My First Coven

Americanos

I looked across the table at my Aunt. She was propping her head up with one hand and drinking a mug of coffee with the other. She was making a weird groaning sound and sounded like her nose was all blocked up, in fact she sounded like she was rattling from the inside out.

Mr Evans had kindly taken us all out for breakfast the next day after our adventure round the school the night before. We even got to ride in his own BMW, a rather comfortable three series which was fairly new and a lot newer than the BMW my Aunt owned. Of course we ended up in the American diner we frequented and our entire table was just brimming with food. I sat next to Liam while Mr Evans sat next to Auntie M. She was glaring down at a full English fry up consisting of three rashers of bacon, two Lincolnshire sausages, two fried eggs, two triangles of fried bread, fried mushrooms, plum tomatoes and a round of buttered toast. It would have come with a side of baked beans and two slices of black pudding, but Auntie M hated them both with a passion so emitted those from her order.

She did however request a stack of the diners now famous pancakes to be brought out in about half an hour when she finished the full English and the coffee was to be brought over frequently. I was quite happy with my coffee, waffles and scrambled eggs on toast. Both Liam and Mr Evans were tucking in to Eggs Benedict which looked really really good, so I made myself a mental note to order that next time I was in. Auntie M however looked like she would rob them both of their breakfasts. I guess the Eggs Benedict did really seem that good.

'How are you feeling Ms Taylor?' Liam asked as he popped the yolk on one of his perfectly poached eggs. 'That was incredible last night.'

'To be honest? I feel absolutely fucking awful.' Auntie M replied as she poured more coffee down her throat. 'I haven't lost control of my power like that in a long time.'

'That was you loosing control?' Mr Evans exclaimed. 'You seemed in decent control to me.'

'That was not decent control for me. Really it affects me more than anyone else normally I don't feel as shit afterwards.'

'So what do you do when that happens? Like, what did you do when you got in last night?' I asked.

Auntie M's face dropped slightly. Mr Evans took it upon himself to explain.

'I managed to get your Aunt to her room last night without the other teachers seeing her, we did not want to try and explain anything to them.'

I sensed there was more.

'She started stripping all her clothes off along the landing then quite literally threw herself in to bed. I went and made some tea and some sandwiches but by the time I got back upstairs she was passed out, snoring and drooling.'

If Auntie M was a regular woman then I would've thought that she would be a bit embarrassed that she practically got naked in front of a man then proceeded to sleep like a pig with sinus problems.

'Yeah, thank you for the tea and sandwiches but err... sorry for not being conscious for them.' Auntie M mumbled.

'Don't worry about it.' Mr Evans shook his head. 'They didn't go to waste I needed to get some of my energy back too.'

'So what did we learn from last night then?' Said Auntie M, completely unembarrassed after the telling of her story from last night.

'Hmm I learnt that Liam and Mr Evans opened up a freaking portal in to space!' I exclaimed in a slightly hushed tone so as not to alert the other customers in the diner.

'Morrigan wanted a portal and that thing, whatever the hell it was needed to go somewhere far away. So...' Mr Evans trailed off. Liam finished his sentence for him.

'Outer Space seemed pretty logical. I was thinking the same thing at the time.'

We all went quiet for a brief moment before I decided to take my notebook out of my bag.

'I managed to draw some of the symbols I saw on that skull.' I said as I opened my notebook to the page I wanted and laid it out on the table.

'Well there's the standard inverted pentagrams that you'd find on something relatively, evil.' Mr Evans pointed to the scribbling in my notebook. 'That one looks like...'

'The Sigil of Lucifer?' Liam interjected, not sounding too sure. 'I think.'

'It is Liam. These symbols are usually tied with Satanic stuff. I'm not sure about this symbol though.' Mr Evans pointed to another symbol I had scratched down in my notebook. My Auntie M leaned over and grinned.

'This one doesn't really mean anything.' She jammed her finger down on the drawing. 'It's the symbol for Blue Oyster Cult it's on like, all of their album covers.'

'So what does that mean then?' Liam asked.

'It most likely means we are definitely looking at an amateur here.' Auntie M replied.

'Or a really big fan of Blue Oyster Cult.' I added.

I continued taking notes as we were talking and eating, at least if I took notes and wrote down what dates and times everything happened on; then maybe we could work out some stuff from it all. There hadn't been anything on the news recently about any more bodies that had been found but considering tonight was Samhain, that would probably change. I chatted with Liam about our initiations tonight. He was having his at his covens new gathering place.

'You'll get to meet some really cool people tonight, like personal friends of our family and our coven. They have been for a very long time. Like allies you could say.' Auntie M told me as she was finishing her pancakes.

'I didn't think we had any allies?' I said. It's true, I didn't know we even had allies at all.

'Not usually. We have more enemies to be honest.'

'Enemies?'

'Yeah, witch hunters.'

Auntie M non-chalantly drank her coffee as if what she had just said was nothing.

'Oh don't worry, witch hunters are few and far between. Plus they're kinda easy to spot they haven't figured out how we know yet which is kinda funny.' Auntie M cackled slightly.

'Uncle Dan, is this the same for us?' Liam asked. 'I mean, warlocks don't ride brooms and witches are more powerful but do witch hunters only go after witches? That sounds like a dumb question but...'

'It's not a dumb question at all actually. Hunters go after any magic user, good or evil. Well, good or evil doesn't really exist to them all magic users are evil in their eyes.'

'Some of the better hunters go after other supernatural creatures too.' Auntie M added.

I felt a little dejected now. I glanced at Liam and saw he wasn't looking to enthralled either. It seemed like it was just one massive revelation after another. First I get told I'm a witch. Then I hear that some creatures you think are made up, are in fact real; and it's only witches, not warlocks that can ride brooms. Oh and now witch hunters are real. Great.

'Oh come on you two.' Auntie M piped up. 'Don't look so down, we'll tell you about all the good and cool stuff that comes with being a magic user in due time. Besides, there has to be balance it's not all sunshine and sparkles.'

'It better be.' I mumbled. 'I don't fancy the idea of having to watch my back more than I do already.'

'Maddie as long as there have been magic users and supernatural creatures, there have been those against us. And this has gone on for a hideously long time. We do what we do best and that's adapt.' Auntie M told me. 'We have each other and our covens, we get on with it.'

If there was one thing I was particularly good at after what has happened in my life up to now, then it was "getting on with it." Surely it wouldn't hurt just to get on with this new major part of my life.