KISS THE WITCH by Dana Donovan Page B

bodies, though its source proved undetectable.
    I started to say something, ask where we
were, when Lilith squeezed my hand and whispered it was all right.
I turned to her. She smiled reassuringly. I looked to Ursula. She
appeared positively radiant, her eyes twinkling in the phantom
light, her skin glistening with iridescent brilliance. I looked
down at my feet again and noticed I could point my toes into the
emptiness. We were floating. Dead, I thought, and I did not
care.
    It is hard to say what I expected next. I
guess I didn’t know, a light I suppose, maybe at the end of long
tunnel. You hear stories like that all the time from people who
have near-death experiences. But then this was not a near-death
experience. This was an experience of a lifetime.
    While looking down into the depths of
darkness, I saw it coming, a train of fog rushing up from below. It
came at us in a silent rage, encircling us in a column of air so
cold it raised goose bumps on my skin. Behind it came the wind,
trailing the fog like a restless shadow and blowing loose strands
of Lilith and Ursula’s hair from their neat buns.
    I watched in awe as the swirling tempest
slow to a meandering ring of drifting curiosity. I knew it had
intelligence. It coiled around us like a serpent, one end the head,
the other the tail. As the shifting presence settled in, faces of
millennia began to appear. The mothers of the coven were upon
us.
    The wind lightened to a nuisance breeze when
Lilith let go of my hand and took a step forward. She arched her
back, her hands high above her head, stretching on tiptoes as if
reaching for the impossible.
    “ Oh, mothers of the coven
receive us. Hear our plea. Embrace us thee as thou
wilt.”
    At once, a thousand souls appeared in human
form. Women of all ages materialized before us, all naked and
glowing in the thick of the fog from which they came. Some looked
like Lilith and Ursula, tall, young beauties with black hair and
dark eyes, and bodies so perfect only a witch would know they were
dead. Others looked older, graying, hunched and feeble, as if death
advanced their years only after they crossed over.
    And then there were the children,
prepubescent girls who, like Ursula, bore rope scars around their
necks. I let go of Ursula’s hand and covered myself. She smiled
thinly at that, panning a side-glance down at my hands.
    “ `Tis no shame here,” she
said. “They appear as we do for our sake, is all.”
    I smiled back. “They are still children,” I
said. “And last I looked, we were not in Europe.”
    “ Aye, that we are not.”
She looked around at the emptiness. “We are not of that world at
all.”
    Lilith dropped her hands by her side and
relaxed her stance. “Have thee the will to receive us?” she
asked.
    One of the women who I thought resembled
Lilith the most stepped forward. The two embraced, and a feeling of
deja’vu struck me. I had to look to make sure Ursula was still
standing beside me. She was.
    “ Lilith of New Castle,”
said the woman. “Thou art well I see.”
    “ Katharine of
Newburyport,” said Lilith. “It has been a few years.”
    “ Aye, sixty and one
hundred, I believe.”
    “ Shush now, Katharine. You
spill my age to my man and he may leave me for another yet
younger.”
    The two laughed. Katharine came around
Lilith to me, stopping at arm’s reach. “And by what name doth he
answer to?”
    “ That’s Tony of New
Castle.”
    Katharine reached for my wrists and pulled
my hands away from my body. After gathering a full look at me, she
said, “Tony of New Castle. Thou art a witch?”
    “ Yes,” I said, feeling
conspicuous about things.
    She looked back at Lilith. “You have done
well, Sister.”
    Ursula said, “Oh, and he can do a most
amazing thing with it, too. If thou wish, I can show thee––”
    “ Thaaat won’t be
necessary,” said Lilith. “Ursula, I’m sure Katharine knows what it
can do.”
    “ Ursula?” said Katharine.
“Ursula of Salem?”
    “ Aye,