The sun struggled to rise at nine o'clock and slipped back below the horizon at three, the moon already prominent in the sky by the time the last color of the sunset bled out black. The moon loomed overhead like a visiting planet, close enough that the Man in the Moon was clearly visible in spite of the scar Shiny Chariot gouged into its surface all those years ago.

"This is alright, right?" Akko said. Tonight was a night to wear the full uniform with pointy cap and a sturdy coat for the bitter winter. She felt strong and warm and just a little bit terrified as she and her pals waited in the courtyard.

"Should be," Sucy said, "if somebody hasn't pissed off Mother Mormo." She'd added an extra layer of warm clothes and kept glancing up at the moon.

"Or Daughter or Grandma, right?" Akko said.

"It's a long story."

"I know, I read the book like three times but I can't wrap my brain around it. So she's like actually three people and also Gorgo? Or is Gorgo a friend of hers?"

"Don't think about it," Sucy said, gesturing vaguely.

Lotte just chewed on a gingerbread cookie and waited, humming a song to herself.

The courtyard was packed with people, student witches waiting for the Black Mass around fires mundane and conjured.

"This is the most sacred of the thirteen days of Christmas," Lotte said. "My family only really-I think Amanda called it 'marking out'-we only marked out on Ithaqua's Day and today."

Akko held up her hand. "Because Tsathoggua was the first god to teach humans magic and enable them to use it, but Mormo is the goddess of witches. Right? Born when Yggdrasil fell, she was a three-pronged branch that remained on the moon. Bat Toad just wants us to use magic and make smartass comments at us, Mormo is our, uh... soul-symbol?"

Sucy nodded. "Like Dagon and Hydra for the Deep Ones, or Shugoran for the Tcho-Tcho. She's ours and ours alone, baby."

"Neat!" Akko said. "And our belt buckles are her holy sign? That's pretty hardcore."

"M-hm!" Lotte said. "Waning moon, full moon, waxing moon, interlocking. A sign of the passage of time and the eternity of magic!"

"Well, one of them. It's kind of like the Jesus Fish to the circle with the arrows being the cross," Sucy said.

"Let me write that down," Akko said, typing some memos to herself in her phone.

"Alright," Headmistress Holbrooke said in the shadow of the statue of Three-Faced Mormo, "now, we select who will take what role for the Ceremony Honoring Mormo!" The chapel was particularly cold and eerie on this night of all nights; the full moon shone through the window bearing one of Mormo's insigniae, the spotlight this created conspicuously avoided by the witches present. Given the terror Wordward famously felt for Mormo, the Blue Moon Abyss remained closed today.

"I volunteer first," Daryl Cavendish said, stepping forward from the small group of witches present.

"Ah, yes! A good fit for the Mother, given your-" Holbrooke said.

"No, no. I will be the Maiden."

Amanda forced a wider smile. "Traditionally the youngest candidates are selected, and further, you did say that you were expecting, yes?"

"Of course," Daryl said, indicating the slit in her wintery dress showing her pubic tattoo of Yig's holy symbol, a white crescent. "Did I not just obtain a 'licentious crest' that the kids these days are all about?"

Diana, who was of course in the running for performing a ritual in the honor of the Triple Goddess, gagged.

"And can a Maiden not be pregnant as well? They're young and fertile after all!"

"In fairness," Finnelan said, "Diana Cavendish was indisposed at this time last year, and being the finest student at our school and part of the reason any of us are standing here today, perhaps you should allow her to play the part of the Maiden."

Daryl took a deep breath and said, "With that in mind, yes, Diana would be the logical choice... in fact, the best." She stepped towards the back of the crowd. "As you were, dear. (Though I humbly petition to be the Mother.)"

"Now," Holbrooke said, "the mother is likewise a difficult decision to make, especially-"

"-since I'm here to be the Crone," Lukic said, breaking into a cackle.

"I'm fine with her being that," Finnelan said.

"I, too," Amanda Holbrooke said.

Mrs. Manbavaran slithered ahead of the group. "It goes without saying that I should be the Mother. Who here has bore a dozen children, including one who has lamentably become a name to know in youth witchery?"

"Yeah, bitch!" Garie said, Mrs. Manbavaran rewarding her outburst with a slap from a fan she carried expressly for slapping. "Ow, hey!"

