WILLOW
Willow
I approached the three statues of the Cursed that waited in the
center of the circle, laying a hand down on top of the one closest to me. He pointed to the ring they formed, guarding it like sentries as they looked out at each of the three paths. One lay to my left, the hedges in that path older. They were the thorned, twining branches of death. Jutting toward the course as if they might cut any who entered; they were a relic from the past.
To my right, the maze grew with the luster of spring. The pathway was littered with flowers, the hedges bright. The green was new and budding, whereas mine was the green of a mature plant.
I peered down onto the pedestal at the center, my brow furrowing at the symbol of the triple goddess staring back at me. The full moon in the center was surrounded by two crescents facing out, the arches curving slightly toward the two paths I had yet to take.
Movement to my left sent me reeling, spinning back from the triple goddess and what I could not understand, to face the figure moving through the thorns. She emerged from the pathway, donning a black dress that covered her arms and fell to the ground, dragging over the grass as she approached me.
She was exactly as I remembered her, her face so like mine even now that she had been gifted the truest of deaths.
“Charlotte,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. Tears stung my eyes, even as I understood it was foolish to be so happy to see her. I’d only
met the elder Hecate witch once, even though she’d held my hand when I needed it most.
She smiled sadly, crossing the distance between us to stand on the side of one of the crescents. “Willow,” her voice was soft, as fond as I’d remembered my mother’s being when I’d had a nightmare and crawled into her bed at night as a little girl. Charlotte reached over the triple goddess, gently cupping my cheeks. “I told you I would always be with you.”
“How is this possible? How am I here?” I asked, looking around the maze.
Her smile widened. “Clever girl, you’ve already figured out where you are?”
“I can feel it,” I admitted with a nod, raising my hands in front of me. They reminded me of Gray’s eyes, of the golden magic that shimmered within me when I healed over a wound. However, in this place, my skin seemed to simply glow with it.
“You are here because you surrendered yourself to the Source,” Charlotte said, tracing the shape of the crescent moon closest to her with her pointer finger. “Just as I did when I gave my life to save yours.”
“But I’m not dead,” I said, glancing back at the entrance of the maze. I’d been alive when I entered, and the thought that I would have unknowingly left Gray after everything we’d gone through…
He’d be dead, too.
“No, you are not dead, Willow. My purpose in life was to strike my bargain, to finish out the price that Lucifer demanded. Lucifer believed that your purpose ended the moment you opened that seal, until that dream when he decided he wanted to keep you anyway,” she explained, taking my hand in hers.
She touched my fingers to the moon at the center of the triple goddess, a spark of power flickering when I touched it. “But I knew you had to live. That was why I made Lucifer promise to make sure I was always with you. So that I could be there in the end to protect you.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, drawing my hand back from the triple goddess.
“Lucifer is as much a part of the Source as you and I. As are his father and his siblings. Long ago, God offered himself to the Source to gain its trust and power to create life. However, he has since turned his back on those creations in his own greed for worship. He deviated from the Source,
taking enough of its power with him to make any fight impossible. He used his influence to make people turn their backs on the old ways and traditions. The Source weakened with every person who abandons it and with every witch who neglected it. Your job is to give that power back so that we are strong enough to fight God’s army,” Charlotte said, her voice growing distant. She stared at the empty place where the other crescent moon waited, the budding life awaiting.
“The angels,” I said, nodding along. My memory of Michael was so vivid. His assertion that the witches should be condemned was something he truly believed.
Charlotte nodded. “They carry the power God stole within them. We carry the power of the Source, directly from her. We are not the same, and we will not be demonized for touching what was forbidden to us in the Garden of Eden,” she said, pulling an apple from the pocket of her dress. She tossed it to me, compelling me to catch it in two hands as she stepped away from the triple goddess.
I stared down at the red apple in my hand, the forbidden temptation pulsing with magic in my hands.
“How did Lucifer come to access the Source directly if his father turned his back on it?” I asked, directing my focus to her.
“The devil is not the only one who knows how to use people, sweet Willow,” Charlotte said, gazing down at the triple goddess. “Destiny speaks of three women who will change everything. Of the three women who will bring about the new order.”
I exhaled, staring down at the triple goddess symbol with new understanding.
The Maiden. The Mother. The Crone.
“I have done my part in striking the bargain that enabled Lucifer to walk this earth alongside you. But the balance must be maintained,” she said, her eyes gentle as I stared into the familiar purple of them.
“As above, so below,” I said, sounding distant. My ears rang, warning bells going off in my head.
“The devil is no longer in Hell, and that means the time has come for someone to tear God out of Heaven,” she said, the cruelty on her face so
similar to the hatred I had felt when Michael told me nothing I ever did would be worth forgiveness.
I’d be condemned merely for daring to touch power he didn’t think I had a right to have.
I swallowed, uncertain I wanted the answer. “Me?” I asked, watching as Charlotte’s soft smile broadened into a grin of pure satisfaction.
“No, Willow,” she said, reaching to cross the distance between us. She rested her open palm against my stomach, her fingers curling around it meaningfully. “Her.”
