Trying to ignore the pang of self consciousness, she shed the ceremonial robe, repeating the ancient words as they all joined in. Their voices twined together until it was like one voice calling up to the heavens, the earth, the secret hidden space inside each of them where their power dwelled.
“We come…” The Mother Guardian said, her bare arms outstretched.
“We come.” They rest of the women intoned, the other’s starting to feel the weight of the words, of the ritual itself, begin to shift over them.
“We seek…” Her voice was soft as a summer breeze and sharp as a knife at the same time.
“We seek.” Hazel repeated with all the rest. The sounds wrapped around her, the air thick with vowels and consonants and something more, like it had an electric current suddenly running through it.
“We will seek until it is found, and then it will be guarded. May the blessed always seek.”
“May the blessed always seek.” They all repeated the last all together, the feeling encompassing them all now. Hazel could see it in the closed eyes, the way some rocked up onto the tips of their toes as if about to take flight. Of course, flight had been lost to them since the ancient days, no one powerful enough for that sort of magic had been alive for centuries and centuries.
As the words faded, so did that sense of calming peace because Hazel knew what was next. Elizabeth spoke the words, transforming what had been just a regular, burning flame in the center of their circle into something more. Imbuing it with the same magic that pulsed within each of them. Some more than others, a tiny, cynical voice whispered as Hazel watched the fire turn from bright oranges and red to a pure, crystalline white.
Firmly, she pushed the voice away, focusing on the bright light in front of her. Now was her time to prove herself, to prove that she belonged there. That she truly was one of them.
She couldn’t stop the trepidation that filled her as the woman to the right of Elizabeth, none other than Suzette herself, proudly stepped forward, almost flaunting her toned figure and flawless skin. Her long blond hair swept down her back in waves, and as she moved closer to the fire, Hazel had to grit her teeth against the flash of jealousy. Not at her body, or the way she looked, but the confidence with which she reached out her hands, barely even hesitating as she shoved them deep into the fire and brought them out again.
They were unscathed of course, and as Suzette stepped back to rejoin the circle she had a large, pulsing ball of the white flame contained between her still outstretched palms. With what Hazel would almost term a smirk, she opened her mouth and repeated the ancient words.
“We seek.” She said in her sultry tone, at the same time raising the dancing ball of light over her head, and then in front of her chest again, right over her heart before turning to the woman to the side of her, opposite of the Mother Guardian, who looked on like a proud parent.
Just like a proud mother hen, Hazel thought, the image it conjured making a giggle threaten to burst out. She tilted her head to one side. With her lean, bony frame and the makings of an already impressive waddle hanging underneath her chin, the resemblance was uncanny. The Mother Guardian even seemed to cluck a little as Suzette passed the light to the woman next to her.
Despite Hazel’s best efforts the tiny chuckle burst forth, instantly drawing the ire of Elizabeth, and the women around her. Embarrassment flickered again, tempered now by the otherworldly calm that still floated around her. Hazel watched along with the other’s as they turned their attention to the next women, and the next, the circle of light changing in size at passed from one pair of hands to the other depending on the strength of their inner spark.
They each repeated the words, each time drawing the very air around them tighter and tighter and by the time it reached Hazel she felt as if the tiniest prick would burst it like an overfilled balloon. As Amelia, who was standing next to her, spoke the words out into the night, and then turned toward Hazel, she could feel herself freeze, that sense of calm fleeing in the dark like a startled animal.
Fear filled her, making her jaw clench on the words she knew she had to speak, and her fingers tense so that it was impossible to relax them enough to reach out. She took one giant inhale, breathing in the night around her and a small bit of the peace returned, just enough to force herself to reach out, and take the pulsing ball of dancing, pure white light from Amelia.