By moonlight's shadow

Chapter 36

The witch would never remove her hat, not even to wash or sleep. Without it she was three foot four inches tall and with it five feet seven. Her neck had become more muscular from the wearing of such a hat. She had had to trade her kid sized broom for an adult model when she had started wearing it a few decades earlier. If her stature was short it was nothing as compared to her temper. Her last seven assistants had been reduced to piles of ash and used to fertilize the zucchini in the garden, now for some reason the eager supply of apprentices had dried up. She was a prolific inventor of spells; she had several volumes in print and several more in disorganized parchment piled high on her dining table. The only living being she willfully tolerated was her cat, Samson. He could dissolve into shadows and bring her all manner of creatures for her potions. He would sit handsomely by the fire when visitors called, fixing them with his yellow eyes. He was a proper witch's cat to be proud of.

The witch scowled into the gloom and pulled her hat from the thatch of greying black hair on her head. The effect was to make her look more deranged. The hair had been hacked in random stabbing motions, presumably by a person with no patience and less eyesight- and indeed it had. She had tired of both its annual wash and the hour it took for the mats to dry in the summer sun and taken her axe blade to it. More than once she had almost taken her own head off, and some might argue that an improvement, but it wasn't her intention. Beneath the crude mop was a face less appealing than onion eye-drops. Over the past century her skin had become crusty, falling off in flakes the size of almond slices. Her mouth had puckered from lack of smiling and shrunk to the size of a jelly bean. She was, however, incredibly quiet - something she frequently used to her advantage when seeking subjects for her sorcery. Her victims were usually caught unawares whilst they struggled to breathe in her stench.

Rune's skin was as gnarled as the bark on the woodland trees and her hair contained just as many bugs. Her lips were large and leathery, her nose a bumpy collection of warts and her eyes narrowed to a squint so close that it was impossible to tell their colour. She had one graced almost six foot, quite a giant amongst the young witches, but now she was in the tidewater of her eighth decade and had a pronounced hunch-back. Whilst her body decayed her mind remained sharp. There were many in the coven who sort to displace her as head-witch, but none had bested her in magic or political posturing. She was quite adept at knowing the intentions of her "sisters" before they were fully aware of it themselves. Then it was a simple matter of planting new ideas or thwarting them directly with enough magic to humiliate them. Either way was good for Rune; both got her something she wanted.

The witch reached for another cupcake. It was a pain to wear suburban camouflage to get into these mother's book circles but the treats were worth it. Once in she just cast a spell to have them babble nonsense at each other. After that it was open season on the sweet treats. The fruit and veggie platters she gave the distain they deserved. Once full she loaded the left overs into whatever tupperware was available in the kitchen, thanked the hose profusely, told them to host another session the same time next week and left. In the noon daylight of the family estate she was confident of her blending ability. She stalked down the pavement, broom in hand wearing jeans, an Usher t-shirt and her black pointed hat. On her feet were fluffy slippers - comfort was important after all. To passers by she would grin and nod, flashing her yellow and black teeth, hitting them with fermented fish gut fragranced breath. Then it was off to the coven with cakes and cookies, her mission accomplished. What was the point in being a witch if you couldn't break a few rules? The line-up for the cup cake store snaked down the sidewalk. Somehow when she stepped into the front of the queue everyone forgot she hadn't been there all along. The server gave her a round dozen in a box and when she turned to the person behind her they offered to pay her bill. It was just like magic. She smirked to herself. Then it was off to the butcher for a free ham and a packet of chips.

Luna watched the sight unfold before her at the time that Lukas was pacing up and down the basement absolutely buck naked. And he was not even bothered by her presence and the fact that he had no clothes on.

“How long are you going to make me tolerate this?” asked Luna, in a bored voice.

“As long as I don’t understand what I am supposed to do next,” said Lukas, as he kept on pacing making Luna sigh out loudly.

“This is worse than being murdered by your own sister,” muttered Luna as Lukas stopped dead in his tracks.

“What did you say?” asked Lukas, as he turned towards Luna.