"We may have a few reasons to object," Holbrooke said. "Not to undermine your maternal authority, of course, but given you're a visitor to-"

"You are known to have cast lightning spells on your own children and we don't want that being the face we show to Mother Mormo," Chariot said, hand on her holstered wand. "Speaking bluntly."

"Hmph. This much is true," Mrs. Manbavaran lay the tip of her fan on her lips. "Of course, I can't nominate Garie and Sabi for the Maiden for reasons which should be obvious."

"I'm afraid those aren't," Holbrooke said against her better judgment.

"It's 'cuz we're guys!" Garie said.

"Yeah," Sabi said, "we're like boys who were born boys and think we're boys and mom just uses girl words 'cause she's embarrassed we're her husbands."

Everybody taking a drink-which by the grace of the Triple Goddess was virtually everyone, drinking hot cocoa or tea or toddy or taking an emergency nip from a flask-spat their drink out. The vast halls of the chapel echoed in a disbelieving clamor.

"Well, let us not talk falsely now," Mrs. Manbavaran quoted, though she slapped both of her husbands with a little extra english.

"Ow! But also we're both Tcho-Tcho so it helps hide that Sucy is our GROSS-ASS LIL' HALF-BREED BABY!" Garie said.

"Yeah, 'cause it takes two guys' mouthparts and one lady to make a Tcho-Tcho baby!" Sabi said. "Come on, look at my scary mouth danglies-" Mrs. Manbavaran shocked the shit out of both of them while going on a lengthy and brutal diatribe in Tagalog.

"Love of the Lorn Mother, can we please move on?" Chariot said, trying to not imagine anything she just learned.

"If I were to be so bold," Holbrooke said, "I propose that Prof. du Nord be the Mother for this year. It was, after all, her tutelage of Ms. Kagari that led to the saving of humanity."

"I, er..." Chariot cleared her throat. "I appreciate the gesture, but let's not forget-"

"Chariot," Amanda said, "nobody has ever lived a life without regrets. Your courage and example saved countless lives. If anyone deserves to be the Mother, it's you."

"I... well.. thank you." Chariot adjusted her glasses. "There's just the little, you know..." She traced the four-pointed star symbol blasted onto the moon's face.

"Ah, you know how the elder gods are about physical injury. She probably hasn't even noticed. Now come on, let's get you dressed up."

The door to the Archives swung open, and the student body stepped in, roommates arm in arm three at a time.

"Is this why it's three people to a room?" Akko said, with Sucy at her left and Lotte at her right. "Magic witch lucky numbers nad all that?"

Sucy shrugged.

"Bet it is. Calling it, lockin' it down!"

The cavernous ceiling of the archives echoed with the clicking of hundreds of footsteps and the sussurus of whispers. The ambient light was gently blue, the stone floor gently uneven in its wear, and the ambient mana tinged with a certain religious dread: the fear of god.

Amanda Holbrooke stood on a small pulpit before the statue of Mormo. In the spotlight formed by the goddess-moon, side-by-side stood Diana, the Maiden, dressed in a black mourning dress with a gauzy veil, a blindfold over her eyes bearing a rat skull stitched into the fabric over each eye; Chariot, the Mother, in a brown and green dress fringed with owl feathers and bearing a choker with an owl's talons sutured in; and Lukic, the Crone, in eye-searing clashes of color, crawling with live spiders and wearing muffs over her ears. She carried a shorn lamb in her arms with notable ease given her age and visible, even pungent decrepitude.

The students filed into rows guided by their teachers. The murmuring had faded to nothing and the echoing sounds of people shuffling into position was now quieter than it should have been. Akko was incapable of waving with her arms both occupied, but she did jump up a little bit so Diana could see where she was. It was much later before Akko put together that maybe, just maybe, Diana couldn't see her through the blindfold.

The teachers and faculty took their place around the chapel. Amanda Holbrooke raised her wand and cast a silent spell, a green mist rising from the icy floor.

Diana, shoulders square, voice level spoke: "O friend and companion of the night, thou who rejoicest in the baying of dogs and spilt blood..."

Lukic, hunched, voice purring, spoke: "...who wanderest in the midst of shades among the tomb, who longest for blood and bringest terror to mortals..." She lay the goat down before Chariot. Chariot slipped a long, silver-bladed knife free from a hidden place in her dress.

Akko closed her eyes.

Diana and Lukic spoke: "...Gorgo, Mormo, thousand-faced moon, look favorably upon our sacrifices."

