Chapter 1: Crystals and Ghost Peppers

Violet Byrne leaned back in the chair and propped her bare feet on the porch railing as she sipped her hot chai tea and enjoyed the warm morning sun that was just beginning to peek over the top of the trees. Life could not get much better than this, she thought. She smiled as she watched Chi-chi and Nori stalk a butterfly warming itself on a rock by the path leading to her cabin. Chi-chi was crouching in the brush, the only movement in her body was the flicking end of her calico tail. Violet couldn't see her eyes from the porch but was sure the yellow-green irises were just a thin circle of color around her dilated pupils. A few feet away, Nori was perched on a bird feeder, her long white whiskers fanned out from her head like a satellite dish. Like Chi-chi, both of her tails flicked with excitement.

Chi-chi launched her attack first, springing from her crouch and sprinting the few feet to the stone, but the butterfly fluttered into the air just in time, flittering over her head and up into the clear summer sky. Nori kicked off from the feeder just a second later, her wings unfurling and lifting her up and over the cat as she snatched the fleeing insect from the air.

Chi-chi let out a sorrowful meow as her prey disappeared and the fae creature hovered in the air over her joyfully crunching the butterfly.

"Nori," Violet chided gently, "that wasn't nice."

The fae flew over to the porch rail and landed near Violet's feet and began to groom herself, purring just like the cat she resembled, if you could ignore the gossamer wings and double tail. Oh, and the fact that she was a lovely marbled purple tabby. Like all fae, she was invisible to most of the non-mythic world unless she chose to be seen. Usually, she was sociable with the cat, but she took a lot of pleasure in robbing Chi-chi of her catches.

The disgruntled cat hopped up on the rail next to the fae and copied her grooming. For the next several minutes, Violet sat with just the purring of her two companions.

Finishing her tea, she pulled her feet from the railing, ignoring the irritated looks shot her way, and stood up, stretching the kinks out of her body. Though she was still in her prime at 60, sitting still for too long always left her stiff.

"Well, kids," she scratched both behind their ears, "I guess I need to do some baking this morning before I do anything else."

Stepping back into her cabin, she crossed the single room that comprised the living area, dining room and kitchen. Despite the rustic setting, the interior of the cabin was a direct reflection of Violet's vibrant tastes. Soft, colorful rugs covered the hardwood floors; paintings and tapestries adorned every inch of open wall space; sculptures, bowls, vases, and books filled every flat surface. Plants abound throughout the space, from herbs, to flowering plants, to decorative woody varieties. Where it should have been an assault on the eyes, the colors complemented each other and created a warm, peaceful space to relax or work.

Selecting appropriately peaceful music on her phone, she connected it to her Bluetooth speaker, letting the opening melody of a Delerium song fill the air as she her mixer and bowls out of the cupboards. Starting with her basic shortbread recipe, she mixed the dough in two batches: one with fresh lemon juice, zest, and mint, the other with fresh peaches and lavender. Wrapping both in cheesecloth, she set them in the refrigerator to rest. Next, she mixed a French bread dough with rosemary and olive oil. After kneading it, she covered it with a cloth and set it near the window to rise.

With those tasks done, Violet checked the time. She still had three more hours before she could check on the latest artifact. It had been charging for almost a week now and she was eager to see if she succeeded. She was skilled in creating simple runic spells, but creating artifacts was more difficult, requiring more patience than she normally had. The last three she had attempted had failed dismally. This time, she had mediated for an hour before she began to achieve the proper mindset needed for the tedious drawing of the complex runic combinations and lines of power that made up the array. For over five hours between moonrise and midnight, she had labored. Exhausted but happy, she had crawled into bed afterwards feeling like she had succeeded. Today would be the day she found out if she was right.

Picking up a book, she settled on the couch to wait.

Outside the cabin, an iridescent pair of eyes watched as the aroma of baked goods filled the air. Soon they were joined by another set, and then another. By the time Violet pulled the first batch of cookies from the oven, nearly half a dozen fae peered out of the shadows around the cabin.

