Egress

Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky. Every night? That doesn't seem right, but the weather is mild and the world is beautiful. I dance with abandon, my feet kicking up dust beating a rhythm to the silent world, my skirt flowing, my red hair knotted on top of my head in an intricate updo that I would never wear. My arms were adorned with beautiful bracelets that nicely contrasts the red stone necklace that sits on my chest. I don't want to leave, why don't I want to leave?

This cotton candy sky is unfamiliar to me, I haven't danced in years. Then as fast as it had come into being the world began to crumble. The purple clouds fold in on themselves, turning to giant black thunderheads, the ground that was solid just seconds before began to shake, cracks began forming light spilling from them. I fall, my hand landing on a crack. I pulled it back as fast as I could. It burns my hand.

I shoot up in bed look at my hand and see a thin burn across my palm. Groggily I walk to my kitchen, stand parallel to the sink and look at my hand more closely. I don't turn the lights on, the street light is enough to see. I'm still hungover, maybe even still drunk, from the campaign party last night. The skin is starting to pucker and turn red, it's deep. What the fuck do they want? I run it under cool water, but the pain is excruciating. This is a magical wound, they're trying to contact me. I look at my clock, 3:45 am. Why now? My life is good, I haven't seen or heard from anyone in my coven for a decade.

Then my phone rings. "What?" I spit out.

"Hey sis" my brothers voice hits me in the face like a ton of bricks. All of a sudden I'm thirteen again and he's five and we're in the back yard and I'm taking the blame for lighting the apple tree on fire so dad doesn't punish him.

"Dan."

"Grams is dead"

"What do you want me to do about it?" I spit back at him. No one had even told me she was sick, not that I would have gone to see them. Not after the last time.

"Alright take second, jeeze Lynn, what is your problem?" He's so calm, he was always so calm, he doesn't sound like my little brother. He sounds older than me. Which of course makes me angry, even more than being woken up in the middle of the night by crazy witch dreams. I didn't want to talk to him, I didn't want to hear about grams being dead and what that meant for the coven. I know already. I know that's why they sent me the dream. They want me back.

"I'll call you tomorrow." I could hear his protestations on the other end as I hit that big red button and put my phone down.

Grams being dead meant that there would be an election for a new head of coven. It's been years since I've seen any of them, they don't need me to do this. Grams and I share some things in common that make us, unique. Covens these days are more like collectors than anything else, searching the globe for witches with specific powers. Witchcraft used to stay in the family, in the community. There aren't enough left of us to keep up that model, so leaders collect.

If you ask any witch it's to maintain balance. We're supposed to be arbiters of nature, but really it's to amass power. If you get a really honest witch a little drunk, they'll tell you it's a way to amass power 'just in case' I've never gotten anyone to elaborate on the 'in case' part. I never really cared.

I'm not sure what their preparing for, I don't think there's enough of us to have a 'great evil'. I disowned my family and did my last magic ten years ago. I prefer to get my power the old fashioned way, political games and paying people off quietly.

I make myself some coffee, still in the dark, because I'm up and hungover and I don't think I'm getting back to sleep. I might as well start my day. I sit down on my couch, sip my coffee, and then there's a knock on my door. The one I knew was coming.

"It's unlocked" I said, not caring who was walking in my door at 4:00 in the morning. Dan walks in, his red hair all over the place, his scarf hanging off at an odd angle. He traveled magically.

"I see you're stilll rocking the homeless professor look" I say to him, rolling my eyes.

"You had that one locked and loaded" he snaps back, he waves his arm and all of my lights come on.

"What the fuck Dan?" I'm blinded and the headache that was dancing on an edge comes through with full force. "First you send me a freaky dream then you call in the middle of the night and now you're walking in here like you own the place." I was mad. The lights flickered. The apartment shook a little.

"That magic popping our now might be for the best" he said quietly as he plopped down on the chair next to my couch. At least he had the decency to not sit next to me.

I paused for a second, as I got a better look at him I noticed; he looked haggard, not just disheveled, like he hasn't been sleeping. I remember his nightmares from when we were kids. Have they come back? No. I don't care.

"Are you done?" He said. Still so calm.

"For now" I shot back.

"You need to come home"

"I don't need to do anything"

"You know what you are to the coven, you knew we'd call for you when she was gone. Also what dream? I didn't send you any dreams, I can't do that" I don't want to believe him, but my brother is a lot of things a liar is not one of them.

"The dreams with the cotton candy clouds and the terrifying earthquake. I assumed it was your way of trying to frighten me back home." Now I was confused.

"I'm not the one who likes to play mind games Lynn, that was always you" there was venom in his soft voice I've never heard before.

"I don't play mind games, I have a life Dan, I'm not going back. My candidate just won. People want me to work for them." I said trying to keep the pride out of my voice. The funny thing is I still love him, I always will, but he's weak. He's always been weak. He stayed, he did what our family, our coven wanted. I left, I get to live apart from the chaos, if I dig deep I think I'm better than him.

"Lynn you play mind games for a living, of course your candidate won. You never needed magic to get what you wanted."

"Wow, I thought we were talking about clouds and dreams. I seem to remember that talent being useful when I was constantly covering for you" I said back to him.

"Whatever. I didn't send you any dreams. How do you know they're not just dreams?"

I leaned over and showed him my palm.

"Well shit, that's worse than I thought. No that wasn't me, but it is an even bigger reason why you should come home." He pulled my hand towards him so he could examine it closely.

"Listen, I appreciate the concern" I was surprised that I wasn't lying. "Dan I can't go back. I don't want to see them." Why am I pleading?

"You don't have to see them, but you need to be there for the vote. You need to be there to accept or reject gram's power. You know that you are the next anchor, just by birth order. It's not something you can help. If you don't go back we lose our power"

I take a deep breath. This was not the argument I thought he'd pull out so easily. Witches have to tie their power to something, or in our coven's case to someone. My grandmother was the last anchor, the one who is the conduit between the earth's magic and the rest of the coven. Typically it skips a generation, my mother had the option, but she rejected the offer. She had other things to do. Coven politics are even more complicated that human politics. Inter coven politics even more complicated than that, the only thing witches at least claim to believe is balance and nature. None of them agree how to do that, and none of them agree on definition of balance is but it is what it is.

"Why aren't mom and dad here to beg me?" I said, trying to buy myself a little time.

"You know how busy they are." He said, but he didn't look me in the eye.

"They don't know you're here do they?" I almost laughed, my rule following brother was going behind my parents back in a massive way.

"No, they told me they didn't want to see you either. The narcissist doesn't fall far from the tree."

I laughed again "alright alright little brother I get the point. Actually it might be fun to drop in on the family and the coven. It'll also be fun for me to reject them in person"

"You won't reject it" Dan said quietly.

"And how do you know that?"

"Because I know you Lynn, you're going to take one look at the problem and your ego isn't going to let you not solve it" he said, it was his turn to laugh at me.

"The problem?"

"Come on, now that you know none of us sent you the dream it's going to drive you nuts. You need answers. You always have. I'm pretty sure you won't get them here" he gestured to my apartment. The one with the view of the city I loved so much, the one that I worked so hard to get. The one that used to guarantee my seclusion from my family.

"Fine."

"That's it? Fine? We haven't spoken in ten years and that's all you'll give me?" He looked genuinely hurt.

"You're getting what you want, I'm coming back with you, that's what you wanted. You'll have to earn anything else"

"I think it's you that has something to prove" he said quietly. He grabbed my arm. With a pop we were gone.