Within the Flame

Evangelina stood in the Great Hall among the other first year students. From what her parents had told her, she would be sorted into a coven upon her arrival at the Salem Witches Institute. The basics of what they told her was she would step into a circle where she would be engulfed in flames. Horrified by the notion that she would be incased in flames, her parents did reassure her that the flames would not harm her. They've also explained that all she had to do was answer a few questions, then she would be sorted into her coven. That's easier said than done, Evangelina thought as she waited to be called.

Nerves set in and she wanted to leave. Evangelina started to play with the end of her shirt trying to keep herself at ease. Mom...Dad... you have no idea how scary this is!

Hearing her name being called, Evangelina slowly moved towards the front. Feeling the stares of the other students, her shyness took over as she hunched her shoulders as she stepped into the circle. For a second, nothing happened. Maybe they were fooling, she thought as her confidence starting to rise.

Evangelina banished the thought completely as soon as she saw the flames, which quickly consumed her. It's ok, it's ok, Mommy and Daddy said that the flames wouldn't hurt me, she rationalized to herself, finding it harder and harder to keep herself calm. Scared beyond belief, she wanted to leave the flames.

As the flames rise around you the hall seems to grow dark, and within seconds there is nothing but an impenetrable barrier of blackness beyond the tall, flickering flames that pen you in like a trapped animal.

In front of you, coming forward . . . it's difficult to see, but a woman approaches. One dressed in nothing but green fire, a emerald Medusa bathed in unearthly fire. As she steps into the ring with you the temperature increases dramatically, and the sensation of being roasted in an oven is difficult, if not impossible, to put aside.

And then the last thing you ever expected happens: she giggles. And it's not the giggle of a woman looking over a young girl, but like that of someone your age: immature, impetuous . . . and a touch immoral.

"Wellllll," she drawls. "Little Lina Cromwell, all grown up and ready to take her place with the great wizards and witches. Tell me, does you papa ever cry out in his sleep, dreaming of when he stood here . . . with me?"

Evangelina stood in shock of the woman in front of her. I didn't talk to anyone so no one should know my name, not even my nickname, how is it that she knows it?! the dumbfounded child thought to herself, shortly before answering the question the woman had asked. "D-Da, I mean, my dad cried? But he doesn't cry."

The Phoenix slowly paced around Evangelina. Even though she was barefoot, a bizarre, tinny echo of clicking heels could be hear with each step. "My sweet Lina, maybe have cried before me. Some have only whimpered--" She rounded Evangelina's left shoulder and leaned in to whisper, "Some have fainted." She moved to her right and whispered in her other ear, "Some have broken down and soiled themselves." She stopped directly in front of Evangelina and suddenly seized her face in one hand, roughly pressing her cheeks together.

"And a few have even died," she said, the emerald flames casting green highlights on a unbroken row of her teeth. Though Evangelina could feel no pain, the smell of cooking flesh began to fill the circle.

"But you . . . hummmmmmm." The Phoenix turned the girl's head left and right. "I don't think you'll die--" She released Evangelina. "At least not today." She stepped back three measured paces then stopped. "And so what Coven do you wish to become one with, and what do you bring as the legacy of the Cromwells?"

The pacing, quick movements, and things the woman made and said frightened Evangelina and made her nervous, but not enough to cry, like what the flamed woman told her that her father had done, nor was it enough for her to jump out of the flames. The smell was a different story. Even though she wanted to leave the foul-smelling circle, she stood there and looked at the ground.

Thinking about the question carefully, she had to think what she was dreading to do...chose which coven to belong to. Evangelina knew which covens her parents belonged to, but she didn't want to chose one over the other. To top it off, she didn't even know what she can do as a Cromwell...or even a descendent of the Watanabe family.

Taking a deep breath, she replied, "I...I want to be in the coven of M-Mórrígan...like Mom...and, um, she and Dad say I'm smart and can use it to my advantage."

This time, when the Phoenix chuckled, she didn't sound like a young girl: this time she was like a woman who'd seen far too much of the world, and knew even more than she'd seen. "Oh, do you," she said slowly. "So you want to follow in the steps of your mama . . ."

The Phoenix took one step forward and looked Evangelina over. "I remember Watanabe Sakae. She was like you; scared, but understood her duty, why she was here." The spirit leered, her face contorting in a sickening way. "She also fed me the same crap about 'being smart', just like I'd expect from a good little Nihonjin."

The Phoenix took another step, and was once more within an arm's reach of Evangelina. "The Mórrígan are about strife, about combat, about controlling the forces that surround them--" She waved her arms outward, toward the flames surrounding them. "Forces like these, daccha? Do you welcome this power, the ability to temper this violence?" She leaned in and winked with her pure solid, white eye. "One would need to be an oni to control such powers, Lina-chan, daccha? Do you truly want that?"

Do I really want that? Evangelina could only see the kind woman that her mother was in front of her and her sisters, but was she really that terrible of a woman? She knew her mother was an Auror, but was she that fierce of a person?

