The Hummingbird Coven

By Augusta Owens

Amelia doesn't want to be a witch.

Ever since her grandmother's death, Amelia has noticed odd things happening around her. When her home is attacked by two strange girls, Amelia and her best friend, Sam, find themselves thrown into a new reality where witchcraft-and witches-are real.

Offered the opportunity of

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pepperback Press, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9781958559086

Book preview

For my mom, because she would murder me if I didn’t dedicate my first book to her.

A Death in the Family

Amelia Aubert did not cry when she heard the unfortunate news of her grandmother’s death. The woman had lived all alone in a shabby little house in the middle of the woods, choosing to converse with nobody but her creepy black cat and had refused on countless occasions to ever visit Amelia or the rest of her family. 

Amelia was, however, slightly distraught to hear that the cat in question now belonged to her.

"I know I wanted a pet, but Grandma has had that cat for centuries! He’s going to drop dead as soon as he gets here," the curly haired girl whined. Of course, Amelia knew that the cat hadn’t actually lived for centuries, but it was certainly older than Amelia herself.

Mellie! her mother, Stephanie, hissed. You should be grateful that Grandma thought to include you in her will at all! I’m sure you know how she felt about all her precious things, including her cat.

"Why should I be the one to take care of him?"

"Because Grandma specifically asked for you to be his caretaker."

"I’m thirteen. I can barely keep myself alive, much less a cat!" 

They were promptly interrupted by the ring of the front doorbell, and their argument came to a halt.

That would be your Uncle Dave. Stephanie did pause for a moment, glancing from Amelia to the door before reaching for the knob. "Behave," she warned shortly before turning it in her hand. 

The door swung open to show the summer sun surrounding Stephanie’s brother, short hair curling around his forehead to match the wild coils that his sister and niece shared. In one of his hands he held a plastic cage that jostled slightly as he stepped forward. In the other hand was a box most likely intended for cat excrement. 

But it was only when he stepped out of the blinding daylight that his gloomy expression and slumped shoulders came into view. 

Amelia felt a bit guilty at the sight of his discontent. It was easy to forget that her late grandmother was, in fact, her mother and uncle’s mother—considering they forgot the old woman existed most of the time. 

Uncle Dave didn’t visit very often since he lived a few hours away, so Amelia didn’t know him very well. He smiled a lot—something that she usually found quite annoying—so it was disconcerting to see him so dejected.

Stephanie pulled her brother in for a hug and closed the door behind him. Hey, Steph. He set down the cat box and patted her back as she returned his wistful smile.

Hi, Uncle Dave, Amelia said from where she stood a couple feet away. 

Amelia, he acknowledged her. I’ve got something for you. He gestured to the cat carrier and set it on the ground next to the litter box. Say hello to Percy. 

Amelia crouched down to peer inside the carrier while Uncle Dave slowly opened the small door. She squinted, trying to see the animal inside, but her eyes couldn’t differentiate the cat’s fur from the dark shadows cast on the walls of the crate. 

She’d seen it move a second ago, so it couldn’t possibly be dead already. 

With a flash of green, the cat turned his head to the light. Its irises shone like fireflies. One black paw emerged from the carrier, then another, until the cat’s entire body was slinking out of the cage. His tail flipped back and forth as he approached her. 

She hesitantly moved to touch the spot between his ears, but the feline jolted backwards, quickly backing away into the carrier again.

Stephanie and her brother let out a mutual sigh above her as Percy the cat retreated into the cage and began hissing angrily. 

He’ll warm up eventually, her mother reassured. 

I’m gonna go get your other things, Uncle Dave muttered, making his way back to the door.

Other things? Amelia asked, but when she looked up, he was already gone. Only her mother remained, staring at the cat with a frown. 

What is it? 

He looks exactly like I remember her cat when I was little, Stephanie mused. 

Amelia didn’t reply, mostly because she only heard about half of the sentence over Percy’s continued hissing. 

Uncle Dave entered the house again, struggling under the weight of a large wooden chest. Amelia’s mother rushed to assist him, holding the bottom of the chest as they lowered it down to the floor next to the cat carrier. They both grunted in relief as they set the box down. 

Amelia rose to stand, observing the wooden carvings and the golden latch on the chest. This was Grandma’s? she asked.

Yep, her uncle answered, pulling something from his pocket. And it’s all yours now. He held out a golden key, the color matching the latch of the chest. 

She took the key from his hand. What’s in it? 

Dunno, he shrugged. The lock is jammed but that key fits. 

She fidgeted with the old-fashioned key. Can’t you pry it open or something?

Maybe, he supposed, but it was a long trip, Mellie. I think what I need right now is sleep. 

Her mother jumped in, Of course. Let’s get you settled in the guest room. 

She pulled her brother down the hallway, leaving Amelia with Percy the cat and a chest full of mystery items. 

Amelia sighed and sat right on top of the wooden chest, eyeing the golden key. She noticed something strange in the metal and brought it closer to her face. There were tiny letters carved into the side of the key, but when she tried to read it, she realized that it wasn’t English at all, or even the letters that she was used to. Maybe it was some sort of pattern instead.

