The Veiled Village

“I love Autumn,” I sighed wistfully, gazing out the car window at the resplendent xanthous foliage of the forest as we drove along the winding and lonely backroad. I couldn’t help but be reminded that it was a leisurely Autumn drive four years ago that had led me to my beloved cemetery and changed the course of my life forever.
“Oh, is Autumn your favourite season? I didn’t know that. I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned that before,” Genevieve teased me.
Smiling, I leaned in and kissed her softly on the cheek.
“Have you ever been up this way before, Samantha?” Charlotte asked me as she peered through the windows at the admittedly intimidating-looking forest, wearing a much less enchanted look on her face than I was.
“I’ve been around Hare’s Hollow before,” I replied. “I’ve been going for Autumn drives all around and outside of the county since I got my license. I’ve never been to the village of Virklitch before, of course. Are we getting close, Ms. Romero?”
Our driver was a young woman by the name of Rosalyn Romero. She worked for a local research lab named Thorne Tech, the owner of which was also a member of an occult secret society that had once attempted to induct me into its ranks. The local chapter’s had a change in leadership since then, with the overall situation changing as well. As such, they're currently satisfied with just using me as an ‘outside consultant’ when required.
"We're within a mile or two of the turn-off. I'll know it when I see it, don't worry," she assured me. "I've been out here a few times over the last six months. Doctor Thorne had me drive a girl named Elifey back here and watch her… ah, perform a ritual, and since then the Virklitchen have basically considered me an honorary member of their village. I’ve been helping Doctor Thorne with his anthropological study of them; documenting their oral history, practices, beliefs; stuff like that. They say they were founded by a Witch named Issiole and her immediate family and friends. She was originally a member of Morgana King’s coven, but went into hiding after Morgana turned on her followers. They’ve been pretty isolationist ever since.”
“Isolationist and inbred?” Charlotte asked with a distasteful scrunch of her nose.
“That’s the weird thing. Dr. Thorne’s been able to collect DNA samples from quite a few of them over the years. They definitely lack genetic diversity, but they don’t have any harmful recessive traits,” Rosalyn replied. “When we get there, you’ll see that they all look like they’re related, but none of them look inbred.”
“And we have your word that they’ll be welcoming?” Genevieve asked, draping her arm around me to make it clear exactly what she was referring to.
“Yeah, totally. They’re really nice, and even if you did something to piss them off, they wouldn’t do anything worse than ask you to leave. They don’t want police and forensic teams barging into their village and hassling them,” Rosalyn assured us. “They don’t expect outsiders to abide by their customs anyway. I think you guys should get along though. They’re pagans, and they were founded by a Witch. Elifey especially is excited to meet you. That being said, the closest thing they have to a leader is an elder they call Father Virklitch, and he is fairly well-liked and respected by everyone. If you deliberately disrespect or challenge him, it probably won’t go over well with the rest of them.”
She looked up into the rear-view mirror specifically at Genevieve, and Charlotte and I couldn’t help but glance at her as well.
“Why are you all looking at me?” she demanded.
“It’s just that you have a bit of a reputation around town as a kind of intense lesbian, vegan, yoga Witch,” Rosalyn reminded her as she turned off the side road and onto a dirt path.
“I am completely capable of being civil with men, including male authority figures, when the situation calls for it,” she huffed.
“I know you are, sweetie. But this is an unusual situation, so if we need to speak with Father Virklitch, I should probably be the one to do most of the talking,” I suggested gingerly. She raised her head haughtily in indignation, but didn’t object.
“It’s not that big of a deal. Sure, we’re Witches, but we’re also Canadians, which means we are the rightful subjects of the King of Albion and its Commonwealth, on which the sun never sets,” Charlotte joked. Genevieve gave her an icy cold glare, which unfortunately only encouraged her. “Three cheers for His Majesty the King! Hip Hip!”
“And we’re here,” Rosalyn said as she pulled over to the side of the dirt road.
“Hip Hip!” Charlotte insisted, nudging Genevieve a little.
“That’s enough,” I ordered gently. “Behave yourselves, both of you, and help me get the Jack-O-Lanterns out of the trunk.”
We grabbed our bags and followed Rosalyn down the short trail through the woods and into the village of Virklitch.
