Chapter 1

For tread the Circle thrice about to keep unwelcome spirits out

– The Wiccan Rede.

Iwoke face down in my Grimoire. It is ill-considered to sleep between two spells, but thankfully these were of the more forgiving type – a cure for freckles that involved collecting the dew fresh from dawn-touched leaves, and a spell to improve fertility. I might find myself with fewer freckles, or more, and my next period would be late I predicted as I peeled my cheek off the pages and tried to pinpoint what had woken me.

An owl called outside my window, and the hair stood up at the back of my neck in foreboding just before car headlights cut through the darkness, washing through my bedroom before casting it back into shadow.

Vossen House stands at the peak of a great cliff that overlooks the ocean, and the road up the hill connects to only a handful of the more remote properties. As if the road was a border between us and everyone else, the other houses inhabited the other side leaving a strip of prime land from the lighthouse point rolling down the hill to the old settlement, and then up to what had been known for generations as Bishop House, but for the past three decades had served as Pinegrove Academy.

There was, therefore, no way that a car would come this close to our house accidentally. They had come to us on purpose.

The owl was unsettled, taking to the air, a feather drifting down to land on the windowsill of my bedroom as the car pulled to a stop below. I opened the window, leaning out over my desk to collect the owl's gift, and set it between the pages to counteract the negativity of having slept between them.

"I know you have her in there you fucking interfering witches. Open your fucking door," a man yelled from below followed by the shudder of a fist against wood and glass.

I recoiled from the open window instinctively although I was a story above and safe in my room, my heart racing as he continued to rage below, the floorboards of the porch creaking and shuddering beneath his heavy-footed strides as he moved from window to window, rapping his knuckles against the glass, and continuing to yell his demands and obscenities.

I leaned across the surface of my desk to look down, but the angle and the veranda roof hid him from my sight. The car was parked haphazardly, and its lights had been left on, catching the eyes of one of my aunt's cats as it watched him warily from within the shelter of the rose bushes.

"Fucking open up or I will smash a window!"

I hurried out of my room into the dark hallway beyond and navigated its furnishings by memory until I reached the front staircase, where light spilled up from below. I leaned over the banister to get a clear view of the front hall. It was lit by the antique Tiffany lamp on the Louis XVI hall table. Pressed against the stained glass of the front door, the man's face was grotesquely distorted into that of a monster.

Aunt Fennel stood draped in shadows within the doorway of the library. As was her habit, she wore black, top to toe, but she was dressed for bed, modestly wrapped in her dressing gown, her hair in a braid over one shoulder, and her face clean of makeup revealing the red, gnarled burn scar along her cheek.

Aunt Callista strode from the hallway beyond the foot of the staircase towards the door, coming from the direction of the kitchen, her long silky dressing gown with its feathered edges billowing behind her, the tie slipping loose to reveal the clinging satin slip that she wore beneath it. She paused by the mirrored hat stand to apply her lipstick before opening the door, filling it with a provocative stretch of arms and the roll of her hip.

"Good evening, Warren. To what do we owe this visit?"

He was a big man, dressed in jeans and steel-toed boots, his shirt stained from a day at work and his jaw shadowed by stubble – and my aunt was tiny in comparison despite all her lush curves, but for a moment, he stared at her dumbfounded. He had expected fear and had been greeted instead by sensual allure. And then he remembered the affront that had brought him to our door, and his face hardened into rage.

"Julie has taken Sophie," he growled down at her. "I know they're here."

"Oh?" Callista arched an eyebrow. "Why would they be here?"

In the doorway of the library, Aunt Fennel lit a candle with purpose, her expression intent and her lips moving in an almost silent chant.

"Candle burn, fire bright, protect those within this house tonight," I whispered with her, knowing the spell from the shape of the words upon her lips. There was a garlic braid decoratively woven with ribbon and herbs above the door that would further reinforce the intention of the spell.

"What's going on, Nyx?" Nova crept through the shadowy hallway and leaned against the banister with me, her hair falling forward over her shoulder to curtain her face. Her arrival drew Fennel's eyes upward and her expression cautioned us to stay hidden.

"I don't know," I barely breathed the words.

"Everyone knows that you Vossens…" The man trailed off.

Are witches, I finished silently for him. He was right. We were. For centuries we had used our witchcraft in service of the women of the town. We had been their midwives, their healers. We had brewed potions for love and beauty, and tonics for ailments and malady. We had tended to sick children and helped prevent their conception. And we had always served as a place of refuge and rescue.

When they needed us, they came to our door pleading for our help. When they did not need us, they reviled us and whispered behind their hands about the Vossen witches up the hill.

"We Vossens do what? Steal wives and daughters away at midnight?" Callista's smile was dangerous. "You are welcome to come in and look for yourself," she stepped back, pushing the door wider in invitation. "If you wish."

"Ah…" For a moment he teetered caught between the desire to pursue his wife and daughter and the spell that discouraged his entry. The spell won, and he stepped back. "No. No… I must have…" He ran his hand through his hair looking back over his shoulder at the car. "I must be wrong. She must have gone… Maybe she went to her mother's?"

"Maybe," Callista repeated, her eyes gleaming. "Well then, I'll just return to my bed. Ta-ta, Warren." She closed the door but did not move away, watching through the glass as he left the porch, and standing sentry until the taillights retreated like devil's eyes into the darkness.

"He is gone," she said to Fennel.

"Thank goodness for that."

