"Bell, Book & Candle" - Ch. 1
A new Alternate Stream.
See what you think...
In which a Family is introduced.
Chapter 1
Many years ago in a far away country of the Old World there lived Three Weird Sisters: Gwynyth, Morgan, and Victoria (who was always called Queenie because she detested the name Victoria). These sisters belonged to an ancient family, the Holroyds, noted for growing herbs, advising the locals on their love lives, and turning their enemies into toads. Actually, the last thing was only a rumor -- witches, which were what the Holroyds were, can't really turn their enemies into toads. However, they can make them think they are toads, which is just as effective.
The Holroyds had lived in their little Village of Greenwich-on-the-Green for many generations, meeting up with other witches at the Four Corners of the Year to celebrate and dance naked under the stars. Sometimes one of the family would venture to the Great City and Beyond, a few even going over the Sea. But everywhere they went there was trouble. Most places didn't care for witches, for although people liked their herbs and ointments and love potions, they believed that thing about being turned into toads, which often made for uncomfortable situations for the Holroyds and other witch families. Getting burned at the stake or thrown into the local pond weighed down by rocks is tiresome after a while. The Old World was not a tolerant place and the New World, especially locations like Salem in the Colony of Massachusetts, didn't seem much better.
But then came the Great War and in its wake the Three Holroyd Sisters felt a change blowing through the world. They heard of places where their kind could gather and live -- discreetly, of course -- without being threatened with either the stake or the pond. And so they took a ship and sailed across the Sea to another Village called Greenwich, which was in the middle of another Great City in the Former Colony of New York. And the sisters thrived there for a number of years.
But came the day when Gwynyth and Morgan tired of the Village and the City. They were still country witches at heart, after all. And the two bought a small farm outside that other village of Salem in the Former Colony of Massachusetts and grew herbs that they supplied to their kindred all over the New World. Queenie stayed in Greenwich Village and enjoyed herself -- it was the Roaring Twenties and Queenie had a recipe for bathtub gin that could knock over a bull moose in rut, so she prospered very well, eventually buying a building all her own and renting out apartments in it.
And it came that Gwynyth had two daughters, Jennifer and June, while Morgan had a daughter and a son, Gillian and Nicholas. All three girls were beautiful, but Gillian was especially so, with ash blonde hair and lavender eyes. She also had great Power, far surpassing that of her mother, her brother, her cousins, and her aunts. It was rumored that her father had been a powerful sorcerer who had cast spells for the Government, turning the tide of the Great War, and, later, of the Great Depression, but no one was really sure -- fathers in witch families are nebulous things, not easily pinned down. But when the time came, Gillian went off to Wellesley and studied Anthropology, graduating at the top of her class and then traveling around the world -- Mexico, Haiti, the Belgian Congo, French Polynesia -- studying the Ancient Practices. When she came back she didn't return to the farm outside of Salem, but to Greenwich Village, where she opened up a shop in Queenie's building that dealt in tribal artifacts, which proved extremely successful. Her brother Nicky, having flunked out of Yale for making the Dean of Men think he was a toad, soon joined her there. And Gillian, Nicky, and Queenie lived quite contentedly.
Meanwhile, back at the farm, Gwynyth's older daughter June had settled into the family herb-growing business quite happily, but the younger daughter, Jennifer, was not so content. She hated the farm, she hated Salem, and she hated Greenwich Village. She hated being different. She hated the way people looked away or gave the sign against the Evil Eye when her family passed, yet visited them in the dark of night to buy potions and ointments and charms.
Jennifer wanted the kind of normal life she saw at the picture show -- houses with white picket fences on quiet streets, mothers and fathers and their children eating dinner together and going to church on Sunday. No cauldrons bubbling in the backyard. No drying herbs hanging from the rafters. No cats prowling along the roof, yowling at the full moon. No dancing naked in the woods. Nothing un-ordinary.
And so Jennifer did something very scandalous. Something that horrified the Holroyds and all of the other witch families from Salem to Greenwich Village. Jennifer "renounced." She denied her Powers, her family, and her witch-nature. She ran away to Boston, got a job as a file clerk in an office, and married the son of the boss. An outsider.
Craig Taylor was a man who only vaguely understood that his new bride came from a very strange clan. But they were from England or Wales or some such backward, un-American place, so that explained it. And Jennifer Holroyd Taylor, although incapable of actually falling in love with her husband -- witches can't fall in love, or blush, or cry, among other things -- was as happy as she could be in her lovely house with the white picket fence on a quiet street in another Village called Greenwich, this one in the former Colony of Connecticut.
Happy, that is, until her beautiful little blond son, Justin, reached puberty.