Many of Virklitch’s homes, along with its temple and dining hall, had somehow been cultivated from living plant matter, similar to the living root bridges of India. These, however, were not wholly natural, but rather made with Witchcraft that they had likely inherited from their founder, Issiole. The entire glade had been blessed to be bountiful, so that its people would never need anything from outside.
“Wow, this is beautiful!” Charlotte exclaimed, her eyes wide in wonder. “I’ve never seen anything like this!”
“It feels a bit like Harrowick Woods, doesn’t it?” Genevieve asked quietly, standing still and thoughtfully taking it all in.
“A bit, yeah. It makes sense. If Euphemia was able to summon The Green Man to protect Harrowick Woods, then Issiole was probably able to do something similar here,” I nodded. “Similar, mind you, not the same. Rosalyn, you said that they were pagans? This place has been hallowed, but not by any spirit that serves the Mother Goddess or the Horned God. Who do they worship?”
Rosalyn’s reply was a sort of non-committal, inarticulate mumbling that suggested she either didn’t know or didn’t want to answer.
“Rose!” we heard a young girl cry as she came bounding over to us, the first of the Virklitchen to do so. She, like the rest of them, had pitch-black hair with braids in it, deep green eyes, and was covered with dark blue tattoos.
“Hey, Elifey!” Rosalyn shouted as she caught the girl in her arms and hugged her in greeting. “I missed you, kid. I brought you Tim Bits! Guys, this is Elifey von Virklitch. She’s a shamanic apprentice here and the granddaughter of Father Virklitch.”
“Are these them?” the girl asked excitedly as she left Rosalyn’s arms and walked towards us.
“They sure are. These are the Witches from town I promised to introduce you to,” Rosalyn affirmed. “This is Samantha, Eve, and Lottie.”
Elifey’s eyes passed from Charlotte, to Genevieve, to me, and then just past me to my left, as though she could see who was standing next to me.
“I like your ghost,” she said, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
“Wait, what?” Rosalyn asked confused.
“Thank you,” I smiled at her. “This is my spirit familiar, Elam. Elam, this is Elifey.”
“Hey there, Elifey,” Elam said softly, kneeling down paternalistically so as not to intimidate her. “I’ve never met a kid who could see me before, and I’m a little surprised you’re taking it so well.”
“Everyone here says I’m very brave,” Elifey told him with a modest half-smile. “But ghosts aren’t even scary. I wish I had a spirit familiar. Where did Samantha find you?”
“In a cemetery, but the funny thing is I wasn’t quite dead yet,” he told her.
“I’m sorry, was he in the car the whole ride down?” Rosalyn asked, sounding a little unnerved as her eyes darted around where she thought Elam must be.
“Don’t be ridiculous. What would a ghost need a car for?” I said flippantly.
I found Elifey’s aura somewhat challenging to read. She was obviously a very bright and determined young woman, but she and all the other Virklitchen shared an otherwise unique astral signature. It was presumably a result of them growing up in the blessed village of Virklitch, but I didn’t know what else to make of it. Despite her clairvoyance, I could tell that she wasn’t a Witch like me, Genevieve, and Charlotte were. Her gifts seemed less learned and more innate, like she had been empowered by the god she worshiped in exchange for her patronage.
“Samantha, I think she might be a vassal of something. Something ancient and powerful,” Genevieve whispered softly into my ear. I nodded subtly, but as I examined the auras of the other Virklitchen, I refrained from voicing my theory that they all might be.
“Your tattoos are pretty,” Elifey said to Genevieve. "I like the flowers and songbirds on your belly."
Despite the temperature being in the mid to low teens, Genevieve was dressed in her usual shorts and midriff-baring crochet vest, leaving many of her tattoos fully visible. While I fully respect and admire her body positivity and the feminist ideology behind it, I've never quite understood her seeming indifference to Fall and Spring temperatures. All the yoga and meditation she does is probably a factor, but it's probably at least partially genetic as well, since her half-brother Jack goes shirtless in temperatures as cold as five below.
“Thank you,” Genevieve smiled at her. “Your tattoos are very interesting. They’re not just for decoration, are they? Would you mind if I took a closer look?”
She started to kneel down, which was when another one of the Virklitchen hurried towards us and put her arms protectively around Elifey.
