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The line dividing Martha and Abigail's attic bedroom was a very visible one. As if the space had been cleaved into two opposite poles of existence. Martha's side, a freshly made bed draped with a patchwork quilt made by Jodie, a dark oak chest of drawers, and shelves packed with crystals and herbs, was meticulously cared for. On her desk sat a small stack of spellbooks, her book of shadows, and a copy of the coven's collection of spells and rituals. Her dream journal was placed neatly on her bedside table, a single pen beside it.
Abigail's side was what Martha would describe as tornado alley. Clothes were strewn about dark wood floors and piled high atop her desk chair. The desk was more or less a decoration, as she hadn't used it once. Posters plastered every inch of the wall, even sprawling across the ceiling like invasive Ivy across a home. Horror movies, bands, actors, it was all there. They couldn't be more opposite, yet lived symbiotically in their shared space.
Dangling from a delicate iron chain and drenched in sticky dark blood, a teardrop of amethyst hovered just above the surface of a crinkled map. Chrissy Cunningham and Fred Benson's blood fused into a sickening concoction that bubbled and steamed as Martha dipped the handcrafted pendulum into its depths. Hawkins was not a very large town, it was small by most standards, but when searching for psychic anomalies, it was like shooting in the dark or searching the entire ocean for a single piece of treasure. Martha held her hand as steady as possible while the pendulum swung over the sprawling map in sweeping motions. Drops of crimson speckled over lines of streams, lakes, rivers, and lanes.
Martha and Abigail knelt on either side of a flattened paper map within a ring of salt. The day had grew late sooner than she would've liked. The burning sun was low in the sky, gazing into Martha's window as if watching her work. Hours poring over spell books and ancient texts were arduous, to say the least. Spellwork was a delicate craft, and to achieve her goal of finding the creature that killed those poor high schoolers, Martha needed to not only craft her own spell, but bend the rules and makeup of existing ones. Meta-Composition was a skill she'd only just developed and one only three witches in the entire coven could achieve - reshaping existing spells into something new. Shannon was more than happy to teach Martha the craft, and to her delight, her protege was a very swift learner.
