The High Priestess (The Tarot Club 3)

CHAPTER TEN: A WITCH’S FUNERAL

MARIE

A witch’s funeral is no ordinary affair.This was equally true for Jeanne des Montagnes. A sea of black seemed to flow from the plains of the field all the way towards the small church at the center of the village as each person put one sorrowful foot in front of the other. While our Clan was not traditionally religious, the Church offered us a space to bid our farewells to the matriarch.

The heat was ungodly, if one even believed in the gods of old, but I led the procession, as was customary for the remaining family members of the deceased.

How many of these things had I attended over the years as I watched hordes of family members leading the way, and yet for one of the most powerful Witches of our time, it was only I at the head of the crowd.

I was bone wearily tired. After last night’s escapades on the riverbank, I couldn’t sleep - I kept thinking of the way Cortland held my hips down as he thrust up into me, how he gave me control and took it just as easily, how I hadn’t expected to stab him - hadn’t expected to like it, but still, I’d watched the blood pool from his chest, dribbling down the fine contours and planes of his body in an almost otherworldly fashion.

Even now, that small line that he had pressed into my breast stung as sweat ran into the cut. My core ached, reminding me with each step that I took as I led the procession that I was a woman who had been well fucked the night before. Sitting in a pew was going to be interesting. Even my thighs ached after straddling his wide frame. I was sore from over-stretching.

I ignored those thoughts - ignored the flashbacks from the night before that seemed to accost my damn senses beneath the beating sun until, finally, I crested the steps of the church, the large building offering a splash of shade, and with it a reprieve from the naseauting heat.

Of course on the day of my grandmother’s funeral there wasn’t a bit of wind to be felt, as if the very elements were suddenly silent, paying their respects to the woman who had once governed this land.

I held my head high, seating myself in the front pew, and there before me sat an open casket, showcasing Jeanne des Montagnes in all her deceased glory. Marta must have ordered her carried here in the early hours of the morning, before the procession took place. Instinctively, I stood up, looking upon the woman who had raised me. She seemed older in death, or perhaps that was simply due to the years we had missed. Dark lines ran around her mouth, crows feet lined her eyes, and those lines suddenly reminded me how much my grandmother used to laugh. I used to marvel at the fact that someone so serious - someone who held so much responsibility, could laugh at the cost absurd things on a daily basis.

Did she still offer those deep belly laughs to all after I fled? Or had she changed just as I had? Did we break one another, albeit, unknowingly?

The priest took his place ahead, standing within the chancel of the church, the altar glaring at us with its godly depictions to his left. Ignoring him and all that catholic depictions that this church entailed, I stared down at the only relative on my mother’s side that I ever really knew. Her emerald ring sat brightly against her weathered fingers, her beaded pearls draped across her body, and there, placed on her torso was an old faded photograph of her and I.

I fought the tears that threatened to spill over, fought the emotion that bubbled to the surface. For five years I had not shed a tear for her - had not allowed myself to buckle under the loss and betrayal of family, but now, staring down at her body, years of sorrow rose to the surface.

In the photograph, my grandmother was seated next to the riverbank, another village girl stood next to her, a stick in hand as she drew sigils in the sand, no doubt, guided by my grandmother. And there I was, seated on her lap with a mop of fine white hair as I stared up at her adoringly in the only way children could. The memory of how I always fell asleep lying next to her, clutching her arm as if it were my own personal teddy - of how her chest soothed me more times than I care to remember - of how when I awoke from a nightmare, she didn’t dismiss it outrightly, instead, she made a cup of warm milk and listened, teaching me how to read into the future from both my dreams and nightmares.

She had been everything to me, until she was no longer on my side - until I realized that she wasn’t rooting for me, but was rooting for the village. I was only ever a tool - only ever her legacy, and that knowledge hurt more than anything anyone else could have done.

The priest beckoned me towards him, his long white robes somehow seeming cool compared to the black ensemble I wore, and in that moment my feet felt like lead weights, holding me down in place, freezing me in panic.

I was expected to not only lead the people into this architectural structure, but to talk about my grandmother - to pay homage to the great Jeanne des Montagnes, for I alone was her only living relative.

In accordance with our traditions, I should have had children by now, should have pushed my influence in this village and beyond, and instead I had fled, abandoning all that I knew. If my mother hadn’t died in childbirth, how many siblings would I have had? How many others would have been here to bear this burden with me? Instead, I forced my feet to move, standing within the chancel of the church, isolated and alone as I looked upon the crowd.

I scanned the crowd, looking upon a sea of familiar faces, noting that Julian had chosen to flee. In my rage, I had damned him, and had I been in a more reasonable state, one not tinged in vengeance and betrayal, my view of justice skewering things, I may have struck a bargain in my favor where Julian released me - untarnished my name so that I was once more free to come and go a I pleased. Instead, I had marked him for dead.

The waif of a girl that usually clung to him sat alone, looking lost amongst our people as she searched the pews for her husband. Yet another guilt-ridden debt I would have to fix.

The other brown-eyed girl that had asked me to fix the strain in her relationship with her mother looked up at me with hopeful eyes, and I knew that I needed to effect the rift repair spell soon. Nicu gazed up at me from the crowd, his lips solemn and firm as he waited to hear me deliver this service - this speech.

I had nothing planned.

As a hush settled upon the crowd, I spotted the Demon standing next to the pillar at the back. His fierce green eyes flashing against mine in mischief and memory as a bolt of heat and desire shot through my body, forcing me to recall all the delicious ways he had thrummed my body. If the Demon could elicit such reactions from me on a forest floor, imagine what he could do when offered the luxury of a bed? Was he talented with his tongue? Did I want to experience that?

Someone shifted within their seat and I suddenly realized that I was standing in front of a crowd of people at my grandmother’s funeral fantasizing about the Demon that had shattered all my illusions of what pleasure truly was.

“Ki shan I Romani,

Adoi san’ I chov’hani.”

I opened the service up with an old saying that translated to

‘where Gypsies go,

There the Witches are, we know.’

It was an old Romani poem that Nicu’s people liked to lay claim to, but the words were spoken by almost every clan under the sun - one of the few phrases that united us. Still Nicu’s expression turned smug - almost superior, and something about that action angered me.