Divination (Spells and Sins)

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

"The unseen is felt long before it is ever known."

Elysia

I shivered as the last flame in the circle of candles flickered out. The scent of sage hung heavy in the air, thick with the weight of my divination spell. Opening my eyes, I was met with complete silence, not a bird chirping or even a breeze blowing through the open window as I sat cross-legged on the kitchen floor’s rug.

The water inside the scrying bowl in front of me sat just as still and calm, not a ripple in sight. I knew divination took time, but my gut told me I needed to hurry. My intuition was never wrong, which was why so much nervous energy ran rampant through my body, setting me on edge. I needed to calm down.

“Focus, Elysia,” I said calmly to myself. Panicking wasn’t going to get me anywhere.

My vision from earlier had nearly brought me to my knees as it flashed through my mind’s eye. I prayed whatever horrors I’d glimpsed earlier were only a small event and not a tiny piece to something much larger. I clasped my hands together in my lap to keep them from shaking.

Patience. Focus and patience. I took a deep breath, held it, and then slowly exhaled. There, that was much better. I rolled my shoulders and straightened my back. I could do this.

The dying light from the last golden rays of the evening peeked through my lace curtains, casting odd shadows all throughout the kitchen of my little cottage set in the woods. Hallow Ridge Grove—tucked away in upstate New York—was a safe town, too safe. And the townsfolk were unaware that witches lived among them. I planned to keep it that way, as did my coven.

If only I could make sense of what I’d seen. Staring intently at my scrying bowl, I placed a hand on the side of it, the coldness of its touch helping me to sharpen my focus. I whispered my incantation one more time, pulling hard on the power within me, and hoping to gain more insight.

The air grew dense as the candles surrounding me lit themselves one by one, sparking to life, and illuminating the vessel of water in front of me. My divination ritual, one I’d performed countless times, was supposed to bring me clarity, but the visions that materialized within the water’s reflection were fractured and blurred.

Dark twisted shapes skidded across the surface, followed by other fragmented images, sounds, and symbols. Nothing made sense. The visions ended just as quickly as they’d begun.

“What the fuck?” I grasped my chest with my free hand and tried to catch my breath. Even though I couldn’t discern anything from the water, I didn’t like the feeling that it’d given me.

If me or my town was in danger, I needed more information. I’d be damned if I didn’t use the powers the goddess had given me to get to the bottom of this. I grabbed my athame and pricked the tip of my finger, holding it over the bowl. A single drop of blood joined the water below, binding me more closely to the spell, and intensifying my connection to the process. I then cupped the vessel with both hands.

“Show me more. Show me what’s to come.”

The water rippled unnaturally, and my pulse quickened. Suddenly, an ominous face appeared in the reflection. It was faint, ghost-like, but unmistakable—a shadowy figure with glowing red eyes. The vision shifted rapidly, showing the town in chaos, strange figures emerging from the woods, and an eerie black mist rolling through the streets and blotting out any light in its path.

The water cleared yet again, leaving me with more questions than answers.

Clenching my jaw, I tried to recall some of the fleeting pieces: a silver crescent moon shrouded in shadows, unfamiliar whispers, a dark being with glowing red eyes, and…a woman’s face. Ethereal and striking. Fae?

Suddenly, the wind picked up and blew my tarot card deck off the kitchen counter, scattering them across the room like confetti. One card flipped end over end until it landed by my bare foot. The Moon card laid face up, one corner bent from its tumble, but the energy surrounding it felt off.

Pulling my cardigan tighter, I whispered, “What are you trying to tell me?”

Something was wrong.

The veil between worlds always grew precariously thin this close to Samhain. That alone should have explained the strangeness in the air, but this—this felt different . There was something dangerous stirring, and it was connected to the face in my vision. The woman with silver eyes. Yes, she had silver eyes.

As my fingers brushed across the Moon card, I gasped. Tears pricked the corner of my eyes unbidden as a feeling of doom and death settled heavily in my gut.

