Warlock - Book 3 - Preview Chapter 250406a

Thank you for your patience as I get to the optimal way to post these -- given comments and DMs, it looks like one-chapter per post is preferable, or at least makes it easiest for some without being too onerous for others. I won't be sequentially numbering the preview chapters, instead using the format above -- this is because I tend to move things around and add things, so those numbers are somewhat fluid. In any case, here we go:

The Willowmere Cottages were in the forest behind the residence building — about a hundred yards along a well-kept, gravel pathway.

Rachel, Sam, Cassandra, and I went because we were supposed to pick one for our coven — Brittany and Hannah came along because they were curious.

“Let’s look at this one first,” Sam said as we reached the first pathway branching from the main one. A small, wooden sign with a seven carved in it marked the way.

The smaller path branched off to the right and we could see portions of a stone building — for a “cottage” it looked large to me.

“Why?” Cassandra asked.

“Because it’s closest to the rest of campus? And Prima Rosethorn suggested it and said it’s in the best condition?”

“Hmph.”

I chuckled. Cassandra and Sam were … getting along? A bit? The white-haired witch seemed more comfortable with Sam and me, but that also meant she often fell back into her old habits. Even without the need to fill and stretch her Malice resonant, old habits were hard to break and she often questioned things or made snide comments as a knee jerk reaction. For the most part, I ignored it, because I knew she was trying — and more often than not, Cassandra would recognize what she was doing and stop, then even apologize.

And, honestly, a bit of bickering between Cassandra and Sam was preferable to the sad, defeated way in which Cassandra spent some of her time now. I expected her to need time to adjust, but it had been a week, now, since we’d escaped the Patriarchy, and both those periods of listless apathy and the spikes of fear whenever there was a suggestion of more than casual intimacy between us were only getting worse.

The path we followed opened up into a clearing that held the cottage. The grass in the clearing was well-kept and the building itself took up about half the open space.

Stone, as we’d seen from the main path, and two stories — with a one-story addition to one side that was walled with overlapping boards instead of stone.

“Kind of small,” Cassandra said.

“It’s bigger than I thought it would be,” I said, taking in the structure.

There was a set of bulkhead doors leading to a cellar, too, so it was really three floors of space — four with the attic, I suppose.

“Maybe, but up to fourteen people, remember?” Sam prompted. “Plus any kids.”

I nodded — I guess that made sense. I still thought of houses as being for a couple, not a coven, and even with Cassandra bound to my coven and sharing our room, with Rachel joining us soon, the scale of a full coven was still just theoretical to me, so maybe the place was a bit small. Yeah, I’d grown up in group homes, but I also watched TV and went to friends’ homes enough to know that a dozen guys crammed into four bedrooms wasn’t normal.

On the other hand, I was glad it wasn’t on the scale of the house Priscilla’s mother had offered me to join their Family — fifty-plus bedrooms would be a bit much for us.

“Covens were closer before,” Rachel said, “every witch didn’t get her own bedroom. Grandma says it was way better.”

“Well, let’s see inside,” I said, opening the door.

It wasn’t locked, of course, there being little chance of someone sneaking onto campus through the school’s wards to break in, and none of the students would do anything like that, because a little bit of Hindsight would quickly reveal them to any teachers investigating trouble.

The front door led to a large mudroom with numerous hooks on the wall and benches lining either side. The benches had a shelf underneath I assumed was for boots or shoes and the hooks for outwear — jackets and such.

A second door at the end of the mudroom also opened to me and I had to stop in the doorway to take in the room beyond.

“What?” Sam asked, trying to peer around me, so I moved into the room to continue taking it in while giving the girls room to enter.

“Wow,” Cassandra whispered.

The bulk of the cottage’s first floor was a single room, thirty feet by twenty, or maybe a little more, with most of that taken up by a sort of sunken … bed. That’s all I could think of to describe it.

The level we entered on encircled the middle space in a U-shape with steps leading down at the two arms. On the far wall, centered on the U’s opening, was an open space, then a large fireplace — as though the seating, or lounging, area was designed to focus on that.

