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Coven at World's End
Nine
Pywacket's howl echoed mournfully throughout World's End. Beth lay
where she had fallen in the middle of her kitchen, aware of the terrible
noise, but too stunned to react to it. It took Sarah's strident cries and
violent shaking to break through the fugue that had befallen her.
"Mother, what's the matter! What's happening!"
What had happened to drop her unconscious to the floor? She couldn't
quite say, except that something dark and distasteful hung in the air.
And someone in World's End had died.
Pywacket came racing through the back door Sarah had left hanging
open. The cat raced to and fro, its hackles risen and its eyes wide with
fright. Its piercing howls tore through Beth's entrancement.
"Rebecca," Beth said, her lips still thick with paralysis. She reached
for Sarah's arms. "Help me up."
Despite her tender age, Sarah showed a grim resolve in maintaining her
calm and seeing the crisis through without panic. For the first time in
her life, Beth used her daughter to pull herself to her feet and support
her until she found her balance. She weaved precariously on the way out
of the house. By the time they had crossed the street, she let go of
Sarah's shoulder and hurried on ahead after the Siamese.
Beth found Rebecca lying on the floor alongside her computer, staring
into space, her mind a conscious void as usual, empty of content. The cat
leaped to a dresser top and crouched, staring intently at the newcomers.
Sarah eyed the cat suspiciously. "Mom, Rebecca's in that cat. How can
she do that?"
"I think she feels safer there. But we can't talk to the cat. Help me
get her to the bedroom."
They dragged Rebecca bodily to her feet and dragged her into the
bedroom. Rebecca lay on her made bed and stared wide-eyed into space.
Beth took the opportunity to interrogate Sarah. "Please. What
happened?"
"I was coming home from school," Sarah said. "I felt something
horrible, like an explosion, except that it was inside my head. Mom,
what's going on?"
Beth couldn't even guess. "I think it's passing."
Sarah's tone of voice grew strident. "It's not passing! Can't you
feel it? The whole town is like this! It's different! It
feels different!"
Beth glanced at her sharply. "Are they recovering?"
Sarah spaced out for a moment, sampling the psychic void. "I guess.
Can't you feel it?"
The distasteful darkness that lingered? "I guess I can. I can feel it."
Beth sat at Rebecca's side. Looking into that autistic mind was like
peering into the depths of a clear body of water. Within the clarity, she
could sense a place of darkness and agitation that didn't belong. "What's
doing that?" Beth whispered fearfully.
Sarah radiated sudden alarm and backed away. "It's in
you, too, Mom! It's in everyone!"
Beth was reluctant to go in search of the parasite in the depths of her
own mind. She would never have found it without Sarah's help. With its
discovery she found the source of the cloying unpleasantness that was
gnawing at her. Knowing its presence, though, made it easier to block the
insidious damage it was causing deep within her."
"Where did it come from?" Sarah said fearfully.
"I don't know."
"Do I have one, too?" Sarah asked. "I don't think I do!
I can't feel it!"
Pywacket entered the room and leaped onto the bed, and then the
bookcase headboard. Beth saw a reflection of herself in Rebecca's field
of vision. The woman's rapport with the cat was absolute.
"The child is unaffected," Rebecca said using her human pair of lips,
but speaking from elsewhere.
Beth looked in surprise and saw that it was true. She waited for the
more thorough analysis Rebecca would provide. Rebecca scanned the
surrounding environment to a depth and thoroughness possible to no one
else in World's End. "The Montegarde sisters are dead," she said, her
voice devoid of emotion. "Jessica Montegarde visited. She has since
departed."
"But what happened!" Beth cried, desperate now for the detail she
needed to alleviate her own panic and warn World's End.
"The Montegarde sisters acted as a conduit for an outside agency,"
Rebecca said. "It is among us even now. Jessica
Montegarde may have loosened it within the ordinary world."
Outside, a scattering of residents had gathered in the streets. Beth
felt the town bonding and acting in unison, roughly two hundred souls organized by the powerful minds of the eight members of the
Council into a collective entity. Already the townspeople were converging
on the dome-roofed meeting hall on the far side of town. Rebecca rose
from the bed to join them, walking like an automaton into the late
afternoon sunlight. Beth followed with Sarah grimly silent at her side.
