db - thanks again for sounding back and sticking around. Much appreciated.
watty:
You mean character death? Hey! I don't kill off main characters! That's Alcy's job.
LOL. I know, I meant making a grim situation bearable with a bit of levity. Alcy's wonderful at that, too, which I guess is twice as handy with the killing thing. I think comic timing is everything with drama. It's probably what I love most about Joss's writing, come to think of it.
Thanks for the encouragement, Chris. I hadn't consciously thought about how the dream was heavy with the geometric references and tying that into the scientific world-view, but it sounds cool. And you're making me look f'n
brilliant. Thanks!
And now, hey, I can group respond a bit.
I’ve debated with myself about disclosing the identity of the speaker right away and I'm still not sure it's necessary. If you want to keep speculating just ignore the next bit for now or come back and read it after this installment, because really, I think today's installment will settle a lot of questions. Otherwise:
[spoiler]I’ll just confirm now that Chris has said it:
"I was actually wondering whether 'Ms Maclay' was Tara's mother"
DING DING DING!!! Chris gets the kewpie doll. Or something cooler than a kewpie doll, cause kewpie dolls? Creepy, like the big-hair troll things.
This first incarnation of Tara (there will be others) is Mrs. Maclay. I guess because this is a W/T board, it was somewhat disingenuous to not come out and say it more explicitly. I hope going the "let-it-naturally-unfold" route wasn't too big of a distraction but I thought it would be obvious soon enough. I’d like the story to be readable by anyone, not just a W/T or even a Buffy fan so it's like starting from scratch for you and me both, though a Buffy fan will have a head start knowing who's good, evil, or ambivalent. For this one, I'm putting Tara the Elder in the last category. I read a lot of stories where she's already canonized (I mean, long dead and already made into a saint/guardian angel), I wanted to try something different.
About Tara the Elder – she does come off a bit bitter and world-weary, which is what I wanted but I’m also trying to make her sympathetic, not just snarky. I don't know if it's working. [/spoiler]
This installment is more exposition. Still not a lot happening, but I think next one will start to pick up the pace. I want to complete the prologue by the end of June, which is... eeks, this month!
b
***
The Coven
Prologue: Witch Maclay
Installment rating: PG
Willow, her nose in a book as she walked slowly down the hall, oblivious to her surroundings as was her unfortunate habit, felt the paw against her chest followed by the quick shove before she could even utter a protest at the unwanted contact. She was sent sprawling, already barely in balance with her school bag hanging low against the small of her back, filled to capacity with books, both for school and the five checked out from the library—five was the limit, the new librarian Wood had told her, else she surely would have taken more. The book she had been so engrossed in fell from her hands and the edge caught her lip as she tumbled down, her behind smacking the linoleum hard. She tasted blood.
Kevin Connor grinned as he loomed over her, his fists on his hips and his stance wide, his girlfriend Cordelia smirking behind him. All around, the other students drew back but around, interested to watch Kev’s latest bullying incident and relieved it didn’t directly involve them this time. “Didn’t you hear me, geek? You have to step to the side. We’ve got important stuff to ferry through for the school assembly.” Cordelia held the school banner across her arms. She and Kev were apparently on their way to the school auditorium in preparation for Principle Snyder’s monthly assembly, or as he secretly referred to it, juvenile offenders roundup. The irony of using one such offender as his lackey of choice for the menial tasks beneath his own esteem was completely lost to the mean little man.
Tears filled her eyes, leaving Willow no time to react as a blue and black colored blur entered her field of vision from the right, smacked into Kev’s larger frame, and sent both forms crashing into the lockers lining the corridor. Xander was on his feet first, though holding his right arm awkwardly. “Keep your freakin’ hands off her, asshole!”
Willow cried a warning as Kev scrambled up and pulled his arm back, his hand curled into a fist impossibly meaty for a twelve-year old. Surely he had been left back more than the two years he admitted to? Xander’s eyes screwed shut, but he stood his ground.
Before the fat fist could propel forward to smash her friend in his nose, its momentum was stopped by a hand with long tapered fingers wrapping around it and pulling him back. Kev was spun around to look up at the new history teacher, Leigh Mack, as she glowered fiercely at him. “What are you doing, boy?”
“He started it!” Kev ground out. The blonde woman had, probably unknowingly, twisted his wrist painfully when she had spun him around to face her. He yanked his arm from her grasp, and brought himself to his full height. He was a little taller than the slight woman, despite his age and the boots with a good heel she wore underneath her long skirt. Still, for some reason or another, her presence seemed to overwhelm him.
