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Raven gives a silent nod and Callie turns her attention back to the delicate bloom in her hand. She turns it over in her palm, investigating its every facet. Stars seem to shine in Callie’s eyes as she basks in the beauty of Raven’s magic touch. With quiet amazement in her voice, Callie speaks, “Wicked.”
Callie looks up and into Raven’s soul, sharing with her a wide and accepting smile. The entire group takes a collective sigh of relief. Raven has never felt more free in her entire existence.
This group of girls from completely different lives is now a sisterhood tied together by their current task. After much discussion, or rather respectful arguing and multiple conversations on the limitations of magic, they are all in agreement. Raven will not pay the price for this. They will ditch his rotting soul in the depths of a deep cavern they all know well. They will go to the police together as a united front and show their battered bodies. They will paint a picture of his guilt so powerfully that no one will question that he fled to avoid jail time of his own. Of course, all of this will be aided by layers of Willow and Raven’s persuasive spells and frantically protective magic. Sam’s oldest brother who just happens to be a local cop helps too. Now, they just need to make that pesky body go away to get the ball rolling.
“Does he weigh nine thousand pounds because it feels like he weighs nine thousand pounds,” Sam complains as she struggles to keep his body off the ground.
Willow grinds her teeth, “I can only do one thing at a time. I can either make him lighter or I can keep us safe.”
Everyone quickly agrees, “Keep us safe.”
Raven feels guilt all through her body. She tried to help. She tried to take his weight off of them, but his body didn’t respond to her. She tried again and again, but nothing came from it. Willow felt safer with Raven just helping carry him while she handled the occult. Just in case. Now she feels terrible, “I’m sorry I couldn’t lighten the load, guys.”
Callie speaks in a strained voice as she tugs him along, “You are lightening the load! You’re carrying a leg, aren’t you?”
“Even in death, he doesn’t want to cooperate,” Emily adds with a strained voice.
Grunting, Callie asks, “Are we almost there?”
Sam, wiping sweat from her brow, says, “I mean… I don’t know how to say this but it’s still another three miles in.”
Callie, clearly panicked, exclaims “What?! I thought it was close!”
“Sam, stop,” Raven snaps through gritted teeth, “It’s right freaking there.”
Giggles try to escape from Sam, but he’s just so damn heavy she can’t even enjoy her joke.
Approaching the giant gaping hole in the Earth, they drop their heavy burden at their feet. His body lands with a thud and they all take time to catch their breath.
Using her shirt to dry her sweat, Sam pants, “This dick might just kill me yet.”
Emily leans her exhausted frame against Sam, “That’s no joke.”
“Let’s just get him in the ground and then we can relax,” Raven groans.
Sam rolls her eyes, “Like relaxing is something we’re going to be doing anytime soon…”
With a deep breath and loud groan, they all grab a limb and lift him from the ground again. They begin swinging his corpse toward the gaping hole in the Earth in front of them, Willow still focusing all her strength on chants for safety.
Callie grunts out, “One, two, three!”
They release him towards the abyss of this deep cavern and watch as he disappears into the dark opening. As the darkness swallows up the evidence of their crimes, a single bolt of lightning lights up the sky with a thunderous boom that seems to shake the ground beneath them. The girls scream at its sudden crash.
Clutching her chest and releasing a frustrated sigh, Sam says, “Well, that’s not ominous or anything.”
Pounding rain pours from the sky in cold, wet sheets as the women run as fast as their feet will carry them back through the woods. Their speed is not spurred on by the rain, but instead, the crushing feeling that they are being chased through the trees. That he is right behind them. Perhaps it is only the fear of what they’ve just done. Perhaps it’s more. Perhaps it’s not, but to each of them, it feels like the most real thing they have ever experienced.
Tree branches reach out as if they are greedy fingers trying desperately to hold them all there in the dark woods and they have to work to pull themselves from their grasp. Finally, they break through the treeline and into the open yard of wet grass, trying frantically not to slide in the rain-soaked mud. Feet now pounding across the old wooden floorboards of the witches’ front porch, they race for the safety of indoors. Throwing their bodies inside one by one, they slam closed the exterior door fortified by the protective ash wood it is made of and all breathe a sigh of relief. Panting and dripping on the hardwoods, they watch the door, almost certainly expecting him to come crashing through it at any moment. Silence envelopes them and feels heavy on their shoulders.
No sound.
Agonizing silence.
Is that the sound of their own heartbeats they can hear?
Is this what the eye of a hurricane sounds like?
All the light seems to be fading from the room and complete darkness falls on them. They clasp hands and hold onto one another as all sense of reality seems to be sucked out of the pitch-black quiet. They shiver by each other’s sides as the feeling of unavoidable war crashes down on them, knowing all the while that they are unequipped to fight their way through. All the rain has ceased and left them just waiting for the flood to wash them away.
