EDEN HOLLOW

Tonight is the big 23. The night I find out who is the ‘one.’ Yippee. I honestly haven’t been looking forward to tonight. I go from living comfortably with mom to having to move to Gaia knows where, and I hope I instantly click with this person. Once a witch turns 23, they find out who their soulmate is. It’s tradition. You meet, adjust the living situation, and start preparing for a wedding. With living arrangements, whoever is lower on the social totem pole has to move to the other’s home. The elite of witches never ‘lower’ themselves. Gag. According to tradition, the Fates, three old women living in the mountains, decide who your soulmate is, and they’ve never been wrong. I don’t believe that, and with my luck, I’ll be the first ever mistake in our history.

My name is Rhea Laveau, a green witch living in the lovely city of Eden Hollow. And I use the word lovely loosely. You see, the way my city works is the closer to the Capital you are, the nicer and more comfortable you live. The Coven claims they always try to ensure equal treatment, but that’s a load of bullshit. The number of times we hear about new laws going to be passed or get passed, and the disciplinary faction stops them from happening is insane. There’s a force that wants to keep us ‘mere witches’ down, but let me not get too political. Someone’s ego might get hurt if people discover this.

Anyway, in my city, there are different circles of society that all live in different sectors. You have your top three covens who live in the Capital. They are the only remaining covens that have kept their bloodline going after the war 50 years ago. Those three covens combined also saved the witches from annihilation. Since they ‘saved us’, they now rule us, yay. The three covens are the Alden Coven, who practice white witchcraft. The Cromwell Coven, who practice black witchcraft but use it for ‘good’, as in for our defense. Finally, you have the Le Fay Coven, who practice Divination. They are the counsel to the other Covens. The Coven is the top witches from all three covens. Our leader is Lumin Alden. Mom thinks he’s hot… gross. His second in command is Elias Cromwell, who is the prick in charge of the disciplinary faction, which is just a bunch of jerks doing whatever they want around the sectors. The chief advisor is Helena Le Fay. I can’t really get a read on her.

The surrounding area around the Capital is Sector 1, which is your middle class. That’s where you’ll find your witches that practice ancestral magic. They have all the knowledge of our past and hold our traditions. You’d also find loyalists to the Coven, their entourage, per se. Past that sector, you have us. The ‘working class,’ we all live in Sector 2 and make up a majority of the population. We have witches who practice elemental witchcraft. I’ve heard stories of witches who could wield more than one element, but there hasn’t been one since the war. Some witches here practice lunar magic. Mom and I are green witches. We heal all with herbs, plants, and potions we make. All of our power comes from the Earth. Unfortunately, we have one more area, Sector 3, The Outskirts. It’s where they put all the witches who have either committed crimes or betrayed their coven and are still loyal to Genevieve. Her followers believe she was the reincarnation of Hecate. They also throw the coven-less there; they orphan any child born without a coven on the outskirts. I hate it. It’s not their fault they didn’t ask to be born without a family. Mom and I sneak out weekly to give the orphans food, medicine, and clothes. The Coven CLAIMS they give basic needs, but that’s all a lie. I can’t stand the Capital, and I can’t stand the Covens.

“Rhea! Come on in now!” I close my new journal and glance over to see Mom waving from the front door.

“Coming!” I stand up on the thick tree branch I was resting on and hover my hand over the ground below me. My full sleeve of vine tattoos on my left arm glows its usual soft green hue. The color of my eyes goes from hazel to green, and that soft hum fills my body. Dirt and rocks form the stairs, and the ground beneath me trembles. Descending the steps, I clenched my fist, restoring the Earth to its primordial state. I jog over to the small cottage we’ve lived in all my life. I love our little slice of paradise in the forest. Instead of living where most of the population is, Mom chose the forest. She has always been super big on privacy. It lets us practice our magic freely and help the orphans without people seeing us sneak out to do so. Of course, we still follow all the laws; we never experiment with magic, never use it on someone unless it’s self-defense or to heal. Our sector’s living conditions aren’t great. We have enormous apartment complexes, but inside they are super small and with shitty appliances. Our sector gets the bare minimum, even with the food we can eat. Since available medicines are limited, Mom and other green witches constantly prepare medicine for others. We just have to do it in secret. Rules state that, unless you are a healer licensed by The Coven, you can’t sell or disrupt medicine. They claim it’s for safety reasons, to make sure a witch isn’t making something toxic, but that’s bull.

