Page 15 of The Warlock's Trial

“There must be a reason you’ve been left on your own,” I theorized. “I never received priestess training, but that was because the priestesses didn’t want me on the council, and they just wanted to get rid of me. Intuitively, I don’t feel like that’s the case with the reapers. If we can’t summon Edgar, we’ll have to go to him.”

“How?” Lucas pondered. “He’s got to be somewhere in the afterlife when he isn’t reaping. I can’t portal to other realms myself yet. Astral traveling isn’t going to get us between realms, and we’re not sure of the consequences if we could. The only thing I can think is that I could hitch a ride while I’m reaping, but reaping is more than just creating portals. It severs a tether between your soul and this earthly plane. I could risk destroying my soul in the process. What I need to do is figure out how to portal between realms in my physical form. I’ve got the power—I just need to learn how to isolate it.”

I tapped my fingers on the tabletop. “Let’s say you figured out how to do that. Portaling between realms isn’t enough if we don’t know where to find Edgar Nowak. He could be in Alora, or the Abyss, or anywhere in between. I don’t know much about the afterlife, but I bet each of these places are huge. How do we track him down?”

“A tracking spell might work,” Lucas suggested. “We’ll track Edgar down and find a way to communicate with him, then I’ll complete my training and pass the trial to get the Wand.”

He conjured a bundle of white sage. “Let’s smudge the room with some sage, cast a spell, and see what we find.”

Chief Cauac had been interpreting the entire conversation to Luana, but for the first time, she signed back.

Chief Cauac turned to us. “We’d kindly like to remind you that witches can’t smudge. Smudging is a religious ceremony done by indigenous cultures. As you are not indigenous, you cannot smudge.”

Lucas furrowed his brow and addressed Chief Cauac. “We’ve been doing it for ages. Is there a better cleansing ritual we should be using?”

“You may address my daughter directly, and I will interpret in first-person,” Chief Cauac offered.

Luana continued to explain, and Chief Cauac spoke aloud. “What your culture does by burning herbs for cleansing is a suitable ritual, but it is not smudging. What you do is called smoke cleansing. Smoke cleansing can be performed by anyone by burning herbs to cleanse your spirit, altar, or home. It looks a lot like smudging, but they are not one and the same. Using words that describe our rituals and herbs from a closed practice is harmful to our people, as it erases the significance it has on our culture.”

Lucas and I exchanged a glance. Neither of us knew any of this, and I was horrified that we’d participated in something damaging like this.

“We’re sorry,” I told Luana genuinely. “We had no idea there was a difference.”

Chief Cauac signed to Luana, and she responded back. “We do not tell you this to assign blame—only to educate. Smudging is very sacred to us, and it’s something that only certain members or spiritual leaders of our culture can do. People of other cultures can’t do it, because they simply aren’t qualified. Adopting this ritual into your culture is like blessing water and calling it Holy Water. Blessed water is not Holy Water unless it is blessed by Catholic clergy members. Similarly, smoke cleansing is not smudging because it lacks the cultural significance to carry out the ceremony properly. You are free to continue smoke cleansing as you wish—we simply ask that you do not use our religious terminology in your practice. Continuing to do so contributes to the erasure of our culture. We have already been stripped of our land due to colonization, and we wish to preserve as much of our culture and spirituality as we can.”

“Absolutely. We’ll stop using that term immediately,” Lucas told Luana. “Our coven should have educated us on this. It’s not fair to you, nor your job, to educate us, but thank you for doing so.”

Luana looked down at the white sage bundle in Lucas’s hand. Chief Cauac interpreted. “White sage is sacred to our religious practice, as it is native to our lands. Due to overharvesting of white sage, it can be difficult for our people to find access to white sage. Because of that, we do ask that you find an herb significant to your ancestry that may contribute more ethically to your smoke cleansing rituals.”

“Yes, we can do that,” Lucas agreed. “I’m sure there are plenty of other cleansing herbs we can use. I’m just confused why the coven would care to use sage when there isn’t enough for you.”

“The Elementai used to trade with the witches, so some of our herbs got traded as well. However, herbs alone do not invite others into our spiritual practices. Our lands are not the only thing your ancestors took,” Cauac responded.

Lucas looked horrified. “I thought our land was cleared before the coven settled. I hate to think we had anything to do with harming your people.”

“Regardless, you are still on stolen land,” Chief Cauac interpreted.

“That’s awful.” I felt sick to my stomach.

I knew American history, but I knew little about the coven’s involvement. From what I learned in my history class, witches settled all across New England when they arrived in the Americas. They came over here to escape the witch trials in Europe. But the trials continued here, and it harmed so many humans who had no magical blood. The coven formed Octavia Falls to go into hiding and stop the witch trials.

“Even if we weren't a complete people when the land was cleared, it’s naive to think members of our coven had nothing to do with it,” I said. “Our coven needs to take responsibility for the hand our ancestors played in the atrocities.”

Luana wore a sympathetic expression as her father said, “We cannot change the past, but I urge you to do better in the future.”

“We will,” I promised. “It’s clear we have a lot to learn, and we will work with the Hawkei to do better. What can we do to mend the harm done?”

Luana signed, and Chief Cauac said, “Acknowledging harm caused and choosing to change your actions in the future is the first step—as you’ve acknowledged you will use the term smoke cleansing from now on. We greatly appreciate your willingness to learn.”

“The last thing we want is to cause harm to anyone,” Lucas replied. “We’ll stop using sage, too.”

“There are many different types of sage—it’s specifically white sage we ask that you stop using,” Luana explained, while her father spoke. “White sage is native to the Americas, but common sage is found elsewhere in the world. I would encourage you to look into your roots and use herbs tied to your ancestry.”

“The Miriamic people came from Europe, so you may want to explore herbs similar to what the fae use,” Beau suggested. “The fae priestesses use Siberian cedar to smoke cleanse, and it’s what I use when I need to clear my energy. You could use that, as well as cedar oil. You can also use rosemary, thyme, spruce, or fir. Most of with witches lived in what’s now Germany in the 1500s, so ancestrally, the proper plants to use for smoke cleansing for witches would be those that naturally grow in that area.”

“I didn’t know that,” I remarked. “I don’t understand why the coven would ignore their own history and cultural practices.”

“We lost much of our culture due to the witch trials,” Beau explained. “The Imperium Council forced their people to assimilate to American culture so they wouldn’t be hunted. They outlawed mass-produced information about our heritage so that other people wouldn’t be able to identify them as witches, and so they could hide easier. Family grimoires were allowed, but sharing information among other witches was outlawed. I only know this much because I have been researching our history for decades, and I had to search outside the coven to obtain this information.”

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