The drive from Daihmler to Charleston took just over six hours. It was quite a long trek to make for a Consort meeting, but since the ancestral home of the Obreiggon family was the site chosen to host this quarter’s meeting, the trip was unavoidable. Salem, Zelda, and Olympia decided to stop by the hotel in downtown Charleston to rest before dressing for the meeting. Salem had never been to Charleston before. The streets downtown were narrow and tight to maneuver through depending on how much traffic was on that particular street. Modernization of roadways and buildings had not tarnished the historic roads of Charleston. The storefronts, churches, and homes which Salem drove past had been there for more than two hundred years. Because city ordinances mandated that no new construction and no tearing down of any building was allowed within the historic district, everything the trio saw was just the way it had been in antebellum times.

  “Everything is so cute,” Salem remarked as she turned onto the street where the Frances Marion Hotel stood. “Nothing is over three stories.”

  “That’s so you can see the church steeples,” Olympia explained. “No building can be higher than the church. It’s the law.”

  “How do you know so much about it?” Salem asked with a raised brow.

  “Girl, your Hecate and me wasn’t always two old biddies!” Zelda shot back. “We been here a few times. Hey, Lympy, remember when we wiped out that rogue coven that was tryin’ to zombify people? I think their house was over there off the Battery.”

  “I remember,” Olympia winked.

  “Zombies!” Salem cried. “What?”

  “It’s not important, Dear,” Olympia replied with a pat to Salem’s hand on the wheel. “Just get us to the hotel.”

  After a short nap and a shower, the trio dressed for the Consort meeting. Olympia didn’t often dress up, but when she did she looked like a regal diplomat. Wearing her light blue silk dress with the delicate pearl beads along the skirt, Olympia looked impressive. Salem marveled at her grandmother for a second and hoped that she might be that beautiful when she was that age. Zelda wore an electric pink top with a fluorescent green skirt. She looked like she’d been dressed in neon markers. Her magenta hair did not help matters, either.

  Salem did not want to be there. She did not want to go to this meeting, but she knew she had to—it was required. After all, it was her son who would be cremated that night. Salem glanced over to a desk in front of the hotel room window. The box sitting on top of the desk—that was why she was there. Her little boy’s remains were in that box. She could feel the pain swell inside. She wanted to cry, but she swallowed the feeling down. She would not break, not tonight. And she found herself dressing as if there was a point to be made that night. She chose her mid length, floral-print gown with intertwined flowers on a white background. She looked like a breath of spring in the middle of autumn. Her waist-length, auburn hair looked great against that dress. Standing back to look at herself in the mirror she told herself, If I have to see those people, then at least I look fantastic. She felt guilty for having the thought. This wasn’t about her. It was about her son. She was going to lay him to rest tonight. A second glance to the mirror made her less arrogant. She could see now in the reflection that a broken woman indeed stood before her no matter how strong she liked to believe herself to be. She wondered about herself. What is the line between strength and coldness? She’d always been a strong person—she’d had to be from the moment they’d taken her mother away. She would have to be careful to ensure that losing her family did not make her cold moving forward.

  The drive out to the Obreiggon estate was a long and confusing one, but the maps app on Salem’s phone helped. What she really wanted to do was skip the Consort altogether and drive to Folly Beach. Walking the sandy shoreline under the sunset seemed far more attractive a way to spend her evening. She wanted to forget the Witches Association meeting and her purpose for being there tonight, but she couldn’t. She made the turn to James Island and resigned herself to her duty. She did not have the luxury tonight to be a child; she had one final responsibility as a mother.

  The Obreiggon’s lived on Wadmalaw Island, only accessible by passing over James Island, then John’s Island. The acrid stench of the marsh infiltrated the car through the air conditioning system. It was off-putting. It didn’t match the serenity of the landscape as the setting sun glowed like red embers of a fire disappearing behind the tall reeds in the river. The reeds created small channels, like water highways through the marsh. The tide was coming in, and the shrimp boats who had fished the brackish waters were slowly returning from their day’s work.

  The oaks lining either side of the road reached their long fingers toward each other as if to clasp hands. It had taken hundreds of years for them to reach to the other side, in maybe another hundred years their fingers might finally touch. The massive limbs bent toward the car allowing the Spanish moss to lightly stroke the top and sides of Salem’s SUV. Long-abandoned houses with their sinking roofs and broken porches were half eaten by brush and vine. Sprinkled along the road among them were new builds, beautiful homes not hindered by the decay of their neighbors.