The Council was a hierarchy, not of command, but of organization. The
Council consisted of the most
intelligent and capable children of the original Coven and was led by the
young and capable Miriam Vanders. Miriam waited at
the podium with her usual patience until the very last resident of World's
End arrived and took a seat. Her dark curls caught the last of the day's
light streaming down from a side window. Her voice rang in the quiet
auditorium.
"We, the Council of World's End, have joined body and mind to act and
think as one. For the first time since our inception, we have a true
emergency at hand and will observe protocol."
Miriam looked down at Beth. Beth felt the awareness of the townswomen shift to bear upon her. "Elizabeth Mannhardt, acting as
our investigative agent, you called for an emergency gathering earlier in
the afternoon. Do you understand what has happened?"
Beth rose from her position in the front row and stepped onto the dais
facing the elevated seating of the Council. She took a deep breath, knowing she had nothing but bad news to
report. World's End had grown soft and self-indulgent and it was not going
to react well to what she had to say. She looked out over the gathering,
sensing their dread and bitterness toward the intrusion that had infected
the town. "To begin with," she began, "Rebecca tells me that the Montegarde
sisters are dead."
All eyes turned to the tall woman with the auburn hair seated stiffly
in the front row. Beth sensed their respect, but their fear of her
strange autistic affliction as well.
"We've been infected with a psychic presence," Beth added. "I'm not
certain how it happened, or what it means."
Carlotta Rebus, the eldest of the Council women, shot to her feet.
"What drivel! No mind has such power to defeat our collective
will!"
"Carlotta," Beth said gently. "I'm speaking of contagion, not
possession. It takes the form of a. . ." Beth paused and sighed in
frustration. "Rebecca works with a computer. She's thinking of the
contagion as similar to a computer virus."
"A psychic virus," Carlotta spat. "Nonsense."
"You can see it if you know where to look," Beth said, and took a
moment to guide Carlotta's awareness to the area in her own wind
where the darkness radiated its strange blend of emotional energy. For
the first time, Beth noticed an annoying sexual component to it, a hunger,
and frustration that churned out tension and impatience.
Carlotta's eyes widened with shock. "My God, it's true!"
A murmur of nervous comment passed through the hall. Miriam raised a
hand to silence the disturbance. "Do we all perceive it?"
The contagion was like a dark shadow fluttering on the edge of one's
inner vision. Focusing on it amplified the dark feelings radiating from
its center. Beth had already learned how to suppress its worse
effect. Others had yet to learn. Intense despair stabbed through the
psychic void and peculiar outbursts of sexual desire.
"The child is unaffected!" Carlotta's voice rang out. "Elizabeth, your
daughter is not infected!"
Beth sighed in frustration. "So I've noticed."
"What factor is responsible for your child's immunity?" Miriam
demanded, rigid with displeasure that a child had escaped a fate to which
more powerful minds had fallen prey.
"Miriam, I have no idea."
Miriam looked confused and suddenly very vulnerable. "Are we in
immediate danger, do you think?"
Beth eyed the gathering warily, knowing she'd reap the whirlwind for
tossing in the unsettling information she had gleaned from Dr. Vladimir
Corellian. "This is not the first time we have been attacked in this
manner," she said in a voice just loud enough to carry to the distant corners
of the auditorium.
Miriam closed her eyes in dread and took a moment to regain her
composure. "You refer to the destruction of the Coven. The virus we are
experiencing could not possibly destroy us in the same manner. It is not that strong."
But a thought occurred to Beth. "The virus is intended
for the human world. They would have no defense against it."
Miriam's eyes widened with concern. "Then we must ensure the virus does not
escape beyond the gateway."
Beth shook her head regretfully. "Too late. Jessica Montegarde was
here. She must have felt her mother's death. I
have yet to investigate the circumstances of how they died, and why."
Someone called out. "It's true. We tried to stop her. We only meant to
help, but she thought harm would befall her."
"Then let's not panic ourselves," Beth cautioned. "If this
is the same form of contagion that destroyed our elders, it did not
succeed."
"At the cost of the lives and sanity of our parents!" Carlotta cried
out.
"We have an obligation to the ordinary world in this manner," Beth said
to Miriam.
"We owe the outside world nothing!" Carlotta sounded again.
Miriam gestured for silence. She frowned. "You have brought Dr.
Corellian to us. Has he spoken to you of his association with your
mother?"