Chariot killed the lamb, not in an especially swift way from the sound of it.

"Lillith," said Diana, "Great Lilith, behold the Congregation."

The lamb's noises came to a croaking halt. There was a presence here. Akko opened her eyes and regretted it immediately and thoroughly.

The image of Mormo loomed in the moonbeam, blocking the window and yet allowing the light to pass through. Their form was human-like, though her arms reaching through her long, tattered sleeves were gnarled, thorned roots woven into the imitation of a human hand. Her body was lumpen, misshapen, swaddled in sackcloth and still-wet hides; her face was hidden by a hood. Her legs ended in strips of torn flesh. In silence, Mormo floated down the moonbeam, coming to a stop behind Diana, Chariot (who stood once more, sleeves and chest splashed with blood), and Lukic.

The goddess's avatar pulled back her hood, revealing the face of a young woman of no clear race. Her eye sockets had been nibbled clean by tiny sharp teeth and her face was marred with a vicious, still-wet wound in the shape of the scar on the moon.

"I hear the conjuration, and I choose to grace this place with my presence. Who here has called Our Lady of Darkness?" Her voice was a throaty whisper that reverberated in Akko's ears like a plucked violin string.

"It is I," Diana said, not looking back. "Though I see not, I see the truth of you, Daughter Mormo, Our Lady Of Darkness. You who are the spring and summer, the time of birth and growth. Forever young, may you bless our daughters and sons. May your questants seek tirelessly to better themselves and this dying earth." She was trembling.

Mormo said, placing gnarled hands on Diana's shoulders. "The truth of you cannot hide in my blindness. Diana Cavendish... the wise princess, the occult paladin, ever hunted by a deeper darkness. I taste cold death in your dreams. I hear echoes of your other selves consumed and remade in a perfect final shape. I taste inevitability. Perhaps you are doomed to fall into the open maw of fate and be consumed. Perhaps you are doomed to struggle all your life and never know escape from struggle. Diana, daughter of the daughters of Beatrix, may you live through dark days." She took her hands off of Diana and the young witch shivered, crossing her arms over her chest.

The goddess donned her hood again and loomed behind Lukic. After a long moment where her body flexed and spasmed underneath her swaddling, she once again pulled it off. Her second face had the texture of cracked parchment, drawn taut to the point of tearing over old, stained bones. Spiders nested in her ears, across and inside her cracked skull, down a lipless mouth. Her palet was cleft in the shape of the lunar scar.

"Who else has called my name out to the endless night?" she said. Her voice was rough as shark hide. She placed a hand on Lukic's chest.

"It is I," Lukic said, eyes flitting behind her and a satisfied smirk lighting her face. "You may not hear me, but I hear you, Grandmother Mormo, Our Lady Of Tears. You who are winter, the time of sleep and death. Forever dying, never dead, may your cold hand not be stayed too long in our twilight years. May your questants seek tirelessly to steal the suffering of death and bring it to the living."

"Marija Lukic... a child of a bitter century. Your bones are old, your guts worn thin. The pain of others is the only delight left to you... how sweet this wine of agony. Go forth and live forever in the nightmares of your students. Daughter of the daughters of Karna, may you live through dark days."

Lukic giggled. The elder goddess floated behind Chariot. Once again she changed faces. When she revealed her last face, throwing her hood down behind her, more than one witch in attendance grew violently ill.

Her eyes were motherly and soft, gently wrinkled; her cheekbones high and strong; and her jaw torn clean away, along with it the skin of her neck and upper chest, the raw, blood-pouring wound the shape of Nesting in the wide-open gap, clenched in a nest of pulsing muscles and slickend with blood, was a near-bald, hollow-eyed owl. It shrieked, a noise not quite words. And yet their intent was clear.

"It is I," Chariot said, trying to keep her voice steady and not doing a very good job of it. "You cannot speak to me, but I speak for you, Mother Mormo, Our Lady of Sighs. You who are the fall, the time of growth and fertility. Forever nursing, may your care be with every mother gripped with doubt. May your questants..."

Mother Mormo closed her mighty hands around Chariot's neck and she squeezed, lifting her up. Chariot grabbed at the goddess's powerful hands but could do nothing but pound against them ineffectually. Diana and Lukic stumbled away, Diana falling on her side, Lukic simply giving the goddess plenty of room.