Nova and I exchanged a look and hurried down the stairs as both aunts headed toward the kitchen. The light above the stove was on, but the kitchen was otherwise dark, turning the familiar shapes of pots and pans and the greenery that grew wherever there was room for a pot mysterious and eery.

A cauldron bubbled above the gas-lit flame. I went over to stir it, breathing in the scents of witch hazel, lavender, and calendula. A tonic for bruises, I guessed, leaving it to simmer and circling the central table, to where the room bent into an L. The original owner had built a false wall cunningly disguised behind wood paneling, perhaps to hide the tools of her craft during an era when owning them could mean death. We used the space as a walk-in-pantry, and it was now lined with shelving that held neatly labelled jars and baskets. The wooden floor cleverly hid a trapdoor into the cellar, and, when Callista lifted it, a woman and a young girl ascended the ladder.

For a moment, the little girl recalled to me that other. It had been less than a week since the accident, and it haunted me, her broken little body, and her fear. And the burning eyes of the reaper as they had met mine…

This little girl had been weeping, her cheeks tracked with tears and her eyes red and swollen. The mother had been beaten, most likely in the morning before the man had gone to work from the scab of her split lip and the colour of her bruises.

"I'm sorry. I did not know where else to go. I couldn't go to my mother's – she'll just make me go back to him," the words poured from the woman. "If I go back, he will kill me. Please. Please. I've heard the rumors that you help women like me…"

She was not a local, I thought. Not born in Mortensby. But she had lived there long enough to have heard the townspeople speak of us.

"Of course, my dear. All who come seeking aid are welcome here," Fennel said warmly, drawing them out of the pantry and over to sit at the farmhouse table which served as both our central kitchen island and an informal seating space. Nova put the kettle on to boil and began preparing tea and hot chocolate, setting cookies out onto a plate to tempt the little girl from her tears.

"Prepare a cord-cutting, Nyx," Callista said quietly as she passed me.

I nodded and, as they calmed the child and began to tend to the mother, drew down the box of candles selecting one black and one white taper from within. We had many candles, all homemade and each for a purpose, in varying colors, scents, ingredients, shapes, and sizes. From a basket, I selected the black-dyed twine and cut off a length.

At a section of the kitchen bench out of the line of sight of the woman and her daughter, I prepared a tray with black salt and rosemary and set the candles a hand space apart with the twine joining them.

"Julie and Sophie from Warren," Fennel said softly as she passed me on her way to the pantry.

"I release you, Julie," I whispered as I lit the candles. "From Warren, I set you free, and with you Sophie, so mote it be."

Fennel returned with cloth for bathing Julie's bruises in the tonic, and as she began to wash Julie's face, I could hear Callista on the phone, her side of the conversation sparse as she knew she could be overheard.

"Yes, as soon as possible," Callista said. "Mother and daughter… Nine or so… Yes… I will have them ready." She set the old-fashioned handpiece onto the receiver. "They will be here shortly and will take you to the home of a volunteer. You can stay with her for as long as you need, and when you are ready…"

I stopped listening as the flames had reached the twine. Julie's flame was weak, fluttering, and fragile, whilst Warren's burned in a tall, bright flame. Julie's flame smoked the twine but did not catch upon it, fighting to sever but lacking the power to do so. On Warren's side, the wax that melted sealed the twine to the candle, appearing to absorb it.

"Oh," Nova came to stand and watch with me. "I haven't seen that before."

"Shh," I cautioned her, leaning around her to see the table. The aunts were almost done patching Julie and Sophie up for transfer to the safe house and had not heard her.

There was a network of people who worked to assist women to escape domestic violence, but they were very covert as to how they performed their role. All we had was a phone number. We did not know their names, or where they took the women that we gave into their care. However, my aunts did get mail from the women that they had helped over the years, little letters with no return addresses that thanked them for their help.

Julie's candle went out.

There would be no letters coming from Julie in the future, I thought grimly.

Warren's flame continued until it burnt itself out as a stub, the twine deeply buried in his wax and still holding onto Julie's candle.

The phone rang, and Nova and I both jumped.

"Hello?" Callista answered it. "Yes. We will be out front waiting. Thank you." She hung up. "They are almost here. They do not like to stay overlong. The car will pull up, you must get in, and then you will be on your way to safety."

"Thank you," Julie's voice shook with relief and exhaustion. "Thank you so much."

As they moved through the house to the porch, Nova and I looked at each other.

"What does it mean?" Nova asked me.

"Nothing good," I replied. "I've never done a cord-cutting spell where the cord was not severed."

"The aunts will know," Nova comforted me, placing her hand on my arm. "It's okay, Nyx. Sometimes spells go wrong, right?"

She thought I had miscast it, I realized. "I didn't do anything wrong," I told her. "It was them, not me."

"What was them?" Callista asked as she and Fennel returned to the kitchen.

"The candles," I gestured to the spell. "I don't know what happened."

"Oh dear," Fennel exclaimed as she saw them.

Callista was silent for a long moment and then reached out and put her hand on my shoulder. "You know what happened," she said quietly. "You understood what you saw."

"She'll go back to him," I said, my voice hoarse. "And he will kill her."

Nova dragged in a horrified breath, pressing the fingers of her hands to her lips as if trying to hold it inside. "Are you sure?"

"It is time for bed," Fennel took the sage out of its drawer and lit it. "Off to bed girls," she wafted the smoke over us. "What will be, will be."