The Test of Thirteen

"Bloodroot, nightshade, pond scum, a live tadpole, and fresh guano. Put into a large kettle with two quarts of fetid rainwater and heat while intoning the words: 'Filtum, rexquiet, patter, mordon, crexiphene, noxnos, carn.' Sarah Fellows curtsied to the coven and folded her hands. "Attack of Mucus."

"Correct. Next."

Heather Crenshaw stood and walked to the front of the group as Sarah returned to her place with the other girls--all between the ages of ten and fourteen.

The head witch spoke, enunciating carefully as she spoke: "Rash of the Fire Beetle."

Heather's eyes grew wide, then she chewed on her lip for a moment.

"Come, come," said the head witch. "We haven't got all night."

"Uh ... uh ... Three-leaved creeping vine. Bark of dead oak. Salamander tail. Blood of a pregnant skunk." The head witch snorted, but Heather continued, though her voice quavered. "Apply to area to be irritated and whisper the words "Canem, senti, firefox, mixtotten.'"

"Irritated I may be," intoned the witch judging the spelling bee, but you are the one scratched, I fear." She waved a hand in dismissal. "Perhaps next Blood Moon."

Gwynneth scowled at the old hag. The bitch-witch always delighted when the up-and-coming witches failed at their assigned spelling tests and she had always been especially cruel when Gwynneth failed year after year after year. This was her last chance. She was only a fortnight shy of fifteen years of age. She must pass this dark even or be banished forever to the ranks of the mundanes, the handmaidens to the real power in these tangled woods.

The bitch-witch coughed, hacking unnecessarily loud and long. She held out one skinny, veined arm and beckoned at Gwynneth with a curled, bony finger. "Come, now. Your turn, Gwynneth. Your turn to fail for the last time."

Gwynneth gave her a slit-eyed look and made her way to the front of the pack of apprentice witches. She grit her teeth together as she watched her tormentor leaf through the tattered Book of Spells, until finally she reached an appendix at the very back of the book. An appendix!

"Hand of Foaming Ipecac ..." intoned the bitch-witch, "... Level Nine."

Gwynneth couldn't help her upper lip from curving into a sneer. Foaming Ipecac? Level Nine? Since when were they testing apprentices on the Appendices, especially at lethal levels? She knew nothing about this spell. Nothing at all, except that it shouldn't be asked at a spelling bee. It probably should only be whispered about in dark places at the stroke of midnight. The bitch-witch was sabotaging her chances of ever joining the coven."

"I'm waiting, dearie," sneered her judge and executioner. "We're all waiting to hear if you have any abilities at all."

"No components," barked out Gwynneth. The coven burst out laughing, but she did not stop talking. Instead, she started making intricate had gestures as she continued. "Sempyr, dyson, orphyte, tang. Mensom, clanton, riddicius, flang. Noxtyr, hopswitch, fennir, klang ..."

The laughing stopped abruptly with a sudden intake of breath as the coven realized what Gwynneth was attempting. No, what Gwynneth was doing.

"...Mortus, portal, jabrite, mang." Her hands were now gesticulating intricate patterns at a speed even she could not fathom. "Crowbeat, foulmeet, sepsus, bang."

A bolt of lightning sprang forth from the clear night sky surrounding the full moon, hitting the bitch-witch, then forking out through her to the other dozen souls sitting on the dewy ground, watching the spelling bee. They jerked and spasmed in syncopated death rhythms as fired spilled from their mouths and engulfed their faces, then their robes, and thirteen pillars of fire lit up the night.

Some of the dozen girls behind Gwynneth screamed, but the majority chuckled. Their teachers ... no, their tormentors ... were charred and broken. Gone from this plane of existence or any other.

The coven was dead.

Long live the coven.