Something was coming—something powerful and dangerous. I’d had visions before, but this one felt different, more personal, as if it was a warning meant specifically for me.

A soft knock at the door snapped me out of my thoughts. The door creaked open a fraction before I could even move.

“Morgana sent me,” came a voice from the doorway. Cassia Brooks stepped inside, her wild auburn curls illuminated by the porch light. “She sensed a shift in the energy. Did you feel it?”

“Feel it?” I pushed myself up from the kitchen rug and brushed off my long, black skirt. “I saw it.”

Cassia’s face paled as she stepped inside, shutting the door behind her. “You saw something?”

I nodded, but hesitated before I spoke. What I saw didn’t really tell me anything of significance. If Morgana, our high priestess, had sent Cassia to check on me, it had to be either bad or important.

Maybe both?

“Elysia?” Cassia stepped forward and clasped my hands, giving them a shake. “What did you see?”

“I—A vision. I had a vision.” I swallowed hard as I pulled out of her grasp and stumbled over to the couch to sit.

Cassia followed but remained standing. “Are you going to tell me about your vision or am I going to have to pull it out of you?” She raised her hands, a spell hanging on her lips.

“No, no! That’s not necessary. I’m just a little shaken up by it. The vision wasn’t clear, but there was someone—a fae, I think. And something else…something dark…”

Before Cassia could respond, the room’s temperature plummeted, sending goose bumps over both our arms. The air grew thin and frosty as if sucking up all available oxygen, making it hard to breathe. The wind outside howled and whistled as if in warning. We both turned to the front window as a shadow darted across the yard, vanishing into the forest surrounding my cottage.

I stood, easing my back against the wall, suddenly leery with living off the beaten path, out here all alone, and vulnerable.

“What the hell was that?” Cassia’s voice was barely a whisper, and I didn’t blame her. Whatever that thing was, I didn’t want it to hear us and come back.

“Stay close,” I instructed Cassia, my voice coming out steady despite the fear gnawing at my insides as I crept toward the door. “I need to get closer. To get a better sense of whatever’s out there.”

“What? Oh no, we don’t! No, ma’am!” Cassia grabbed my elbow and spun me around. “We need to report this to Morgana. Maybe she’ll know what to do.”

Crossing my arms to ward off the chill still hanging in the air, I sighed dramatically. “As always, you’re right. Going out there to search for the boogeyman is like asking to be in one of those horror movies that doesn’t end well.”

“Exactly.” Cassia looked down and tapped wildly on her phone for a minute. “There. I just sent a message to the coven’s group chat to watch out for anything suspicious and to stay inside.”

“Good idea.” I blinked. “Wait, how did you get cell service out here?”

“Just one of my many talents.” She winked and tucked her phone into her pocket, before nodding toward the door. “You should come with me to see Morgana and tell her about these visions.”

“What I saw doesn’t explain anything. It’s all just jumbled images and shit that makes no sense. Besides, I—I should stay behind and reinforce the wards on my cottage.” The thought of being out here all alone was still scary, but my resolve had settled. I refused to let someone—or something—run me out of the one place I loved the most.

I eased the front door open a crack and peeked outside with one eye. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

I helped Cassia get safely tucked into her vehicle, doors locked, before she disappeared down my gravel drive. My head was on a swivel as I looked left and right before I hightailed it back into the house. Taking one last glance behind me, my skin tingled as I surveyed the darkness. Something was out there … watching.

Was it the thing that had run across my yard or something different? I wasn’t staying out here to find out. Racing inside, I threw my own locks into place, and prayed to every deity under the sun and the moon. The wards would be next.

My heart raced as my intuition screamed at me to pay attention, but there were so many missing pieces to the puzzle I didn’t know if I’d ever see the bigger picture. But Intuition also told me that whatever had arrived in Hallow Ridge Grove wasn’t just passing through. It was staying.

And it was looking for me.