Once all the cookies were baked and cool enough to transfer to plates, Violet took them outside to the porch and set them on a table next to the rail. Each lemon-mint cookie had a rune for luck carved into its surface prior to baking and the lavender-peach cookies had healing runes. Plucking a lemon-mint cookie from the plate, Violet hummed to herself as she left them and went back in.

A few minutes passed, then one of the watching fae crept from its hiding spot and approached the cabin. Nimbly jumping over the steps, it approached the warm cookies, sniffing. Rising up on its toes, it brought its green face close to the treats, going back and forth between the two plates before selecting two of the lemon-mint cookies with its long, stick-like fingers. On the table beside the plate, it dropped a shiny stone it had found further up the mountain, then it retreated to the shelter of the forest.

Having let the wood sprite go first in case the offerings were a trap, the fae with the iridescent eyes approached next. Taking two of the healing cookies, it placed its token on the table then crept away, hugging the precious treats to its body. One by one, each of the fae creatures repeated the action. Each choosing one of two cookies and leaving a token for the witch that had made them. By the time the sun burned high in the sky, all the cookies were gone, and the table was littered with bits and pieces of offerings.

Shutting the oven door on the loaf of bread, Violet wiped her brow and pushed her long, black braid back over her shoulder, then started cleaning up the bowls and dishes she had used. Once the kitchen was back in order, she checked the clock. Her wait was up. Barely suppressing her excitement, she untied her apron and hung in neatly on its hook. Opening the door to the basement, she skipped down the stairs, turning on the light when she reached the bottom and surveyed the space.

The walls were close together forming a passageway that ran deeper into the mountain. Roughhewn from the rocky mountainside, they were exactly the way Violet's grandparents had found them over sixty years ago when they first came to this area to start their lives together. Violet's parents had added the lights in the 80's when they took over the family home. Following the passage down for about twenty meters, it opened up into a spacious cave complete with stalactites hanging from the ceiling. If there had once been matching stalagmites reaching up to meet them, they had been removed long ago, for the floor itself was smooth and flat, polished to a shining finish by decades of use.

Marring the smooth surface was a complex array with small piles of components arranged around it and a single quartz crystal at its heart. Stepping counterclockwise around the array, Violet crouched at the last rune she had marked out on the floor with charcoal and drew her finger across one of the lines, breaking it, thus stopping the charging power of the entire array. Only then was it safe to step across it and retrieve the artifact she had created.

The quartz crystal was as long as her palm and as slender as her smallest finger with threads of gold glittering throughout it. Along each of its narrow faces, she had spent hours carefully etching healing runes. Thrilled that it was still intact – the last three had shattered during the charging process – she said a quick prayer to the goddess then pulled a pocketknife out.

"Here goes nothing," she muttered, drawing the knife across the back of her forearm beside three similar scars. Blood beaded in the wound quickly then ran down her arm in rivulets.

"èist farsaing slènachadh"

Holding her breath, she watched as the crystal shimmered slightly then went dark while the cut on her arm dripped blood onto the smooth floor.

Violet sighed. Another failure. Pulling a strip of gauze from a nearby basket that she had prepared after her first failure, she wrapped it around the wound and contemplated her next steps.

Her family had always focused more on ritual and alchemy than artifacts, so Violet's training in the area had been little more than vague descriptions of specific artifacts that her forebearers had encountered during their lifetimes. What she had known about creating them had barely filled a single page of a grimoire when she had started exploring the discipline three decades ago.

Her fascination with artifacts had begun innocently enough when a wild fae had deposited an engraved stone on her doorstep. Through her spell component business, she had sent out queries to find out what the bit of carnelian did and had learned it was a simple spell that did little more than send out a tiny flame to start a fire. Through trial and error, she had learned that it required six hours to recharge between uses.