"HEY!" Akko said, yanking her arms free from Sucy and Lotte's grasp, "LEAVE HER ALONE!" She pushed through the witches in front of her 'til she was out in front, yanking her wand out of its holster. She felt a vibration of energy from Mother Mormo and the wand flew away, clattering down the hall a good hundred yards to her right.

"Bye, Akko," Sucy said, softly, with full sincerity.

Mormo relented in her grip, just enough for Chariot to take shrill, terrified breaths, and cast her sorrowful gaze on Akko. The swaddling at Mormo's side shifted; brambled fingers ripped through the fabric and the face of the Crone peered through. "This cailleach has insulted the Ladies," she said. "We gave her the soul of seven teeth and she scarred our faces." Chariot thrashed in her grasp, struggling for breath.

"Well, she was mad! And she didn't know! That's her bad, but-I mean, she did destroy some NASA stuff, but they sent more people to the moon to replace the stuff and people were excited about that! And animals stopped freaking out after a couple years so nature didn't even get hurt either! If that's all that happened and you're some kind of nutso goddess chick that doesn't get hurt by anything, then that couldn't even have hurt all that much!"

The Maiden's face gnawed free of the goddess's other side. "Who are you to tell us what we should feel when our own gift to witchdom is turned upon us?"

"I, uh... because I'm a badass and I saved the world recently. And you helped! With the Shiny Rod and stuff!"

"Akko, please, you don't have to..." Diana said.

"'Saved...'" The goddesses laughed, and the Mother tucked Chariot into the bloody hollow of her chest (bet it was a snug fit for the owl). "If you were to honor me, you would have let the world burn and danced in the ashes. What greater sacrament would there be? What more lovely a gift? What a beautiful thing you ripped from the womb. Come, little child..." The goddess's spare faces ripped free from their clothes, three bodies meeting at what may charitably be described as a hip, a multitude of thorny limbs growing from their sides, some terminating in talons, others in grasping vines, others in fanged maws. "Shall I embrace you?"

Akko felt an expectant sensation in her right hand. She grasped and the familiar weight of the Shiny Rod filled it. "Phaidoari Afairynghor!" She swung the axe down into the floor, embedding the blade. "Gimmie a hug, bitch!"

The Mothers of Darkness, Tears, and Sighs rushed at her, clamboring along on many limbs, and Akko leaped to meet them, smashing at the crone-head.

The avatar's oldest head cracked like an eggshell and decayed into green magic, but a mighty oaken limb snatched her out of the air and smashed her onto the ground, next to the dead lamb. A mawed tentacle slurped the sacrifice into its mouth and crunched it down in an instant.

"Meep," Akko said.

"Murowa!" Diana said, a twinned casting of the attack spell blasting the mouth-limb right in the teeth.

"Diana!" Akko said.

"Yes, Akko, it's me!" Diana said, holding both her and Akko's wands in hand (probably having used magic to retrieve Akko's wand in the first place, Akko guessed!). "Now hold still!" She blasted the tentacle grappling Akko with twin fire-lance spells, burning her free. Those witches brave enough to join the fight pitched spells at the raging avatar, curses and blasts winnowing down its reserves.

"Hey, Mama Mormo, you look thirsty!" Sucy said. "Have some of that good sip!" She pitched a minotaur-rated potion at the Maiden, an entire flask. Her flesh sizzled and her wood burst into flame at contact with the ludicrously deadly spell, and the faculty followed the attack up with a barrage of their deadliest spells, obliterating the body.

The remaining third lifted itself up proudly, bearing the trapped Chariot. "You fight well," she said, with a voice that rattled her bones like distant, ear-shatteringly-loud bass reverberating through the ground. "In honor of your accomplishments I shall offer this one a peaceful death."

"Oh no you won't," Akko said, casting Noctu Orfei Aude Fraetor.

"Phrasing!" Lotte said.

"As you wish." Chariot shrieked in pain as black magic crept up her limbs and towards her face.

"Crap!" Akko said. "Chariot, hold still, I got you-"

Mother Mormo grew a pair of fleshy, root-wrought wings that sprayed a deadly and eye-searing bullet curtain of magic blasts at her attackers, scattering the witches who stood their ground and fought, pushing them into cover with the witches who were perhaps smarter than the ones who fought. Akko focused on drawing an energy bolt back to loose at the goddess, only for her wings to angle entirely at her.

