Chapter 1
"How much longer will we have to wait, Claire?"
Claire Chamberlain looked at her sister, then glanced around the table in the back of the occult bookstore which she and Sybil ran in Des Moines.
"We will wait as long as we have to wait, Sybil," she replied. "We have waited sixteen years, what is another few weeks or months?"
"But the power, Aunt Claire! It is getting out of control," said her oldest niece, Sybil's daughter Hilda. "I don't know how much longer we can ground it without consequences. I fried my microwave heating up a burrito on Tuesday. It just keeps building and building."
Claire sighed, and with a shrug conceded the point. When she and Sybil had agreed to the course of action which was, hopefully, drawing to an end, none of them had thought they would have to wait this long to close the ritual.
Damn Chad, anyway,
she thought.
May the Dark One take his pretty-boy soul. If he hadn't panicked and fled, we could have kept the status quo going indefinitely.
But Chad had left his wife, her sister, after fathering two daughters. And there was no place for the energy to disperse. And with five witches of bearing age, the overflow was reaching dangerous proportions. If Chad had stayed...
Or if Mark had not died six months later,
she thought sadly. She missed her departed husband every day. No man of great power he, but a calm and steady presence which had grounded the coven as surely as oak roots held the mighty tree they supported in the earth. Mark had been a ranger with the park service, but when he was killed in an avalanche, she and Sybil had left the Tetons and settled in Iowa.
Flat, boring, unmagical,
stupid
Iowa.
In truth, she had to admit Des Moines was not a bad place to live and raise a family. The schools were good, and there was an unexpected progressive vibe which ran through the larger cities in Iowa, especially Des Moines and Iowa City. Even she had been shocked, years ago, when the state supreme court had legalized gay marriage in Iowa. If there had been some way of neutralizing the appallingly unpleasant fundamentalist streak which poisoned so many of the smaller towns and villages in the state, she would be more content.
Sighing again, she looked around the five-sided table at her coven. A small one, by the standards of this day and age, when witches grouped together for protection and strength, and one which held practices at which even some other covens would look askance. One which was strong in power, but which had been but one breath from extinction from the time of Mark's death.
Five sides to the table. Five elements of power which brought them together. Five women bound by blood and love.
Her sister Sybil held the place of Water to her left. A tall, slim woman with brown hair which she wore long, she resembled their mother, gone these twenty-five years, killed in a fire which had baffled the police and fire department alike. But not Sybil and Claire. They knew the role the Dark One had played in Maureen Chamberlain's death, and when the time came, the debt would be paid in full.
Sybil wore a long, loose flower print dress, somewhat of a throwback to the 1960s, in keeping with the expectations members of the public had when visiting an occult bookstore. Her eyes were as sharp as her mind. When not minding the store, she taught yoga, and her body was as fit as a woman half her age, which was forty-one.
Counterclockwise around the table was Sybil's younger daughter, Agatha. She held the position of Air. Slim like her mother, she was much smaller, and kept her blonde hair (a gift from her ne'er do well father) short. Having just finished her junior year at Drake University in Des Moines, she wore a sweatshirt and heavy skirt that hid her curves from the ever-ravenous men in her engineering classes. Her goal was to get into NASA's engineering program, and perhaps to go into space on the International Space Station.
Next to her was Claire's own daughter, Eleanor, holding down the position of Spirit. Older by two years than her cousin Hilda, she was a soft, dreamy woman with milk white skin set off spectacularly by her pitch-black hair, which wove gently down past her shoulders. The joke in the inner circle was that of them all, Eleanor was the one most at risk of being burned as a witch, as she most resembled the ancient archetype. However, with her gentle voice, kind touch, and sweet disposition, no one would take for anything more than what she was, which was a kindergarten teacher at one of the elementary schools in Des Moines. Both students and parents adored Miss Ellie It was a mistake however, to mistake Eleanor's kindness for weakness. When the occasion demanded, she was as strong and as implacable as the Mississippi River.
