Chapter 12: The Red Queens

Wellesley, Massachusetts, sits like a jewel in the suburban crown west of Boston, a town of tree-lined streets and elegant homes. Nestled on the southern edge lie the Gothic towers and Georgian brick of Wellesley College—one of the nation’s most prestigious women’s liberal arts institutions.

Mellicent Green, leader of the Red Queens, the coven that enforced the Covenant—the agreement that had ended the feuding of covens of witch-crafters and crafters that were spread across the world—the senselessness endless conflict that had followed the hundred years of burnings. They’d had enough trouble keeping themselves secret from the villagers who wanted them hung or burnt in the middle of a village square.

Mellicent had advocated for her apprentices to matriculate here despite the strong objections of some of her more conservative sisters. She thought it important, especially in this modern age of technology, that the girls receive a well-rounded education.

Unfortunately, it also meant that with that much freedom, there came a tendency for them to go native. The girls were not fully normal humans, however much they wished to be. They had to be regularly reminded that bad behavior would not be tolerated.

Thus her visit to Charity Wilson, who had been running around undisciplined and wild and whose grades last quarter were abominable.

Charity’s dorm room was in one of the older halls, a cozy single on the third floor with tall windows that let in the autumn afternoon light. The room had the bones of institutional architecture—cream-colored walls, scuffed wooden floors, a narrow bed with a wrought-iron frame—but Charity had obviously made it her own. Textbooks were stacked haphazardly on her desk beside a laptop plastered with stickers. A tapestry hung over the bed, and string lights wrapped around the window frame cast a warm glow in the evenings. A mini-fridge hummed in the corner, and her closet door hung ajar, revealing a messy tangle of clothes and shoes.