Note: The magic ritual used in this chapter is not a real ritual, per se, but is based upon my years of research into occult practices of MANY spiritual paths. It is loosely inspired by the calling of the four watchtowers.
Evie's path is inspired by Norse and Germanic witchcraft.
Ginny's is inspired by Italian and Dianic Witchcraft.
Hadie's is inspired by Greek mythology and Greek pantheon-based witchcraft.
Carlos' magic is inspired by Goetic and Solomonic Witchcraft.
Jay's is based on Egyptian mythology and magick (partially because Agrabah as seen in the animated movie seems inspired by both Egypt and Arabia).
Mal's is based on Celtic gods and Arthurian lore.
Freddy of course, was inspired by voodoo, a very real spiritual path that I tried to portray correctly as well as I can within the confines of a fictional story. The voodoo portrayed in this story is more accurate to life than the portrayal in TKaD.
Present Day: 36 Days After Coronation
"It is not enough to pretend that your wax image is the person you want to bewitch; you must make a real connection. That is the whole art of magic, to be able to do that;"
- Aleister Crowley, Moonchild
Mal and Jane were together for another magic practice session, and it was going very well, better than Mal had hoped. Evie was off on another, equally important mission, and Ben had gone with her. It was sort of a date, and Mal hoped that time alone would help them figure out how they felt about each other, without Mal hovering around and confusing them. It was easier when they were both sharing Mal - Ben and Evie worshipped her, and seemed to be content with the way things were, but they'd both agreed to try making it a real three-part relationship, where Ben and Evie loved each other as much as they loved Mal. It would take time to get up to that point, but the groundwork was already there. They had more in common than their love of the color blue, and they'd had chemistry since day one.
Mal forced herself back to the lesson with Jane, which was taking place in the kitchen - the same kitchen where Mal created the first love spell.
"So this is what made Ben go cuckoo for a while, huh?" Jane asked stirring the mixture deosil. Deosil meant 'counter-clockwise', but it was used long before the invention of clocks, back when the only way to tell time was the passing of the sun. Deosil meant drawing things together, mixing and blending, and making things new.
"Yeah. At first, it was so ridiculous, I thought for sure that someone would notice, but apparently it's normal to break out into song around here." Mal quipped, rolling her eyes.
"It's encouraged." Jane laughed. "As a way to explain how we're feeling."
Mal made a fake gagging noise, and rested her head on her hand, elbow propped against the stainless steel counter.
"Are you really okay with this Jane? I... I know you weren't raised the way I was. You see the world differently, and I don't want you to regret it later."
She was mostly lying through her teeth, because she needed Jane's power, and she wanted Chad to suffer for what he'd done to her Evie. But Jane, as always, surprised her. There was a sharpness, a coldness in her eyes that was so lonely, and familiar.
"I'm more sure than I have ever been about anything." Jane replied. "Did I ever tell you that Chad and I used to be friends?"
"No, I didn't know..." Mal replied softly.
"We grew up together, since my mother was friends with his mother. It happens a lot with people who went through the same stories together." Jane explained, very evenly, and calmly, even though she was breaking inside. Mal was reminded keenly of her mother, and how she had become 'friends' with Jafar and Cruella and Grimhilde because of their shared experiences.
"But when he got older, I grew into my magic. And if that wasn't bad enough, he grew handsomer and taller every day, and I had to work harder to hide my faerie-ness." Jane explained, and she set the bowl down, trembling too hard to hold it anymore. "I had to start wearing these big dumb dresses to hide my wings, and cut my hair to lay perfectly over my ears, and suddenly, I was too ugly and plain and weird to hang out with him any more. By the time we got to fifth grade, he told me..."
Jane's voice broke, and a single, hot tear fell into the mixing bowl before she could stop it.
"He told me, we couldn't be friends any more," More tears came, and Mal felt something odd. Something she'd never felt for someone outside her coven.
She felt deep, heartwrenching sympathy. It was the same way she felt when Uma slapped her on the docks as children. When she'd been called a dyke by her best friend. Mal stood up from her seat, and wrapped Jane up in her arms.
"Jane." She whispered, and the other girl looked up with eyes as blue and bright as the moon.
"We will make him pay." Mal growled under her breath, and those five words were all Jane needed.
"So, are you ready to do this?" Evie asked, and Ben took a deep breath, adjusting his tie and hair.
"As ready as I'll ever be." He laughed. "Why are you asking me, anyway? I've been doing charity work since I was a baby."
"Because you wear your heart on your sleeve." Evie replied, more fondly than she originally meant to sound. It was one of her favorite things about Ben, how honest and kind he was. "I just want to really discover what people in Auradon feel, and..."
She trailed off. And if they hate your parents, I don't want you to have a heart attack. She thought.
"It's okay Evie." Ben smiled at her, and he meant it, like he meant every reassuring smile he'd ever given. "I want to know the truth, and if the truth is painful, I'm ready to accept that."
