The Witch Guild Initiation Exam by A.R. Tivadar

Artwork by A.R. Tivadar

It was a cloudy, early spring morning. Not even roosters were awake yet. Multiple young ladies, chaperoned by parents, grandparents or aunts made their way to a remote manor in the Carpathian mountains. A terrace was set up outside with umbrellas, benches, and appetisers.

Older women with elaborate brooches on their coats and peacock feathers in their hats whispered to one another when Mrs Mihaela Ardeleanu, maiden name Codrean, arrived. A promising, powerful witch, born in one of the most respectable families, who married a commoner, both in magic and social status. He was some boxer she had met in a dingy bar. Dinu stood a head and a half taller than her, built like a bear, nose crooked from being punched so often and ears misshapen. They were a silly couple to behold – she was white and slender like a lily, wearing an expensive mauve dress, and he looked like a battered oak, not even wearing a vest with his Sunday suit.

With them was their daughter, Miss Aurica Ardeleanu. Towering like her father, she had to look down to speak with her mother ever since she was 14-years-old. She wore a minty-green dress with turquoise frills, thick dark red gloves on her hands, and a bright naive smile on her face. She looked perfectly fresh, not perturbed at all by the early hour.

“This is so exciting!” she giggled.

“You better knock their socks off,” Dinu said with love. One of the old aunties leered at him from behind an ostrich feather fan, giving him a vicious up-and-down lookover. Dinu smiled at her and ostensibly bowed his head. The woman gasped aghast and quickly turned away.

“She certainly will,” Mihaela said, her voice smooth like perfume, and she petted her daughter’s cheek. “She is my child after all.”

The elder witches with silver hair and silk shawls explained the rules. The initiation was their version of a debut in good society, and that year it was going to be a haunted house. The young witches were to venture inside and make their way back out. It was an imposing building indeed, looking abandoned and derelict from outside. Not even ivy would climb over it. Four floors, dark blue crumbling facade, black roof tiles, and a crooked lightning rod. A skeleton walked up to one of the windows, quickly moving away when it saw the crowd so as to not spoil one of the challenges. One of the elder organizers glared.

Dinu squeezed Aurica’s shoulder like he would a son, and Mihaela gave her a kiss on the forehead. She did not wear lipstick or balm of any kind, as to not be accused of enchanting her with good luck. There were many such scandals in the past.

Four girls were going to enter first: Marinela Pădurean, Iulia Dogar, Ruhsar Dîrțu, and Aurica Ardeleanu. It was 5 o’clock in the morning, and they had 2 hours to “escape.” They estimated it would take until 8 in the evening to finish with everyone.

“Should you prove yourselves today, you may rightfully consider yourselves proper witches. Nobody will be left inside this house should you fail the two hour mark, of course!” One of the elders joked. “But this is not the moment to slack off. Make your ancestors proud.”

Mihaela Ardeleanu smiled with one corner of her mouth, leaning her body against her man.

The ancient double doors of the manor opened with a high-pitched squeal, and the four girls stepped inside. Immediately the doors shut behind them, and they were engulfed in darkness. Aurica calmly took off her gloves, revealing many of her mother’s rings, some twisted around so that the precious stones were inside her palm. She flicked her wrist a couple times, and a small red flame lit from a red jasper. When the girls turned around to look at the door they just walked through, they saw it was gone, replaced by a plain wall.

“Spooky,” Aurica smiled.

Ruhsar Dîrțu instinctively reached a hand to her own neck, petting the spider brooch cuffing her blouse’s collar. The family heirloom and familiar stretched its golden legs. Ruhsar’s father was Turkish, hence her first name, and her appearance pointed to him as well – olive skin and big shiny eyes that reflected the flame. Her dress was chamomile white, and she had a pink jacket on top, with a bundle of lavender tucked in the breast pocket.

“Well, what now?” Marinela Pădurean asked, rubbing her hands nervously.

“We explore!” Aurica declared. She shook her hand, taking out the flame as the heat was starting to become uncomfortable. As she took the ring off to switch it to her other hand, a large shadow rushed past the girls, making all of them jump. Ruhsar’s spider let go of her collar and immediately hopped on her wrist, front legs up in a threatening pose.

