Coven, p.1
Coven, page 1
COVEN
A Butch/Femme Dark Urban Witch Fantasy
Tiffany E. Taylor
Coven
Copyright © 2023 Tiffany E. Taylor
Published by Painted Hearts Publishing
Smashwords Edition
About the Book You Have Purchased
All rights reserved. Without reserving the rights under copyright, reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or any other means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. Distribution of this e-book, in whole or in part, is forbidden. Such action is illegal and in violation of the U.S. Copyright Law.
Unauthorized reproduction of distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.
Coven
Copyright © 2023 Tiffany E. Taylor
Publication Date: May 2023
Author: Tiffany E. Taylor
Editor: Kira Plotts
All cover art and logo copyright © 2023 by Painted Hearts Publishing
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
Acknowledgments
To my witchy partners in crime: Jeff Radcliff, Ken Charles, Sabina Doerste, Shawn Hayes, Coleen Bartay, Mark Kick, and Rick Golpl. There is no one in this vast Universe who knows magick like you do and I'm thankful to have you in my life.
Author's Note
In 1983, I picked up my first book on witchcraft, the iconic “The Spiral Dance” by Starhawk, and was hooked. I have threaded my way through several traditions and paths in the last forty years, and still my knowledge is only a drop in the bucket of what's out there.
People are scared when they hear the word “witchcraft” and don't realize they shouldn’t be. A spell is simply a prayer in action—something a little less passive than simply petitioning the God of your beliefs, instead working proactively with your deities to make your wants and needs manifest. Don't get me wrong, there is definitely evil out there, but you can say that about any belief system in the world. It's all a matter of perspective and how you choose to use your energy.
If you're ever interested in learning more and you're kind of a newbie to everything, “The Spiral Dance” is still a wonderful book, as well as “Wicca” by Scott Cunningham and “Drawing Down the Moon” by Margot Adler. In the meantime, I tried to incorporate as much insight as I could within the pages of Coven in addition to writing an engaging fantasy. Remember, all of this is from one woman's perspective—amongst the millions of perspectives out there—so just enjoy the ride and don't take anything as the definitive word on magick.
As we sometimes say in witch world, bright blessings to you and yours.
To the believers in magick everywhere.
PRONUNCIATION GUIDE
Athame
Ath-a-MAY
Def. a black-handled, double-edged dagger used in some neo-pagan and Wiccan rituals.
Circe
Sir-SEA
Def. Greek goddess of magick, sorcery, and herbology.
Hekate
Heck-a-TEA
Def. Greek goddess of magick, witchcraft, the night, light, and the crossroads.
Samhain
SOW-in
Def. a Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest season and beginning of winter or “darker half” of the year.
Trom-Laighe
Trōm-LIFE
Meaning. “Nightmare” in Scots Gaelic.
Def. a Dark realm controlled by the demon Cassius Deimos and Sheridan Sullivan’s father Michael O’Rourke.
Chapter 1
Sheridan Sullivan pulled in front of the small, charming apartment building in Isla del Mar, Florida and sighed with relief. The 1,100-mile, seventeen-hour car trip from Youngstown, Ohio had been a long one. Oracle, her tiny black kitten familiar, had stayed curled up on her right leg for most of it, yawning and stretching occasionally before readjusting her position. Sheridan had stopped every few hours to get gas, to let Oracle eat, or to encourage her to use the litter box that had been stowed on the passenger-side floorboard of her car. The drive itself had been uneventful, with the weather clear and calm the entire way.
After she’d left Youngstown—bright and early on a chilly mid-October Thursday morning—she’d spent the night with some friends from college who lived in Raleigh, North Carolina. Stopping for a second night in a pet-friendly hotel in Orlando, she saw from her trip calculator that Isla del Mar was only a two-hour drive to the west coast of Florida from there.
There was no reason she needed to hurry. Starting a brand-new life without personal ties, without financial concerns—and especially without that rat bastard Fagan hanging from her heels—meant her time and her schedule were her own.
Luxuriating in the warm weather, Sheridan slid from her vehicle and stared up at the enchanting four-unit dwelling, basking in the peaceful, calm sense of home emanating from it. The apartment building glowed under its soft, velvety coat of green paint and was surrounded by stunning tropical flowers, with two swaying palm trees taking center stage from the verdant front lawn.
A sense of home is important, Sheridan reflected, leaning back against her car, when you have nobody and nothing else in your life except for your cat and your magick.
It had only been Sheridan and her mother Eileen for all of Sheridan’s thirty-one years of life, up until Eileen’s death five months prior. Her father had never been in the picture, her mother hadn’t been that close to her own family, and Sheridan was an only child just like her mother had been. The two of them had never really had anyone but each other.