Leigh looked from Kev to Xander, still cringing and cradling his elbow from where it had impacted against the locker after tackling the larger boy away from his friend. When she turned back to Kev, her expression was incredulous. “Are you seriously offering
that as your answer?”
“It’s true, Ms. Mack! Kev and I were on our way to deliver these things to the auditorium for Principal Snyder for the assembly this afternoon when Xander—”
Leigh turned to Cordelia. “Ms. Chase, please be quiet. I’m not a fool, and I don’t mind telling you that you reveal yourself by trying to play me for one.” Cordelia quieted instantly. Leigh turned her attention back to Kev. “Mr. Connor, I’m surprised you’d attempt to hurt a boy half your size when there’s nothing in it for you aside from a suspension and the momentary satisfaction of proving the obvious, that you can. You really ought to remember that no matter how big you are, there’s always someone bigger. There will always be someone bigger. I suspect your father may be one such a person. l expect either he or your mother to answer my call tonight, at 7pm, to discuss this foolishness, and an appropriate punishment. You and Ms. Chase are dismissed to run your…” she looked at the cloth banner draped across Cordelia’s arm, “errand?” Again, her expression was incredulous.
Kev colored at the inflection of her last word—it stung worse than the preceding scolding, in fact. He stomped off, Cordelia trailing behind him. Xander sunk to his knees, his adrenaline finally ebbing and leaving him a little wobbly.
“The rest of you should be getting to your next classes as well.” The crowd seemed to magically disperse at Leigh’s softly worded suggestion.
At that point, Willow hiccuped and sniffled. Leigh turned her attention to the small girl still on the floor. They locked eyes for a moment, Leigh’s sea-blue gaze piercing into Willow’s green before she reached out to help Willow onto her feet, though Willow immediately knelt again, by Xander. “Xander,” she sighed unhappily. “Are you alright?”
“I’m okay, Will…”
“Mr. Harris, go to the infirmary and have your elbow looked at,” Leigh ordered. Her attention barely wavered from Willow.
Xander hesitated, obviously not wanting to leave Willow with the blonde teacher, who was a bit of an x-factor still. She had come in mid-year to replace Mike Russell, the school’s 30-plus-year regular history teacher after his suddenly decided early retirement. She seemed to keep to herself and had successfully avoided all the usual traps students set for substitutes, chief among them the standard Internet investigations into her off-duty life. She had weathered them all, and was still here at Sunnydale elementary and middle school, as much an enigma as the day she had shown up with her piercing dark blue eyes and dirty blonde hair and long skirts and full-collared shirts.
Xander thought her creep factor unusually high, though being not-too-bad-on-the-eyes for an older lady softened the creep for most of the student body to a more manageable mysterious. Apparently very cool, too, for saving him from a face-smashing by Thug Connor, but still creepy nonetheless. He straightened. He was grateful for the rescue, but he regretted nothing and would have done the same and risked himself for Willow again in a heartbeat. His heart sank as he realized he would now still have to look out for an ambush from the fat bastard after school, at least for the next couple of days. Thank the gods the fucker was as dumb as he was big. Maybe he’d forget sooner rather than later. Out of sight out of mind for Bronto Connor…
“Xander?” Willow’s soft voice finally reached him. “It’s okay, Xander,” Willow wihispered. “Get your arm taken care of. Thank you for taking care of me.”
Xander nodded. Willow helped her friend up to his feet and he reluctantly went off.
“Thank you,” Willow finally whispered to Leigh.
“Thank me? For what?”
“For not punishing Xander for calling Kevin a bad name.”
“Bad na—? Oh.” Actually, Leigh had thought ‘asshole’ had been rather mild. By her standards, anyway. “You’re welcome, Willow,” she said smoothly. “Or do you prefer Ms. Rosenberg?”
“Willow’s fine,” Willow said in a quiet voice.
Leigh helped Willow with the books, grunting with the weight of the backpack. Willow quickly took it from her. Leigh picked up the book the girl had been engrossed in at the beginning of the fracas. “
Fundamental Principles of Neo-Kantian Ethics ? A bit of light reading before gym class?”
Willow reddened. Wood had recommended it to her, after she’d gone through the library’s collection of the humanist’s primary works.
“Sorry, I was joking.” Leigh cleared her throat. Some empath, she chided herself, then reached out just slightly with her Talent to get a better feel of the child before her.
Oddly, her Talent came up with nothing.
