31 Days of Halloween- Day 12

The Season of the Witch

Author: Maniac Motherland
Summary: "If Angela turns out to be a witch she can join the party too."

Don't expect any HEA in this story.  M rated for violence, language.

I listened to "Gold Dust Woman" by Stevie Nicks while writing this.

Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns this Twilight series and all of its characters, in its entirety.  No copyright infringement is intended.  For entertainment purposes only.

Happy Halloween!

Hell has no fury like a woman scorned.  A wise man once said this, in 1697.

I should know, since I was alive back then, saw the play on opening night. And the fiend who has betrayed me will pay the ultimate price—along with his lady love—tonight, on Halloween.

After all, I am a witch. And this is the season of the witch, if I am not mistaken.

My former beau will never know what hit him. Neither will his wife. He is, like the large portion of his gender, clueless. And driven almost entirely by his lower organ and not his brain. 

She is in love, which is the first mistake every woman makes; I am no exception. A pitiful excuse, but it will be her undoing, nevertheless.  I have some sympathy for her, but not enough.

All their weakness for each other is on my side, since I plan to strike while they are in the throes of passion, their unbridled lust and physical perfection mocking me. I, who have been brought into this world screaming and bloody and inconsolable, only to live a brief springtime of days and then surrender my soul into the flames of a witch hunt, more times than I care to remember.

Luckily, times have changed.  We have websites and movies and TV shows about The Sisterhood of Shadow now. But some things don’t change. Including how badly he broke my heart, and how resolutely my damaged pride dictates that he must die.

She is, as they say, collateral damage. Still, since she has had what I never did—his abiding love—I will kill her too, just for spite.

How do I explain the damage he did? Perhaps I should start at the beginning. I met Edward Cullen when he was still Edward Masen.  Back then, I went by the name Agnes. I have been called many names in my various incarnations. Abigail, Anna, Anastasia, Arachne, Arabella, Amelia, the list goes on.  I have been English, French, Russian and Greek.  I have  always been brunette, but I have not always been as short as I am now. Or with such bad eyesight.

Within this lifetime, I am called Angela Weber. I was born to a minister and his wife and grew up in a small town called Forks in the Pacific Northwest of the North American continent.

Regardless of appellation, I have always had The Dark Gift.

Each time, I am born into the flesh without a knowledge of my destiny. Then upon reaching the age of 13, I am hit with a full awareness that I am a witch. Born to the black, to the mystic, and the unholy. Born to do bad things in the dark of the night, and to punish those who assume a pretense of righteousness while committing the bleakest of sins before the kingdom of heaven.

Verily, I am the Left Hand of God.  I am one of His creatures, just not one that He would claim. Think of me, in modern parlance, as the “wet works of the divine”.  I clean up God’s messes.

And I take my work very seriously, mind you. Seriously as death. As Edward Cullen is about to find that out. Here in Alaska. With Bella on a lovers’ retreat. In a borrowed cabin, which will be their combined funeral pyre.

Because neither God nor myself likes any loose ends, if we can help it.

Still, vampires are devilishly tricky to kill.  I cannot use poison or hexes or even a silver knife. A combination of dismemberment and fire is the only way to end their nonexistence.

Luckily, a well-placed bomb under the bed will do the trick rather nicely. 

You pick up a few things when you have been around and around and around for over 300 years. Munitions training from the masters, the knowledge carried from one lifetime into the next, is just one of the many perks of immortality.

Edward and his bride might currently be immortal, but neither started off that way. Not like me. Back in 1917, when we first met, Edward was still very much human.  Our mothers played bridge together, and our fathers visited the same gentleman’s club in the city. We were practically made for each other, I used to think, back in the giddy haze of a girlish crush.

We would dance together at social functions, and he kissed me once under the mistletoe at a holiday party.  I suspect that one of the guests had spiked the punch, because the kiss burned against the skin of my lips, and my head swam from the heady scent of his breath.

From that moment on, I wanted nothing more than for Edward to kiss me again. But he moved on to the endless and tedious drawing room conversations about that blasted War to End All Wars.  Soon, I was forgotten, like the Velveteen Rabbit in the child’s bedtime storybook.

I doubt Edward even remembers that kiss. He seems to have forgotten it almost as soon as it happened.  I guess the transformation into his current state, plus the hidden alcohol in the libation on that particular snowy evening, have conspired to wipe his memory clean of the event.  He now claims that he has never loved anyone other than Bella Swan.

But I know, deep down in the crevices of my shattered little heart, that Edward Masen once loved me. And for that sin, for loving me for a moment and then ceasing to do so for eternity, he will suffer and die. Like the woman he chose as his partner, instead of me.

One might wonder how I have kept my secret so long. It is simple, really, when you know witchcraft as well as I do. You construct a hex bag that effectively puts you under the radar of all supernatural beings.  A few baby teeth (you can usually find these in little silver boxes in the nursery, if you are quiet enough when you break into the home), and some homegrown herbs (my current mother thinks that I have an abiding love of all things domestic, which couldn’t be further from the truth), and the bones of a cat (and no, I don’t kill pets—I just have a good nose for where they crawl off to die, and there is always roadkill to rely on instead of butchery).

