it to their destination. They had a new recruit that they were bringing into the fold at the perfect time. Julie knocked on the door and waited. A second later, Mallory arrived at the door.

“You ready?” Julie asked Mallory. “We have to get through the graveyard before it gets too dark. Let’s get going.”

“Okay, I’ll be there in a second.” Mallory turned around and went inside for a second. Julie, Zilla, and Jacob all looked at each other and smiled. Mallory hurried back and the four made their way to the rest of the group.

By the time they got to the grave site, Deirdre and Rebecca were sitting on the grass beside the trench that Henry was still throwing dirt out onto the pile. Then and the dirt stopped. Henry worked his way to the taller end of the hole he dug and climbed out.

“Got it!” Henry held a couple dirty old nails and threw the second shovel down into the hole. ”Let’s go.”

The seven teens made their way out of the cemetery and into the woods at the edge of town. They found the clearing that they had been working on for the past few weeks.

“Wow, this is cool,” Mallory said with enthusiasm. A second later she dropped to the ground and Henry calmly began to drag Mallory to the tree that was in the center of the clearing. He pulled the spikes out of his pocket and shoved them through Mallory’s wrists and into the tree. Julie and the others surrounded the tree and watched as Henry began to carve symbols into Mallory. Julie began the chant and each one of the other participants followed behind her. The chanting began to get louder and faster and then it happened. The symbols on Mallory’s skin began to glow and the tree began to burn with a deep red fire.

This was the moment that Julie was waiting for. She walked up to Henry and shoved a knife as deep as she could into his back. He struggled for only a few seconds before falling to the base of the tree. Julie looked around and the four other people were lying on the ground with their heads spinning on the ground beside them. Then Mallory appeared from out of a cloud of red fire and grabbed Julie by the face.

“Thank you for bringing me home,” the transformed Mallory said in a raspy melodic tone. And just that quick she twisted Julie’s head and watched as the head spun on the ground.