The stone and its incantation ensnared her imagination, but she had hesitated to pursue it further. She was descended from a long line of witches with poor to moderate skills; most had been no more than hedge witches, dispensing unguents and teas. Their grimoires detailed more of the local flora and fauna than potions and spells. With no ties to guilds, she had no one with the necessary skills to turn to for guidance; thus, the stone was tucked away for safekeeping, but not quite forgotten.

It wasn't until Violet received a package from a distant relative still living in Ireland containing the aged, fragile grimoires of two of her ancestors that had lived during the middle ages, that she realized her lineage used to be so much more. Diligently translating the volumes, she had learned more during the next year than in the first half of her life that she had spent learning from her mother and grandmother.

She had learned there was a whole world of magic out there just waiting for her to be brave enough to discover it. In addition to witches, there were druids that wielded the same kind of magic, but in a different way. Side by side, witches and druids had been the guardians of the land and the creatures, magical and mundane, that inhabited it. The author of the oldest grimoire, Daróma Fionnagáin, was the daughter of a witch and a druid, conceived during a solstice celebration.

A clamor and yowl from Chi-Chi jolted her out of her celebration. Tossing the used crystal into a basket with several others, Violet bounded up the stairs to rescue the cat from whatever mischief she had gotten into. Stopping at the door, she frowned at the tableau that greeted her.

Chi-chi and Nori had a wood sprite cornered by her oven, and the poor creature didn't look too good. Clutching a twisted and shriveled arm to its woody body, it brandished one of her wooden spoons in the other in an effort to ward off its assailants.

"Chi-Chi, Nori," she said as she stepped into the kitchen, "that's enough."

Pushing Chi-Chi back with her foot, earning a chuff from the feline, she approached the injured sprite slowly.

"Hey, little fellow," she cooed. "It's okay, I'm not going to let them hurt you."

Stopping about a meter from the creature, she knelt to be on its level.

"That arm looks bad," she told it. "Is that why you're here?"

The sprite nodded its head, the twigs and leaves on its crown rustling from the motion.

Violet held out her hand, palm up, "let me take a look at it."

Cautiously, the creature stepped forward and held out its twisted limb. She took it gently in her hands and leaned forward to examine it. Unlike the rest of the sprite's body, which seemed to be made up of vines and woody sticks and were healthy shades of green and brown, this limb was dull, the vines shriveled and yellowing, the sticks dry and brittle. Turning it over carefully, she peered at the underside.

"Hum," she hummed to herself, "I think I found the problem."

Near where an elbow would be on a human, there was a grayish-black spot about the size of her palm. The foliage close to it was dead and withered.

"This looks like some kind of blight. How long have you had this?"

When the sprite didn't answer, Violet looked over her shoulder to Nori, "can you ask when he thinks this started?"

Nori fluttered up to land on her shoulder and peered at the fae with her sparkling pink eyes. After a moment she rubbed her head against Violet's cheek and images filled her head. Dark trees flashed by as the fae ran through the forest as the full moon shined down on him, illuminating his path. Small, twiggy hands reaching out to gather mushrooms and stuffing them in his mouth. A patch of trees that were dead or dying. The fae stumbling and falling against one then running under the moon again.

"Okay, thanks," Violet absently petted Nori's head. "The full moon was just a week ago."

Releasing the sprite's arm, she stood.

"It's going to take a day, but I can make something to take care of it. Can you come back tomorrow morning?"

The fae nodded, its eyes brightened with a spark of hope.

"Then I'll get to work on it. Until then, try not to touch anything with that arm, especially any of your kin, got it?"

Another nod, then the creature scurried past her and out her door. After it was gone, Violet turned to Nori.

"Can you find that stand of trees?"

Nori rubbed her cheek again and she felt the positive answer.

"Just be careful and don't touch anything."

With a chirp, Nori jumped off her shoulder and vanished.

"Well, Chi-Chi, looks like we've got work to do."

Chi-Chi didn't look impressed and stalked from the kitchen going to the door, then outside.

"Okay, I guess it's just me then," Violet smiled. This was something she knew she could do.

