The Coven

Chapter 1

Massachusetts

"I should have learned this, she thought. I wanted to learn fire, and pain, but I should have learned people." - Terry Pratchett

Sarah Wilson became a victim the second she walked into the coffee shop on Sunday morning. Not before, no she wasn't that pivotal. She became a victim simply because she was at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Waking up to the sounds of a pesky child jumping on her, begging her to make some breakfast. That day she did not know it would be the last day she saw her son who was whining and pushing on his mother's stomach. She made him waffles before rushing out still dressing herself, sticking her arms through her coat as she warmed up the car.

Maybe if her son had begged his mother to make another waffle she would be alive. Maybe if her car had stalled for another minute, maybe if the red light would've flickered. Maybe if she did not want to go to the coffee shop. Juniper liked to think that Sarah would have been saved by those simple things, but the truth was if it hadn't been Sarah Wilson that day it would've been someone else. Another victim.

She entered the coffee shop flattening her wrinkled dull gray shirt. Juniper remembered this, the woman walking in with the makeshift hair with no name attached to her. Speaking her order to the tired eyed barista quickly then retiring to the corner to wait for her order. She fumbled with her fingers to pass the time. A old habit that had developed through her childhood.

She was thinking of little problems, debt, taxes, children. They seemed so, important then. Those problems could not compare to the ones that will soon occur to her family after she was gone. The guilt, the depression and sleepless nights as her son called out for his mother waiting for her to appear.

"Sarah." She rushed over to grab her coffee. Juniper wasn't paying too much attention the woman, just peeking up at the scene from her book at times. Juniper was nestled in the corner of the coffee shop with her book close to her chest.

Smoke.

Juniper smelled it as it seeped through her nose burning her lungs. Looking around desperately she saw that nobody else looked concerned. Nobody else was sucking in the air and choking on it. Juniper knew what it meant and she had hoped she was wrong. Another witch was here.

After inhaling the smoke she had a few seconds to determine who the victim was. Chances of her being able to save the person were impossible but she could not give up. Sarah Wilson sat there with her pale skin still shivering from the cold. Her hands wrapped around a coffee cup pulling it up to her mouth. Juniper couldn't warn her, she could not compose the words. It was too late. A millisecond did not even pass when Sarah placed her faded lips on the cup and drank its contents.

The sound of the chair banging onto the ground came first, and then Sarah's screams followed. The piercing sound never left Juniper's head nor did the sight. Sarah curled up on the floor, her hands gripping her neck as her insides lit on fire. It looked as if she was having a seizure, shaking violently across the floor. Juniper raced up pushing her chair to the side to reach the frail woman. Her voice screeching to make any type of noise possible. Sarah's hand reached out to touch Junipers arm leaving a burn mark on her own skin. The evidence was there, the signs, yet Juniper was blind.

Searching frantically for the culprit, calm eyes in sea of panic met hers.

Ember.

A slick smile ran across the other girl's face as she slid backwards out of the stores back way. Standing up Juniper followed her, leaving Sarah. She was already good as dead. Everyone scrambled to her side trying to save her until her body fell limp in the arms of a stranger.

People pushed and crawled as Juniper went through them trying desperately to catch the killer. Sobbing and stuttering words was all she could hear. Bursting through the steel doors the cold air bit her skin. Ember was leaning against the escape stairwell as if patiently waiting for her. Flickering a tiny flame in the palm of her hand.

"Takes one to know one doesn't it." The girl taunted Juniper.

"Why?"

Ember just shrugged, her curls bouncing off her shoulders.

"Initiation." At that moment Juniper could not breath. She could not process it.

"No."

Ember chuckled causing the flame to rise higher.

"Believe it. Come on I mean you still are a prude?"

"In public really?" Juniper queried. They were known for being vicious, ruthless, merciless even. Yet they never dared to have an audience.

"Of course. Imagine the headlines," Ember said while waving her arm across her body, "woman burned to death by coffee."

Headlines did not follow, Sarah Wilson was declared dead by a stroke. She did not even get closure.

"This is not happening."

"Believe it darling, the Coven is back."

A/N Hey this is my new story and I'm sorry if it is sucky but someone *cough* Elaina *cough* kept on begging me to update. I'm still too lazy to update "Green" but if you want check it out.