"Yes."
"Now? After so many years. Elizabeth, I am not comfortable with the
coincidence of these events."
Beth shook her head. "There may be less coincidence involved that
seems apparent. Sarah told me the fairies, the nocturnal lights, have been
behaving in an odd manner. I consulted Rebecca on the matter. She was
aware of a disturbance and suggested that I investigate the Montegarde
sisters for a possible connection. Earlier in the day, they were unaware
of a problem and reminded me that Dr. Corellian has always possessed some
undisclosed knowledge of events that occurred during and following the destruction of
the Coven. I had the time, the opportunity, and most certainly the
motivation to visit and to bring him back to me when he agreed to
cooperate conditionally.."
"Has the doctor provided information of use to us?" Miriam said
cautiously.
"I now know what my mother told him about the nature of the attack upon
the Coven. I think we should listen closely to what the doctor remembers
of my mother's stories."
Miriam glanced at Carlotta Rebus and back. "Very well. We'll need an oral recounting of the doctor's testimony at
the end of this meeting. Elizabeth, is there anything else you wish to
add before the Council begins deliberation on these matters?"
"We need to know why Sarah is immune to the parasites," Beth said. "If
the virus proves destructive to the ordinary world and relatively harmless to
ourselves, as I hope may be the case, we need to be on guard against a
second avenue of attack, one directed at World's End exclusively. We
cannot continue to blind ourselves to the connections between ourselves
and the Coven that came before us. We know little to nothing of what
they experienced."
Beth paused, momentarily lost in the need to organize her thoughts.
Miriam and the gathering waited patiently.
"We need to know why we are amnesiac," Beth said quietly,
"and why my
mother did not want us to know of the events that caused the deaths of so
many of her generation. We need to know who we are and why we
inhabit this world. There is not a woman among us who has not
marveled at our good fortune. We are gifted. We live in
paradise. And we fear above all else questioning the nature of that
good fortune. This must stop at all costs."
"We may have grown lazy and complacent," Miriam said softly, "but we
have no fear of the truth. We have all speculated on the nature of our
lives in World's End."
"Then why are we the Council at World's End and not the new Coven?"
Beth said in growing frustration. "Why have we distanced ourselves from
the mythology of our parents? Granted, the term 'coven' is quaint and
archaic, but our mothers had a much greater respect for the unknowns that
surround our lives. After all, we are the ones who gave rise to the myth
of witches and warlocks in the ordinary world. It may be that our battles
have given rise to the distorted beliefs of the conflict between good and
evil as well."
Carlotta's voice rang out. "It was they from the depth of their
ignorance and fear that branded us agents of the devil! It may be that we
simply choose not to be steeped in superstition born of such ignorance!"
"I'm not concerned with their ignorance," Beth said. "I'm more
concerned that we may have dismissed their unconscious perception of the
role we play in their lives. The fact remains that we stand between the
ordinary world and the unknown. We have been attacked in the past, and we
should have prepared for this day. Have we done so?"
"What would you have us do?" Miriam said. The entire hall
radiated a shared intuition that Sarah's special powers had motivated a
concerned mother to think hard and deep of the nature of their presence at
World's End. Many had given it no thought at all.
"I would have us remember that the Coven at World's End defeated their
demons, whatever their source. They put a stop to the attack upon both
themselves and the ordinary world. They triumphed, and we, their
children, repopulated World's End. I would have us face this crisis with faith in
the unknown and confidence in our abilities to defend ourselves."
"Very well." Miriam sighed deeply. "The Council will assign study
teams to explore the facets of our crisis as outlined by Elizabeth
Mannhardt. For the duration of the emergency, residents of World's End
will maintain quarantine. Those who reside in the ordinary world will be
contacted, ordered to stay put and be alert until we understand the nature of the enemy
and our best means of self-defense. No force is used to uphold our
decrees, but lives are at stake, so please abide by our decisions. The
attack on the Coven of the previous generation cost the lives and sanity
of many. If this new one is of the same nature, Elizabeth is correct in
assuming that we are all equally at risk."
"And the outside world?" Carlotta said unhappily. "Is it our duty to
defend them as well?"
"We cannot expect the ordinary world to defend themselves against an
attack of this nature or magnitude," Miriam said. "The outbreak
originated in World's End. World's End will put a stop to it."