She dodged, or tried to, but a hundred sizzling bolts of force tore through her, each feeling like it dragged away a chunk of her soul. When the fussilade ended, Ako was left smoldering, flesh streaked black, her grip on the Shiny Rod loose. "Chariot..." she gasped, dropping the weapon and falling to her knees. "Chariot, hang in there. I'm almost... I'm..."

"Son of a bitch," Sucy said from behind a spell-pocked pillar, "now would be a great time for a Christmas miracle."

Mormo stepped up to Akko. Already her destroyed pieces were growing, the Crone and Maiden looking upon her with distinctive looks of hunger. Chariot was nearly dead in her grasp. "Akko," she whimpered. "Akko... are you here...?"

"Chariot, hang on..." Akko felt for the fallen Claiomh Solais, but wooden limbs were already dragging her up. "I've got this. I swear I... I swear I..."

"Atsuko Kagari, former bearer of the Claoimh Solais," Mormo said, "what do you possibly see in the worth of this pitiful creature?"

Akko narrowed her eyes at the goddess of witches. "I see the woman who made me into a hero. I see someone I should've never forgiven but who I love with all my heart. So if you're gonna kill us, I hope you've got some seats polished up in Heaven, 'cause we're gonna go there and we're gonna flush towels all night long."

"Akko..." Chariot said, managing to smile.

"Akko..." the Mother said, making a truly gruesome noise with her throat.

"Akko..." the Maiden said.

"Akko..." the Crone said.

"Pardon?" Akko said.

"...did it get warmer in here?" Lotte said.

The goddess loosened her grip on Chariot. Bit by bit, her regular color returned.

"So... that's a change of heart on killing us?" Akko said.

"You called to me, and we came," the Mother said.

"The weight of your hearts are the fires which stoke our presence," the Maiden said.

"Your desires the strings which guide this puppet's motions," the Crone said.

"So, you giving Diana some kinda spooky pep talk, and telling Lukic to scare people, and..." Akko managed to get paler. "Chariot... don't tell me..."

Chariot's small smile faltered.

Akko sniffled. "You... oh man, is this one of those Christmas suicide thingeys I hear so much about? I can't believe I'm actually here for one! After all the amazing stuff that's happened these past couple of years you still wanna... you know..."

"Sometimes," Chariot said. "I know I should be forgiving myself, but it's... it's so hard... thinking about what I've done to you... about how I lied to you... all those awful things..." Thorny tentacles approached her neck.

"Hey, shoo, shoo!" Akko said, gesturing with her head, and the tentacles listened. "Anyway! Chariot, I'm not a doctor or anything, so I don't wanna say anything stupid that might backfire, but I can tell you this: if you weren't here I wouldn't be here and none of us would be here. So no matter how bad you feel you gotta remember that we love you and we need you so if you get the urge, tell us, or call somebody, or whatever it takes, because if you were gone everything would be worse."

There was a brief silence. Akko began whistling "God Only Knows."

Mormo set Chariot and Akko on the ground, and Akko caught her teacher as she fell.

"Thank you," Chariot said, hugging her.

"Any time, teach," Akko said, hugging back.

Diana joined the pile and hugged them both.

The avatar of Mormo turned to the full moon and vanished into the moonlight.

"So, uh, nothing like an apology from Mormo or anything?" Akko said.

"We're alive, that's as much as an apology as the gods give," Diana said, smiling grimly.

"No wonder Conan was super grumpy at 'em all the time," Akko said.

"I think I need a shower," Chariot said.

"Here," Finnelan said, helping the lot of them up. "There's a hidden one in the chapel. Don't ask."

"I'll scare up some clothes!" Badcock said.

"And I'll brew some hot toddy," Lukic said.

Jasminka cleared her throat.

"I'll let the fat one brew us some hot toddy," Lukic said.

"That's better," Jasminka said.

"Well!" Amanda Holbrooke said, "That was one of the least-eventful Mormo Days I've seen in my life! Congratulations, everyone, that was a nice and tidy summoning. And, ah, Chariot, sweetie, if you need someone to talk to, I'm always available."

"Same here, hon," Finnelan said.

Badcock ruffled a bit, but let the feeling go. Emotions ran high on Mormo Day among survivors and ghosts alike.

"Well," Akko said. "what else do you do on Mormo Day?"

"Get drunk and try to forget Mormo Day," Sucy said.

"Hell yeah. Let's do it."