Sheridan was born and raised in Rochester, New York. She’d always hated the long, cold winters there, dreaming of the day she could talk Eileen into escaping the bleakness that always seemed to constantly surround them. Always wondering why Eileen hadn’t taken her and moved away when she was younger, she’d supposed in hindsight that her mother must have felt having an indifferent family around was better than the two of them having no family at all. Sheridan knew nothing about her birth father or any relatives on his side either—the only thing she did know was that Eileen had absolutely refused to ever talk about him.
When it came time for her to go to college, Sheridan had ultimately chosen to pursue a Creative Writing degree from the University of Rochester so she could stay close to her mother. The school hadn’t been her first choice, but she’d refused to attend a college out of state, not wanting to leave Eileen all alone. Patrick Sullivan, Sheridan’s maternal grandfather, had graduated from their School of Engineering & Applied Sciences with a degree in Biomedical Engineering, and he had pushed hard for Sheridan to go to school there as well. Because Sheridan really hadn’t had a strong preference when it came to other colleges, it had been easier to accede to her grandfather’s wishes in the end.
Letting her mind drift as she continued to stare up at the beautiful apartment dwelling, feeling the warmth of the bright sun flood over her, Sheridan thought about her family.
Early in his career as a biomedical engineer, Patrick had developed a simplified, yet effective schematic used in the design of biomedical equipment and devices, such as artificial internal organs and replacements for body parts. His development and its adoption in medical centers everywhere had made the entire Sullivan family—Patrick, his wife Brigid, Eileen, and Sheridan—extremely wealthy. Patrick had become a force in the biomedical engineering industry as a result.
Sheridan had enrolled in college and settled down to her studies, still dreaming of the day when she and Eileen could finally escape to a less suffocating place. Unfortunately, just as Sheridan finished her degree and was seriously thinking about where she wanted to persuade her mother to move, Eileen had been diagnosed with breast cancer.
Although her mother had never been close to her family, she’d expressed a wish to move to her own mother’s native city of Youngstown for her treatments. Youngstown was only about an hour’s drive from Pittsburgh, one of the biggest medical centers in the country. Sheridan’s grandfather had many contacts in the medical community and more than a few colleagues there. Although a cold and detached man, he had arranged for his only child to have the best treatment and care possible. Sheridan had to give him props for that.
My grandmother, on the other hand—Sheridan thought with a curl of her lip—had been too busy managing her high-society life with her parties and teas and society lunches to be much bothered by the fact her only child was dying of breast cancer. None of her mother’s cousins had made any attempt to contact Eileen when they first arrived in Youngstown either, making it clear Brigid hadn’t even attempted to put together a support system for her daughter.
Seeing her mother’s hurt, Sheridan had been sorely tempted to blast her grandmother’s inconsiderate bitch ass with a spell that would cause a large wart to perch permanently on the end of her nose. She grinned and felt her magick stir within her at the memory, but then she sighed. It had been for her grandfather’s sake—because of everything he’d done for Eileen, although he w asn’t the warmest of men—that she’d refrained.
Sheridan’s thoughts continued to wander as she stood in the warm sunlight, staring almost unseeingly at the beautiful apartment building as her mind continued to replay old memories.
Because of her family history, the traditional medical community had played a huge part in Sheridan’s life well into adulthood, and she’d spent many years after Eileen’s diagnosis helping her mother manage her care. At the same time, Sheridan herself had formally embraced the mantle of “witch” on her extraordinarily magickal eighteenth birthday—her own path since then more rooted in magick and nature than in science and medicine.
A frisson of magick ran down her spine. She shivered as she remembered the still unbelievable night when she had discovered exactly who and what she was.
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Sheridan had noticed throughout her entire life that her mother always seemed to know things—well above and beyond what other people did. Eileen relied on her gut instinct, she once told Sheridan, because it had never steered her wrong. She knew unerringly if someone was lying to her, she had a scary strong sense of inner knowing without any reason or logic, she always knew what the outcome of any situation would be, and she could feel emotions and energy from other people to the point that it literally made her sick sometimes.
Eileen, Sheridan eventually realized, had every single hallmark of an extremely strong clairsentient and claircognizant empath. As she’d grown older, it became apparent Sheridan had also inherited all those abilities from her mother as well—plus a whole lot more. As a young teenager, Sheridan had struggled to understand why she could do things other girls couldn’t, or why she knew things others didn’t.
After spending literally weeks searching for and reading the little she could find about empaths, magick, and witchcraft—and trying unsuccessfully to figure it all out—she’d finally gone to her mother with her questions when she was fourteen. Eileen had waved away her curiosity dismissively, saying that talk of witchcraft was ludicrous. What Eileen and Sheridan could do was weird, sure, but there was nothing supernatural about it. It was just a thing.