"I-if Mom can do it...I can too." Evangelina felt her confidence rise as she thought of her mother, I can handle it...yeah, I can. I'm strong and confident about my abilities, there's no reason why I can't handle it.

Within milliseconds of the worlds "I can too" leaving the air the scene in the fire subtly changed. The flames in front of Evangelina thinned, but did not die. As the Phoenix stood aside, Evangelina could see an expanse of land beyond the circle where one shouldn't, but did.

Stretching away Evangelina, all the way to the horizon of this strange vista, lay an unbroken line of bodies, men and women, all bent and bloodied. The last body lay where the Phoenix had been standing, and when Evangelina looked down she saw the face of her mother staring up, agony stretch across her face, her body a mass of contusions and bruises.

It was only then that Evangelina realized she was no longer dressed in the clothing she'd worn into the circle. She was in the attire of a miko; her haori was in disarray and dirty; both cuffs of her hakama dripped blood, and her socks and sandals were soaked red. To her side, in her hand, was her wand, and the end radiated heat as if it had been immersed in a fire.

Evangelina was shocked in sight she was seeing. At seeing her mother, she was terrified. "Kaasan?" Looking at the bodies around her and the attire she was wearing, she turned to the Phoenix and asked, "What's going on? Why is everything like this? Why am I dressed like this?"

"You are bringing your legacy to us, Lina-chan," the Phoenix said, "and I am showing you the legacy of the Ravens." The spirit indicated the line of bodies stretching into the distance. "This is Mórrígan--always with one wing dipped in blood, each member driven by the Goddess to learn what it takes to control this chaos." She passes a hand over Evangelina's head, and there is an enormous pain, two of them, on either side of her skull, a sensation not unlike someone chiseling open her head from the inside.

The pain was intense. She tried to keep the pain to herself, but to no ail. She grabbed her head and fell to the ground. Evangelina gave out a scream to show how much pain she was in.

Evangelina felt the small, bony horns growing from her skull. The pain was more incredible than anything she'd ever experience in her life--and, yet, through the pain, she heard every word the Phoenix spoke in her low, soft, meticulous voice, as she stood over her . . ..

"Those are you mother's horns, Lina-chan," she said. "Oh, she was a very proud girl; very proper, very . . . smart. I told her in order to be one with Mórrígan, she needed to be an oni, and she told me she wasn't afraid--" The Phoenix knelt beside Evangelina. "Those are her horns," she said, touching the now two-and-a-half inch bones. "And like mother, like daughter, I say."

She quickly grabbed Evangelina by the hair and twisted her face to look upon the body of her mother. "Dark wizard are everywhere: no one knows that better than Aurors. And yet . . . so many dark wizards could have been Aurors--and even came from their ranks." She released Evangelina and asked, "This is madness; this is chaos; this is strife . . . this is Mórrígan. Do you think, if necessary, you could take a fellow coven sister's life? Even if they were your mother?"

Kaasan accepted this? she strained to think this in her mind. Her mother, the woman that always smiled and tended to her daughters, the woman that was always so loving towards her husband, the woman that always, always did everything by the book...was she really a demon in disguise?

"I...I don't know," she admitted to the Phoenix. Tears filled her eyes and slowly fell. "I don't know" she repeated, "I just don't know."

The bodies vanished; the flames returned, restricting the view to the outside. The Phoenix tenderly ran her hands over Evangelina's horns, almost like . . . a mother would.

"Of course you don't know, Lina-chan," she said, but now her voice was soft, caring, not hard and mocking as it had been moments before. "You are only a child; you know nothing of the ways of Mórrígan. But you are honest--" She turned Evangelina's face towards her's and smiled, and for the first time she wasn't being callous. "The Goddess desires honesty as well. In order to eventually control strife, you have to learn its nefarious ways.

"And that is why you are here. To learn." She stood up. "And you've learned well. And--" This time her laugh was full of humor. "You've earned your mother's horns. Take care of them, daccha?"

The Phoenix turn and stepped away from Evangelina. "There is no more I can do with this one," she yelled to an invisible sky. "She is yours! SHE IS MÓRRÍGAN!"

And like that, the fire vanished. You find yourself kneeling in the circle, still within The Great Hall. And you realize everyone in the room is looking in your direction . . ..

Wide-eyed and stunned, Evangelina slowly stood up and shuffled towards the others. Before she was completely emerged with her fellow peers, she looked behind her she whispered "Arigato." She quickly turned back and smiled towards her new coven.

I stand there in a set of robes that I look very uncomfortable wearing. "You okay, deary?" I ask. I put my arm around you shoulders and begin leading towards a row of tables. "After we get you set up in your dorm, I'll brew you up a special spot of tea. It'll help you sleep--" I smile warmly. "Trust me; you'll need it."

And as we sit, I lean in. "Oh, and Welcome to Mórrígan, Evangelina. You'll simply love it here!"

Giving the woman a nod and an attempted smile, Evangelina told her in a soft voice, "I'm ok." Looking up at the Professor, she continued, "that'll be nice."