There was an awkward silence (Patreon)

as the aspiring witches stood there and gawked at me expectantly. I stared back at them with mild astonishment. I didn't feel so bad now about all of my failed previous attempts! Rebecca and Burnside couldn't do any better! This proved that lowfolk really were useless (except for Barkingthwaite and Venatrix ... I was either really lucky or really good to get them) I would really have my work cut out for me with this group. Perhaps after I established contact with Edessa's lowfolk magick school, I could offload these girls onto them, thereby freeing up Rebecca and Burnside to help me tend to more important (i.e. elfly) matters.

"Pleased to meet you, Your Lordship," the bear in the school uniform finally said, after the silence had become uncomfortable. "Harriet Gardener, at your service. I must say, I am delighted to have the great Lord Randal here at our coven. I have some bold new ideas to bring the study of magick into the modern age. I've observed that much of the mysticism and hocus-pocus associated with magick merely serves as a detriment, an obstacle if you will, which severely inhibits the process of learning. It is time to dispense with magick's old supernatural trappings and pull it into the light of the new century dawning on the horizon! Like every natural force, magick is something that can be measured and quantified through the scientific method."

"Wanting to change the fundamental way magick is studied," I said carefully, trying to keep civil for Rebecca's sake, "is a very bold stance for a starting novice. I must point out that the mysterious and elusive nature of magick is essential to its workings. Like a, uh, mushroom, it thrives in the shadows. If one were to try to measure and quantify it, 'drag it into the light' as you say, it would simply wither and die. Such is the nature of anything that is mystical and legendary, like the land of Faerie itself. It is a living, dynamic thing. To pin it down like some sort of .. specimen, to study and dissect, well then it would by necessity have to be dead."

"I mean no disrespect, Your Lordship," Harriet Gardener persisted. "Your old way of thinking has, I'm sure, served you well in the past .. but the world is changing. Science is pulling back the veil and gaining a new understanding of the very nature of reality itself! I have every confidence that it is my destiny to change the study of magick in this way. I have the power of fate on my side. Ever since I was a child I've had a mysterious scar on my side where they removed my appendix. It's in the shape of the bird."

"Seriously?" I retorted, starting to lose my patience. "You scoff at the idea of mysticism, but simultaneously believe in vague things like omens and destiny just because you have a scar in the shape of a bird?"

"Fate is a force of nature like any other," Harriet declared. "And my scar is not in the shape of A bird, it is THE Bird. You know - the gesture when you hold up your hand and extend your middle-"

"I'M BATHIL!" the feline in the pointy hat suddenly proclaimed as she lunged forward and swatted at Harriet's hand. "Witch Bathil. My parenth are quite fond of Roman cuithine. And let me jutht thay that I for one wholeheartedly embrathe the ancient traditionth of magick, however I am thomewhat confuthed by the lack of the most bathic traditionth in the handful of magick texth Mithtreth Rebecca hath provided for the coven. There ith a dithtinct lack of eye-of-newt, black candleth, and thalt pentagramth. Thurely thith ith a mithtake that Your Lordthip can correct now that you're here?"

"When will we learn how to commune with our ancestral spirits?" Fiona MacCumhal interrupted enthusiastically. "I can't wait to prove my noble elven heritage once and for all. I mean, I know it's true, but these LOWFOLK demand tangible evidence."

"All right gals, break it up," Burnside barked abruptly, much to my relief. "Give the Almighty White Elf some breathin' room. He just got here, an he didn't come all this way just to listen to yo' prattle. Git back to what you was a-doin' so's I can talk some business with His Highness."

The witches resumed the activities they were engaged in when I arrived, and Burnside led me over to the edge of the clearing.

"What's on your mind?" I asked, grateful for the reprieve, but somewhat surprised that it was Burnside who saved me from an awkward situation that surely must have been entertaining to watch.

"Ah know what yer fixin to say," she whispered. "This here coven ain't nothin but a bunch o' losers an dorks. Normally I'd be tickled pink to watch em fumble around an make fools o themselves, but this coven means the world to Rebecca. She wanted to be able to show you some success, an well .. now you're here, you seen what we got. It'd absolutely destroy her if this'n fails like all the others, more specially after the news you brung about Bunkirk. You know me; normally I wouldn't give two hoots about somebody else's feelins, but... Rebecca's the only one who stuck by me for this long. She's the only real friend I've had in my entire cotton-pickin life. An you need to understand, she thinks the world o you. All them years we was waitin for you, Rebecca kep' goin on and on about how 'oncet ol Adler gets back, everthang'll fall into place an be all right.' Well I known you a sight longer'n she has, but the poor gal wouldn't listen to sense, least not on this subject. So she's got awful high expectations. I guess what I'm gettin at is: Please, don't disappoint her."

"I'll try my best," I mumbled as I stared at Burnside in absolute shock. Never in my life did I ever expect the legendary Raccoon Monster to care about someone other than herself.

"That's what I was afraid of," she replied bitterly.

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