“No touching, please,” she insisted.
“Oh, guys, this is Chrysela; Elifey’s mother,” Rosalyn introduced her. “Chrysela, these are –”
“I heard you the first time,” she cut her off.
“I’m not going to touch her,” Genevieve swore, holding her hands up in the air. “I just want to know more about the tattoos your village uses. Were they passed down to you from Issiole?”
“You don’t need to know about our customs,” she said bluntly.
“That’s enough of that now, Chryssie," a silver-haired man with a long beard said as he strode over towards us, leaning on a tall walking stick. “I’m terribly sorry for my daughter’s lack of hospitality. She’s very protective of her children, and she’s always been especially wary of outsiders. She seems to have forgotten that we agreed to receive you willingly, for the specific purpose of trading our knowledge and services with one another.”
“They just got here, father. There’s been no exchange,” she reminded him.
“We’ve brought gifts, though! The ones you asked for,” I interjected, opening my bag and pulling out a Jack-O-Lantern. “As you’re no doubt aware, even ordinary Jack-O-Lanterns are protective wards against will-o-the-wisps and other Chthonic spirits. These Jack-O-Lanterns have been carved with glyphs and sigils that I learned of through grimoires that once belonged to an occultist named Artaxerxes Crow, a contemporary of Morgana King and her coven. When used to mark a well-laid Spell Circle, they’re able to repel even the most potent of otherworldly spirits. We’ve brought you five, enough to mark the outer points on a pentagram, but three years ago I used twelve of them to create a Spell Circle strong enough to keep Persephone herself at bay.”
A wave of astonished and incredulous murmurs began proliferating among every Virklitchen who had been standing within earshot.
“She’s lying!” Chrysela insisted.
“She’s not,” Elam assured her, though I couldn’t tell for sure if she heard him or not. Elifey and her grandfather seemed to be taking me seriously, at least.
“How tall was she?” Elifey asked.
“What?” I asked, a little confused.
“Persephone. How tall was she?”  she repeated earnestly.
“Tall for a woman, I guess. A little taller than Eve here, but typical human height. Why?” I asked.
“She sounds scary,” Elifey said, smiling slightly. Her grandfather and Rosalyn began snickering, apparently in on some joke that I wasn’t. Her grandfather proudly tousled her hair before walking up to me to inspect the Jack-O-Lanterns. 
“Hmmm. Would you be willing to provide a demonstration of their effectiveness?” he asked.
“You mean a summoning? Tonight?” I asked. “That’s possible. We brought our ritual supplies with us. It’s not Halloween, but it’s close. The Veil is still pretty thin, especially here. Who, or what, would you like us to summon?”
“Issiole also had a spirit familiar, one who still answers the summons of a virgin shaman when called,” Father Virklitch explained. “It’s been some time since we were able to call upon her. Elifey here is the only shaman we have that’s still a virgin, and she’s too young and inexperienced to attempt a summoning on her own. I can see that Eve here still has the aura of a virgin, so if she would be –”
“Virgin!” Genevieve half-screamed, half-laughed at him. “I’ve had more sex, and better sex, than probably every woman here!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Evie, sweetie, come on; you’re better than that,” I implored her, holding her hand while nervously glancing around at all the awkward stares her outburst had drawn upon us.
“No, I don’t care if you’re some sort of old-timey, backwoods soothsayer! Do you have any idea how offensive it is to say that nothing I’ve ever done in bed with another person was real sex because they didn’t have a penis? To appraise the fact that I’ve never been with a man solely in terms of its value to men?” she demanded of him.
“Eve, all he meant was that you’ve never been with a man, and he was evaluating it solely in terms of your ability to participate in a ritual,” I tried to convince her. “I agree that it’s an outdated and offensive term to describe you, and if he or anyone else here uses it again now that they know how much you object to it, they would absolutely be in the wrong. But I really don’t think he meant anything by it, so let’s not escalate this past the simple cultural miscommunication that it is. Father Virklitch, sir, my coven and I are Witches. And as Witches, we – especially Genevieve –  don’t appreciate being referred to in patriarchal, heteronormative, or otherwise male-centric terms. Eve has never been with a man, and if that’s what the ritual requires, she’ll be happy to help, but please do not call her a virgin again. If you disrespect us, you will not have our assistance.  Is that understood?”