The girls stood in tense silence for a moment, then Aurica led the way to where the shadow went, down a hallway. Ruhsar followed, then Marinela, then Iulia Dogar. The latter, from a family of clairvoyants, wore a plain, sky-blue dress and eyeglasses with very thick lenses and brown frames. She walked slower than the rest, closed her eyes and took them off her nose. She needed them to see the present, and because her eyesight was poor in general. Even the future looked blurry. She opened her eyelids only a little bit to peek into it. They would indeed meet whatever startled them, and they would defeat it. She saw it scramble away in shock and fear. Neat! She wondered how they would do that, though. She put her glasses back on and caught up with the girls.

Marinela looked around the dark hallway with a miserable expression. She wore a very fashionable dark crimson dress with embossed velvet details of flowers and flying doves. The Pădurean family was distantly related to the Codrean family, as their names suggested. Her 15th cousin twice-removed, Aurica, was excitedly marching forward, ready to ace the exam. Marinela didn’t even want to participate. She could care less about witchcraft and her centuries-old family legacy of powerful sorceresses. She wanted to be a normal, young lady, attending Conservatory, going to theatre plays and cafes around Bucharest, going shopping in Paris during the summer. But Marinela’s mother threatened that if she did not pass the exam, she would send her to live with auntie Florica from Vaslui. She would rather die than be seen in Vaslui!

Ruhsar put her hand to one of the walls and deployed her spider. It turned around, caressed her hand with one of its legs, then disappeared in the darkness. The hallway they found themselves in seemed endless, stretching further than what the building looked like from inside, and it just kept going as they kept walking. There used to be doors, paintings, photographs, decorations, but at one point it became just a long stretch of walls, floor, and ceiling. The only sound was their footsteps on the old wooden floor.

Aurica stopped suddenly when another pair of footsteps could be heard, coming from in front of them. The other girls bumped into her back.

“Sorry!” Ruhsar said.

“It’s alright!” Aurica said.

“It’s coming…!” Iulia whispered.

“What is coming?!” Marinela panicked.

They saw a hulking shadow shamble towards them, taking up the entire hallway, groaning and huffing like a beast. It had five arms and 3 eyes, and pink drools dripped from its jagged teeth. Aurica grabbed the flame like a ball and chucked it towards the shadow. It backed one step and growled fiercely.

“Seize!” Marinela commanded. The wood from the floorboard snapped and grew rapidly, stabbing into its elephant legs. “Now what…?” she whispered.

Aurica charged forward and punched the shadow right in its face, a perfectly clean uppercut. Iulia, Ruhsar, and Marinela starred in disbelief. The shadow roared and tried to hit back, but Aurica dodged by ducking down, then shot back up, hitting the side of its head twice, one with each fist. It stumbled out of the floor restraints, shredding its legs, and a sharp tooth flew out of its mouth. Aurica charged to punch it again, but the shadow scrambled out of sight, down into the darkness.

Aurica laughed breathlessly and straightened her posture. She turned back to see the other girls still staring at her.

“What?” she asked them.

“Are we… allowed to do that?” Ruhsar asked.

“Why not?” she laughed.

Iulia removed her glasses again and saw Ruhsar’s spider returning, a broken window and much laughter. She turned away from the group and saw more dark hallways, a trap leading to a basement and herself groaning in exasperation. Yes, it was best to keep going forward.

“Ruhsar, your spider will be back shortly,” Iulia said.

“Thank you!” she smiled. “He’s nosey. He finds stuff out fast.”

“Where should we go next?” Aurica asked her.

“Forward. The hallway will be normal again, and I saw what looked like stairs.”

“Should we go up them?” Marinela asked.

“I don’t see why not,” Ruhsar said.

The endless hallway had a sharp turn to the left, and they were back to the entrance foyer. A grand staircase appeared in the meantime, leading to the upper floors, covered by a nasty-looking carpet. All four walked close to the railing to avoid stepping on it.

Upstairs were two directions to take – left or right. To the left was darkness again, and to the right was a window through which a bright white light came through, a thin curtain moving gently in the breeze. There was no sound from the people outside, though.

“Can you check, please?” Aurica asked Iulia.

“... the left way,”” she said.

“Will we see another monster?” Marinela asked.

“Yes, but we will manage it.”

