Check out my most recent stories at Reedsy:
https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/author/charlene-boyce/
Rave On is my favourite thing I have written thus far.
I had submitted Four Lights, but I chose to remove it to edit a part I was not comfortable with.
Four Lights is pasted below.
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Four Lights
Genevieve wondered how long it was before the people of Egypt felt okay having parties after all the firstborns died.
Now that the pandemic had receded sufficiently to allow gatherings of more than 10 people, a party was called for. Or so Iris said, and Iris had a way of making her ideas contagious. This time her idea was to make up for three Halloweens lost to the pandemic in the form of an Ostara gathering.
"No Ouija board. Crystal ball sure, but I draw the line at Ouija!"
Iris rolled her eyes. She stashed the board under the tv cabinet and began dumping chips and party mix into various fancy serving bowls she had produced from the attic.
"Did you dust those?"
"GEN - A - VIVE!" Iris punched her name out in staccato syllables. "I swear, you think I'm a plebe." Which was a very Iris response in that it didn't at all answer the question.
Genevieve was arranging her devilled eggs when the doorbell began. People arrived alone or in pairs. They crept in, trying to be inconspicuous. The effects of the long-time gathering limits and the culture of neighborhood-tattletale enforcers were fresh scars.
Mid-century lounge music swayed through the air.... was that Sammy Davis Jr? It seemed a bizarre contrast to the skulls-and-spiders decor Iris had chosen. Genevieve sighed. No matter how many times she explained Ostara was about balance, fertility and rebirth, Iris clung to this childhood image of witches. Surreptitiously tucking blooming flowers around the skulls and over the spiders, Genevieve made her way from the dining room to welcome the guests.
Everyone had arrived. Thirteen people and one baby in one room felt uncomfortably crowded. Genevieve had to propel herself forward to embrace her guests, remind herself that it was okay now. Hattie and Han were unusually quiet. Tessa had ridden in with Belle and Zoe and complained vociferously about Zoe's inability to focus on the road. Terry was still sawdusty, hammer slung from his pants. Varain and Syl were in full dashiki splendor. Andrescu looked so tiny in his suit and tie, hunched over his snake-carved cane. Lola and Jim bounced little Feria, their pandemic baby, the first in the coven.
Iris jumped up, eyes sparkling. "Let's light the candles and prepare the space!"
Genevieve caught Tessa's eyes rolling and repressed a smile. Iris was new to the craft and so bloody eager. Everyone was looking forward to a simple catch up visit... Iris wanted pomp, and circumstance, and action.
"Let's let folks catch their breath first, hm?"
Genevieve set Iris to getting cocktails while she prepared tea for Andrescu, Lola and Tessa. Conversations started rippling across the room, nearly always prefaced with, "I feel like I haven't done anything worth talking about..."
Pent-up emotions spilled out. The pandemic had marked each. Belle and Zoe had wound up dog-sitting six large animals when three different neighbors went into hospital. They acted out various mishaps the giant beasts had caused. Varain and Syl had had to move after their landlord died. Sparks nearly flew from Syl as she described trying to pack and move with three day's notice during lockdown.
Tessa had been forced to work six to seven days a week as nursing home staff quit. Her hips killed her, she sighed, but she had lost ten pounds!
Gentle Hattie, gray faced and fragile, had lost three aunts, her daughter and her mother in the Forest Acres outbreak just two months into the pandemic. Her voice quavered as she spoke her daughter Tamsyn's name. Han held her hand and hovered protectively.
Two hours later, the table was emptied of hummus, cheeses, eggs and chips, and the guests were emptied of stories. Everyone had heard about Tamsyn's final gasping breaths. Belle and Zoe had shared several recipes for fermenting things, and Feria had cooed, cried and pooped. Now Feria napped and the adults gathered at the table with a bit more solemnity. Iris tossed salt at the cardinal points, butterflied around the room with smoking sage.
Genevieve appeared with straws to choose the order of invocation. Iris laughed outright at this old-fashioned tradition, ready to somehow employ a random number generator, but Genevieve overrode her. With the four blessing openers chosen, they entered the circle.
Varain lighted the first candle, his dark fingers snapping the match alight. He smiled at Syl warmly. "A light for our love."