Now, I can’t imagine that the elderly leader of an isolationist sect had women stand up to him like that very often, and especially not openly queer women, and yet he was neither shocked nor outraged by our candour.
“My apologies to both of you. I meant no disrespect,” he said with a bow of his head. “We have limited interaction with outsiders. Please excuse any of our customs that you may find uncouth.”
I looked towards Genevieve, imploring her to accept his apology.
“It’s fine; just don’t let it happen again,” she said sternly. “Tell us more about this ritual.”
We spent a good long while in conversation with Elifey and her grandfather as we awaited dinner. Father Virklitch, along with the rest of the Virklitchen, tended to be rather cryptic and evasive when we inquired about anything about them that wasn't strictly need-to-know, and even getting that was like pulling teeth.
The spirit we were to be summoning had been named Iffairea by Issiole. Exactly how and when she became bound to Issiole as her familiar isn’t certain, but her aid had been essential in escaping Morgana King and settling Virklitch. When Issiole eventually died, Iffairea remained bound to the village itself, a situation she wasn’t exactly happy with. As such, she wasn’t a particularly helpful spirit, at least not helpful enough that any woman in the village thought it was worth their while to forgo sex solely for the purpose of summoning her.
We did press, as tactfully as we could, about the nature of the virginity requirement to make sure that Genevieve actually met it, but Father Virklitch seemed to think it was a non-issue. As far as he was concerned, Elifey was the one summoning Iffairea, and her virginity was indisputable. Genevieve was just there for assistance, so technical virginity was good enough.
Genevieve and I were honestly pretty uncomfortable with the ambiguity of the situation, but Elifey was so excited to finally have a chance at summoning her own spirit familiar. As Witches, we knew we had a responsibility to guide and encourage her, so we decided that it was worth a try.
Dinner with the villagers went well, but wasn’t without its challenges. While their bread and vegetables were delicious, Genevieve of course used her own margarin she had brought with her rather than their goat butter, and we abstained from their apple cider as we were planning on using entheogenic mushrooms to enhance our clairvoyance for the ritual and didn’t want to interfere with them. We both declined any meat, as well, since I don’t eat meat in front of her. They didn’t say anything, but she and I got the distinct impression that we had offended our hosts. Charlotte was at least an excellent guest, graciously accepting everything she was offered and expressing full approval of all of it.
The meal did at least afford us a prolonged opportunity to examine many of the Virklitchen up close, and Rosalyn had been dead on; they all looked like members of a large extended family. There were a few hundred of them, and their founders had likely numbered not even a tenth of that. The same enchantment that had made the village so bountiful had also clearly spared them the effects of inbreeding, a revelation which made it quite obvious that Erich Thorne’s interest in them went far beyond the anthropological.
“Why do you think Thorne wanted us to come out here?” I whispered to Genevieve. “He obviously wants to unlock the secret to the Virklitchen’s vitality, but what good does us swapping pumpkins with them do him?”
“Just gratitude, I guess. Makes them more compliant, more willing to participate in research,” she whispered back. “Rosalyn said that girl Elifey let Thorne study her for hours in exchange for a trilobite fossil.”
I turned to look at Rosalyn, who was sitting in between Elifey and a young man she seemed to have taken a fancy to, talking and laughing with both of them. Her congeniality with the Virklitchen felt genuine to me, and I think she was sincerely honoured at how they had accepted her into their community. But she was still working for Erich Thorne, and until I knew otherwise, I was going to assume she wasn’t above manipulating either us or them if it kept her her job.
When we had finished dinner and the sun was setting, Father Virklitch and Elifey led us out into the woods to their summoning circle.
“It has to be well outside the bounds of the village. In hallowing it, Issiole made our home safe from the molestations of unwanted spirits,” he explained as we drew closer to the ritual site.
“I got in no problem,” Elam pointed out.
“That’s because you’re the familiar of a Witch we invited,” Elifey replied. “You wouldn’t have been able to get in on your own.”