That's when all hell broke loose.
See what you think...
In which a Family is introduced.
Chapter 1
Many years ago in a far away country of the Old World there lived Three Weird Sisters: Gwynyth, Morgan, and Victoria (who was always called Queenie because she detested the name Victoria). These sisters belonged to an ancient family, the Holroyds, noted for growing herbs, advising the locals on their love lives, and turning their enemies into toads. Actually, the last thing was only a rumor -- witches, which were what the Holroyds were, can't really turn their enemies into toads. However, they can make them think they are toads, which is just as effective.
The Holroyds had lived in their little Village of Greenwich-on-the-Green for many generations, meeting up with other witches at the Four Corners of the Year to celebrate and dance naked under the stars. Sometimes one of the family would venture to the Great City and Beyond, a few even going over the Sea. But everywhere they went there was trouble. Most places didn't care for witches, for although people liked their herbs and ointments and love potions, they believed that thing about being turned into toads, which often made for uncomfortable situations for the Holroyds and other witch families. Getting burned at the stake or thrown into the local pond weighed down by rocks is tiresome after a while. The Old World was not a tolerant place and the New World, especially locations like Salem in the Colony of Massachusetts, didn't seem much better.
But then came the Great War and in its wake the Three Holroyd Sisters felt a change blowing through the world. They heard of places where their kind could gather and live -- discreetly, of course -- without being threatened with either the stake or the pond. And so they took a ship and sailed across the Sea to another Village called Greenwich, which was in the middle of another Great City in the Former Colony of New York. And the sisters thrived there for a number of years.
But came the day when Gwynyth and Morgan tired of the Village and the City. They were still country witches at heart, after all. And the two bought a small farm outside that other village of Salem in the Former Colony of Massachusetts and grew herbs that they supplied to their kindred all over the New World. Queenie stayed in Greenwich Village and enjoyed herself -- it was the Roaring Twenties and Queenie had a recipe for bathtub gin that could knock over a bull moose in rut, so she prospered very well, eventually buying a building all her own and renting out apartments in it.
And it came that Gwynyth had two daughters, Jennifer and June, while Morgan had a daughter and a son, Gillian and Nicholas. All three girls were beautiful, but Gillian was especially so, with ash blonde hair and lavender eyes. She also had great Power, far surpassing that of her mother, her brother, her cousins, and her aunts. It was rumored that her father had been a powerful sorcerer who had cast spells for the Government, turning the tide of the Great War, and, later, of the Great Depression, but no one was really sure -- fathers in witch families are nebulous things, not easily pinned down. But when the time came, Gillian went off to Wellesley and studied Anthropology, graduating at the top of her class and then traveling around the world -- Mexico, Haiti, the Belgian Congo, French Polynesia -- studying the Ancient Practices. When she came back she didn't return to the farm outside of Salem, but to Greenwich Village, where she opened up a shop in Queenie's building that dealt in tribal artifacts, which proved extremely successful. Her brother Nicky, having flunked out of Yale for making the Dean of Men think he was a toad, soon joined her there. And Gillian, Nicky, and Queenie lived quite contentedly.
Meanwhile, back at the farm, Gwynyth's older daughter June had settled into the family herb-growing business quite happily, but the younger daughter, Jennifer, was not so content. She hated the farm, she hated Salem, and she hated Greenwich Village. She hated being different. She hated the way people looked away or gave the sign against the Evil Eye when her family passed, yet visited them in the dark of night to buy potions and ointments and charms.
Jennifer wanted the kind of normal life she saw at the picture show -- houses with white picket fences on quiet streets, mothers and fathers and their children eating dinner together and going to church on Sunday. No cauldrons bubbling in the backyard. No drying herbs hanging from the rafters. No cats prowling along the roof, yowling at the full moon. No dancing naked in the woods. Nothing un-ordinary.
And so Jennifer did something very scandalous. Something that horrified the Holroyds and all of the other witch families from Salem to Greenwich Village. Jennifer "renounced." She denied her Powers, her family, and her witch-nature. She ran away to Boston, got a job as a file clerk in an office, and married the son of the boss. An outsider.
Craig Taylor was a man who only vaguely understood that his new bride came from a very strange clan. But they were from England or Wales or some such backward, un-American place, so that explained it. And Jennifer Holroyd Taylor, although incapable of actually falling in love with her husband -- witches can't fall in love, or blush, or cry, among other things -- was as happy as she could be in her lovely house with the white picket fence on a quiet street in another Village called Greenwich, this one in the former Colony of Connecticut.
Happy, that is, until her beautiful little blond son, Justin, reached puberty.
That's when all hell broke loose.