“Great…”

The girls walked forward, Aurica lighting the way, this time with a smaller orange flame from a carnelian ring. Marinela thought there was something behind them, but chalked it up to be her own paranoia. A metaphorical devil, or perhaps a real one, kept telling her to look back. Eventually she gave in, peeking over her shoulder. It was just dark, especially after having seen the flame for a prolonged time. As her eyes adjusted, she saw a figure – a toothless man with a dishevelled frock and a knife for a hand. It started running towards them.

Marinela shrieked and ran ahead of the girls, almost putting out their light. The three spun around in time to see the enemy. Aurica caught the knife with her hand and punched it with her other one, imprinting her rings into its cheek. She pushed her fist between its jaws and commanded: “Solis!” Her citrine ring made its head shrivel and darken like a burnt match. It fell down limply like a doll.

Ruhsar took the lavender from her pocket and held Aurica’s hand between her own, whispering a prayer to heal the cut. The wound closed up immediately. A couple of the purple flowers turned brown and also fell dry to the ground.

“Thank you!” Aurica said. “Was that it?” she asked Iulia.

“I think so,” Iulia said. “No window around us, though.”

“Maybe we should have gone the other way?”

“No, no, that window wouldn’t have had any glass. It was a trap.”

“Maybe there is something else further down the hallway,” Ruhsar suggested.

“Yes, probably.”

“Where did Marinela go?” Aurica put her hands on her hips.

“I didn’t see that,” Iulia giggled.

Outside, the families were eating grape leaf rolls and roasted quails. A butler opened a bottle of enchanted champagne, which came out like the purple-grey mist from the Moors, settling into the glasses with a delicate sway, then turning into liquid.

“That’s pretty cool,” Dinu said and took a sip, wrinkling his nose at the burnt taste. The butler’s features froze in indignation when he pointed it out.

Mihaela laid against her husband’s side like a spoiled cat, her legs up on the bench and a platter full of cakes in her hand. “The Pădureans need to fire that old fart and get a new sommelier.”

Marinela’s mother, Mrs Pădurean, twisted her red lips. “That’s not very kind of you to say about a gentleman who has been excellent at his job for decades.”

“That was back then,” Mihaela said, throwing a candied cherry in her mouth. “If now, in the present, he’s gone to shit, how would it comfort me that he was great when I was a toddler? I couldn’t drink back then, could I?”

Mrs Pădurean scoffed. “Your husband’s influence has stripped you of all decorum.”

“And yours isn’t even here. Where’s George, anyway? Did you leave him behind in Baden–...”

“--...Quiet!” Mrs Pădurean barked.

Mihaela’s lips closed themselves. She smiled with a puff through her nose, then moved her middle finger’s ring over them to unzip. “You’re stressed out, aren’t you?”

Mrs Pădurean looked away with an annoyed sigh.

“Pray the girls pass the initiation,” Dinu said, sipping more champagne. “My Aurica will be fine whether or not she does. She has a lovely home to return to. Your Marinela, the sweetheart, is welcomed too.”

“Don’t speak nonsense!” Mrs Pădurean said. “As if I’d let her even visit your lot. And of course she will pass, that’s out of the question.”

“Does anything actually happen if they don’t?” he asked his wife.

“Just a bit of humiliation.” she replied.

Inside the house, the girls continued exploring, calling out for Marinela periodically and wondering among themselves how much time had passed. The hallway split into two. One side offered a door to a dusty drawing room, and the other into another corridor. Between them was a window, too dirty to see what was beyond it. Iulia was about to speak when she felt something fall on her head. She reached a hand to touch it and felt bug legs. “Eeep!!” She panicked and smacked at her own hair.

“Calm down! It’s just a spider!” Aurica said.

“It’s my spider!” Ruhsar gasped. “Don’t hit him!!”

The gold spider jumped onto Ruhsar’s chest, and she hugged him with her palms. She looked at him for a few seconds, then smiled wide.

“He found the way out!” she said.

“Great!” Aurica said. “Which way?”

“We have to go back down the stairs and go through what looks like a kitchen. The ‘backdoor’ is actually the real door.”

Aurica was about to say something as well, when a gurgling growl came from the corridor. What looked like a large dog, horribly reanimated, charged towards them. Aurica tried to hit it, calling out “Solis!” again. Holes were burned into its skull, but it would not let go of her hand, its teeth firmly implanted in her skin. She frantically shook it and bashed it against the walls, but it would not let go. Ruhsar’s spider jumped from her and crawled into the dog’s ear. It snarled and finally let go, clawing at its own head.

