T*Witches: Split Decision by H.B. Gilmour, Randi Reisfeld

couldn’t remember.
    They reached a grove of purple alder trees. Nature had given them bright berries and saw-toothed leaves. Sersee’s decorating committee had decked them out in silver and white ribbons. Beyond the festive grove was their destination, a small, circular pond.
    Water. Her premonition.
    Cam flinched, started to back away.
    “What’s wrong?” Shane asked.
    “I… c-can’t,” she stammered. “I mean, I wasn’t expecting water.”
    “The pond’s just an element in the ceremony,” Shane told her. “It’s the shape of it, nature’s perfect circle. No one goes in.”
    But wasn’t that the point of the circle, to be inside it? Cam wondered. Shane offered to take her back if she felt uncomfortable, but in the end, she opted to stay and observe the ceremony.
    Each person took a place around the pond. Sittingcross-legged, they each placed a stone of quartz crystal to their right and another of gold to the left. “Quartz opens us to psychic powers,” Shane explained. “And the gold is to attract abundance and riches in the coming year.”
    The tea candles were set down next, ringing the pond. Sersee rose to her knees and passed around one tapered candle to light all the others.
    Then, as if passing a verbal baton, each person took a turn explaining the meaning of the ceremony. It was about the anticipation of plenty, the bounty of nature, hopes for the coming harvest. As advertised, it was simple but impressive and benevolent. It reminded Cam of the Coventry credo, the words etched on the Unity Dome, “that all things might grow to their most bountiful goodness.”
    In time, she relaxed, even joined in as they stood, held hands, and skipped around the pond. One by one, each jumped over the candles — whoever jumped highest, it was said, would have the most success in the coming year. Because of Cam’s natural athleticism and soccer training, she was easily the highest jumper.
    Shane jubilantly raised her arm in celebration. Sersee brought the mood down. “If we’re finished worshiping heiress DuBaer, we’re ready for the next part,” she sullenly announced.
    Bring it on, Cam thought, beginning to enjoy this.
    Sersee clapped her hands, and Epie opened the satchel containing the cookies. “We close our eyes and take —”
    “One cookie each — emphasis on
one,
Epie,” Sersee reminded the girl.
    The chunky witch reddened again. “Um, they’re all the same,” she told Cam, trying to ignore her leader. “They’re all the same except for the burned one.”
    “And believe me,” Sersee taunted her disciple again, “Epie would even gobble down the burned one if we didn’t keep an eye on her.”
    “Cut it out!” Epie said with surprising spunk.
    Cam looked from one of them to the other. Sersee had always treated Epie more like an unloved pet than a person. But Epie had never even tried to defend herself. Her effort now — weak and ineffectual as it was — surprised Cam. She felt almost affectionate toward the girl. But just because Epie was becoming “her enemy’s enemy,” Cam reminded herself, didn’t make her Cam’s friend.
    “Go on,” Sersee ordered her. “Finish explaining.”
    “The person who picks the burned cookie,” Epie continued, glowering at Sersee, as if daring her to interrupt again, “has to leap over the candles three times while the person who baked the cookies throws the egg, trying to … um, hit that person … and then we all —”
    “Enough.” The raven-haired witch silenced her. “You’re making it too complicated.”
    Serle stepped in front of the brooding Epie. “It’s very simple,” he explained. “If the egg misses, the person jumping will have great fortune in the coming year. If it hits, each of us has to give a small gift to the jumper, to lend him or her the luck they’re lacking.”
    Everyone who thinks, Huh? raise their hand,
Cam thought. Only Shane laughed. The satchel was passed around. Predictably, Cam got the last cookie — the