I have been practising witchcraft for three years.

Though I've always been interested in that kind of thing, it wasn't until I started college that I was introduced to the real thing. Two girls in my dorm invited me in, into their coven. You can't have a coven with less than three witches and their third had finished her degree and left the city.

We do many things together. Crafting charms and potions, occasional seance, even just hanging out on our off days. Being a coven isn't just a means to an end. We're friends, confidants, even lovers sometimes. We don't call each other sisters for the aesthetic. Well... not just for the aesthetic.

There is one thing we have to do alone, though. Completely alone. Our ritual of devotion.

Witchcraft isn't natural, you know. The charms, the potions, the muttered Greek verses and projected desires, they shouldn't work the way they do. The only way for our powers to work this way, is because they have been graciously granted to us. And twice a year, on two particular nights, we have to re-affirm our devotion. Alone.

I peek out the window of my dorm room, seeing a group of college students on the other side of the road, laughing and dancing while vaguely horror-themed songs plays from one of their phones. The time for children to roam in their cute costumes and chant for candy has passed, now my drunk peers are strutting around in outfits varying in effort and sluttiness.

I close the curtains and turn back to my room. I did have a costume today, a classic witch outfit with the wide-brimmed hat and a prop broom. My sisters called me cheesy for it, but frankly they didn't have much to stand on, with their anime cosplay and sexy kitten looks.

Now, my costume is discarded, lying on my bed, leaving me standing in the middle of the room in my black underwear. It's not fancy, but it is the nicest set I have. It's comfortable and I like the way I look in it. I hope she will like it, too.

All the lights are off. The circle I've drawn in chalk on the floorboards is illuminated instead by the candles in its corners. To two sides of the circle, I've lit incense, the smell slowly filling the whole room. I don't have my wand or my notebook nearby as I usually would. I'm not going to need them for this ritual.

I pick up my phone to check the time. 11:59pm. I hold the button down to turn it off completely, then leave it on my desk before stepping into the circle. I listen into the night, past the cheers and singing from outside. My heart is beating fast. Then, cutting distantly through the air, I hear the first sound of the midnight bells.

I can't wait anymore now, I have to start. I sit down in my circle, kneeling in the centre. I take off my glasses and pull out my hairtie, putting both down outside the circle and letting my hair fall freely over my shoulders. Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath of the incense and slowly let the air escape past my lips.

O mistress Hecate,

With three forms and three faces,

Let my offerings be as your torches,

That they might guide your way to me.

My heartbeat quickens. I don't know if it is the anticipation or whether she has already found me. Six months ago, on Walpurgis Night, I barely felt her gaze, not like it had been in the previous years. According to my sisters, her attention is fickle. Sometimes she will simply acknowledge us. Sometimes she will observe us. Sometimes, or so they said, her attentions are intimate.

O mistress Hecate,

Agia, Anassa, Aenaos,

My devotion is to you,

My heart, my mind, my body.

Silence. Not the wind, nor the voices, enter my room anymore. My ears feel clogged, like from a sudden change of pressure. My skin breaks out into goosebumps.

O mistress Hecate,

See me, receiver of your gifts,

Sister of your children,

And know that I am yours.

My thoughts drift to my sisters. At this very moment, they are in their own rooms, in their own circles, exposed and inviting Hecate to look upon them. I feel connected to them, despite each of us performing in isolation.

O mistress Hecate,

On this your second night of worship,

Take from me your price,

Know that all of me is yours to take.

Something compels me to open my eyes. It's not a taboo, I am not breaking the trance by doing so, but I still feel hesitant as I do. The room is dark. The candles have gone out, far too soon, five more whisps of smoke joining the two of the incense sticks. The only light are the sharp slits of moonlight coming in past the curtain's edges.

I hesitate. Should I relight them? Is that breaking trance? But if I do not, will that break it? I feel a twinge of panic and decide to act before I overthink. I raise my hand, leaning to the side to feel for the lighter outside the circle.

A hand seizes my wrist and pulls it back in place next to me. A shudder rushes up my spine. I might have screamed in shock, had my breath not caught in my throat. I shift, trying to turn and see someone in the darkness behind me, but the moment I do, palms and fingers press into my skin.

