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“A flash flood warning will be in effect in the New Orleans area until 9AM tomorrow. Residents are encouraged to remain indoors and keep to the upper floors of their homes until the warning is lifted. The warning also extends to the surrounding-”
From her position on the white, stiff-backed couch, Cordelia switched off the television and called up the stairs, “Zoe! Will you get everyone down here!”
I shouldn’t have to tell them not to go out tonight, especially not since they’ve already circled the city once today, but knowing Madison…
A flash of lightning illuminated the dimly-lit salon, giving all of the heirlooms an especially austere, sinister impression, just before a crash of thunder drowned out the sound of the raindrops pounding on the ground outside and on the roof of the house. Startled, Cordelia jumped, then rose to her feet quickly in hopes that no one had noticed her surprise. She smoothed her skirt down anxiously as she heard footsteps echoing on the hardwood floor, then clasped her hands together in front of her just as Zoe walked through the archway and into the room.
“What’s up?” Zoe asked, crossing her arms and leaning against the wall as Madison and Nan flanked her, each of them cocking a hip where they stood.
Letting her eyes drift over each girl’s face, the headmistress silently catalogued the presence of her pupils, relief slowly building in her as she counted three, and then four, when Queenie entered a moment later with a, “sorry, I was sleeping.”
Zoe, Queenie, Madison, Nan, she ran through their names quickly in her head, putting Zoe at the front just as she had done since she had first found out she’d be getting a new witch; she had always taken it upon herself never to forget a student’s name.
The few moments of satisfaction quickly passed, her calm all but vanishing as she came to a sudden realisation: Zoe’s not our newest student anymore. I have four witches when I should have five.
Even though she seemed to care more about learning from Cordelia than any of the other witches in the coven, Misty Day was set apart from the other students in the headmistress’ mind. For one thing, Misty was older, old enough to be one of Cordelia’s peers, and she had exhibited extraordinary power without ever having to be taught to control her abilities. The tasks at which she struggled were simply tasks that were new to her, spells she couldn’t pronounce quite right or powers she’d never heard of before. Cordelia saw Misty very much as her equal, so much so that it took her by surprise every time the younger witch addressed her as Miss.
But, then again, I don’t exactly know how I could explain to everyone that she’s my girlfriend… my girlfriend that I thought was upstairs in her room… my girlfriend who should’ve come down by now.
Groaning internally, her heart raced as she wrung her hands together, her voice only revealing a fraction of her true panic as she strained, “where is Misty?”
The four witches in front of her each exchanged glances, and her temples immediately began to throb.
Clearly, they all know something that I don’t. Fine. We’ll go one at a time until we get an answer.
Her voice now frighteningly calm, Cordelia directed a neutral, yet still piercing gaze at each of her students in turn.
“Zoe?”
“Uh…” Zoe stammered, looking at the ground and shrugging, “I don’t know.”
“Madison?”
A scoff, “search me.”
“Nan?”
“I’m not sure, either.”
“Queenie?”
The fourth witch shifted uncomfortably under Cordelia’s gaze, which only intensified by the instant, and the headmistress watched as her resolve began to crumble.
“Madison was the last one who talked to her,” Queenie admitted, “I heard them in the hall.”
“You fucking snitch!” Madison snapped, swatting at Queenie, who easily deflected the blow, adding “don’t try me, bitch” for good measure.
“Enough!” Cordelia finally shouted, the tendons in her neck tightening as she reached unprecedented levels of frustration.
She turned her glare back on Madison, her eyes burning almost black with rage, “Madison Montgomery, where the hell is Misty Day?”
Madison smirked and lit a cigarette, suggesting as she often did, tongue-in-cheek, “worried about your girlfriend, Cordy?”
“You really don’t want to piss me off right now-”
“Or what? You don’t even have real powers and-”
“Madison, just tell her!” Zoe interrupted, “it’s getting really bad out there.”