We stepped into a small clearing, and saw that the summoning circle was made out of numerous sparkling white stones that had been inlaid in the dirt and marked in black sigils. The main circle was surrounded by several rays like an asymmetrically stylized sun. Each ray pointed towards a megalith that marked the edge of the clearing, each with a hexagon-shaped borehole near the top.
"This is definitely an Ophionic megalith. The hexagons are a dead giveaway," I remarked as I strolled over to the summoning circling, using my besom to respectfully clear any leaves and debris. "The circle’s a bit more custom, though. Issiole made this herself?”
“She did. We’ve only maintained it, never modified it,” Father Virklitch swore.
“Looks like this circle was made specifically for Issiole to summon Iffairea. It wasn’t intended for anyone else. The ‘virgin’ requirement is a bit of a hack,” Genevieve deduced as she read the sigils on the stones. “No wonder Iffairea isn’t happy about the situation. I can't imagine she'll be happy about being stuck in a ward ring either. Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, Elam's right here. He can demonstrate the effectiveness of the wards right now."
“Elam is, with all due respect, a rather pedestrian spectre,” Father Virklitch claimed. “On top of that, you can hardly expect me to accept your own spirit familiar’s reaction to the wards as genuine. I was told these wards are capable of fending off Persephone herself. Containing Iffairea, a mere servant of the Crone, should therefore be well within their capabilities.”
“If that’s what you want,” I nodded. “Do I have your permission to draw a pentagram within the summing circle?”
“By all means,” he said, gesturing his hand towards the circle. Drawing my athame, I bent down and carved the pentagram into the soft soil, taking great care to complete it in one continuous line.
“Make sure all the Jack-O-Lanterns have the right sigils facing in,” I instructed, standing upon one of its points. “This will be the top, which means the Spirit pumpkin goes here. Air then Earth to my right, Water then Fire to my left. Elifey, you and Eve will stand in front of the inner point straight ahead of me so that the pentagram is right side up to you. Iffairea will be confined within the central pentagon of the pentagram, so make sure you don’t stand too close. I’m going to trace the pentagram with Witches’ Salt, set out the sacrificial wine, light the Jack-O-Lanterns, and then Eve will guide you through the invocation. Me, Lottie, Elam, Rose, your mother, and your grandfather will all be right here in case anything goes wrong. Each of you stand in front of one of the megaliths. They’re designed to focus spiritual energy from a person into the summoning circle to enhance the effect.”
Though Father Virklitch seemed slightly annoyed with me explaining his own summoning circle to him, he diligently complied with my request and stood in front of the largest and nearest megalith, where he had no doubt stood many times before. His daughter stood to the right and Rosalyn to the left, while I took the megalith directly across from him; Elam to my right and Charlotte to my left.
“When you’re ready,” I nodded at Genevieve. She nodded back, reaching around to light the stick of incense that Elifey had tightly clutched in her hands.
“Just like we practiced, Elifey. Repeat after me, and let the words guide your will as you project it into the circle,” she instructed. “I cast my voice into the Aether, so that the Celestial Winds may carry my summons across the Planes and unto the spirit whom I doth name.”    
“I cast my voice into the Aether, so that the Celestial Winds may carry my summons across the Planes and unto the spirit whom I doth name,” Elifey repeated.
“I name Iffairea, familiar to Issiole von Virklitch, and guardian spirit to the village of Virklitch, to heed my summons and manifest before me now!”   
“I name Iffairea, familiar to Issiole von Virklitch, and guardian spirit to the village of Virklitch, to heed my summons and manifest before me now!”   
“I am Genevieve Fawn, great niece and adoptive daughter of Evelyn Fawn, disciple of the Great Goddess, gifted with Second Sight and a vir… a ‘virgin’ practitioner of The Craft. By that pedigree, I declare myself worthy of your presence.”
“I am Elifey von Virklitch, daughter of Chrysela and Reinhere von Virklitch, disciple of The Effulgent One, gifted with Second Sight and a virgin shaman of my village. By that pedigree, I declare myself worthy of your presence.”
“We offer this sacrifice of wine, to demonstrate our devotion and as recompense for your trouble.” 
“We offer this sacrifice of wine, to demonstrate our devotion and as recompense for your trouble.” 
“Spirit, I have named you and given you my name in exchange. By Crone, Mother, and Maiden, you are bound by the ancient rites to answer my summons and accept my offering. So mote it be!”