My ankles are seized, my thighs pressed and squeezed, forcing me to stay kneeling. Another hand grabs my other wrist, more press into my arms and my shoulders and they pull. I do scream this time, as I am yanked backwards and forced to lie my back, but it is cut off abruptly by a pair of hands clasping over my mouth, pressing tightly over my lips and into my cheeks.

I struggle, but countless hands hold me in place. My arms, my waist, my bent legs, even my head, a pair joining to interlock their fingers and press over my eyes, pulling the back of my head against the wooden floor.

Somebody is here. Not just whatever countless souls are grabbing me, but somebody hovering over me, in the dark, somebody I can neither feel nor see nor hear, and yet I know they are here.

She is here.

Suddenly, past the initial shock, I feel... safe. Warm. The hands holding me down are soft, gentle in their firmness. I get goosebumps again as a single fingertip touched the skin of my lower chest and travels slowly, agonisingly, down towards my belly button. Heat pools deep in my core and I can't help but shift, arching my back.

The fingertip travels down, over my belly button, closer and closer to my crotch. It happened so fast that I am startled by my own desire, by my sudden craving for her to keep going, faster, harder, to claim me like I offered.

A pair of hands comes to rest on my chest. My nipples strain against the fabric of my bra. Suddenly I wish I hadn't even worn this set. I should have discarded the last of my shame and shown her everything right away.

The fingertip reaches the edge of my panties, remaining there, drawing little circles on my skin. My voice is muffled by her hands as I whimper, trying to buck my hips, but she holds me down firmly on the floor.

An eternity passes in this blissful agony, her hands resting on my chest and her fingers right at the edge. Then, the fabric rips. I flinch at the sudden feeling, then helpless buck and writhe again as her soft palms press onto my erect nipples. Her fingers squeeze into my flesh and I cannot hold back my muffled moans.

Another hand first gently cups my mound, then two fingertips work into my moist folds, the ball of the thumb pressed onto my clit. My moans turn into desperate whimpers once again, my muscles tensing to no avail.

Vivid memories enter my mind. Of me and my sisters, sharing the bed with one, then the other, then both of them. Then the shower, then, a bathroom stall, then risking the hallway and the back of the yard. All my lust and craving mixes and compounds and my head spins.

My body shudders and twitches as I reach climax, but she does not pause or stop. Her fingers plunge deeper, her grip on my chest becomes more forceful. Squeezing, pinching, rubbing. My orgasm lasts half another eternity and I do not find a moment to rest. She will not let me rest.

The hands clasped over my mouth part and I gasp, parting my dry lips with an embarrassingly desperate groan. I look for something useful in my mind. Any words I should say. Did I finish the verses? I barely remember.

"Hecate..." I only manage to breathe her name, before my breath hitches again, my lips brushed by hers. Soft, warm, moist, they tingle and sizzle and my mind tumbles. I twitch against her fingers again as another climax overcomes me. But once again, she does not let me rest.

A pair of hands seizes my neck. They tighten, slowly, gently. Her lips push against mine and her tongue prods and caresses my own, then firmly presses it down to stifle any thought of making it a game. Her fingers reach deeper inside me and at the same time, her her tongue pushes deeper as well, into my tightening throat.

My eyes roll back in their sockets and I lose control of my voice, raspy moans and whimpers muffled by her lips. I reach the third just as I feel like I am going to pass out.

I awake on the floor, my skin covered in sweat and chalk. The incense has burned out, the candles were barely lit. My body aches, my eyes burn, and my first waking breath is made desperately, like I just burst through the surface of a deep lake. I breathe in something I shouldn't have and have to scramble to my hands and knees in the resulting coughing fit.

For a moment, I doubt all that happened last night. It couldn't have happened. And yet, the marks tell a different story. Reddened skin, where her hands had seized me, against which I had struggled in vain. Part of me feels like screaming, another part like crying, yet another like jumping and dancing. But I am tired. I rise to my feet, almost slipping on the tattered remains of my bra, and stumble into the bathroom.

I need a shower. My skin is sticky with sweat, chalk has stuck to me in places, and my crotch and thighs are sticky with different fluids. But as I enter, before I can turn to the shower, I spot my reflection in the mirror.

The marks are on my cheeks and my neck as well. My lipstick is smeared and my eyeliner has run all the way down my cheeks. But most of all, eclipsing all else, one thing draws my attention.

Between my collar bones, gleaming in the dark bathroom, the tiny outline of a crescent moon sits on my skin.