KISS THE WITCH by Dana Donovan Page A

cheek and sent me lunging forward into Ursula’s arms. I
grabbed her around the waist to keep from knocking her over, but my
forward momentum pushed her back to the edge of the circle. She was
leaning backwards, her body half in the circle and half out. Lilith
shouted something at us, but I could not hear her. All I could
think of was keeping Ursula inside the circle. When the flames
began nipping at her heels, Ursula let out a yelp and drove toward
me hard enough to knock me down. I landed on my back, my arms still
around her waist, her body flat against mine.
    I felt relieved and embarrassed at the same
time. And when I saw Lilith standing over us, hands on hips, foot
tapping, I felt afraid as well. I looked up at her and stifled a
guilty grin. “Lilith. It’s not what you think. It’s funny
really.”
    “ Is it? You and Ursula
lying naked on the floor together? That’s funny?”
    “ No, that part isn’t
funny. What I mean is….”
    “ Just get up, Tony, and
stop taking advantage of Ursula’s naïveté.”
    I looked at Ursula. She smiled back at me
the way Lilith does when she knows something I do not. I suddenly
got the feeling the joke was on me and that the whole coven thing
was a setup. Maybe in some weird witchy tradition Lilith was
throwing Ursula a bachelorette party and I was the
entertainment.
    I looked up at Lilith again. Her face had
grown several shades redder in the moments it took me to think
about it. Another look into Ursula’s eyes and I realized that she
had not a clue. Every second I wasted only made matters worse.
    “ Okay.” I released my
finger-lock hold around Ursula’s waist and pushed her gently off
me. “Back to work now.”
    I saw Lilith’s eyes checking out my mid
section after Ursula dismounted to make sure I had not picked up my
spear again. Fortunately, I had not.
    We returned to the altar in the formation I
mentioned earlier, Ursula to my right, Lilith to my left. Ursula
picked up the salt dish and poured it into the water. She then
picked the bowl up and handed it to Lilith.
    Lilith dipped the athame into the water and
flicked it at the fire bordering the east. She began walking the
perimeter of the circle, flicking water from the athame onto the
fire and throughout the circle as she progressed clockwise. Her
mantra, as before, in whispered rhymes, the likes of which I could
not understand.
    That done, she returned the bowl to the
altar and set it on the empty salt dish. Ursula placed the black
mirror against the bowl, leaning it back in a way that she might
see her face in it if she stooped slightly.
    Lilith waved the athame over the mirror
three times. “Hear ye spirits through this glass,” she said, her
words decidedly louder and more pronounced than before. “Turn to
night and let us pass.” She pressed the tip of the athame to the
face of the mirror.
    “ Let us pass,” said
Ursula, and after she elbowed me lightly, I echoed her
words.
    Lilith took my left hand. Ursula took my
right. All around me, tiny lights began flickering in fleeting
specs like shooting stars. I felt a tingle in my stomach and a
numbing in my feet. The room outside the circle faded to black and
disappeared entirely.
    Lilith pressed the athame again to the
mirror. Only this time the tip did not stop after touching the
glass. Instead, it passed through it like an open window, the
emptiness swallowing the blade to the hilt, leaving no reflection
and no image beyond.
    She withdrew the blade, and the sleek finish
of the black glass rippled. She hesitated briefly before plunging
the blade forward again without stopping. Her hand passed through
the mirror up to her arm and then her shoulder, and in a blink, we
all passed through the rippled blackness and found ourselves
suspended in the middle of absolute nowhere.
    I looked down at my feet, felt and saw
nothing holding me up. Above and all around me, but for Lilith and
Ursula, I saw nothing. Felt nothing. Heard nothing. A dim light
illuminated our