The interior of the U was cushioned on both the floor and along the U’s inner walls. The cushioned interior of the U was … large. Probably the equivalent of six king-sized beds, if I had to guess. It looked a bit like a sunken living room out of the 70s, only with mattresses instead of couches.

As we got closer, Sam sniffed, then went over to look more closely at the cushions, followed by Rachel.

“A little musty,” she said.

Rachel bent down to feel the cushioning. “We’ll probably want to replace this with something modern — two hundred year old down and feathers can’t be good.” She pressed down firmly. “Probably straw as a base, too.”

“What the hell even is it?” I asked.

I mean, I could tell that it was a giant bed in the middle of the room, but … why?

“Never mind,” I said, getting it.

Yes, yes, yes — this was exactly how I wanted the living space for my coven to be. One giant fucking bed where we all lounged around together, not everyone off in their own rooms, especially at night.

As I got closer, I could see not all the … cushions? Or whatever they were in the middle space, they weren’t all the same. Some had wooden tops, and there were a couple open spaces, like one was missing. They were square, all the same size, and I was reminded of one of those puzzle games where you slid the squares around to unscramble a picture.

I tried to picture the space in use — we could slide those around to open it up and make parts of the seating more like a couch, slide one over to have a place to put our feet up, slide another to have a solid top to put things on, or slide them all together to form the biggest fucking bed I’d ever dreamed of.

It was … perfect.

There was a knock against the still open door and a man’s voice, “What do you think?”

I spun around and the girls all jumped behind me — I almost wanted to jump behind me, too. I’d never have imagined how startling it would be to hear a guy’s voice at Willowmere — at least in person and not some movie or show we were watching.

This guy was about my height, with a thick, black beard and matching hair. He was wearing jeans and work boots with a red flannel shirt over a t-shirt.

He chuckled at the girls’ reaction, showing perfect white teeth, and held up his hands, palms out.

“Easy, girls — fully bound. No need to worry.” He held out his hand and approached me. “Peter Rosethorn — the school coven’s warlock. Good to meet you finally.”

I took his hand — closer, I thought he looked to be in his forties with just a very few strands of gray in his hair. That was way older than most of the witches looked and I wondered if it was a warlock-thing.

“Nice to meet you, too,” I said, and it was the truth — I hadn’t been expecting to meet another warlock, but it felt surprisingly good. “Rosethorn?”

Peter nodded.

I frowned — both Cassandra and Sam had taken my name as head of the coven, but the other teachers I’d recognized in the coven on Samhain weren’t Rosethorns. The other warlock must have seen my momentary confusion, because he laughed.

“The others use their ancestral names for classes,” he explained. “Having a dozen Magistra Rosethorns running around campus would be a nightmare.”

I nodded — even with just Sam and Cassandra changing to Ashe it could be confusing.

“So,” Peter said, “is this one your choice?”

“I don’t know, we just got here.”

“I’ll show you around then — I recommend this one, though, it’s in the best shape and it’s closest to where the electrical and plumbing lines were run to ours.” He grinned. “Unless you like candles and chamber pots.”

“Chamber pots, no; candles, yes,” Sam said, recovered from the shock of another warlock showing up. She gave me a look. “Nice drippy ones.”

“Well, running the lines for one means we might as well for the other, and internet — no one wants to dig up the forest more than once,” Peter said. He gestured at the open space. “So this is the main room — day, night, whatever, you’ll probably be spending most of your time here. I recommend that wall there for a TV, since it lets you sort of lounge there.” He pointed to one of the U’s arms. “Don’t put it above the fireplace, the electronics will get screwy from the magic.”

“Magic?” I asked, looking toward the fireplace. It looked like a normal fireplace, did we need magic wood or something?

Peter nodded. “It’s why the place has just the one.”

He walked over to the fireplace and touched the mantle, glowing runes appeared on its edge.

“Ah, good, they still work,” Peter said. “I was a little worried about that.” He tapped one of the runes. “This will let you distribute the heat evenly from the walls. It’s why the interior walls are all stone. We ran a deeper foundation on ours to add cooling — got the idea from those mundane geo-heat-pump things. Clever buggers with their science, aren’t they?”