Zoe and Madison locked gazes, pleading battling indifference until, at last, with a roll of her eyes, Madison took a puff from her cigarette and relented, “fine. I don’t really know where she is, but I do know that she went outside. She said something about thunder and rain being a package deal and getting clean…” she trailed off with her face contorted in confusion before shooting the headmistress a patronizing grin, “you know, just your typical insane swamp-babble.”
Cordelia focused her energies on fighting back the urge to slap her student, and somewhere along the way, an epiphany hit her. She lurched forward, gripping Madison’s shoulders and speaking intensely, “Madison, did she say thunder only happens when it’s raining?”
“Yeah!” Madison exclaimed with false enthusiasm, pushing away Cordelia’s hands, “you know what she’s talking about? Oh, how sweet; you really are perfect for each other-”
Chuckling with a slightly unhinged edge to her voice, Cordelia cut her off before informing her hotly, “it’s not insane; it’s a goddamn Fleetwood Mac song, which you would know if you ever took a moment to remove your head from your ass. Thank you, Madison, that’s all I need from you… for the remainder of the evening. Girls, time for bed; Nan, will you stay and help me?”
“Sure.”
Cordelia watched as Zoe and Queenie directed a visibly shocked Madison Montgomery back up the stairs, then closed her eyes and took a deep breath in an attempt to alleviate her panic.
Nan was the only exception to the coven not knowing about Misty and Cordelia- it was hard to keep anything secret from a clairvoyant- and, luckily, Nan was trustworthy enough not to tell, and crafty enough never to speak of the relationship in the coven house, where rumours spread like wildfire.
This had better work.
“What do you need me for, Cordelia?”
Cordelia smiled; Nan always acted like she didn’t already know what everyone else was thinking. The headmistress put her hands on Nan’s shoulders and looked pleadingly into her eyes, “you have the gift of clairvoyance. I need you to try and reach out to Misty.”
“Uh, that’s not exactly how it works. If she’s far away-”
Shaking her head, Cordelia elaborated, “I just need you to listen for a few specific phrases:Thunder only happens when it’s raining/ Players only love you when they’re playing/ Women, they will come and they will go-”
“When the rain washes you clean, you’ll know,” Nan completed the chorus and shrugged, “everybody knows that song,” before closing her eyes and drifting into a state of deep concentration.
Cordelia watched her anxiously, her mind reeling with panic that something had happened to Misty and there was nothing she could do about it.
“Shh,” Nan whispered, “you’re thinking too loud… and you really need to calm down.”
“Sorry.”
Embarrassed after her reprimand, the headmistress did her best to clear her mind, and had no idea how much time had passed when Nan finally announced proudly, “I hear her!”
Cordelia’s eyes flew open as a myriad of questions rushed back into her head, “is she okay? Where is she? Is-?”
“Hold on!” the clairvoyant interrupted, squeezing her eyes shut tighter, “the song’s quiet, like it’s just stuck in her head or something. The rest of her thoughts… it sounds like she’s-”
A frantic knock on the door startled Cordelia, and she jumped slightly, both physically and to a conclusion, before leaping into action, “thank you, Nan,” she said, running towards the front door, her heels clacking against the floor, “you can go upstairs now. I owe you one- another one.”
Nan smiled in understanding and shuffled up the steps, equal parts satisfied and irritated as she grumbled, “I didn’t even get to say outside.”
Fiddling with the key in the lock and then flinging the door open with a bang, Cordelia found herself face to face with a drenched Misty Day, her hair and her clothes dripping on the porch and her body racked with shivers.
“Sorry, Miss Cordelia,” she said quietly, “would you rather I go around back?”
Letting out a laugh somewhere between relief and bewilderment, Cordelia yanked the younger witch through the door, “get in here,” she said, shutting the door behind her and throwing her arms around her shoulders, “I was worried sick about you- and you don’t have to call me Miss-”
“Cordelia, I’m gettin’ the floor all wet-”
“I don’t care,” Cordelia planted a kiss on Misty’s lips and let herself be comforted, just for a moment, by her girlfriend’s embrace, before getting back into business mode.
“Come on,” she commanded, marching Misty up the steps, “bathroom. Now.”