Ruhsar rushed to heal Aurica, losing more lavender than before.

“You can’t beat it!” Iulia said.

“You saw that?” Aurica asked, almost offended.

“No! It’s already dead! You can’t kill that thing!”

The dog let out a disgusting cough, and the gold spider shot out its mouth, smacking against the wall.

“No!!” Ruhsar cried out and ran to retrieve him, dropping the bundle.

“Get back! It’ll bite you!” Aurica tried to grab her.

Everybody suddenly froze in place, eyes wide. A voice filled the dark hallway, soft and clear like running water. It sang the most beautiful song they had ever heard. The girls stayed still while the dog slowly turned around and, hypnotised, made its way towards the drawing room. It pushed the door open with its skeletal paw.

The song abruptly stopped, and Marinela flung a chair at it, sending it reeling backwards into the corridor. Snapping out of the song too, Aurica wasted no time, grabbed the beast and threw it out the window, into one of the appetiser tables below. Many screams could be heard.

“There we go!” Iulia said.

“That was awesome!” Aurica turned to Marinela.

“I learned the song from a mermaid I met in Costinești!” Marinela smiled.

Laughter could be heard from the broken window by the guests gathered outside. A group of servants were cleaning up the broken table and taking the corpse away after un-animating it.

“That’s my girl!” Dinu Ardeleanu laughed heartily. Mihaela Ardeleanu was smiling with all her teeth.

“Is that allowed…?” one of the other mothers asked.

“Why not?” Mihaela shrugged. “Use your skills to get out as fast as possible, right?”

“Decorum does not exist anymore,” one of the elders grumbled.

“Relax!” Mihaela purred, putting her empty plate down. “The food’s not even that good.”

Mrs Pădurean squinted at her.

Through another window they saw a flash of red light, and in another section of the manor they heard a high-pitched yelp. They could hear a storm of footsteps approaching the front door, getting closer and closer. The girls suddenly burst through, falling over each-other on the front porch. Marinela was holding a frying pan, Ruhsar her lavender and a spatula, Iulia a saucepan and Aurica a femur from the skeleton.

“Fifty-eight minutes!” an elder witch clicked on her stop-watch. “Congratulations, girls! You passed!”

Aurica sprung up to her feet, screaming in joy as the femur flew to the side with a small thunk. Her mother gave her a big hug, then her father picked both of them up like a triumphant bear. Ruhsar’s parents hugged her as well and stroked her hair, and Iulia’s mother fixed her glasses on her nose while rambling praises that she saw she would make it but kept it secret so as to not ruin the surprise.

Marinela dropped the frying pan and waited with bated breath as her mother walked up to her.

“Congratulations, Marinela!” Mrs Pădurean said with a soft smile. “I’m very proud of you.”

Marinela smiled wide.

“Now then, who is next?” Mrs Pădurean turned to the elders.

“The Gheorghiu sisters, Anabella Pintea and Tatiana Florescu,” one of them said, reading from a rabbit-skin notebook.

“Hopefully, they complete the exam as quickly as our girls. I would like to submit Marinela’s application into the Dobrogean Coven Association before nightfall. Travelling around these parts at night is dreadful…”

“Why not the Transylvanian Coven?” Mrs Florescu asked as she ate a muffin with lavender flowers. “Come with us!”

“I believe that is where Marinela’s skills would be best used.” And because in that other coven was where she would have to keep seeing Mrs Ardeleanu’s stupid face.

Marinela stayed still by her mother’s side as these conversations went on, not really listening. She was genuinely proud of herself, a little smile on her lips as she looked at her dirtied hands.

“Marinela!” Aurica hollered from a table. “Come sit with us until everyone’s done!”

“Oh! Can I?” she looked up with a start.

“Yeah, come on!” she smiled brightly, Ruhsar and Iulia already next to her.

Before Mrs Pădurean could turn around, Marinela was already making her way towards them -- her new friends and her future coven sisters.

A. R. Tivadar is a hobby writer from Romania and a graduate of the University of Oradea. She has been published in Alien Buddha Press, Motus Audax Press, RIC Journal, Low Hanging Fruit, 100subtexts and 14 other online literary magazines.

instagram: @a.r.tivadar

linktree: /ARTivadar

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