6 Nights of Midnight: 1 – The Witches of Camelot

Anne lives alone in one of those brownstones on Camelot.  She’s third generation Midnighter.  Her father does things she doesn’t want to know about.  Anne consorts with witches.

It’s a small coven, and they know they have no real power.  They don’t even pretend.  Every Wednesday afternoon they gather for tea at one woman’s house or another–well, never Erin’s house, as her husband works odd hours–and they discuss all the most important issues of the day: fashion, music, and theatre.

They call themselves the Witches of Camelot because they haunt the Camelot Theatre like ghosts.  They don’t just go for the shows; they’ve got keys to rooms no one at the theatre can access.  They know hallways hidden since the second World War.  They steal mementos from every show, sometimes a bit of costume, sometimes part of a set piece, a prop or a playbill, and store them in what’s become a veritable Museum of Camelot Theatre.

It’s a Friday afternoon, hours before the curtains rise, and Anne slips unnoticed through an otherwise unopened door.  She descends to the lowest of the basements, below even the makeshift museum, where she opens a bottle of pinot noir and pours herself a generous glass.  Then she fills a second, smaller glass, and enters the deepest, darkest chamber.

It’s a round room with a domed ceiling into which pearls have been inlaid to mimic the sky.  Four marble benches encircle a sunken section, at the center of which sits a gold-trimmed sarcophagus, a comfortable chair, and a small, antique table.

Anne sets both glasses on the table and walks around the box.  She whispers a name, her grandmother’s name, which is also her own.  She caresses the polished mahogany, touches each of seven sapphires set along the top, and makes no effort to stop errant tears from escaping her eyes.

Reaching the chair again, she sits.  She withdraws a book from her bag.  “Poetry for Anne,” Anne says.  But the words she recites are lyrics from a Concrete Blonde song, and then something by The Doors, and another Nina Simone did a long time ago.  Anne reads recipes to her grandmother, and headlines from The Midnight Sun, and a conundrum she cut from a box of cereal.

By the time she finishes reading, Anne has finished her glass of wine, and her grandmother’s.  She closes the book, promises to return, maybe next time with actual news, and ascends to the theatre by a secret set of stairs.

Many of the other Witches of Camelot are there to meet her.  It’s Erin who asks, “Any word?”

Anne shakes her head.  “None.”

After shared sighs of relief and frustration, Erin says, “They begin Macbeth tonight,” so they can laugh.

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