To the left of the refrigerator, an old hutch served as a pantry for her components. Opening one of the doors, she pulled out a worn copper cauldron along with a mortar and pestle. From a drawer, she withdrew a mason jar filled with dried peppers and parchment wrapped Oregon grape root. Depositing her supplies to the kitchen counter as the timer for her bread dinged, she grabbed a potholder and removed the fragrant loaf from the oven.

Her stomach gurgled suddenly, reminding her that she hadn't eaten yet. Torn between the warm bread and cure for the sprite, she hesitated until another gurgle convinced her to eat first, then mix the remedy.

Munching on a slice of bread wrapped around a freshly sliced tomato and lettuce, Violet stepped out onto her porch. The trays holding the cookies were empty and scattered around them were the offerings the wild fae had left in return. With her free hand, she sorted through them. A sprig of bitter cherry blossoms, some orange honeysuckle, a branch of black knotweed, sheep sorrel, fireweed, and two Jerusalem artichokes were among the plants and herbs left. She set aside a chunk of agate, two smoky quartz crystals, and a good-sized piece of petrified wood. Included in the offerings was a single hoop earring, rusted from exposure to the element; a barbie doll's head with all its hair clipped off; and an old mouse trap, minus the spring.

She smiled sadly at the last three. The wild fae thought that, since she was human, anything man-made would be welcome. It was sad that the amount of discarded garbage was increasing each year, even in this remote area. Three months ago, she had rescued a racoon with its head stuck in a jar.

Several acorns and pinecones rounded out the bounty. Except for the earring, doll head, and mouse trap, she could make use of everything on the table today. Licking the crumbs from her sandwich off her fingers, she held up her apron and brushed the items onto it to carry back into the house. As her hand swept the bunch of fireweed off, it encountered something hard hidden underneath the weed. Picking it up, Violet held it up into the sunlight.

It was an old skeleton key with a dark stone set in the bow. The work was delicate and intricate, making it a lovely item, but that wasn't what made Violet gasp and drop it back to the table. The key practically hummed with power. A few skilled witches could sense benevolence or malice through touch, but most needed to use a spell. It was always best not to mess with an unknown artifact until then. Using the knotweed branch, Violet pulled the key off the table and into her apron pocket. Humming to herself, she went back into the house, promptly forgetting about the artifact.

Setting the fae offerings to the side, Violet grabbed her grandmother's grimoire and flipped through its pages to find the recipe she needed. Propping the book open, she bustled about the kitchen and gathered the rest of the components she needed: garlic, lemon, and olive oil. Everything ready, she needed just one more ingredient. Going back to the hutch, she opened an ornamental box on it's cluttered top. Picking through her small cache of precious gems, she pondered which would be the most beneficial for this application. Picking up a small tanzanite stone, she held it up to the light. Though small, it was clear and shown in the sun with a blaze of cobalt blue.

"That's the one."

Grabbing a smaller mortar and pestle made of granite, she went back to the kitchen. Setting all her components and tools on the counter, she stepped back, closed her eyes, breathed in and out slowly, centering herself.

"Great goddess, mother of magic, fill me with your grace. Be with me as I draw on your sacred power. Allow my spell to be true and do no harm."

A feeling of peace filled her mind and she knew she was ready to begin. Placing the small gem in the mortar and ground it into a smooth powder while humming her favorite song. Placing the cauldron on her stove, she lit the burner under it and set the it to the lowest flame possible before adding a cup of fine olive oil. Leaving the oil to heat, she turned to the rest of the ingredients. Two ghost chili peppers, three cloves of garlic, and a shaving of the grape root went into the other mortar to be ground into a lumpy paste.

As Violet stirred in the paste, she chanted the lines from her grandmother's grimoire:

"Earth below, sky above

Fill the dark of night with love

The morning sun will take this blight

And will wake renewed again."