Mal had a theory that the villains weren't the only ones suffering in Auradon, and she wanted Ben and Evie to go out information-gathering under the guise of charity work. Because one of the best options for an invader (according to Mal's interpretation of Machiavelli) was to be seen as the outsider-hero, she hoped there was discontent for them to work with. Their plan didn't depend on it, but it would help a lot.
If Adam or Belle or anyone else commanded an army to attack their alliance, Mal wanted them to be fond of their three rulers and indebted to them, so they wouldn't turn on the good queen who'd been kind to them and gave them food when they were hungry, or the warrior queen who protected them from dragons and evil, or the benevolent king who listened to their woes when his father only turned them away.
So here they were, at a soup kitchen. Not only to donate money, food, and time, but to talk with people and be kind to them, and hear why they had fallen on hard times.
"If we're ready, then there's just one more thing to do." Evie nodded, in a way that felt like finality. She pulled the little potion bottle from her skirt pocket, and sprayed a single spritz on Ben and then herself. It was the charisma potion he'd used before meeting with his father, and it would help people open up to them without being as compulsive as the love potion had been.
Ben and Evie strode through the double doors with trays of food to hand out, and they looked like nothing so much as two kind-hearted kids who wanted to make a difference in their country, and the people loved it.
"So, if you don't mind me asking, why are you here at a soup kitchen?" Evie asked, polite and patient, and with a voice that made people want to talk with her. Many of them were very proud, and didn't want to talk about their hardship, because they were so used to people telling them that they were poor because they didn't try hard enough. But unlike most Auradon princesses, Evie knew what it was like to be poor, and she knew how it could be through circumstances no fault of your own, or because you had made one mistake, and never got to live it down.
"I was laid off after the housing bubble collapsed." An middle-aged man explained to Evie. "After Auradon was formed, the revenue from the union and from the seized property of villains made everyone rich. Then that money stopped coming in after the initial rush, and all of us who were hired to build new, bigger houses got fired. I went to school to learn one skill, and all I know is carpentry. Now no one needs carpenters, except to build furniture and specialty items, and I'm no good at that."
"I made a mistake when I was a kid, and got sent to prison." Another man told Evie, and he looked nothing like a felon - aside from a few tattoos, he looked clean-cut and respectable. "I did my time, and thanked my lucky stars I didn't get sent to the Isle instead. If my crime had been ruled pre-meditated instead of a crime of passion, I'd be sent to the Isle in a heart beat, and if I lived in Charmington, I'd be there anyway."
Even Evie gaped in surprise at that. She knew that everyone on the Isle wasn't a major villain, but it had never occurred to her that instead of serving their time in a jail, some criminals just got sent to the Isle for the rest of their natural lives.
"So I did my time, and I learned from my mistakes in prison. Honestly? The structure and the routine helped me a lot." The man sighed, and then he laughed, a little bitterly. "But when I got out, I discovered that no one wants to hire a felon, even a reformed felon. And I'm required by law to inform any potential employers that I was in prison, and why."
"I was in between jobs, and I couldn't pay my bills." A woman explained to Ben as she ate her meal. "But once I was living out of my car, it was hard to find out about jobs I could apply for without the internet, and then I hadn't showered for days, and everytime I went to an interview, my clothes were wrinkled from being put on in the dark in my cramped little car, and I smelled like an unwashed monkey. Then my car got seized too, and... Now I live in a homeless shelter."
It went on and on, and by the end of the afternoon, Ben and Evie knew everything they needed to know. People left the soup kitchen with the distinct impression that someone out there cared about them. The king himself, and his girlfriend's best friend had come and listened to their problems, and compassionately reminded them that they were human beings, and worthy of a good life.
And for the conspirators who planned to take over Auradon, everything was falling into place.
It was a Saturday, and that meant that tonight, they were going to do a ritual.
The original four VKs and their new arrivals had told everyone that they planned to have a Villain-Kids only night, kind of a "Your Mom's an Evil Dragon" support group. Dizzy wasn't technically a member of the coven, but she couldn't very well be left out of VK night. She stayed behind in the dorm and watched movies while she served as lookout for the seven young people who were conducting a ritual in the magical room of a closet.
And when they entered the ritual space, they felt the magic stir within them, and Mal smiled.
"It's time."
They all sat in a circle, hands linked together, sitting cross-legged as if they were meditating. Mal led the ritual, as their coven leader. It was the way things had always been. When she sat at the head of their circle, eyes glowing alight with magic, and her hair blown around her in a windless breeze, they all fell in love with her a little bit, even the ones who weren't attracted to her (Freddie), even the ones who weren't attracted to women (Carlos). And the ones who had loved Mal before fell in love with her again (Hadie, Evie, Jay, Ginny), because their magic called out to her in a way that resonated deep within them, running back and forth between them in currents, growing momentum and power when it bounced around inside their ribcages and the marrow of their bones.