Andrescu lit the second, his wrinkled brow creased with focus. "A light for our path into the future." He softly patted Feria's head.
Iris had been chosen for third, which made Genevieve worry a little, but hers was not bad: "A light for the joy of being alive."
Hattie was last. "A light..." she paused and tears rolled over her cheeks. Genevieve longed to squeeze her hand, but she was across the table. "A light for the DEAD."
The last candle flared impossibly high, and the music cut off mid-note.
Iris shrieked, jumped to her feet.
"WE ARE HERE," her mouth shaped, and her voice sounded like a hellish choir. Wind filled the room but the candles did not blow out. Everyone froze... everyone except Andrescu.
He rose from his seat, hands aloft, emanating power. His wrinkled hands worked furiously, tracing runes the rest were too young to remember. His 91 years now felt not like frailty, more like deep strength.
"I place my hold upon you!" he boomed, in a deep, loud voice. "Who comes to our summons, and what do you bring?"
Genevieve felt faint. She was not prepared for this. Goddess knows how long it was since this sort of thing had happened. Not in her 12 years with this coven, for sure. Thanks be to the good powers that they had Andrescu!
Iris stood very erect, stared, unblinking, still.
"We who were lost at Forest Acres are come. Why were we invoked? Who are you to summon us?"
Hattie rose as if levitated. "Mother. I know you are there, I have felt you with me. It's Hattie."
Iris's face seemed to gently age, and her voice was now single. "Hattie, my love. You must let me go. I travel with all and they are not harmless. Release me. I love you."
Andrescu kept his hand aimed at Iris but turned his eyes to Hattie. "You are dragging these souls here. Hattie. You must let them go."
Hattie was flushed. "Mom? Is Tamsyn there? Tamsyn?"
Iris's voice was higher now. "Mother. I am so strong now. I can walk. I can run!" Iris hopped in place, seeming about to fly off.
"Tamsyn, my darling. Forgive me. The hospital had no space. I had no choice but to send you to Forest Acres."
"Mother!" Impatient now. Iris's foot stomped. "I am happier now! Father, help her understand!" She paused.
"Wait. That isn't... you aren't guilty about that." She paused. Iris's blank eyes bore into Hattie who sunk back into her seat.
"That's not it at all, is it?"
Hattie cried softly "No, no no no no..."
Iris glided around Varain and Syl to Hattie's side, as Han tried to insert himself.
She looked into his eyes and her own widened. "You are not my father."
Terry pushed away from the table at this. "You said--!" he blurted at Hattie, but Tamsyn-who-was continued, "But that isn't it, either is it, mother?"
"Tell them. Tell Grandmother and her sisters why they died. Tell them."
Hattie clutched Iris' hand, crying.
"I was the carrier, wasn't I, mother? And you knew. I was sick when I went in... sick with the virus. And you sent me to a home full of old, susceptible people. YOU KNEW!"
Andrescu visibly paled. One of his oldest friends had died at Forest Acres.
"Hattie, can this be so?"
Hattie wailed, ripped at her clothes. "I thought that she would be safer there! They could treat her!"
Han had backed up. "Hattie...."
"I didn't think it would spread so fast! Mother, Aunties, forgive me!"
Iris shrieked again, with the chorus of voices, as wind rushed through the room. The candles blew out then. Iris fell back into a chair.
Genevieve rushed to her side, felt her pulse. Belle and Zoe brought a cool cloth, while Han and Terry held a quiet, intense conversation. Jim checked on Hattie, who had fallen unconscious. Lola rocked Feria. Varain and Syl helped Andrescu to the sofa. Tessa brought a pitcher of exceptionally strong mojitos and everyone had a shot.
Iris eventually became coherent and was upset she remembered nothing.
It was midnight, and as the clock "bonged" its first stroke, Andrescu rose and strode across the room to Hattie. With a voice not his own, he said, "Heather, my child. You are forgiven."
Hattie was wonderstruck.
"Ostara blesses you. This is the time for renewal." He took Han's hand and placed it on Hattie's, pressing them together.
"New beginnings."
And Hattie, forty-five years old, touched her swelling belly in wonder.
