A Place You Stay Forever : Chapter 5 - Keeping Up Appearances

Elegantly sitting with uncrossed legs clamando on stone carved saddle style seats, six witches sat with openly exposed spread knees, comfortably conversing while resting their elbows on a clear glass table.

Giggling away they casually nibbled from plates laced with cheese and cured meat. The items being offered were produced locally by the goats that scavenged nearby Munster Mountain.

The witches quizzically sipped wine, corked in the surrounding vineyards, baiting each other to share new wand combinations. In order to keep a spell-book increasing in power during the modern era a witch had to be very crafty in social settings .

In ancient times witches would kill and rob other witches. They would gain enhanced powers by stealing hoarded occultist ingredients. These elements in essence are vital too summoning as well as commanding evil entities.

Covens were formed for protective measures by weaker witches during the Dark Ages.

Inter -demensional spirits encouraged these power groupings because it prevented the self-extermination of their earthly channelling conduits.

Innately, a witch is always trying to become more powerful then another witch. They all secretly, deep inside, with unbeknown secrecy, try to steal each others sorcery skills.

The stronger the witch, the longer they live. A dead witches spirit lurks the deepest depths of satan's abyss stoking the flames for the burning souls. It's in a witches best interest to stay in the flesh for as many centuries as she can conjure.

Cyrena Keeling had inherit her grandmothers thirst for rejuvenation. The Keeling's were notorious witches within the Penticton coven. For aeons they have fiercely studied to uncover the dark magic required to foster a beautiful youthful complexion.

Like Drach-blood witches with their obsessive hankering to transform into black cats, generations of Keeling's have ascribed webspells that pushed the bloodlines dark compulsion towards creating the most powerful beauty cream a witch could ever wear during day light hours.

Cyrena was grown to be the ageless maiden patriarch of the Keeling's. Her egg mother wasn't surprised that naturally at a very early age she possessed a keen knack for the clean precision required to perform blood magic. Although there were rare occasions, when as a young girl, she clumsily caused autism to boys she smelled had traces of warlock in their bones, Cyrena excelled in the dark arts. Enhancing powers was the child's only tantrum concern. Conceived in a womb and brought to term in an over sized clay jar, Cyrena Keeling was the first successful un-birthed creation from the Mistress Redwind's deepest chamber.

" I was booty bumping on his knee so hard during the
 Grease Lighing song, I actually had an orgasm right
 there on the dancefloor." 

🔽
All the witches erupted in a thunderous howling laugh at Marina Keeling's admission.

" When the High Priestess said 
  whoever fucked him first would get 
  a whole cup of juvey juice,     

 I knew right then it was going 
  to get Druid out of control."

🔽
Multiple witches starting talking at once trying to share their own experience regarding the giant dancing man from last Saturday night at the Mule nightclub. The saddled shaped stone seats collected the excitement.

Leena Keeling had been sitting on the stairs listening to her mother's friends talk about this mysterious tall man and his incredible dancing endurance.

While they each took turns describing the heat they felt when they touched him, she trembled with a cool purr, instantly gaining increased anxiety as she heard the six Keeling cousins continually identify the crazy raver as the tall man. With a pert extended neck and a twisted ear she confirmed in her mind for certain, they were saying tall man. Leena's mouth hung open in a dumb founded pause. She shook her wrists and widened her eyes too regain composure before entering the white carpeted living room.
🔽

     " Was it really the Irish Whiskey that prevented
       you all from reading his thoughts?"

🔽

To have overheard High Priestess Giaan offer an entire cup of rejuvenation from an enchanted Witches Sabbath grail, quickly clicked Leena's thoughts from the tall man's prophetic arrival, too immediately mapping out in her mind the magnitude this revelation had in erupting a rush of horny hysteria within the entire coven.

Was this the diversion she was waiting for?

The prize being presented by the Penticton witches High Priestess gave Leena's bottom lips a surprisingly competitive flushing quiver. She knew her Mother would stop at nothing to obtain this massive incanted reward.

One full grail of rejuvenation from a Witches Sabbath would be enough to keep a dozen witches ageless for 5 years. Leena knew Cyrena would be knocking that drink back in one big solo gulp.

The chant the old hag spewed, nagged punctually in her gut, while she stood in front of her family.

Could it be true?

  "The tall man will change your fate"

🔽
In the forest the hag repeatedly shrieked her name then continuously wailed the phrase in ascending higher octaves.

  "The tall man will change your fate"
  "The tall man will change your fate"

🔽
The words looped in her mind like a vinyl recorder player's skipping needle as she stood acknowledging each cousin with eye contact.