"My will is the whole of the law." Mal intoned, and her hair shone like a sunset right before dusk; red and purple and shimmering with stars.
"Our will is the law, love under will." The others replied at the same time, their voices were harmony in the echoing room.
"By the power of seven, the will of seven." Mal began the next part of the spell, breathing deeply of the magic in the air, and letting it gather with her coven, massing together between them like a rolling, living thing. Far away, on the Isle of Lost, divorced from their coven, Uma and Harry felt the oddest tickling of power in the backs of their minds, but everytime they tried to focus, it slipped away. It was like seeing a shadow move in your peripheral vision, but once you turned to get a closer look, it seemed to be nothing. Back in Auradon, the other six chanted after Mal, as one voice.
"By the power of seven, the mixing of seven." Every voice replied to Mal.
"The magic of seven, patrons above them, arrayed in glory." Mal called, and it was time to invoke the spirits and deities that each of their magicks associated with death, starting with the one to the left of Mal: Evie.
"I call forth Hela, who watches the dead. She who takes all, the shunned from Valhalla, I invoke her." Evie murmured quietly, and the air around her grew cold, and stale, and dark, even though there wasn't any visible change. It was only her aura that had darkened.
Next came Freddie, to the left of Evie.
"I call forth Baron Samedi, the original shadow man. Keeper of the dead, watcher of the crossroads, I invoke him." As she spoke the last words, Freddie threw her head back, and breathed out a wisp of smoke, as if she had taken a puff from a cigar, though she had none. There was an odd light in her eyes, and Evie could smell liquor on her breath, though Freddie never drank - it was all part of her invocation. More than any of them, when Freddie summoned her loas, she was possessed by them - it was how Voodoo worked, and the cigar smoke and alcohol was a well-known sign of the Baron's arrival.
Next was Ginny, to the left of Freddie, and even though she was a witch, her style of witchcraft was different than Evie's and different than Uma's and Harry's.
"I call forth Diana, the maiden, mother and crone. The lady of darkness, queen of the moon, I invoke her." Ginny intoned with her eyes closed, and when she opened them, they shone with the light of the harvest moon, and all around her there was darkness and light, cold and white like moonbeams.
Next came Hadie, to the left of Ginny. She smirked a little - it was odd to summon the aura of her father and mother like gods, when she only knew them as they were on the Isle, mom and dad.
"I call forth Hades and Persephone, the king and queen of the dead, guardians of the rivers of death. Rulers of the underworld, I invoke them." Her hair lit brighter than it had ever been before, and whipped around her face in a wind, like a phoenix that had just been reborn from the ashes. Her eyes glowed blue as coals in the center of a blaze, and all around her was the smell of earth and flame, and the things below the ground, waiting to grow.
Next came Jay, to the left of Hadie.
"I call forth Osiris, ever born, ever dying. He who guides souls across the river Nile, to the afterlife, I invoke him." And Jay showed his magic the least of all of them, but his aura was hot, like desert sands, and refreshing, like swimming in a pool after working in the sun. He felt young and virile, and full of life, and it nearly blew Carlos away, sitting to the left of him. He had to pull it together to call his own patron the way the others had. Jay had never had this kind of reaction on the Isle, even across the circle, Evie could sense that everything about him was golden and regal, and she saw him in an entirely different light than the boy who joked with her and played tourney on the weekends.
"I call forth Astaroth, destroyer of life." Carlos began, his voice wavering, before he hit his stride - his patron was the most chaotic, the most powerful, the most deadly. Just like Carlos, she was beautiful and strange, and delighted in chaos. "The Green Butterfly, Keeper of Mysteries, Prince of the Apocalypse, I invoke thee."
As he stated the last incantation, Carlos seemed to be cast in a pale green fire that flickered over his skin like an image from a projector. His eyes held a strange light that was uncanny, the kind of light that was uncomfortable to look at.
Finally, it came back to Mal, and they were all alive and crawling with magic, and a nimbus of golden light surrounded her, choking her on it, and making her eyes go wide with the power.
"I call forth Morrigan!" Mal nearly screamed, and they were so caught up in it all that they didn't even think to be glad that Mal had magically sound-proofed her workshop. They were too caught up in the magic to pull themselves out of it now, like a riptide that swept them under and back up again, only long enough to catch a breath.
"Queen of the Fae! Lady of the Lake! The one who pulled the boy-king to your bosom when he died, and hid yourself as Morgana when he needed you near him - Goddess of Ravens! Keeper of Magic and The Law! I invoke thee!" Mal screamed, her throat raw, like she had once screamed over a blood circle in an alley of the Isle of the Lost, like she had once screamed all night on the winter solstice, white and cold and broken into shards like an ice-covered lake.
"We invoke thee!" The others cried out in response, and the magic screamed around them like a real living thing, so thick they could feel it, and Mal's magic swept them all away, and kept them all rooted, taking their strength and making it stronger - making everything stronger, and halfway across Auradon, in a blue and golden suite, King Adam screamed.