“Spirit, I have named you and given you my name in exchange. By The Effulgent One, you are bound by the ancient rites to answer my summons and accept my offering. So mote it be!”
With this last line, Elifey cast her incense into the bronze bowl of wine, setting it alight. Though the physical fire was humble, it gave birth to a maelstrom of spectral flames that swirled around and upwards in a vortex, suddenly extinguishing to reveal a female spirit.
Her black hair was long and lank, and her pale face was marked with a black line beneath each of her vacuous black eyes and hollow mouth, along with a Triquetra and Crescent Moon sigil upon her forehead. She had no visible hands or feet, her body being little more than a pale, flowing robe. I could tell at once that she was the ghost of an ancient and powerful Witch, and I was instantly curious as to how Issiole had managed to acquire her as a familiar.
The spirit of Iffairea glanced around the megalith, eyeing each of us one by one as she spun her head around three hundred and sixty degrees. She looked down at the Jack-O-Lanterns that bounded her summoning circle, then finally to the ones who had summoned her and spoke.  
“A child, and an outsider Witch who has laid only with women?” she asked in distaste. “Are virgins really so hard to come by in this village?”
“With all due respect, one Witch to another, why do you even care about that?” Genevieve asked. “What difference do you think it makes if – ”
“The point is sacrifice!” Iffairea cut her off. “A child’s virginity is not a sacrifice! A woman who abstains from men because she has no desire for them has made no sacrifice! I do not even demand lifelong celibacy and childlessness! I ask only that a shaman sacrifice a handful of youthful years as a sign of devotion, and you can’t even give me that! Instead, you trot out this pathetic attempt at appeasing me by technicality! How dare you, you miserable ingrates! Release me! Now!”
“I will not release you!” Elifey shouted with a commanding tone that I think took all of us off guard. “You were the familiar of Issiole, and you swore to her that after she was gone, you would dedicate yourself to serving our village and its people. You have all but abandoned us, and we will tolerate your dereliction no longer! To fulfil your oath to Issiole, you shall bind yourself to me as my familiar, or I’ll leave you trapped within these wards forever!”
I couldn’t see Iffairea’s face from my position, but Genevieve’s terrified expression made it clear that Iffairea was seething in silent rage.
“Elifey, no!” I shouted. “This is not how you make a spirit your familiar!”
“You son of a bitch!” Genevieve spun around to curse at Father Virklitch. “That’s why you asked for these wards! You knew she wasn’t going to accept either of us as virgins! You’re a fucked-up old man to put your own granddaughter up to this!”
“I didn’t make her do anything! It was her idea to take Iffairea on as her own familiar,” he claimed.
“Enough! We won’t be a part of this any longer. I’m sending Iffairea back where she belongs!” I said, grabbing a hold of my staff and stepping towards the pentagram.  
“No, you can’t!” Elifey screamed. I’m not sure exactly what she had been intending to do, but she sprinted forward, either towards me or Iffairea, stepping into the pentagram as she did so.
“No!” Genevieve screamed, immediately grabbing her under the arms and hauling her backwards. One of Elifey’s feet was dragged through the line of Witches’ Salt, and as she was pulled backwards the line was broken, the containment spell along with it. The candles in each of the Jack-O-Lanterns were instantly snuffed out, and we were all left petrified as we stared upon a now-free Iffairea.
“Oops,” she mocked, just before levitating the Jack-O-Lanterns into the air and then exploding them violently.
“Elifey!” Chrysela screamed as she rushed in a desperate panic to interpose herself between her daughter in the enraged spirit.
“She can’t hurt us! She’s still bound by the oath she swore to Issiole!” Father Virklitch shouted.
“I can’t hurt the Virklitchen, but you’ve brought so many guests here this evening,” Iffairea said with a wicked grin as she craned her neck around to look at my coven, Elam, and Rosalyn.
“Elam, cover us while we make a banishing pentagram!” I ordered, only for Iffairea to create a sudden updraft that scattered the Witches’ Salt to the wind. As Genevieve, Charlotte, and I took what refuge we could in the summoning circle and began rifling through my Witches’ satchel for anything that might be of use, Elam threw himself upon Iffairea and tried to hold her back. A fight between two ghosts is a little hard to describe, as it was more a battle of wills than it was between physical or even astral forms. Iffairea was no doubt much more powerful than Elam, but her desire to harm me was a fairly petty and transient one, whereas Elam was completely committed to keeping me and my coven safe.
