When Jezelda received her coming-of-age trial from the coven elders, she was horrified. Sacrifices were always part of the ritual, but this time, it was extreme.
Mr. Aubrey Graham, the greatest rap-star sensation alive. How could he not be enchanted...
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"Jezelda, your time has come."
It was the hour of twilight at dusk, and our coven convened as we usually do each Friday. I sat at the far end of the table, my black Dr. Martens crossed over on the chair in front of me. I was acting moody because I was anxious. I knew my time had come, and I knew what would be asked would be a challenge both physically and mentally. Our initiation step always involved sacrifice, one way or another; it's just how it went for centuries and centuries of witches before us.
"Okay," I said in a low, unbothered voice, masking my nerves. I knew I was unsuccessful when Zadie looked at me wide-eyed and concerned. Zadie had just turned eighteen, so she was no stranger to the perils of the task.
Zadie had to give up the boy she loved, had to set him up with another woman, and then she had to erase herself from his mind. She was permitted to erase him from hers, but she, for whatever insane reason, chose not to.
Why was it that the task more often than not involved heartbreak? Probably because every witch knew that when it came down to it, that was our biggest weakness: our embarrassingly human side that sorcerers could use against us.
Sandra, the eldest, looked at me coolly. "Now, Jezelda, please know this took us a long time to decide, and we didn't take it lightly at all. It was more arduous than usual, but it was told to us from the cards. And there was no denying."
Luckily for me, I didn't have a boyfriend; there was no human I loved to sacrifice per se, so unlike Zadie, I was somewhat in the clear. But the elders looked worried, and I didn't like the strange expression on Sandra's face.
She continued, "Now, perhaps this is a testament to your strength; the cards foresee you being a very powerful witch, so they've given you a difficult task."
"There's a chance it may be due to her emotional behavior," Fenella piped in.
I rolled my eyes, but I didn't have to worry because I knew she couldn't have known what the cards had said; only the elders could read them, and she was just being a bitch.
"So what is it?" I probed, arms crossed.
The elders looked at one another. "Jezelda, you are to make a very important, very well-known man fall for you."
"Pft. Okay," I said confidently, "which man? I can do it tonight."
"It won't be that easy," Sandra said. "He's a very, very well-known man. He goes by the name of Aubrey Graham, otherwise known as Drake."
I chuckled. "Oh, you mean the singer? Okay, so I'll have to be more tactful. Find myself in the right place at the right time, but that's no problem."
Fenella scowled; I knew she was expecting something worse. Besides, Drake was hot; anyone with a beating pulse could see that. This test was going to be fun, to say the least. Not a bad guy to lose my virginity to either, and surely that wasn't against the rules?
"Well, Jezelda, there's one more thing," Sandra said. "You have to make him fall in love with you, and then you have to sacrifice him."
"Okay... How?"
"You have to kill him."
The coven broke out into an uproar. "Kill him?!" my mother protested.
"Why, that's black magic! Sandra, we can't ask Jezelda to do that," a parent exclaimed.
I couldn't speak, but I didn't need to. My peers, along with their mothers, chattered anxiously around me, voicing every doom-filled thought running through my head.
"Silence!" Sandra called. Our coven leader was tough; she had yellowy eyes, a mass of curly gray hair like an array of wires, and a withered face that showed signs of her younger beauty.
Sandra may have been frightening to some, but she was fair. Even with this whole situation, I knew I could trust her.
The coven went still.
"If Jezelda sacrifices Mr. Graham by non-magical means, it will not be considered black magic. Now, I know what you're all thinking; this is the first time something like this has been called upon, but the cards are an ancient method, spanning back before our time. They do not lie."
"Won't she get in trouble? The humans could imprison her!" Zadie cried out.
"She would be protected, of course. We have an understanding with humans in high places."
"And if I refuse?" I asked.
"Jezelda," my mother hissed.
What I had just uttered was so sinful that the whole coven fell silent. I knew that I wasn't allowed to refuse; I knew what would happen. A witch's coven was extremely important for multiple reasons, safety being number one. A witch without her coven was like an animal left in the wild without their pack. I was as good as dead.
"As always, Jezelda, the decision is one hundred percent yours. I urge you to choose wisely."
There was no wisdom to it. It was kill or be killed. Savage.
"Well," Veatrix, Fenella's mother, said, "if the cards say it, the cards say it."
I bet they were loving this. I just couldn't comprehend that my trial could be so cruel, so clearly evil. The sacrifice was supposed to be mine, not the life of an innocent.
"Now, that's enough commotion for one night," Sandra concluded. "There's no more to discuss. it's time to eat."
The elders got up first, followed by the rest, and I watched as everyone made their way to the kitchen. Friday was frog leg soup day. Even the aroma wafting through our wide kitchen doors was making me feel sick.
"Excuse me," I said, abruptly leaving the dining table.
I didn't know who I was yet, but I was certain that I wasn't a killer.