He walked back over to us and I noticed the girls shifting to still keep me between them and him a little.

“Only need it in the summer, really,” Peter went on, “so you should be fine with just the heat during the school year. It does take a bit of power, though, so don’t overextend yourselves. Anyway, back to the tour, nursery’s through that door —”

Without a word, Cassandra led the charge in that direction.

Peter chuckled. “Figured that’d get ‘em.”

In moments, we heard little shrieks of glee and giggles coming from the other room, along with murmured plans I was sure were going to put a dent in even the handsome sum Mel had gifted my coven with.

Peter nodded. “It is a nice nursery — the old covens really knew what they were about.” He looked at me seriously. “If you’re after privacy, better to stay in the dorms, though.”

“Privacy?”

He gestured at the U-shaped bed. “This is it, mostly — there’s only six rooms upstairs, and they’re not very big — mostly for if someone’s not feeling well, needs a little break, or too tired to carry on with the rest. The basement’s mostly a workroom. So if you’re —”

“This is what I want,” I assured him. I was already edging toward the nursery, because the girls sounded so happy and full of joy — I wanted to share that with them.

Peter nodded. “Good man.” He shook his head. “I don’t understand the modern Families and their separate rooms — too much like mundanes. Almost like the priestesses are jealous or something. Anyway, there’s honestly not that much to show. Bathrooms are on that side, not nearly enough, you’ll find, and it’ll take more than a few days to fully build them out — I’ll help with that.”

“Um, Prima Rosethorn said we had to do the interior ourselves.”

The other warlock snorted. “Are you a plumber? An electrician?” He shrugged. “No, those are things I’ll have the staff do — don’t want you getting electrocuted or flood the cottage path with water … or worse.”

“Oh, okay,” I said. “I just didn’t want anyone to get in trouble.”

I was thinking mostly of me, since I’d been in enough trouble with the Prima for one year, but figured he’d want to know what his high priestess said.

Peter chuckled. “No one’s getting in trouble. Evelina certainly didn’t mean for you to do the plumbing or electrical work — and if she is thinking that, I’ll take care of it.”

“Thanks,” I said. I knew nothing about either of those and really didn’t want to experiment with a building I’d be sleeping in. Still … I’d met Prima Rosethorn, and wasn’t entirely certain Peter would be able to “take care of it,” warlock or no. “You’re sure she won’t be mad?”

Another chuckle. “Evelina’s always mad about something — you get used to it.”

I had a lot of trouble believing that.

“Anyway, I’ll get you a toilet quick as can be, but you should probably use your dorm rooms for showering until we can get a couple of those finished.” He gestured. “There’s a bathroom of sorts down that hall, and some other utility rooms — laundry space, something of a kitchen, but no modern conveniences at all. We don’t have more than a fridge and microwave back at ours. Meals are still in the cafeteria or staff can bring them here for you — I kind of recommend you still eat in the cafeteria. You’re already going to stand out from the other students by living in one of these.”

I nodded. It probably would wind up with some jealousy from the other witches — we didn’t need to add room service to the list. I was honestly more interested in talking to Peter about warlock stuff than the cottage, though, since he was the only other warlock I’d met.

“Feel free to stop by and chat if you ever want to talk about anything,” Peter said, maybe seeing the questions on my face. “Come by on your off-days from class — my girls will be teaching and I’ll have time on my hands.” He sighed. “I’ve been trying to get Evelina to let me catch you up on some things since you arrived, but … she’s stubborn.”

I kept my mouth shut.

“Though she’s usually right,” Peter went on. “Until today’s break with the Council, starting up a ‘Warlock 101’ would probably have caused more trouble with those witches. We’re in number thirteen.” He chuckled. “Evelina picked it — sort of a joke. You probably wouldn’t expect that of her.”

“Um, no,” I admitted, finding it very hard to picture Prima Rosethorn outside of the school setting.

“Probably best to keep it that way.” He chuckled, looked toward the nursery, then raised an eyebrow at me. “Ever think about how lucky we are?”

“All the time.”

“Good — keep that in mind, ‘cause thirteen women in one room? You’re gonna need your happy place once in a while.”