The slush of Misty’s shoes on the hardwood floor was pitiful, and the small river that flowed wherever she walked might give Fiona an aneurysm when she discovered it, but all that mattered to Cordelia was that her lover was safe.
As Misty stood on the tile of Cordelia’s bathroom floor, a puddle of water grew exponentially around her, even after the headmistress had systematically peeled each soaked article of clothing from her body.
“This is ridiculous,” Cordelia laughed, attempting to wring out Misty’s hair, which had initially been so saturated with water that it nearly hung straight, “it’s so goddamn thick it could probably stop a bullet.”
Misty smiled sheepishly and stood in place as the older witch abandoned her attempts to hand-dry her hair and grabbed two towels from the closet, the first of which was wrapped around her chilled, soaked frame before the second was delegated to absorbing rainwater from her unruly blonde curls.
“You don’t have to do this, Delia,” Misty said, attempting to take the hair towel from Cordelia with one hand while the other was occupied holding the second towel up to her chest, but Cordelia swatted her hand away gently.
“I want to, Misty,” Cordelia said in earnest before whispering, “I was so worried about you- what were you thinking?”
She stood on her tiptoes to kiss Misty’s forehead, and the younger witch blushed, “well… when the man on the television said there was gonna be a storm, I thought it might be nice to go out in it for a bit. Stevie said that rain can be cleansin’, and I wanted to have a part of that- you know how I get bad vibes.”
Cordelia nodded sadly as she stared up into Misty’s doe eyes, clearer blue even than the sky, and then tossed the hair towel onto the counter to take her hands into her own, “I’m sorry that you don’t feel like you belong in this house. Is there anything at all I can do to make you feel like you do?”
Misty smiled down at her lover and shook her head, “some houses just have bad memories, Cordelia. They hole up in the wood like rot and clog the air. But it’s not so bad when I’m with you. When I’m with you, you make everything clearer, and I know I found my home… I belong with you.”
She could be a poet if she really wanted to.
Cupping Misty’s cheek in her hand, Cordelia kissed her tenderly and whispered, “I love you, Misty.”
“I love you too, Delia.”
A shiver briefly racked Misty’s body, and the headmistress giggled, rubbing her exposed forearms to warm them, “you’ve had an eventful day, what do you say we get ready for bed?”
With a grateful glance and an eager nod, Misty let herself be led back into the bedroom, where she rifled through the bedsheets until she found a Fleetwood Mac t-shirt that was much too large for her and slipped it on, crawling under the covers and awaiting Cordelia’s arrival.
The headmistress changed out of her black dress and into a pale blue, silky nightshirt, and slipped in beside her lover, wrapping her arms around her waist and pulling her in close.
Good thing she’s not freezing to the touch anymore.
Misty tucked her head under Cordelia’s chin, resting her cheek on her chest as the headmistress became suddenly preoccupied with a nagging thought.
“Madison called you my girlfriend tonight, Misty,” she said, half to the wild-haired blonde and half to herself, “do you think she actually knows about us?”
She felt Misty shake her head, “nah. She probably just thinks she’s insultin’ you and is too dumb to know that she isn’t. Nan wouldn’t tell, and as long as I keep callin’ you Miss, no one’s gonna find out on their own, either.”
Cordelia laughed, a quiet, breathy chuckle, so that’s why you insist on making me feel like I’m playing mistress/slave all day.
A soft sigh escaped Misty’s lips, her breath tickling the skin on Cordelia’s chest, and the headmistress could feel the gently rise and fall of her chest slowing down. It wouldn’t be long before Misty was asleep; once she was ready, she was out quick, and stayed out until morning.
“Goodnight, Cordelia,” Misty mumbled, her voice thick with sleep, and the older witch placed a gentle kiss on her head.
“Goodnight, Misty… oh, Mist, could you turn off the light?”
“Mm-hm.”
With a lazy wave of her hand, Misty switched off the lamp on the other side of the room, and Cordelia settled into her position, drifting slowly off to sleep.