Last was Sybil's older daughter, Hilda, covering the position of Fire. Never had a position and holder been more compatible, for Hilda's hair was as red as the glowing coals of a campfire on a November night. Twenty-two years old, she was the only one who was not a college graduate. Of medium height, she had a bearing and presence which drew all eyes to her. Her ripe curves guaranteed a never-ending procession of men in her job as a physical trainer. And if she chose to work some of them out in other ways, who was there to disapprove?
Hilda, she thought, would bear watching. All the Chamberlain women were drawn to power. The stronger the power, the greater the attraction. And it was their job to ground it until the two members of their family who were not in the coven came of age.
And there was only one way for a male to come of age in the Chamberlain family coven.
Clair looked down at the table, carved with the sigil for her own element, Earth. She was the oldest of the group, at forty-four. Her hair, although frosted with gray, was still mostly brown like her sister's, and curled pleasantly half-way down her back. And if she did not have the D-cup breasts that Hilda and Agatha did, her own were still high, proud, and firm. Uncomfortable with the way her hips and rear had spread in the years since she had started running the store, she had recently taken up a vigorous walking program which, coupled with strong opinions on a suitable diet, had dropped her weight and waist size down to what they had been when she married Mark. She was now, to quote her niece Agatha, festively plump
She shifted uncomfortably in the chair. If only there was some way to safely ground the power! The bleed-off from five women, four of them sexually active, three in their prime bearing years and the other two at their sexual peak, was immense. They needed a man, properly bound and bonded to the coven, to disperse it properly. In a city the size of Des Moines, that would ordinarily be no problem. A proper dispersal would keep the innocent citizens happy, healthy, and horny. And a more fertile landscape would mean nothing but good for the farmers of Iowa, who needed all the help they could get these days.
But they did not have a man. A few boyfriends had (without their knowledge) been discreetly auditioned over the years, but none had the combination of power and an open mind which was demanded of them. So they had decided to keep to the plan which Sybil and Claire had devised so many years ago. To wait for John and Susanna.
She shook herself free from the distracting thoughts and looked at her niece, "I know the secondary effects are troubling, Hilda. But the bright side is that with such a build-up, I think we can expect the cross-over to happen soon."
"That's what you said last September at the equinox." Eleanor's voice held an unusual note of impatience. "And at Halloween. And at the winter solstice. And at their birthdays in January. And at the spring equinox six weeks ago. By the Goddess, Aunt Claire, we are past Beltane! John and Susanna leave for college in less than four months. What do we do if the ritual is unperformed? We can't have a couple of unbound witches on a college campus. We have managed to keep Susanna a virgin, and John with her. If they are unbound and away from us when they cross, who knows what the consequences would be?"
"An orgy of truly epic proportions?" suggested Hilda with a grin. Across from her, Agatha muffled a snort of dark amusement.
"That," said Sybil firmly, "Is
not
going to happen. If we have to tie John to his bed and charm all the doors and windows in his bedroom shut, we will. But he is not leaving until the ritual is performed."
Hilda's eyes gleamed. "Tell me more, mother. I am finding the prospect of John being tied to his bed...fascinating." Under her loose t-shirt, her bra-less nipples peaked, and her tongue came out and briefly touched her upper lip.
Sybil snorted. "You're incorrigible."
Hilda laughed. "I certainly hope so. None of these pale, flabby men can hold my attention anymore. I need something with a little more...spice. A bit of power. Some danger to make the nights interesting." Claire raised her brows. Even by the standards of a professional personal trainer, none of the men that Claire had ever seen Hilda with could be called pale, let alone flabby. Her patience must be running shorter than she realized.
"Careful, Hilda. Keep on that road and you'll start to cackle. And once a witch starts to cackle, it is only a matter of time before you're talking about gingerbread houses and ovens," said Claire.
"And stakes. Ponds. Stones. Fires. Be very careful, cousin," said Eleanor. She pulled off her sweater, revealing a torso, that, while less curved than her cousin's, was sweetly sculpted nonetheless. Her Iowa State t-shirt was damp with sweat. "Too damn hot in here," she muttered.
"Don't worry. I know that if I even glance at Cousin John sideways these days, Aunt Claire will hex me the way she has the poor boys who have come sniffing around Susanna. How many is it now, Auntie Claire? Six?"
