Morality - A Short Story

Morality

           The month leading up to August 26th was strange, to say the least for Brynn Addington. The four weeks were filled with watching her mother prepare for the night of this years coven initiation, the once which she would finally decide the rest of her life . Brynn sat in the living room of her outdated apartment home which sat over a small bookshop. Watching an informal coven meeting take place in her kitchen, Brynn had no intention of eavesdropping on the conversation but as the high witches of the covens topic switched from mysterious mortal disappearances near the neighbouring towns lake to this year's upcoming coven initiation, or more formally known as the Iuramenti, she had been drawn to the older witches' conversion.

          The Iuramenti was a ritual that happened once a year, the ritual gave young witches who had not fully matured into their powers their final chance to decide which witchcraft they would follow. There were two main crafts that Brynn would be choosing from, the Tenebris path which her family had followed for generations. To choose the Tenebris path in the Iuramenti would be choosing to devote your life to the evils of below. The other path would be Lux, the path which Brynn had never given a second glance to, the path in which would brand her an outsider to her family and her coven.

          The coven witches were discussing the details of the night in which Brynn would permanently choose her path, but as the specifics of the night and the participants came up in conversation, Brynn's mother had realized of Brynns intrusion and gave her a stern look once and harshly sent her to her room for the remainder of the night. Brynn quietly complied in shame and returned to her room, knowing if she didn't her mother would without hesitation hex her. Laying on her bed she stared at the ceiling, Brynn had finally decided to read the neglected material sitting on her desk about the ritual that was to take place in Iuramenti. Once the dark sky had set in and Brynn was on the verge of drifting off into a boredom induced sleep the door to her small bedroom pushed open to reveal her mothers tight features staring at her in disapproval.

"I'd expect you to be doing something more useful with your time than sleeping Sabrynn."

          Using Brynn's full name was a secret weapon of her mothers, as Brynn had hated her name since she was a child and demanded that others only call her Brynn. Her mother was an exception as Brynn's feelings were never a prominent factor in her life.

"I was reading about the ritual, mother." Brynn had sighed from her lack of interest in the topic laying in the book to her left.

"Well why don't you continue?" Her mother prodded on her daughter.

"Because it's boring."

"Sabrynn Thalia Addington, that book is about our sacred heritage. It is not boring." Her mother chastised her for her comment.

"Finish the book, then you may retire for the night." Her mother commanded and then sharply left her daughters doorway where she had been standing.

          Brynn reluctantly finished the book her mother had instructed her to, and found it quite bland until the end of the book where it mentioned the Lux pathway and its history. She had been invested in the extensive history until she had fallen asleep from exhaustion when the sun was rising from its corner.

        The next afternoon when Brynn had finally woken up from her sleep she had discovered a short note from her mother laying on the kitchen counter.

'Gone. Be back tomorrow.'

        Brynn was used to this behavior from her mother, as she played an important role in keeping the mortals unaware to their presence in the world. Seeing that she would be alone for the next twenty-four hours Brynn decided to do more reading on the Lux pathway, she returned to her room to find the book she had been previously reading gone and on her vanity instead was a stack of books about the Tenebris pathway. A passive aggressive signal from her mother no doubt, telling her that she should be more focused on her heritage rather than her former reading material.