The Second Covenant

I let my dad carry me, mostly for his comfort, though I wasn’t really sure if I could walk on my own. Uncle Tyler got the door and my dad helped me to slide into the Jeep. “We’ll see you back at the house.” He told the others and I huddled deeper into my borrowed coat as the door shut. There was quiet for a moment and then the drivers side door opened and the scent of my father’s aftershave caught me.

It was a comforting scent, one I associated with good memories. Like the time when I was seven and I asked why I couldn’t shave my face too. We’d laughed and he gave me a big kiss, smearing shaving cream on my little cheeks. “Because you don’t have a hairy face.”
It was a good memory, I was full of them. “Dad? How loud did I scream?” his hand slipped on the clip of his seatbelt and I didn’t look at him until he’d started the car. “Louder than any of us have.” He answered softly.

I felt so humiliated to have had all of them watching me. Great. “Why did you all have to watch dad, couldn’t you have just left me there?” I sounded petulant even to myself and his hand settled on my knee. “You don’t need to be embarrassed baby, it hurt us all to Ascend.”

I could feel the hot burn of tears, the tightening of my throat as I tried not to be any weaker than I had to. There was a silence as we drove and when he spoke, I wanted to just die. “How do you feel now?” I looked down at my hands in my lap and frowned around the blur of tears. “Like I’ve been boiled and then frozen. Twisted ten ways to Imbolic backwards. Happy birthday to me.” I closed my eyes because I didn’t think I could keep them open to confess this next bit. “I feel really ashamed that everyone had to watch me flip out. I hadn’t expected that much pain.”

We’d stopped, we were home and just sitting in the driveway. My dad took my hand and squeezed tight. “Cherish, look at me?” He asked me using his, I love you and I’m your dad voice. The gentle one that makes me cry every time. But I looked at him. At the conviction in his gaze. “It hurt us all to change Cherish, all of us screamed. I won’t lie and say it was the same for us all, because it wasn’t. Maybe it’s because you’re mine and I hated every second of what happened, or maybe it’s just because you’re so different from the others. I don’t know. But don’t be ashamed Cherish, you passed your initiation. Welcome to our freaky club.” He smiled and brushed a tear from my face with his strong hands.

My dad was one hot looking man, even at forty, he’d survived the temptation to use at every turn and he was still here, even if he had a bit more gray in his hair than before. He was so strong, such a force of nature and I was embarrassed because I’d been so weak. No matter what he said, I’d been weak. I nodded but couldn’t answer and got out of the car.

As soon as my foot touched the ground, it was like a ripple on a pond. Dad had consecrated the grounds here regularly so that no one with evil intent could cross the driveway. I’d never felt it so strongly before, never been able to taste the flavor of my father’s magic. I stood there just thinking, searching and curious as to why I could feel this now. The energy that I had lost from the Ascension was returned to me in a rush, like a battery charge, and something flared in my vision. My eyes had changed, turned black and I knew it.

I let the power build inside me and felt that cool lash of menacing air, I could scent the decay and evil on it. I turned in a slow circle, using my new power to follow the trail of that stench, but it was gone before I could identify it.
“Cherish?” I didn’t turn at the sound of Uncle Tyler’s voice, but I knew he’d felt it too. He’d often told me that he could taste different threads of magic, feel from whom they came from. “You felt that right?” I murmured, still seeking with my eyes, but knowing whatever had been there was gone. “Felt what?” My father demanded, and I left it to Tyler to explain it. The magic I’d built inside me was buzzing like a thousand bees, prickling along my skin, gathering in my hands.

I wasn’t the kind of witch that had to perform complex spells to make things happen. It only took a thought and poof. So I closed my eyes and thought of only one thing. Making my home, and everyone in it safe. Protected from whatever was out there. The power rushed to obey, launched from my hands to the ground, a boulder dropping in the pool of magic my father had already laid, sending the waves of magic farther, widening the wards.

