Season of the Witch

Chapter 1: Bitchcraft

Looking up from her low vantage point, she could barely make out the numbers on the wooden doors of each room she passed. The moans and screams and jazz music echoing through the maze of halls were the loudest that she had ever heard them before. She was close. The door of the room in front of her was slightly ajar. Curiosity winning out over fear, she pushed it open a little more to have peek inside. A man was standing over a large, antique metal tub. He had his back to her, so she could see part of the pinstriped suit that he had on beneath the rubber apron and rubber gloves he wore on top. His hands were moving erratically, holding objects that gleamed in the dim light. Knives. Her eyes widened when the dark liquid on the apron rolled down and dropped to the floor to form a bright red stain. The screams had stopped. So had the man's movements. Her grip tightened on the door as he turned to look at her. Just when she was about to see his face, the trumpet from the song blared loudly next to her ear, morphing into an obnoxious beeping sound.

The little girl, now a teenager, groaned groggily as she opened her eyes and found herself safe in her bed. She blinked and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She had tossed and turned so much during the night that most of her sheets were on the floor. She glared at the noisy alarm clock on her nightstand and felt around for its off button.

"Girl, you best shut that thing off before I throw it at the wall!" her roommate grumbled moodily, equally annoyed with the rude awakening. It was a huge relief when the damn thing finally shut up.

"Sorry, Queenie."

"Whoa, you have a nightmare, Melanie?" Queenie asked when she saw what a mess her normally neat bed was.

"Something like that," Melanie replied cryptically as she rolled out of bed. She quickly made her way over to her desk and started writing about the incident in her journal using invisible ink, while Queenie caught a few more minutes of shuteye. She often recorded her dreams in this way. She couldn't remember anything about the first two years of her life. They were a complete blank apart from flashes of the color red, the hazy image of a beautiful woman, and the smell of a perfume that was either Hypnotic Poison by Dior or something very similar. And these dreams about a strange hotel filled with darkness and death. Every counselor and shrink that she had talked to in her long history of therapy seemed to think these dreams were her mind's way of coping with whatever had happened to her in those missing years and her subsequent abandonment. She admitted that most of her dreams had a sort of surreal feeling about them, but she couldn't help but feel that they were more than that. She'd had them ever since she woke up in the hospital where she was being treated for some mysterious wounds that she had no recollection of receiving. When no one showed up to claim her, she was entered into foster care. That was the real nightmare.

There was a soft knock at the door before she heard the voice of Cordelia, the woman who had taken care of her ever since she was twelve. Her home for the last five years was an all girls' finishing school with free room and board. At least, that's what it appeared to be as far as the rest of the world was concerned. In reality, it was an academy for witches backed by an ancient coven whose origins reached as far back as the Salem Witch Trials. While the authorities of the time had been busy burning or hanging the falsely accused, the real witches got the heck out of dodge and eventually set up shop here in New Orleans. "Wake up, girls! It's breakfast time," their teacher called.

"Coming!" Melanie answered as Queenie sat up and threw off her covers to get ready for the day. Melanie put her journal away so she could get dressed, too.

For years, it had just been Melanie and Cordelia, but now there were currently two other students at the school beside herself and Queenie. One of them, Nan, was already at the kitchen table tucking into a plate of pancakes and fresh fruit. The three of them watched the news with Cordelia while they ate. It must be a slow day, because they were running the story about Misty Day again. The perpetrators still hadn't been caught. The last student, Madison Montgomery—a drama queen and a constant pain in the ass—finally showed up about halfway through. Just in time to hear Cordelia warn everyone that they had to be careful, because she happened to hear from a very reliable source that it had been confirmed that Misty Day had been a witch, too. Madison rolled her eyes and made a smartass comment that they all chose to ignore. Given her track record, Melanie doubted Madison's time there would last much longer. She wouldn't be at all surprised if Madison got sick of them and left before the year was up.