Frowning slightly, Sheridan shifted her body where she was leaning against her car as she remembered her mother had seemed just a wee bit nervous during their conversation. When it came down to it, Eileen hadn’t seemed inclined to put much credence into anything that had a magickal bent. She’d stuck her nose up at the whole notion that anything supernatural existed. Since Sheridan had realized pursuing a conversation about magick and witchcraft with her mother would be a dead end, she’d dismissed her misgivings, kissed her mother’s cheek, thanked her for her insight, and acted as though she had put the whole conversation out of her mind.
But the young teen had secretly continued to try and learn about magick and witchcraft on her own, driven by something she didn’t understand. From the tingling within her that seemed to fire up every nerve ending she possessed, she just knew there was far more to it than what her mother had admitted—and she had been determined to find out just as much as she could.
Right before her fifteenth birthday, while out shopping with Eileen, she’d spotted a book for teen witches called Solitary Witch in the window of a tiny, almost invisible metaphysical shop called The Enchanted Owl in the village of Brockport. Amazingly, Sheridan had been able to sneak into the shop and purchase the book while Eileen was distracted. She’d smuggled it home and read it over and over again until it was literally falling to pieces.
When she was sixteen and finally driving on her own, she’d returned to the little metaphysical shop, feeling a pull to it that had been with her since the day she’d first found it. Sheridan smiled as she thought back to how she’d been so kindly welcomed by Selene, the proprietor of the shop, who’d asked the shy teenager if there was anything special she was looking for. Before Sheridan knew it, Selene and her partner Iris had offered her tea in their large, well-lit back room, where the two women listened with great interest to Sheridan’s story.
When she was finished, Selene had given her a warm look. “Little witch,” she’d said as she produced an oracle deck from her voluminous skirts, “you must know you weren’t drawn here by accident. Let us see what the cards tell us of your journey and in what direction you should be headed.”
After Selene’s reading—which had indicated that Sheridan should continue to focus on learning and discovering her path for now—Selene and Iris had brought Sheridan out into the main shop floor, where Sheridan had discovered a wealth of books, crystals, candles, tarot and oracle cards, oils, herbs, incense, and ritual tools. The Enchanted Owl had absolutely everything Sheridan would need to start her journey into the world of witchcraft and magick.
“Take it easy, little witch,” Selene had said, grinning when Sheridan stared with enormous eyes at the shop shelves, hardly knowing where to look first. “Lesson Number 1: It’s easy to get caught up in using the props of magick, Sheridan. The energy in those props can certainly aid you in your practice, but the strongest, most powerful witches I know learned to cast their magick barehanded first. And so must it be with you.”
The God and the Goddess, Sheridan thought as she reflected on her first meeting with Selene and Iris with tears in her eyes, had blessed her with the best teachers and mentors in the world. For the next two years, Sheridan had paid twice-monthly visits to The Enchanted Owl—learning a great deal about magick from the two witches and bringing her questions to them. Sheridan had told Eileen she’d joined a study group and, since her grades were consistently excellent, Eileen had never found any reason to question her.
Sheridan felt another frisson of magick whisper its way down her spine and she shifted against her car again, still lost in her thoughts. It had been on the night of her eighteenth birthday, on December 21, that her magick had fully manifested itself within her. The Spirit of Fire herself had appeared to tell Sheridan both what she was, and what her primary magickal powers would be.
Sheridan had been standing outside in the freezing cold that night, staring up at the big, bright, full moon with awe. The soft, star-filled darkness had seemed filled with the promise of magick, and she’d felt the energy from the moon’s rays draw around her in a loving embrace. Pulling in a deep breath, Sheridan had focused her intention on sending gratitude to the Universe, and “pushed” her energy out with a big shove, visualizing her gratitude as it exploded through the cosmos—just as she had been taught.
Suddenly, the air where her backyard ended had shimmered, and Sheridan had blinked in astonishment as an apparition appeared to her. She’d shaken her head vigorously and then blinked again several times, but the apparition had grown even stronger. It had been a beautiful woman, clothed in a red gown and standing in the middle of dancing flames, which bounced and flared around her.
Slow tears ran down Sheridan’s face as she remembered the wonder and the awe she had felt.
“Greetings, daughter of Yule,” the beautiful apparition had said to her in a strong, powerful voice. “I am Fire, and I am here to welcome you to your destiny on this, the night of your eighteenth birthday.”
“My destiny?” Despite her wonder, Sheridan had still been in too much shock to make sense of anything.
Fire had looked at her solemnly. “You still have much to learn, my sweet Fire witch, and a long, long way to travel. You have made an excellent start with the good witches from The Enchanted Owl…but your journey is nowhere near complete, and it will be a long and arduous one. However, you will continue to find friends, mentors, and teachers along the way.
“Eighteen years ago today, you were born under the sign of Fire, on the night of the full Cold Moon, during the sabbat of Yule. The Lord God and the Lady Goddess have marked you as one of their own, and a great destiny awaits you. Both have pledged their protection and love to you, child of Yule. Henceforth, this is what you must always remember.” Fire held up her arms.