Okay. That hadn’t happened in a while. At least by someone not trained in the Art. The girl seemed to be somehow deflecting the gentle probe. Rather than attempting a more forceful read, Leigh decided to try a different, more mundane if blunter tack. “You know, Willow, I only saw the tail end of what happened just now so I’m giving Xander the benefit of the doubt that he had a good reason for stepping in as he did, but I do think that you need to take a little responsibility. You have to be a little bit more careful yourself. I’m referring to the reading while walking thing? You live in a world that can at times be dangerous—much more so than a pre-teen bully, you need to be mindful of it. Not that it’s a bad thing letting a good book take complete hold of you!” Leigh hurried, as Willow blushed so crimson with the mild reproach it shamed Leigh’s naturally empathic heart, too. “But there’s a proper time and place for everything. Okay?”
The rebuke softened, Willow nodded.
“By the way, there’s something else I’d like to discuss with you, if I may. I’d like you to come by my office after school today, just for a little chat about what you might be doing with your history elective next semester. I’m thinking of staying on, maybe set up an advanced studies program that I think you’d do very well in. Do you think you can drop by to discuss it?”
Willow was grateful for Ms. Mack’s intercession and not coming down on Xander for calling Connor an asshole, but meeting with her alone was the last thing Willow wanted.
At least she’s a dreadful liar and has absolutely no ability to dissemble, Leigh realized. “It’s okay if you’d rather not. In fact, I’m still at the planning stages, so it’s probably not the best time, anyway. But maybe if you have a free moment, alright? Any time you want, actually. I like meeting some of the more serious students, but it’s hard, you know? When you’re shy, like I am.”
Willow’s eyes widened at that, but got an okay vibe from Leigh’s warm, sincere smile.
“Anyway, you’re welcome to drop by, even if it isn’t class-related. When I’m not teaching, I’m usually in my office. It’s B-18.”
Willow’s eyes relaxed in relief. “Thank you, Ms. Mack. I might. Visit, that is.”
“Okay. You’d better go off too. Do you need a note or something since you’re late?”
“N-no. I have study hall.”
Leigh nodded and watched as Willow walked off under her bag of books, looking back just once, before she too turned for the stairwell for the basement and her makeshift sanctum sanctorum.
***
I think Jenny set up the “Leigh Mack” name as my alias just to see the look on my face when I read through my mission briefing. Thomas Maclay was so self-righteous about his family name and sharing the honor with me, his blushing bride, I’m sure if he knew how I’ve mangled it for my own purposes he’d have an apoplectic fit. Not that I give a damn anymore. I’ve used and discarded so many names in my 34 years, sometimes I hardly know which one I’m using one day to the next. Memories of lessons my mother taught me came unbidden from the repository of my brain… “The ability to take and give away a name shows that one is not tied to the material world.” I can see the truth in it. Plus being able to divest oneself of the baggage associated with a name—always a plus, though that does raise the interesting conundrum of why anyone would take up someone else’s name if it’s already burdened with its own history.
Gods, sometimes I think myself into a corner. Tara is a fine name for a witch.
Anyway, I’m half-convinced Tom’s given up looking for us, anyway, so the benefits and disadvantages of fooling around with an alias is moot. The last time I checked, Agritech had relocated him to Old New Mexico as a foreman for the upcoming Spring and Summer seasons, so he should be occupied with it for 8 months more, certainly at least through the end of September. I hope by then my tour with Willow-watching will be over and I’ll be back in the safety and seclusion of the Coven with my own daughter.
To that end, after setting up shop as the mid-year replacement history teacher for Sunnydale Elementary (highly recommended, of course, with my fake credentials), I quickly set about my surveillance of Willow. Her school file revealed nothing out of the ordinary, but that didn’t discourage me. The record-keeping system of most middle and high school systems is normally pretty proprietary from bordering-on-violating-civil-liberties meticulous to downright negligent. Sunnydale’s was somewhere in the middle of the spectrum.
Two weeks later, I hadn’t made much headway into my directive. What about this girl had caught the collective inner eye of our Coven seers in their review of the Artaggio event? Sure, Willow’s a good student. A great student, even. But that’s not too unusual. Every district, especially in the old Western states where the public educational system’s become entrenched and hegemonized, tends to have one or two really good prospects. Usually it’s enough to set up some kind of state or cross-state academic competition or even just a standardized test, let them have at each other, then throw scholarship money or even guaranteed employment to the winner. Doubtless, Willow would have a good shot at one of these types of competitions. But a player in an apocalyptic prophecy? I found nothing on the surface to suggest her role as either one of the twins or the seeyo, a term that besides meaning the obvious, though pre-modern Artaggio would never have known, also translated to “hammer” or more generally, “instrument” in his tongue—presumably, the instrument of the apocalypse.