Then you gather up your ingredients and head out into the woods under the light of a full moon, to strip naked and dance until dawn. 

Some people are purists and only skip about to Celtic tunes. Me, I prefer shaking my bare ass to Lady Gaga on a boombox.  To each their own.  But you have to be careful not to get caught, because then the magic will not set and you will be exposed and vulnerable to psychic perception for the entire next month, until the full moon comes around again.

Lastly, you gather up the endowed items and place them in the freshly skinned hide of a white rabbit cut in the shape of a five-point star (okay, for this, I do actually have to kill a living creature). Then tie it up with a strand of your own hair, and some plastic zip-ties just to be sure.  Pop in your pocket, and you are good to go. 

Then little more is required than constantly thinking happy thoughts to keep up the pretense of being the girl next door.  Honestly, I have played so many roles over the centuries, assumed so many parts in my long immortal life, that I doubt even a mind-reader would know that I was just throwing up a mental smoke screen to hide what I really am inside.

Problem is, that made me invisible. When all I really wanted was for Edward to notice me again.

I have tried the most potent of perfumes to attract Edward as a mate.  Essence of saffron and ginseng and devil’s weed, mashed together with ambergris and placed in between the breasts.

Ambergris isn’t as easy to obtain as it was once was, when the whaling trade was still around.

But still, I might as well chopped up basil and licorice root then mixed them together with Vaseline, for all the force my love potion had on the mind of Edward Masen.

Which was zippo, nada, null. Not even a spare “Hello, Angela, you are being extra generous and gentle and meek and mild today. Thank you for your kind thoughts. You are such a peach.”

Instead, he proclaimed to Bella Swan that her blood sings to him, as mine apparently does not. This was simply too much to endure. Upon hearing those words, relayed to me by the harpy who has come between Edward and I, my heart splintered again, like it had once before, back in 1917.

After all the lifetimes I have waited for him. The one with him in Chicago during which he was changed into one of the living dead in 1918, while I lived on in the flesh only to die in a car crash in 1949. The one where I tried desperately to make it back to him in America, but I was stuck in Communist China during the ‘50s and ‘60s and ‘70s. The one where I ran away from my family’s dairy in Tillamook, Oregon and stalked his family of gypsy vampires as they wandered the globe, dying of strange African virus in 1987, before I was even 17.

Hello there, and aye-aye-aye-all-hail-to-Hecate,what is this now that disturbs my reverie? I hear them; they are approaching. Cooing and sighing to each other as they leave the vehicle, they move a matched set of suitcases into the front room of the cabin. 

Edward insists on carrying Bella over the threshold. So trite, so clichéd. Like a younger version of myself would have said, “Gag me with a spoon.”

“Shall I go and turn down the sheets, love?” I hear the deceiver whisper.

“Only if you don’t want them ripped into pieces like last time,” the interloper responds.

Edward reaches out one fist and slams the door shut.  Vampires are powerful and swift. Which is why I must not give in to my fantasy of having the fickle man and his sobbing bride plead for their lives. As much as I can almost perfectly imagine the scene in my head.

“Why, Angela, why?” he would blubber. “How did you even find us, and why are you doing this? We have done nothing to you. Nothing! Bella… Bella… she’s your friend! I thought you were so nice. Why, Angela, why?”

“December 11, 1917. Do you remember the date, you evil and foul villain. Tell me, do you?  Chicago. The annual Christmas party at the Carmichaels. Just after eight o’clock. You kissed me under the mistletoe. I was only 16, as were you.”

“I have never kissed anyone but my bride!” Edward would no doubt feign ignorance of our prior intimacy. “And you weren’t even alive back then! Please, Angela, I’m begging you, let us go.”

“So you are now calling me a liar as well? Burn in the flames here on earth and then in hell for the rest of eternity, you soul-less bastard!”

“For the love of God!” he would grovel as I finally struck the match.

“For the love of God,” I would nod and toss out the fiery stick. “For the love of God, and all that’s holy. Goodbye, Edward Cullen.”

Too perfect, but it is not to be. The couple are now upstairs and rutting voraciously; I can see their shadows through the window. Who could have imagined that Bella Swan knew how to do the reverse cowgirl sex position? Time for me to close my eyes and let this nightmare of a love affair finally be over.

“By the powers of the darkness, by the strength of God’s many forgotten children, by all that goes bumps in the night,” I chant as I finger the red button of the ignition. “I condemn these two souls to the ebony shroud of purgatory, until their sins have been purged and all that is human is finally scraped away from them, like so much wasted dross.”

You would think that it would be more satisfying, seeing Edward’s nose land in front of me on the ground. The boy always carried the organ a little too high in the air, if you asked me.

Yes, yes. I am content. The bomb really did a great job of sending the two fuckers to kingdom come.  Now it is just up to me to pick up the pieces and move on.