The Possession of Anna Drake

1 - It Was All an Accident

I had just started my fourth year of school when I began to feel ill. I spent many mornings lying around, holding my stomach, and complaining of immense pain in my abdomen. Being the loving mother she was, my mother told me I was faking it and sent me off to school. I remember sitting in my chair, my eyes closed, knowing full well I looked like death was taking me when Anna pulled my hair and yanked me into reality.

“You ok Liz?” she had asked me.

I remember looking back at her and narrowing my eyes. Anna was not one to care what another person felt unless that person was me. Still, it did not make the interruption to my moment of clarity any better.

“I’m fine,” I snapped at her.

I was indeed not fine. For weeks I had felt electrical shifts throughout my body. If I touched the wall, it zapped me painfully. I was walking around as if my fingers were permanently stuffed into the closest light socket.

“You don’t look fine,” Anna replied with a snarl.

Anna probably knew me better than I knew myself. She could sense something was off. I hated to admit it then, but she was the only person who would understand what I was feeling. We were connected in a way no other child our age was. Telepathic links were not standard in our coven, but nobody else would understand. Anna and I shared a link.

“I’ll be ok,” I corrected myself and sat up straight.

I may not have felt well enough to share what was happening, but I knew my grades were what my mother was concerned with. A future High Priestess must have perfect marks, even in the fourth year.

“Want to come to my house after school? We could pretend to do homework and eat chocolate.” Anna had wiggled her eyebrows at me, which forced me to smile.

Neither of us had been paying attention to the front of the room. We had no idea our teacher had already started instruction for the day.

“Ms. Drake, is there something you would like to share with the rest of the class?” Our teacher Ms. Hengrove asked as she began to write on the chalkboard.

“No, ma’am,” Anna muttered and stuck her tongue out at me.

I cannot remember what potions we were working on that day, but I remember it blowing up in Anna’s face, turning it a shade of green. Both of us had fallen to the floor laughing hysterically. Ultimately, we were both sent to the headmistress to have our punishments for not following directions and causing a ruckus in class.

My punishments were always minimal compared to what Anna endured. The headmistress took our social standings into account. Lower-level families, such as the Drakes, were treated with lashings and bindings, while families such as mine were forced to redo our work under the watchful eye of the headmistress. She would then report to our parents how we did in completing the task. As much time as I spent in the office should have put me on the same level as Anna, but Mistress Hempstock was petrified of my mother, for a good reason too.

At the end of the day, Anna met me outside, and we walked to her house. Anna lived in a trailer on the outskirts of Evergreen Falls. The walk from the middle of town to her house was about an hour, but for some reason, we didn’t believe in busing, and Anna’s mother had the family car at her work. The Drake’s were more modern than the other members of the coven. To them, the family came first, and the coven came somewhere around the bottom of their list of obligations.

I saw nothing wrong with it, but I knew how my mother thought. Coven came above everything else. It was a creed, a way of life. You should eat, sleep, and dream coven. If you had to choose between your daughter's well-being and the fate of the coven, the coven should prevail. I had always been last on her list of responsibilities. She didn’t hide it either. I knew where I ranked from the time I could understand what a charm was.

“I will need to call my mom when we get there,” I muttered as Anna began to dance ahead of me.

“Your mother.” Anna rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why you try.”

I had stopped walking and looked at her with a sour expression. Anna hated my mother just as much as my mother hated her. The two of them were going to go head to head once we were old enough to ascend.

“She asked one thing of me if I planned on going somewhere other than home after classes, I should call her. It’s common courtesy.” I pouted.

I may have known where I stood with my mother, but it didn’t mean it was where I wanted to stand with her.

“Whatever,” Anna mumbled as she turned away from me.

I followed Anna like a lost puppy. Whatever Anna did, I was right there with her.

Evening came far sooner than anticipated. We were both riding our bikes around downtown when I suddenly felt this twisted pain in my abdomen. I fell off the bike and laid on the ground, clutching my stomach and crying.

“You ok?” Anna asked, a little panicked.

“It hurts,” I groaned as I pulled my legs to my chest and hugged them. The usual electrical currents began to pulsate throughout my body, causing the muscles to contract and quiver, causing even more pain.

“Where does it hurt?” Anna dropped to the ground and began to put her hands all over my body.

I felt my muscles tense and recoil at her touch, but I thought nothing of it. All I knew was she had stopped the pain. I looked up at Anna and rubbed the tears from my eyes.

