Vigil Over Rose

By the time she had finished, it was nearly dusk. "You should be pretty safe from their magic now so long as you stay indoors," she told Rose, "unless they've got some tricks which I don't know about. Still, being cautious doesn't hurt, and I can understand why the Sisters still want to keep vigil over you till midnight."

As darkness fell, the Sisterhood gathered in the large, comfortably furnished lounge. As well as those Rose had met earlier in the day, there were a couple whom she didn't yet know, though she thought that she might recognise them from last night. Irene introduced them as Susan and Trish.

"Presumably those aren't their True Names?" Rose asked. "My True Name - the one that has to be changed - isn't Rose, of course. But for the Society, I'd never have discovered what it was, or indeed even realised that I had one."

"No," Irene agreed. "Except for special occasions, we Sisters use the every-day names that the rest of the world knows us by. It's both simpler and safer. Which reminds me. Natalia and Anastasia, do you know your own True Names? If not, then we ought to find them out for you as part of tonight's ritual."

"I know mine, thanks to my being a witch," Natalia said. "And I know mine," Anastasia said. "Noelle gave it to me. Fortunately the Society could never discover it."

"I have one question," Rose said. "Erin said we were going to induce the change in us all at midnight. Since last night was the last night of the full moon, how are we going to do that? I know you said there were other ways, but they seemed a bit hit and miss. Do we have to have an orgy?"

Erin smiled and said:

1. "There's a certain herb."
2. "The change is less hit and miss than you might think. Once a couple of us within a group start to change, it's very hard for the others to resist."
3. "You aren't far off the mark."

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