She slid the key into the pocket of her sweater and stood to check the chest’s weight. She couldn’t imagine how much grandma junk had to be packed inside. What was it that grandmothers usually gave their granddaughters? Dolls? Money? 

She grabbed one of the side handles on the chest and shifted her weight back, heaving it toward her room. She dragged the chest down the hall until her breathing became heavy and her shoulders ached in protest.

Amelia knew it was disrespectful to curse the dead, but what had made this woman think that Amelia needed a hissing cat and a chest full of things she would probably have no use for? 

She leaned against the wall, huffing. But as her breath slowed, she could hear the voices coming from their extra room where her uncle would stay. She neared the door, listening. 

She was crazy. You know that, Steph. 

"She only visited us twice since Mellie was born. Twice." Her mother’s voice.

We tried to get her help and she didn’t want it. It’s not your fault. Dave paused. And you know she had her reasons.

It’s not like she ever told us anything. Other than the obvious.

That doesn’t matter. Not anymore. The floorboards creaked. 

Her mother sniffled. Was she crying? Don’t tell me it doesn’t matter, Dave. If Mellie—

Amelia backed away from the door as if it were suddenly hot to the touch. She really didn’t feel the need to eavesdrop on anyone talking about her, especially if her mom was crying. She went back to work on the chest. 

When she had the chest set in the corner of her bedroom, she went back to find Percy, surprised to find him on the back of a leather chair. His green eyes watched her closely and he was eerily still as he observed Amelia. 

The cat was very pretty, especially with those bright eyes. Amelia paused. It seemed that they were glowing. 

The cat and the girl stared at each other in silence.

Mellie? her mother called from behind her. Oh, I would have thought you’d be asleep by now, sweetheart. She yawned tiredly as Amelia turned.

Asleep? She snorted. Stephanie seemed confused by her response, so Amelia raised her wrist to check the time on her watch. 

She paused, looked at her mother, then back at the watch. 

According to the tiny machine on her wrist, about two hours had passed since her uncle had arrived, and yet it had barely been minutes. It simply wasn’t possible, and yet the sun that shined through the window had gone dark with the evening and her mother’s expression only grew more concerned. 

Are you alright, honey? Stephanie asked.

Um, Amelia rubbed her eyes, yeah, I’m fine. I must have been sleepwalking or something. She forced a yawn. 

Alright, her mother murmured unconvincingly.

Goodnight. 

Back in her room, Amelia paced. Here’s the thing; it had become more and more apparent to her over the last couple months that she wasn’t exactly what one might call normal. Since she’d turned thirteen, things had been strange and she’d yet to tell anyone.

She didn’t lose track of time in the way that normal people did; by getting distracted or carried away. She would simply miss a couple hours as if they were seconds. It had happened once the week before, twice the week before that. Sometimes it felt like the world moved too slow for her as well. She would go into her room and read for an hour or two, and when she returned, would find only moments had gone by. It was worse when she was alone, when she let herself relax into a strange feeling. And her fingertips always felt tingly afterwards. 

Uncle Dave had said her grandmother was insane. Maybe it ran in the family. The first time she remembered meeting Grandma was when she was six years old. All that was left in her memories of the visit were the dirt roads, the little old house covered in overgrowth, and the elderly woman who hadn’t even bothered to look her in the eye. 

The second and last time she saw her grandmother was when she was ten. Victoria Aubert had come to stay with them for a week, spending most of her time locked in the room that Uncle Dave stayed in now and seemed all but relieved to finally leave at the end. 

Amelia was getting lost in her thoughts again, which seemed too often to lead to missed time. She lifted up the blinds on her window and peered outside to find that the sky was dark and the moon in the same place she had left it. She let the blinds fall back over the glass, and stepped back.

Amelia pulled the golden key from the pocket of her sweater and contemplated the wooden chest. She should wait until morning to open the chest, she thought. It was late and there was no reason to try and open it now. But even as she tried to convince herself to go to sleep, something inside her was begging her to do it. Or at least to try. 

She knelt down in front of the chest and placed her hand over the old wood. There was a low hum buzzing from inside, a gentle vibration against her fingertips. She slid the key in the lock and the tumblers shifted as the key turned. 

The chest popped open with a click and Amelia lifted the lid all the way up to reveal the items inside. Old books with their pages tattered at the edges, small boxes with carvings over their latches, stacks of envelopes with broken seals, bottles wrapped in soft fabric to protect the glass, jewelry and tokens—she even spotted a spoon floating around within the piles of quite random objects. Amelia sifted through it all, being careful with the glass items. How it had survived being thrown around in her uncle’s car, she had no idea. 

She pulled a bundle of envelopes out of the chest, addressed to Victoria Lake. Halfway through the stack, the surname changed to Aubert. Amelia didn’t know a lot about her grandfather, other than that he had died when her mother was very young. 

Each envelope had the remains of old fashioned wax seals on the back. Amelia took two broken pieces of wax and held them together. The lettering was incredibly small and worn away. Eventually, she was able to make out the title that wrapped around the edge of the wax. The Aurora Coven. 

Coven? The only definition of coven that Ameila knew was a coven of witches, like in storybooks. There must have been another meaning for the word, she thought. Or maybe it was some sort of game. 