“It’s better now,” I muttered.

“I think something is wrong with you,” Anna accused as she got to her feet.

“There is nothing wrong with me,” I replied defensively.

I knew my face had turned bright red, and my hands were clenched at my sides. My heart began to pound, and both my eyes twitched with anger. Anna stood there unphased by my apparent displeasure. She knew I wasn’t strong enough to go through with the action. I could be angry as much as I wanted. I would never raise my hand toward her. Anna was the alpha in our relationship.

Anna’s face turned upward, and her smug expression changed. Her mouth dropped open, and her eyes began to bug out of her head. I stood there and shook as I let the electrical currents run through me. My concentration was on Anna until I heard the dog bark behind me, and all hell broke loose.

First, I spun around and locked eyes with Nidia Thompson, one of the only human children in our town. She was walking her dog around the square. While her small puppy had noticed us, Nidia had not. Why would she? She had no idea who we were, and we only knew who she was because she was human.

Second, the sky opened, and lightning erupted from the heavens. There were three loud bangs seconds from one another. Anna grabbed my arm, but it was already too late. The electrical currents surging through my body found an escape and exploded from my fingers painfully. I remember instantly screaming as drops of blood began to fall to the ground.

Next, Anna raced away from me across the square and fell to her knees. Her back was to me, but I saw she was feeling around on a blackened lump. I had fallen to the grass looking at my blood-soaked hands, the current had calmed, but I had a new feeling percolating under the surface – fear.

Finally, Anna turned her face toward me, her green eyes flared, and her lips were pressed together in a thin white line. She stood up, and my eyes fell on the body of Nidia Thompson. Her skin was blackened, and her clothing torn. I may have been a good hundred yards from her, but I knew she wasn’t breathing.

“What happened?” I stuttered.

Anna lowered her face to the ground and pressed her hands to her face.

“You killed her, Liz. You killed her!” Anna pointed at me and let out a hateful snarl.

“I couldn’t have killed her. That wasn’t me,” I protested as I tried to wipe the blood on my hands into the grass.

“Go check for yourself,” Anna growled as I stood up and strode toward the girl.

I began to shake as I got closer. Nidia’s eyes were still open, her mouth slightly agape, her hands still clutching her puppies’ leash. However, at the end of the leash, there was no longer a puppy, only ash. I turned my face away from the body, and I hurled into the grass. She smelled like burnt popcorn, and her skin was peeling away some areas on her body.

“Told you so,” Anna laughed behind me.

I should have been shocked by her reaction. I should have run away and instantly told my mother of my new gifts. They had come early, and sadly, someone had taken the brute force of the explosion. There were reasons we had parties on the sixteenth birthday. It was to make sure everyone was safe when a witch was given her gift. I was ten. It came six years too early.

We need to hide the body.

I heard Anna’s voice in my head, and that’s when I understood she had also come into her powers early. This was the beginning of our telepathic relationship.

“We can’t hide the body,” I protested. “We need to call my mother.”

“And do what?” Anna hissed.

“Tell her what happened; she will understand. It’s her job to keep the Coven safe.” I retorted as I twisted my hands together nervously.

“Nidia was human; it’s not like your mother will be able to stop the human police from arresting you.” Anna put her hands on her hips and looked down at the body. “We have to hide her.”

Anna was right; the human police would have to arrest me. I had murdered another child, and even though I couldn’t provide them the real reason, they were going to concoct some sick theory of how one ten-year-old girl killed another.

My blood grew cold, and I began to shake again. As much as I hated to go along with Anna’s plan, I knew it was the only way.

“Do you think you can run home and get your wagon without your mother seeing you?” Anna asked as she looked down at Nidia’s body. She had no emotion, no tears, nothing. She almost looked proud.

I shook my head.

My mother and father spent their evenings going through magic law and procedure with the coven. I knew I could get home and back with the wagon. They would never know I was there. They weren’t expecting me for a few more hours.

I ran home as fast as my legs could carry me. It felt like it took me twice as long to get into the garage as it would on any other day. I found the wagon and pulled it out the garage’s side door and onto the path leading down the side of the house. I raced down the sidewalk, the wagon bouncing and banging with every uneven section of concrete and cobblestone. I was certain the whole town could hear me and my red wagon.

“Could you be any louder?” Anna groaned as I came to a stop in front of her.

“You told me to hurry,” I pouted.

