Chapter 8: Everything Has Changed

*Three Years Earlier*

Midnight came with a cold breeze. The witching hour was the time for power and magic. It charged the air around them and gave them goose bumps. The veil between worlds was at its thinnest and they could almost hear the lost souls wandering around.

The coven kept firm as they chanted the spell. They had been taught since they were children to never cast at this time of night. Kate wondered what lay beyond the veil. What horrors were kept in the darkness they refused to acknowledge existed?

Theo's friend Nathan had killed a snake as the sacrifice. It was a harmless garden snake they had purchased at a pet store. He cut off its head cleanly with a bone knife. The blood had made Jess go pale but she stayed on her feet as they continued the ritual.

The coven chanted around them, words more powerful and enduring than any marriage vows.

"Vita vitae meae."

Life of my life.