As she chanted, a faint current seemed to build upon her skin, making the hairs on her arms stand on end. A squeeze of lemon completed the living ingredients. Stirring the mixture until her eyes began to water from the peppers and garlic, she set the spoon aside and picked up the mortar with the crushed tanzanite. Sprinkling the shimmering blue powder into the cauldron, she chanted the remaining lines:

"The time has come

Renewed by Sun."

The powder floated on top of the mixture, then flashed and disappeared. The feeling of power flowing along her skin almost crackled, then dissipated with the powder. Confident her spell was successful, Violet turned the burner off under the cauldron, covered it with a clean towel, and set it aside to steep overnight.

Putting the grimoire away, she picked up her own and took it outside on the porch. Documenting both success and failure was a big part of her family's grimoires. Her forebearers' were full of their failures, contributing to their thickness. Her grandmother, Violetta, always said "a witch that fails is a witch that learns." If that was true, Violetta was a very learned witch! In a volume that was a good five inches thick of handwritten pages, she could count the number of successful spells on both hands. The potion she just finished and a ritual for blight were among the few, which is how she was able to recall them so quickly. Now that she thought about it, there were several pages in the grimoire about blight. She had skimmed over them when she read it the first time but now, maybe, it was worth taking another look at what her grandmother had to say on the subject.

Documenting her successes this morning and the visit by the wood sprite took just under an hour. As she was closing the book, Nori reappeared on the rail.

"Did you find it?"

Nori's wings fluttered and she landed on Violet's shoulder. Rubbing against her human, the fae transmitted what she had seen. Violet knew this section of the forest; it was a good place for a variety of mushrooms. She frowned; the area of infection was bigger than what the sprite had conveyed. Much bigger. And the fae had only been there a week ago.

"This is bad, Nori."

A flash from her familiar agreed.

With a sigh, Violet stood up. Nori's wings fluttered to maintain balance on her shoulder.

"Looks like I've got some reading to do."

Dinner consisted of a salad and more of the bread because she didn't want to stop reading long enough to cook. Her grandmother had run into a serious outbreak of blight while her mother had been just a baby. At first, she had ignored it because it was in an isolated section of the forest far away from the homestead, but as weeks went by and more fae had shown up infected, she had set out to take care of the problem. The usual homeopathic remedies hadn't made a dent, so she was forced to retreat and come up with a magical solution. Normal woodland balancing rituals failed, and the blighted area continued to grow.

Violetta had finally reached out to a small coven of witches in Vancouver for a solution. The ritual in her grimoire was the result. Together they had driven the blight out of the forest. Four witches in total.

"Well, hell," Violet snapped the volume closed.

That was no help for her since she wasn't part of a coven. Neither her mother or grandmother had been, or the women before them from what she understood. The witches of her family had been loners ever since coming to the Americas. When she had asked why, neither had given her a satisfying answer. Perhaps they didn't know the real reason either. The grimoires from Ireland confirmed that at least some of her ancestors had belonged to covens. Both Daróma and Fínola had led their covens, suggesting they were more powerful than their Canadian descendants.

That her grandmother had contacted the coven at all said a lot about how big a problem the blight was during her time. Both her mother and grandmother held deep-seated fears of normal humans, something they had never fully explained to Violet. Witches were no longer hunted down by the church and many no longer hid, practicing their craft openly. Still, most people thought they were fakes or kooks and didn't take them seriously.

The idea of belonging to a coven was appealing. Violet believed that witches weren't meant to be solitary creatures, despite what her mother and grandmother had taught her. After all, they had been her coven until their deaths. And except by a twist of fate, they should have still been here with her. The two women had gone into Vancouver in search of spell components that weren't readily available in the wilderness they lived in. A drunk driver had crossed into their lane that night on their way home, crashing into their ancient truck head on with his SUV. Both women were killed almost instantly according to the paramedics on the scene.

Her grandmother had always told her everything, good and bad, happens for a reason. If there was a reason for their senseless death, Violet had yet to discover it.

Opening the grimoire again, she found the ritual to dispel the blight and studied it. Maybe there was a way to make it work for just one witch.