  In the distance, the glow of light broke the canopy of the road’s darkness. Electric lanterns lining a long wall led the way to the open gates welcoming Consort members. Arching over the gate was the word “Oleander.” Turning into the estate, white oleander trees lined the way, shielding eyes from the dense thicket of trees and scrub behind them. Oleander as an estate had once been a tea plantation. In the fields beyond the road, tea plants still grew— long untended and wild now.

  As Salem drove down the driveway, she saw the small guest house ahead where drivers were stopping to hand off their keys to parking attendants. From there, guests appeared to be making their way across the lawn to the pavilion where Consort members were gathering. In the distance stood the great plantation house. As she exited the car, Salem looked down the road towards it. It rose like some forbidden kingdom, off-limits to everyone, but there to show them it was always watching. From what her vantage point offered, it appeared to be mammoth. Three stories tall, with white columns standing like sentries flanking the fa?ade of the house. Elongated capitals gave the sense that the house towered over everything around. Iron banisters ran across the long front porch and the balconies above and stretched around the curved bay wings on either side.

  An Obreiggon servant guided Olympia, Zelda, and Salem beneath the bright moonlight to the open courtyard and meadow by the pavilion. At least two hundred people were mingling and sipping from crystal wine glasses and brass goblets. Salem was less interested in the people around her and more interested in that great house in the distance. Oleander. She thought the name fit, beautiful yet somehow poisonous. The courtyard they were standing in was connected by an arbor to a rather large Victorian structure which looked like a cross between a portico and an open-sided cathedral.

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  “It is beautiful,” Salem admired. “I have to hand them that.”

  “The Obreiggon’s always were stylish,” Olympia said. “This estate has belonged to the Obreiggon family for generations.”

  Salem was taking it all in.

  “Are you all right?” Olympia asked.

  “Yes. I’m just surprised at my own morbid curiosity.”

  Salem caught sight of a fountain along the high wall of the courtyard. Leaving Zelda and Olympia chatting with someone they knew, Salem walked over to admire it, but as she grew closer, she realized it wasn’t very beautiful. Time had weathered the stone, but she could still tell it was a statue of a woman. Moss obscured some of the face, but what was visible was unnerving. She had harsh, threatening features. The face was probably supposed to be beautiful, but something sinister about the smile unnerved Salem. Suddenly there was a tap on her shoulder.

  “Admiring my statue?”

  Salem whirled around to see the very image from the fountain looking back at her in flesh and blood. Everything beautiful yet threatening about the sculpture was just as evident in the inspiration for it.

  “Welcome to my estate,” the woman said arrogantly. “I am Atheidrelle Obreiggon. I do not believe I have ever seen you at one of our meetings before. Are you a new member? Perhaps you’ve recently relocated from up north? I confess I do not know many members of the Northern Witches Association.” There was something condescending in the way Atheidrelle Obreiggon was speaking to her.

  “No,” Salem forced a pained, gritted smile. She hated this woman with every fiber of her soul. “No, I am not, Mrs. Obreiggon.”

  “Oh, then who exactly are you?”

  She really doesn’t know who I am. She has absolutely no idea.

  It then occurred to Salem that the woman wouldn’t have had any reason to have known who she was. Salem had never been to a Consort meeting in her life and no one at the Consort, except select friends like Zelda, would have had any way of knowing she’d be there or why.

  Before Salem could open her mouth to reply to the woman, Olympia walked up to the fountain and stood next to her granddaughter. “Good evening, Atheidrelle.”

  “Olympia.”

  Salem could feel the tension between the two of them. Mortal enemies, face to face. It was palpable. Never in her life had Salem ever known Olympia to possess hatred in heart for anyone, but standing by the fountain now Salem could feel the animosity in her grandmother’s heart for Atheidrelle Obreiggon. I think Hecate despises her even more than I do.

  “I was just about to introduce myself to our hostess,” Salem told Olympia.

  “That isn’t necessary,” Olympia replied. “Come, the meeting is about to start. We should say hello to Ursula before it begins.”

  “No, not yet,” Atheidrelle demanded. She had an inquisitive look upon her steely face. “I wish to know my guest’s identity.”

  “I am a Blanchard,” Salem replied.

  “I rather gathered that,” Atheidrelle said coldly. “Judging from your youth, I must assume you are a granddaughter. One of Demitra’s I presume.”

  “You presume wrong,” Salem sneered. Taking one small, defiant step closer to her hostess, Salem stood eye to eye and said, “Nacaria.”

