Page 98 of The Magic We Made

“Not yet.” Emma continues to clutch Haley’s wrist. “You’re the one who taught us that love and compassion are cornerstones of Hecate’s teachings. If we can’t show empathy for others, how will we ever learn to show it to ourselves?”

As a therapist, I’m so proud of her. Talk about a breakthrough!

But as a human, I’m still terrified, since Emma’s wise words have no effect on Haley. She wrenches her wrist from Emma’s grasp with a sneer.

“Empathy is for losers!” Haley shrieks.

She would, I’m certain, have raised the knife toward Emma if she hadn’t been interrupted by an ominous rumble. It’s hard to tell at first if it’s thunder or something else, but everyone freezes exactly where they’re standing.

Then the earth beneath Satan’s Seat moves. And all hell breaks loose.

“Oh my God,” cries one of the girls. “It’s Hecate!”

But I know from common sense—and sixth grade biology—that it’s not.

“Don’t worry,” I say, tightening my grip on Ash’s hand. “That was only an earthquake. Connecticut has a ton of underground faults, especially around East Harbor. There’s—”

“That’s no earthquake,” Ash says.

Before I can ask what he means, the earth moves again, this time even more violently—violently enough that Ash and I are thrown off our feet. The uneven surface of the rock cuts into my knees, but I hardly notice since I’m trying so desperately not to fall off and onto the hard ground below.

At least I am until Ash wraps his arms around me.

“Get down,” he says into my ear. “This is going to get rough.”

I have no idea what he’s talking about until the stone altar suddenly bucks, and an ear-splitting cracking noise fills the air. Ash pushes me to the surface of the rock, then covers my body with his, shielding me from a cascade of falling dirt and stones from the ravine above.

Ash has got his hands over my head, keeping it down, so I can’t see what’s going on around me. But I can still hear. In addition to the cracking noise, I hear the girls screaming in terror. There’s another violent lurch that would have caused me to go flying if Ash hadn’t flattened himself over me.

And then I lift my head and see it. It’s difficult to make sense of what I’m looking at because of the fog and drifting smoke from all the torches the girls dropped in their terror, now smoldering on the forest floor.

But a wildfire is not my biggest concern at the moment. That would be the five-foot-wide fissure that’s opened up in the earth in front of Satan’s Seat, and the figure—distinctly female-shaped—rising from it.

This is, of course, impossible. Sinkholes and cracks in the earthappear pretty regularly in New England, and cars and sometimes even people and houses fall into them.

Except nothing ever risesoutof them. I have to be experiencing yet another hallucination.

But if this is a hallucination, it’s got some truly horrifying special effects. The figure rising slowly from the fissure is clad entirely in black, shiny, veil-like material that barely covers her feminine curves and definitely covers her face.

You don’t need to see the features beneath the veil, however, to tell this is a woman, and that this woman is not happy. Her mouth is wide open beneath the thin black film across her face, and the loudest, most piercing scream of all is the one coming from her.

“What is happening?” I whisper to Ash. His face is only inches away from mine, so he hears me, despite the screaming. I can feel his heart drumming hard. “Whoisthat?”

“Hecate,” he whispers back. “Queen of Witches. And I was right: she’s pissed.”

Frankie

This has to be a nightmare. I probably hit my head falling off Satan’s Seat and I’m unconscious and dreaming right now.

That’s the only possible explanation for what I’m seeing, because women clad only in long black veils cannot rise, screaming, from the depths of the earth.

And they definitely cannot do what this one does next, which is to continue to rise nearly a dozen feet above us, the long black train of their gown dangling below them, then demand, in a voice that sounds like a snake hissing, “Who dares to disturb me from my slumber?”

At first the only reply is more screaming from the girls. Haley has fallen to her knees beside the crevice, craning her neck to look up at the black-garbed specter, her face a mask of fear and wonder. The other girls are cowering together in small groups, some weeping and some shrieking, but all seemingly seeing the same thing I am... which should be impossible, given that this is a dream.

Then I hear Emma’s voice ringing out through the clearing, “Hecate,shedid. She woke you.”

When I glance her way, I see Emma is still on her feet and pointing indignantly at Haley, cowering below in horror.