If anything, man, beast or spirit crossed the boundaries with wicked intent, I’d know it. They‘d probably die from the shock they would get. “Cherish, honey, what did you just do?” Tyler and my father were standing the closest, but I could tell that the others were coming from within the house to investigate that power surge. “I boosted up the wards on the house.”

Uncle Tyler came into view, standing in front of me with a perplexed frown on his handsome face. He nodded slowly, but reached out to touch my face. “Your skin.” I was suddenly horrified, had I aged? I used too much; I knew it and I whirled to face the shiny reflection in the car window terrified, but I had to see…”Oh…god.”

I was glowing, my pale skin shining like the beams of moonlight. My eyes looked bigger, my lips redder. I raised my hands and saw that they too were glowing with an ethereal light. “What is this?” by now everyone was gathered in the forecourt of the drive way, staring at me.

My mother came gliding towards me and took my hands, staring at my eyes. “Honey, what…you look so…so…” She waved a hand. “Beautiful.” Peyton’s murmur raised the fine hairs on my body, made me tingle from the toes up. Our eyes met and I saw something in them I hadn’t ever seen before. Desire. “I just boosted up the wards. I promise. It felt like something was watching us and I…”
“From where?” Uncle Pogue took a step towards me and I could feel, literally feel his protective nature rousing, like a lion from slumber.

I frowned hard and pointed towards the east. “That way, it sounds wacky but I tasted something, a different kind of magic.” No one said anything and I looked at my toes. “Maybe I was imagining it.” I mumbled and my mom squeezed my hands and pulled me into a hug. “No, you didn’t. Something’s been there for weeks, that’s why I added wards to the house. But Cherish, what I did and what you did? Butterfly wings versus a tsunami.”

My dad looked stuck somewhere between fierce pride and fear. Now I blushed, hard and wouldn’t look up. “Alright, enough guys, we mere mortals are freezing.” Aunt Kate said and laid her arm along my shoulders. I sighed and let her and my mom lead me up the stairs. Aunt Paige was Tyler ’s wife, Aunt Lisa was Reid’s. Aunt Paige was a short slender redhead, she’d been responsible for giving Tristan his eye lashes and a copy of her perfect lips.
Aunt Lisa looked like a model, with her perfect platinum blonde hair cut expertly at her chin, her heart shape face perfectly accented with subtle make up, her dramatic emerald eyes outlined by her slashing brows. She was a nutcracker apparently, made sure that Uncle Reid and Riley behaved themselves, at least magically speaking. “Good god Cherish, you’re glowing.” She said, completely astonished and I gave her a slight smile. “What’s wrong with your eyes?” Aunt Paige asked and reached out with her little hands to cup my cheeks. “What are they still black?”

It creeped me out when it happened, when my eyes turned solid black. I don’t know why but it did, it was sexy when it happened to the guys, on me, it just looked demonic. “No, they’re purple.” My mom turned my face to her and she frowned. “What like someone punched me?” Aunt Lisa looked at me and then Aunt Kate. “No baby, your eyes, they changed colors.”
“What’s up girls?” Uncle Reid asked as the men folk all came trooping back in. “Her eyes changed colors.” Mom was biting her lip in worry and I sighed turning to open my eyes wide for all to see. “They’re purple.”

My dad frowned and shrugged. “Maybe they’ll go back. I don’t know. It’s pretty though honey.” I gave Uncle Pogue back his jacket and my mom whistled. “I see you changed?” I looked down at my dress. “Yeah, we went to the Dells, the Halloween party for a while.”
“Cherish.” My father growled and I winced inwardly, my shoulders coming up a little. “Yeah, I know. We got some ‘splaining to do.” My father’s big arms were crossed and the scowl was back. “You’re damn right, what’s going on?” I looked at Peyton and the others and they nodded. “Tell them Cherish.” Tristan said quietly, the or else hung between us. “Tell us what?” My mom said. I touched her hand and looked at her with a slight smile. “Can we go into the drawing room?” I didn’t wait to get the answer, I just turned and walked into the big room we used when all of us were together.