Our home is beautiful, one floor, two bedrooms, and a nice living room area. Mom built it with Dad years ago when they first got married. Our home is full of wooden furniture, as you can suspect, and a lot of greenery everywhere. The best room in the house is our kitchen, and not because we have appliances or an abundance of food, no, it’s because of our inventory of herbs. We have so many, some that even the Coven doctors don’t offer. Those doctors are out of tune with Gaia, that’s why. We have pots, vials, and mason jars full of different things we have found and created over the years.

I enter the house and walk over to Mom, who has her back towards me. It looks like she is hiding something. Ma is a small, 5’1, gray-haired lady with vines and small flowers intertwined in her giant braid going down to her shoulder blades. I stand at a whopping 5’4, thank you. I was always obsessed with the braids my mom would do in my hair, so now my dark brown hair is full of small locs. Mom is a little lighter than I am in skin tone. I have olive skin, which she says I get from dad, but I definitely have her eyes.

“Ma, what you got there?”

“Because I could be losing you forever to the suitor selected for you, I thought I’d create something special for you.”

I squint my eyes, “What did you do? And it’s not forever. I’ll be here almost every week, promise.”

Mom points to the table, signaling me to sit. I take my usual seat and wait for this surprise. She peeks over her shoulder with a smile, then fully turns around to reveal a whole roasted chicken. She places it in the center and goes back to the counter, grabbing two bowls of potatoes and green beans.

“Ma.. how were you able to cook this?”

“Well, one of my clients is from Sector 1 and owed me a favor. They may or may not secretly open a portal and let me use their oven. It’s your birthday, so I wanted to make it special for you.”

“Ma… thank you. You didn’t have to do all this for me.”

Mom sits across from me and places her hand over mine, “Yes, I did. You deserve the best, dear. You are about to take the next big step in your life, and I won’t be around as much to help you. I want to make our last dinner special.”

“Mom, you don’t know that for sure, though. What if it’s another green witch or something? It’s not like I’m going to be traveling far?”

“We can never predict what fate will decide, and I know you are destined for great things. So tonight, we celebrate you and your journey. I may have also baked a cake...”

“No way!” My eyes go wide with excitement. I’ve never had a cake before. Every year for my birthday, my mom would make me baklava since we could harvest honey near us, and Mom found a cinnamon tree years ago that we still harvest from.

Ma giggles excitedly and nods, “Yessss, so let’s dig in so we can have some cake.” I can’t stop the tiny dance I do in my seat as she serves my plate. She’s truly the best mom ever. Mom was always my biggest fan, biggest protector, the person I could tell anything and everything to. I knew I had the best mom when I saw her badass side. One day, one of Mom’s clients came through our door bleeding from their leg like crazy! Mom patched her up, took no payment, did some weird arm shake, and then turned to me and said to pinky promise I’ll never mention that. I’ve never told a soul about her clients, and I never will. Supposedly, Mom used to be one of the top doctors in all the sectors, but she never wants to talk about that time. She said it was before Dad and before me. Now she lives in the woods and helps those who can’t get help or can’t afford it. She’s a hero. Mom always passed on that moral code she lives by to me. Help those in need. You do what’s right, even if it means breaking a few rules. Badass.

The meal Mom made was delicious, and the cake, oh my god, who knew chocolate was this good?! After we ate, Mom said she had to meet a client and would be back late. I shower and head to bed early, since when I woke, my mark would appear. Can’t deny that I’m nervous. If they are of a higher rank than me, I have to get up and move away from mom. New home, new setting. It’s a bit terrifying, I’m used to the way I live. Sure, we have restrictions with rations of food, medicine, and travel options, but I’m used to all of it. I’ve never wanted more growing up because Mom and the Earth provided everything I needed. However, I know not everyone thinks like me. I hope my soulmate thinks as I do. Worst case is having a Cromwell supporter who thinks the disciplinary faction is necessary to keep ‘order.’ I hope I end up with some cute green witch, and we can live as I do now. In a small cottage in the forest. I’ll harvest plants, and she’ll make the potions and remedies. Perfect simple life. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Fate, don’t fail me now.

Rhea succumbed to her sleep, and at the strike of midnight, the mark appeared on her inner right wrist. A Triquetra appears with the initials A.A underneath it and under the initials are numbers that are counting down. Rhea Laveau’s whole life was about to change forever.