Likewise, her family was utterly mundane. Daughter of Ira, 42, programmer for CPV Tech, a smallish, still mostly privately owned, corporate inventory system vendor, and Sheila, 38, clinical psychologist, currently unemployed due to a lapse in her accreditation and licensing—she had left her position at a private institute to devote five years of her life to raising Willow. She had yet to professionally recover from that hiatus. Fairly typical lower middle-income family. In fact, other than the incident of being unable to read her this morning, I honestly had no inkling that Willow was anything other than an ordinary girl, though gifted with extraordinary intelligence.
In other words, the first two weeks have been very quiet, though perhaps things will pick up now that I’ve made direct contact with Willow—that is, if I haven’t permanently scared her off with the scary disapproving adult routine. The inability to read her was, of course, a curiosity and worth noting, which I did when transmitting my weekly report back to Jenny. But I wasn’t overly concerned. I had blind spots as much as any other empathic witch, though it’s not immodest for me to say I have fewer than most, as it’s true. It’s also not uncommon for first “contacts” to take more than one meeting to develop, even with a young child like Willow who still wears her emotions up front, especially in those huge eyes. Magic, much as some would argue otherwise, isn’t science.
The lack of immediate success did allow me to pad the second part of my weekly transmission. Along with my second report reiterating much of what the first did, I sent another personal note to my daughter. Of course, she had taken my new assignment hard. I fully intend to make this up to her upon my return. Maybe take her somewhere for a trip away from the Coven, as long as it’s not Old New Mexico (Tom) or Sunnydale (land of the unchanging seasons). In the meanwhile, we’ll have to make do with the personal missives piggy-backed on the secure, encrypted weekly summary. Of course, this type of communication is one-way, mostly. I so hope that Leda is doing better, but the few brief lines Jenny manages to secure for her in the briefing responses back don’t satisfy the hole in my heart. I miss her fiercely already.
It’s hardened my resolve to finish my business here, and go home. I’m grateful it’s gone fairly simply so far. It would have been impossible to begin without securing a position where I could watch Willow with an unimpeded view. Convincing Russell to take early retirement hadn’t been too hard. He was working on his 35th year, and teaching can wear even the most dedicated of people down. Many, many years ago, at the beginning of the technology revolutions in the late 20th century, there was an advertising campaign jointly financed by the nationalistic States and baby congloms, to encourage young professionals into education as a career. The promotional materials stressed the joys of service as its primary draw. Of course, there was little corresponding salary augmentation, like they did for their own field of employees. So instead we ended up with the beginning of the centuries-long glut of lawyers and system programmers, analysts, and salesmen, while doctors and teachers are still on the outs due to lack of incentive and the increased regulation regarding accreditation peculiar to each field. Over the years, the ethical sense of duty and self-sacrifice, the practical difficulties of mediocre compensation and the juridical hurdles set up to legislate professional accreditation did the trick, and now no one with a practical mind wants to be a doctor or a teacher.
The latter was to be my profession, had I never felt Tom’s last blow eight years ago that sent me, unconscious and internally hemorrhaging, to the hospital, and Jenny’s subsequent rescue—Leda’s “kidnapping” and our escape to the Coven. But in a way, it’s what I ended up doing, anyway. I wonder if I’ll be so lucky some day as to be offered a nice retirement package by a mysterious charitable organization, after I’m through shaping the minds of young witches thirty years down the road?
Eh, I doubt it.
+++
TBC
But thanks re: angst.
.
I shared Tara's chuckle at that. Interesting to see more of her thoughts, how she sees Willow, and the world that Willow's grown up in (and some valuable links to our world, to get a sense of how it evolved, or rather skewed slightly, into this one - all too likely, I'm afraid). Willow's so sweet and cute, absolutely spot-on pre-Buffy Willow, all intelligence and anxiety, ready to burst into tears at a moment's notice. As if she's got her little comfort zone of her studies, and anything outside of that is a scary, confusing place for her to venture. It'll be interesting to see Ms Mack continue to monitor Willow, while getting to know her better - I even wonder if she might end up a little conflicted. Her position and her backers, the coven, seem decent enough, but in a world like this, one has to wonder how far the self-interest and callousness goes - maybe it even seeps into the good guys sometimes.