Amelia pulled the first letter out of its envelope.

April 17th 1976

Dear Victoria,

The GMUC is asking for you. They’ve demanded that Eloise and I tell them where you are, but obviously we wouldn’t give them an answer. They’ve started to realize that we aren’t a complete coven anymore and we soon may be stripped of our official title. They’ve refused to admit it outright, but I do believe they mean to arrest you. The longer this goes without a trial, the chances of you being able to return will lessen.

We’re weaker, Vic. With you gone, nothing is the same and we aren’t half as powerful as we were before. I know that you’re scared, we are too, but you can’t just run away from your home and your family. We can keep you safe here, just as safe as you are there. But, since you’ve left for America, we’ve been practically disabled. I never should have let you go. Please come back.

Love,

Diana 

Amelia had so many questions. What was the GMUC? Who were Diana and Eloise? Why did Amelia’s grandmother need to go to a trial? What was she running from? Amelia didn’t fully understand the letter, but it seemed that someone else might have. There were round spots of blurred ink. It could have been drops of water, but Amelia was sure they were from tears.

She didn’t know the answers to her questions, but she wanted to find out.

She put it back in the envelope and took the next envelope from the top of the stack. The broken seal was exactly the same as the previous one. Delicately, she removed the letter from the envelope.

May 30th 1976

Dear Victoria,

I’ve been waiting for a response to my letter. You’ve read it, I know you have. I understand why you left but there is no reason to ignore me completely. I miss you, so does Eloise. If you never wanted to speak to me again, you should have told me in person before you left us. It’s not too late to come back, it never will be. You know it’s the right thing to do.

The GMUC no longer accepts us as an official coven with our magic weak and our third member missing. The man’s family is trying to convince them to have Eloise and I punished further if they can’t find you, which I’m sure they won’t. We are considering leaving the country and may move in with my Caster cousin, that way we will be under a new magical jurisdiction that will hopefully be more lenient. None of this would have to happen if you returned. There’s a chance that everything could go back to normal, but not if you stay in hiding, Vic.

Love,

Diana

No matter how many times Amelia read the words, they didn’t make sense. She resisted the urge to continue through the stack and returned the letters to the chest, telling herself that she would explore the rest of them in the morning. 

As she was about to close the lid, something caught her eye. She reached inside and retrieved a brown leather book, tied shut with a thick string. The design on the front of the book matched the seal on the letters. The Aurora Coven.

Amelia tugged at the string until it fell away from the leather cover and opened the book to the first page. She had expected a journal or notebook, recording her grandmother’s life, but all she found was a blank page. She turned the page. Nothing. Turn to the next. Nothing. 

The journal was empty, which wasn’t unusual, of course, but she wasn’t sure why her grandmother would have left her an old, empty journal.    

Her eyes were dry and her eyelids heavy and Amelia felt drawn to her bed just as she had felt drawn to the chest. As she set the journal back inside of the chest, something strange happened. 

The words on the cover began to move. 

The cover of the journal was changing. Everything blurred together until Amelia couldn’t even tell the letters apart. Either her vision was blurring from her exhaustion or she had already begun to dream.

When the movement stopped, the cover taken on a new title.

The Hummingbird Coven.

Amelia gawked at the new cover. If she wasn’t sure that she was losing her mind before, she was now. She read it over and over again, questioning what she was seeing, then tried to conjure the image of the previous design from memory. Did it ever say Aurora at all?

And there was something else. Something different in the room, an alteration to her senses. After another second of staring at the cover of the journal, she realized that the humming from the chest had ceased. It felt quiet in her bedroom. 

Wait. Amelia jumped to her feet, dropping the journal to the ground. She grabbed her watch from where she had left it on her dresser. 

The hands of the watch spun wildly out of control and Amelia sighed with relief. Of course, she thought as she set the watch back down, I’m dreaming. Whenever Amelia suspected that she was in a dream, she would look at the clocks. If she could tell time, it was real. If she couldn’t tell time, she was in a dream. 

That wasn’t exactly what the clocks were supposed to do if it was a dream, but it wasn’t really normal either. Amelia decided it was enough closure for her.

She didn’t bother to pick the journal up off of the floor or close the lid to the chest. It didn’t matter. It was all a dream, anyway, so she laid down in her bed and went to sleep.

Victoria and Her Cat

Amelia woke up the next morning to an unexpected visitor. Percy the cat sat on her stomach, no invitation needed. She blinked several times, adjusting to the strange creature’s presence. 

Wait, how did you open— Amelia lifted her head off the pillow to see that her bedroom door hadn’t been opened at all. The door was shut as securely as it had been when she had gone to sleep. 

Remembering the letters that she had read the night before (or possibly, had dreamed of reading), Amelia figured that Percy couldn’t have been any more normal than the strange old woman that had cared for him. She carefully lifted the cat away from her stomach, being mindful of his sharp claws clinging to the blanket. She set him back down to the floor and he meowed in protest. 

Amelia left her bedroom with the black cat on her heels. She stepped in the bathroom and Percy looked back up at her innocently. 

Go. Get out, Percy,