Untamable Matriarch: The Witheridge Witches

Chapter 2

TW: Mature themes 

Margareth

The bar around me tingled with energy flittering all about this dark iteration of a speakeasy. Not that this place was anything like a speakeasy. This place was too clean and put together - permanent. I had found a coveted corner of the room with seating that was facing the door. I was waiting for someone. Someone I hadn't seen since the early 50s. My closest friend. If you could call her that. What do you call a person you've known that long? With a bond this strong? She is the one that found me after all back in that one roomed home in France all those centuries ago. Back when she was Adela and I was Margareth.

Inseparable we were. To the point we'd formed a connection so strong we could feel each other even when we were apart which was most of the time. We'd kept up with one another throughout the many years and agreed we'd see each other at least once every one hundred years on alternating birthdays. It was my turn. And I was hoping it'd go well as the last time I had seen her things had been tense.

My 800th was a few days ago on the twenty first of December. I had seen her a few times this century mostly during the second World War. And all of those times I remembered were particularly unpleasant. And it looks like we'd be seeing each other into the next century too as it was New Year's Eve of 1999 about to be 2000.

I'm sure I looked like a mess with perspiration beading on the back of my neck and temples. To counteract that I was sucking on ice despite it being a cold sweat. It was below freezing out it being New Year's Eve and all. I had teleported to my apartment in Adams Morgan and quickly stripped, changing into a short red dress, black tights, and a warm leather jacket and boots to match after the whole Carlisle fiasco. My hair and makeup were already done so I had wiped the underneath of my eyes of the fallout from my heavily painted lids which helped make the liner lining my eyes sharper yet still smoky. I'd whipped off the blonde wig and ran a brush through my hair and was good to go.

The crowd wasn't insane or anything. It was low key in here considering it was New Years. Granted, a lot of people thought the world would end tonight. It wouldn't. Not yet.

There were two different types of men at the bar. Some were laughing, sleeves rolled up all dressed in business attire of varying ages. They were defense contractors, lobbyists, or politicians in the making no doubt. The other type being the working man. Most likely military or former military of various professions. Washington D.C. was riddled with both.

I'd chosen this bar for a few reasons one of the being Adele's and I's meeting tonight. The other was... well...I needed to get fucked. It had been a year since my last one night stand. The last time was with a woman. And with my looming mortality that I was reminded of this morning I was feeling like I needed to get railed. There was something about being held down by a man while he drove into me that I missed. My options were quite limited here, but one of them would do.

I pretended I didn't see Adele come in as she beelines for me. Raven black hair and milky white skin. I'd know her anywhere. I'd felt her presence as soon as she was teleported by another witch into the city. Her magic had been waning for a while. It happened sometimes as we aged. We had our theories but no one on the Council were sure why really.

When she came into full view she sat in the seat beside me and brings me into a deep hug. I relax an inch into the embrace and exhale. She pulls back and looks me over as I do the same. She's changed. Last time I saw her she had a round figure and now she is somewhat gaunt which has me pulling my eyebrows together in concern.

"I see all these years haven't made you any less stiff." she says with a slight smile in a heavily french accent. She never left Europe permanently like I did. However, I would've stayed if I hadn't been exiled to the French colonies. Adele was a French witch through and through. I was a mutt. No home. No ties to my ancestral land. Not anymore. I was a true American.