AGOL - Sorry. It's a PITA redoing the italics and section breaks but at
least I got the paragraph spacing the way I wanted with part 2. I will try
to finish reformatting and post a few more chapters at one time instead of
dragging. The pace really doesn't start to pick up until chapter 6 or
so...
----------
THE COVEN
The rise of the greatest Seeyo in History prior to the Natural
re-situation
of Humanity in the Cosmic.
By Binky (binky29AToptonline.net)
Description: Uber. Science Fiction. Mid-21st century.
Spoilers: None. This is 100 percent AU/uber
Pairings: Willow/Other, Willow/Tara.
Rating: Mature
Summary: A woman from the mysterious organization The Coven appears in
Sunnydale to help eight-year-old Willow Rosenberg unlock her latent powers
Warnings: Violence, strong language, moderate to graphic ***ual
language/situations, character death
Feedback: Yes, please, including criticism (the gentle kind)
Distribution: Please email before copying/printing/archiving.
Notes: *text* denotes italics
Tara and Willow and other characters from the television show *Buffy the
Vampire Slayer* and *Angel* were created by Joss Whedon.
--------------------------------------------------
Prologue: Witch Maclay
Part 3
--------------------------------------------------
*Three and a half months later.*
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
im****tant
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 cra****ng 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 ten 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. What you really ought
to
remember is 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 ****rts.
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-sma****ng 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 ****er 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 whispered. "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 addressed Leigh.
"Thank me? For what?"
"For not puni****ng 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 make****ft 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
blu****ng 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 by now, 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
scholar****p 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
translates to "hammer" or more generally, "instrument" in his dead
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, cor****ate
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 recover from that professional 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 re****t 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 re****t 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,
too.
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.
----------
end - Witch Maclay, part 3
|