If she had said, ‘take your time, I would have done just that, but she had told me to hurry. I never did anything to make her happy. She constantly accused me of one thing or another.

“Never mind, help me get the body in the wagon, and we can tie the handle to the back of your bike with my ribbon.” Anna pulled her bow from her hair and began to bend down to pick up Nidia’s feet.

I hesitated to touch Nidia’s body. Her skin was still cracking open, and bits of gooey blood kept seeping out through the wounds. Plus, the more I looked at her, the worse I felt. I had murdered someone with magic. This broke the cardinal rule in the Coven as well as many religions. It didn’t matter if it was accidental or not. I had released the power. Therefore it was my fault she was dead.

Not once did I ever find Anna at fault for the accident. She was helping me clean up what I had done. She was in no way forcing me to do the work. I was big enough; I could make my own decisions. How wrong my ten-year-old self was.

We loaded Nidia into the wagon and began peddling through the square hoping nobody would see us or what I had done.

“Where are we going?” I asked Anna as I struggled to keep up.

She didn’t have a wagon tied to her bike, so nothing was holding her back. She was blindly peddling while I had to fight to keep my bike upright.

“McCreery’s cornfield,” Anna answered monotone.

“Why there?” I called after her.

My legs were cramping, and I was out of breath. I was smaller than Anna. It made no sense why I had to be the one to pull the body.

“It will be weeks before they find her. By then, the animals would have gotten to her.” Anna’s answer was unsettling.

I had no idea what she meant by the animals would have gotten to her. I was ten, and I followed Anna blindly. Something told me to keep my mouth shut as Anna continued to put distance between the two of us.

We made it to McCreery’s Farm and drug Nidia’s body to the center of the cornfield. Anna dug a little hole and rolled the body into it before pulling two coins from her pockets. She placed them over both of Nidia’s eyes and began to kick the dirt on top of the girl.

“What is that for?” I asked as I pointed toward the ground.

“To pay the boatsman,” Anna muttered.

Her face was shielded from me, but I could have sworn I saw a smile spread across her face once she realized what we had done. Still, this whole time I in no way found Anna at fault. I was in jeopardy, not her!

“Leave the wagon and go home Lizbeth, I will take care of everything else.” Anna’s voice was harsh, but I chose not to stick around and see what happened next.

I raced through the cornfield, tore the ribbon from the wagon, and jumped on my bike. I was not going to stick around and ask questions. Anna said she would take care of the rest; I was not going to wait and see what the rest was.

I made it home in record time. My parents were both inside when I came crashing through the garage door.

“Damn it, Lizbeth,” my mother chastised me as I slid through the kitchen.

I knew I still had blood on my hands, and my uniform was soiled, but my mother only looked at me like my appearance was an everyday occurrence.

“Sorry, mother,” I apologized as I quickly shoved my hands behind my back.

“Go wash up for dinner,” she instructed without even a raise of an eyebrow.

“Yes, ma’am.” I stammered as I backed out of the kitchen and into the family room.

I raced up the stairs, around the banister, and stopped only when I had my back to my bedroom door. Sprinting to the bathroom, I turned on the shower and stripped the clothes from my body. I knew I would have to burn them once everyone had gone to bed. Getting in the shower, my brain finally caught up with what had transpired, and the tears began to fall freely from my face.

The next day there were posters all over the square. Nidia’s parents were offering a reward for the whereabouts of their daughter.

“Stop looking so guilty,” Anna mentioned as I took my seat next to her in class.

“It’s kind of hard when I am guilty,” I pouted.

I had not slept the night before in fear the police would show and take me away. I had not been able to eat because I kept thinking how Nidia would never have a family meal again. I had fantasized about how wonderful her parents were. They must have been sick with worry when Nidia didn’t return with her puppy the night before.

“I told you it’s going to be just fine,” Anna growled as she narrowed her eyes at me.

“It doesn’t feel like it’s going to be just fine,” I mentioned as I grabbed my notebook and pen from my bag.

“She was human. Nobody is going to care you spilled human blood.” Anna sneered.

My throat tightened. I had never heard Anna speak so hatefully of the human townsfolk. I had never heard her speak this way about anyone. She seemed cold and uncaring with what had happened the night before. It left me to worry if she was on my side.

“How can you say that?” I whispered.

“Just trust me,” Anna turned to face me.

Her green eyes were hazed over, and her lips had curled into a sadistic smile. I felt extremely uncomfortable sitting behind her. That was when I wondered what I was getting myself into.