Margerie St. Croix muttered to herself as she scratched Gaelic letters with a blunt piece of white chalk. Ahead of her, a young woman of Indian descent carefully dripped melted wax, forming a solid line along a circular expanse of worn granite. The stone pedestal sat a few feet above a healthy patch of grass. Two other members of the Green Witch Coven, Mother Snowdeth and a dark skinned woman dressed in red robes, paced a wide perimeter in opposite directions. They held burning sage and whispered in the Faerie tongue, the secret language passed down through generations of coven witches.
Snowdeth met the red robed witch-sister, Glaedrea Firesong, and the two curtsied. They moved to adjacent corners of the pedestal, Snowdeth embodying the north and Glaedrea the west. Margerie finished marking the edges of the pedestal and took her place among them at the eastern edge, facing Glaedrea. Lakshmi Patel, a gifted witch-daughter, stood opposite of Mother Snowdeth. Ms. Patel embodied the south.