     "The tall man will change your fate"

🔽
The initial hellish moan caused Leena to drop the syringe with evening dew she had been collecting for the vanishing mist potion Milly had taught her.

As the old hag continued too escalate the contorting fiendish vocal possession, a hot tingle trickled up Leena's back as an unfamiliar calmness engulfed her with sudden warmth. For the first time in her life while watching this hag thrash around abhorrently in a torrid bashing tirade, she felt hope.

In two months on her 18th birthday Leena would be brought before Mistress Redwind for her final examination.

Four years earlier her dear older sister Mildred had a final birthday examination.

She hasn't seen her sister in person since.

Her Mother would never mentioned Milly.

Cyrena's disinterest in having missing feeling for Milly was the initial first oddity too trigger Leena's suspicion she was being prepped, like her sister, for some future sinister witching ritual.

While mixing up jars of green overnight face creme with her mother, Leena would strategically retell a Milly Halloween prank, knowing her mother would caste a mnemonic spell too imprint a recent phone call memory into her subconscious.

Eventually Leena was able to decipher which sequenced nail taps enacted the hypnotic thought missiles.

The teenager cleverly repeated details back to her mother only to re- level the deception and let her think the magic diversions were working. Leena was well aware her mother did not love her. She could feel it.

Leena was a wise young witch to not reveal the true extent in which her powers were progressing. They had substantially enhanced naturally and greatly quicken in increased strength during her teen years. She could levitate without a broom. There was always the underlining fear Cyrena would find her herb stash and learn the true extent too how much her knowledge for manipulating nature had really evolved.

Cyrena Keeling spoke in a frighteningly deep demonic voice .

  " My beautiful young daughter.

    Why don't you come and sit with us, 
    instead of lurking on the staircase. 
    
    You are almost of age, grab a chalice,
    come stand beside your loving mother."

🔽
All the witches eyes widened as they watched to see which chalice young Leena would choose.

" I have menstrual syrup brewing in my room Mother.

 I only stopped to listen 
 when I heard Aunt Denna mention the Irish whiskey.
 
 Can it really block a basic wht-e-tinkz spell?"

🔽
Leena let go of the white listening stone she had been gripping under her left big toe. The shaggy carpet swallowed the magic rock she regularly used to bug the room. She walked up behind her mom, touched her shoulder then kissed her check.

Cyrena answered in a cookie mother tone

     " It's not the whiskey, 
       it's the wood it's aged in.
      
     Irish Oak's are ancient trees 
     seeded from the winds of Eden."

🔽
Leena made a mental note to search online for Irish Oak folk art from Ireland. The tree's Eden connection might work with a new wand varnish she had been experimenting with recently.

       " I was thinking we could go for a jog later
         and talk about college.
      
        MIT sent another email about the chemistry scholarship ." 

🔽

Cyrena knew Leena could not breach the aw-tu-in barrier spell so she amused the teenagers MIT aspirations. She wanted too encourage a heightened sense of anticipation too fuel a larger feeling of disappointment when the application was rejected.

After a letter arrived offering a full scholarship in Chemistry to MIT, Cyrena informed Miss Lucia her birthed daughter was trying to escape. The forged document's intricate detail too authenticity instinctively worried Cyrena.

Could Leena already know she was trapped in this small town forever?

Cyrena never expected a girl as dim as her daughter uncovering the OldOne's existence.

Any flesh marked by the OldOne's spider never left Penticton. Only an elite few knew how to use this curse as a blissful gift. When a marked one passes the city lines ,a deep sleep fades over them and they dream their entire trips pre-planned endeavours . No matter how impossibility fabricated or financially impossible the excess , the travellers imaginative desires are for-filled.

Suspended unconscious in a comatose like cybernetic suspension one hundred and fifty feet above this mystical Okanagan city, being marked by the OldOne meant Penticton was a place you stayed forever.

      " We'll go for a jog and talk about college
        tomorrow my love.
       
       I'll be busy all night tonight.
      
       Once your cousins leave I need too 
       use their fresh seat juices
       to work on a new perfume.

       You're welcome to stir my cauldron
       and watch your mother work that is,
       if your menstrual syrup
       is finished reducing."

🔽
The Eagles 'Witchy Women' ringtone blasted before Leena could answer no thanks.

Cyrena held up one arm and exposed her palm that showed no life line. The mobile phone glided to her hand from across the room.

    " Salvador. Speak of the devil.  
      Me and my girlfriends were just talking about you.
      I'm happy you finally called"