He rode upon her back and pulled her hair to steer her towards the village where she would automatically be banished back to the Astral Plane, but I knew he didn’t have enough strength for that. Screeching, she grabbed him with one hand and tossed him aside, glancing briefly towards us before deciding we weren’t worth the bother and turning her attention towards Rosalyn.
She telekinetically pinned her against the megalith she was standing in front of and then flew over to her, placing one hand on her throat and the other on the megalith.
“Rose!” Elifey screamed, rushing towards her only to be pulled back by her mother. Dropping to her knees and pulling out some kind of totem I couldn’t see very well, she began chanting fervently.
Elam tried to help, of course, but Iffairea was using the megalith to amplify her own power, and Elam’s will to help Rosalyn was nowhere near as strong as his will to protect me, so she continued on almost as if he wasn’t even there.
“Iffairea, put her down! We’ll free you from your oath to this village if that’s what you want, just don’t hurt anyone!” I shouted. I don’t know how I would have broken her oath to Virklitch, to be honest, and I think she sensed that my offer was hollow. She didn’t even acknowledge me, instead remaining completely transfixed on Rosalyn.
“You work for the Ophion Occult Order, don’t you? Don’t you?” Iffairea demanded.
“No! No! My boss is a member, along with his girlfriend and her sister, but I don’t know anything about it!” Rosalyn claimed, her eyes wide and her lips quivering. 
“The Ophion Occult Order corrupted Morgana King, turned her against her own coven, trapped her within her own abomination and then stole Pendragon Hill from us!” Iffairea screamed. “I don’t want them, or anyone that has anything to do with them, in this village! Which means I would technically be acting within the bounds of my oath to purge you from it, if only in the same technical sense that that decadent tribadist is a virgin.”
Iffairea locked eyes with Rosalyn and let her jaw drop down inhumanly low, in preparation for exsanguinating her of her astral body’s psionic energy. Before she could commence the process, however, the entire glade was enveloped in a glaring red light. Everyone immediately looked skywards, and to my bewildered astonishment and terror, some form of Titan towered over us. It was a gaunt and elongated creature, covered with scales plagued by some sort of fungal infection. Its round head was hollow and held within it the bright red light that now engulfed us all. While it had no physical form, for such a being was surely a physical impossibility, its astral presence was so mighty it burned my clairvoyance just to behold it. Emrys, Persephone and other members of the Chthonic Court were the only beings I had ever encountered that felt even remotely comparable, which was how I knew that I was not looking at a ghost, but a god.  
The Titan crouched down and causally flicked Elam aside, then picked up Iffairea between its fingers, as though she was nothing more than a small doll to it. She screamed and struggled desperately to escape, all of it completely in vain. When the Titan had at last lifted her high into the air, it focused the light from its head into a tightly focused beam and blasted her with it. Iffairea’s wails echoed out through the night before quickly vanishing as she was once again banished back to the Astral Plane where she belonged.
Me, Genevieve, and Charlotte all stared in helpless confusion at the Virklitchen to see if they had any idea what the hell was going on. It was obvious from Father Virklitch’s, Chrysela’s, Elifey’s, and even Rosalyn’s reactions that this was not the first time they had seen this entity. At least now it was clear why they had snickered at me for bragging about having stood before Persephone.
The Titan unfocused its brilliant light once again, and slowly turned it downwards at Elifey, a small hint of annoyance evident in its body posture.
“Sorry,” she croaked apologetically, hanging her head shamefully while still clutching the prayer totem she had presumably used to summon it.
With a sideways roll of its head to indicate mild exasperation, the Titan rose to its full height and began to wander off back into the darkness from whence it came. As it left us, however, Rosalyn hastily pulled out a device I recognized as a parathaumameter and began taking readings of the strange Old One.       
I said nothing at the time, but I was chilled by the realization that Erich Thorne wanted far more from the village of Virklitch than just their secrets to health and fertility.
Category:Ghosts
Category:Gods
Category:The Vesper's Bell