“I said that waiting like this, sitting her in this basement, and seems like waiting endlessly, watching you buck naked and not being able to do anything is worse than being murdered at the hands of your own sister whom you have loved the most and then feeling the brutality and watching in her eyes, finding no remorse, only seeing that she was in a daze and a haze which she would be for a lifetime,” said Luna, as Lukas covered his privates with his hands.

“My mother murdered you brutally and then why did you not haunt her? I mean, after all you are a spirit, aren’t you? You should be able to see that she is punished for her crimes, then why did not try and exact revenge from her?” asked Lukas, which seemed like a pretty normal question to him.

“You are still young and have a lot to learn. Nineteen summers is hardly a proper vessel for being the carrier for powers which have been lying dormant for this long and can cause destruction of the entire creation. You do understand that when you have power it is very easy to corrupt your soul. It creeps in your body and mind and then speaks of doing things and causing mayhem which would terrify you under normal circumstances but not then. Then you know that you have the power to do anything and get away with it, you know that no one will be able to harm a hair on your body but then you forget that the balance of the earth which is very essential to be maintained is disrupted. And that causes a lot of problems. When you are drunk on the power that you have never used before you stop thinking of the destruction that you have caused but nature always finds out a loophole. It always has, and that is the reason that we have existed for this long. You must be thinking that why I am saying you all these things and what is the purpose at all of this but trust me, you need to know this. Your mother was an extremely talented sorceress and she was immensely good at life-sciences as well. But like all the intelligent and talented people, who want to experiment with laws of nature she also wanted to do the same. She tried and tried for years, excelling on all counts and researches but failing in her experiments when finally one night she wrote something blasphemous. It was one of her weak moments and now I know that, for I have had years to think and wallow in my anger. And we were not there to encourage her to try again, that is when she sold her soul away to the Devil. It just took an instant to poison her mind against everything we stand for. She was granted success in death and life but all her other powers were taken away. But she did not bother since she thought this was what she had wanted. It is so easy to think that you are happy when you are not, and now, you, my child have to bear the burden of her mistake,” said Luna, as she sighed at him with a sad smile hanging at the corners of her ghostly lips.

“But you still did not answer my question,” said Lukas, as he looked at Luna who scowled at him and then made a motion of picking up a vase and throwing at him but her hand went past the vase and she could not.

“You are absolutely dumb…despite of getting your mother’s powers you seem to have inherited the bull-headedness of your father. What did you hear to everything that I have been telling you for this long? I mean, there is a limit to being inattentive…didn’t I tell you that I have no reason to exact revenge from a weak person? Your mother might have powers and strength but she is weak in mind and character, always was. That is the reason I was happy when I found that she had been taken by a wolf and then changed her to a sweet and loving wife and then caring mother of two children. But peace does not last long, not when you know that he might call on you any day and you have no other option but to listen to what he says,” said Luna and Lukas nodded this time.

“What do I need to do?” asked Lukas, as he looked at Luna who smiled at him. This time he was eager to learn for he was gradually realizing what was at stake. He was not going to make the same mistake as his mother had made, and he was certainly not the one with a weak mind or character who would be swayed by anything or anyone.

“Before we can begin your training you would need to take an oath. Although this is an oath taken by the Light Sorceresses, I am sure that this is going to work for I don’t think there are oaths for the dark Sorceresses. And then again you are not a complete Sorceress,” said Luna, as she made a motion of thinking.

“You want to call me a mongrel, but you can’t seem to find the right term for it. Show me this oath, I shall tell this and start learning how to control this thing,” said Lukas as he closed his eyes and breathed in deeply.

“I will take the power from the unworthy so that I can surrender it. I am the one who could hold the ring of power and let it fall into the fire of the volcano. For this is the power of love, the greatest power of them all. I find my strength, grow in confidence and dominance, not for the sake of ego though it may appear the same, but to take a grip on the tip of the power triangle and flip it right over. I will become the most powerful so that I can become the lease powerful and bring in a new era of service and fairness for every nation, to feed every child and bring the world to song, to dance, to joy and compassion. So surrender or be practice for my aim, the arrows are already made.”