  Olympia took Salem by the arm, gave a generous yet disingenuous nod to her hostess, and led her granddaughter away. Atheidrelle stood by the fountain watching as they withdrew. She trembled with a fury which she took great care to conceal from anyone who might be watching. And they were watching— she could feel their eyes. She knew the entire Consort would be engrossed in spying on their interaction. Atheidrelle wished she could kill that girl. She had the power to do it swiftly anytime she wanted, but she could not give in to such base emotions. Time would handle everything. And time was on Atheidrelle’s side. A young woman, possibly nearing 30 years old, scurried up to her. She looked very much like Atheidrelle, only not quite as hardened.

  “Mother, are you alright? You have a very strange look about you.”

  “Guess who has come to Oleander, Daughter?”

  “Who?”

  “A child of Nacaria Blanchard.”

  The girl gasped. “Why? What on earth would bring one of her bastards here of all places?”

  “I don’t know, Cassandra.” All at once a wicked smile crossed Atheidrelle’s face. “Unless…”

  “Unless what, Mother?”

  “It doesn’t concern you,” Atheidrelle replied. “There is only one reason I can imagine which might demand Salem Blanchard’s presence here tonight. We shall see if I am right.”

  “He’s still away though, isn’t he?” Cassandra asked.

  “Yes. He could not make the meeting tonight. He returns tomorrow. Therefore, if that is what she came for, she will not get the satisfaction.”

  “Then everything is alright then, isn’t it Mother?”

  “No, everything isn’t alright, Cassandra. Not as long as those Blanchard women are on my property.”

  A man who had been standing in the shadows, eavesdropping, stepped forward now. He was on the shorter side, with a bushy grey mustache above his trimmed beard. He looked displeased.

  “Excuse my overhearing, Atheidrelle, but is it not the sign of a good hostess to extend hospitality to all her guests?”

  “Brimford Uding,” Atheidrelle addressed him. “You would yourself admit that these circumstances are extenuating.”

  “The Blanchards are members of the Witches Association,” the stalwartly man said, rubbing his wispy sideburns. “They have every right to attend any meeting they so choose. I sympathize with your position, but as a member of the governing Council, I must suggest to you that if you find it distasteful to show grace to some of your guests, perhaps you should remove your home from the lottery of meeting locations.”

  Olympia guided Salem to a small group of people talking. Salem was both uneasy and excited to finally take part in one of the meetings. She was mesmerized by the woman speaking to the little group. She was a breathtaking woman. Tall, slender, strong with years of wisdom yet her face seemed as fresh and youthful as if she were a woman of thirty. Salem imagined that if the Statue of Liberty came to life, she might look a lot like this woman.

  “…so you see my dear,” the woman was saying to a much younger, but nearly as striking, woman, “though Wiccans may not be all powerful, your very ability to respect the earth can deliver you much power. Teach your coven to listen. Listen to the trees, the flowers, the rocks. There is energy all around us and everything is alive in some way. Through a deep connection to the world around you and every particle in it, you can achieve an enlightenment to rival any power of action a birth-witch might possess.”

  “I understand,” the other woman replied.

  “And not just the pretty things, child,” the wise woman continued. “Even the ugliest insect, the peskiest weed, and the filthiest body of water are our brothers and sisters made by the earth or if you believe, by the hand of God. There is no rank or importance. We all carry an equal importance in the Natural Order.”

  The young woman thanked her for the advice and walked away. She looked to Salem to be in awe of the wiser, older witch. The regal woman turned now to Olympia and Salem.

  “Olympia Blanchard. It is so good to see you.”

  “Ernestine Craven,” Olympia began. “This is Salem, my—”

  “You do not have to tell me who this person is!” Ernestine said breaking her air of austerity and embracing Salem warmly. “Salem you have your mother’s beauty!”

  “You knew my mother?”

  “I knew your mother very well indeed. Most people here will only recall her from seeing her at The Judgement, but I knew her very well before all that ugliness occurred. Your mother was my daughter Ursula’s very dearest friend.”

  “The Queen?” Salem gasped.

  “Yes, she is Queen now. And I must say a rather good one. Of course— not quite as good a leader as her father, in my opinion, but I’m rather prejudiced. I loved my husband very much and no one, not even my own daughter, can rival him in my mind when it comes to Consort leadership.”

  “I agree with you on Brustius,” Olympia nodded. “A fine King. And though Ursula was among those who convicted Nacaria, she was also one of the few who spoke out against a harsher punishment.”

  “Speaking of that mess,” Ernestine replied, “Has Atheidrelle seen Salem yet?”

  “Yes,” Salem smirked proudly. “I don’t think she likes me very much.”

  “I’m sure she’s seething with hatred as we speak,” Ernestine quipped. “But don’t you worry about the Obreiggon’s, my dear. They have only one seat on the Council. Your Hecate here has many friends filling most of the others, myself among them.”