Lucile pulled the plug on the bath water and down the drain went the scry water she had used.
She sighed and got up to dry herself more thoroughly before getting into her soft flannel Strawberry Shortcake pajamas. Then she made herself a dry martini and took it to the vanity table filled with all her makeup and perfumes.
Lucile settled herself with a contented sigh on her white rabbit fur-lined boudoir chair in front of the vanity makeup table and pulled out a glass jar filled with some thick white cream.
She looked into the round vanity mirror and her perfectly oval face stared back at her as she began slathering the cream all over her cheeks and forehead.
Lucile had always been a great beauty, but even great beauties need to maintain their complexion. She did not want to be one of those witches with bumps all over her skin.
Beauty was not that difficult to maintain. She was a witch after all. It simply required a little bit of effort.
All seven of the witches of Chartreuse were roughly the same age but a few of them didn't even do basic glamour magic, which was quite a shame.
Lucile would have shared the face cream with her coven sisters except they would get upset that she had used 'sacred herbs' just to keep from looking like a dried up old prune. It had gotten so bad that they were starting to become the Ugly Witches of Chartreuse instead of the Glamorous Enchantresses of Chartreuse.
She sighed as she put on a lip gel that kept her lips from shriveling.
No way could she share this with them either. They had gotten less and less educated and became more and more dogmatic. They had forgotten much of the rational reasoning behind what they did and started assigning all manners of fantasies and mysticism to basic activities using ordinary herbs.
Suddenly, all sorts of rituals, dances, songs, and mumbo jumbo began to be incorporated turning a basic witch activity like making lip balm into a religious experience.
Lucile smirked.
If any of her coven sisters knew she used her own dirty bath water to do a sacred scry-visual, they would have a cow.
They would persecute her for doing blasphemous disrespectful things to their sacred scry-visuals. To them, it had to be done at night during a full moon—or some other such bullshit.
In reality, scry-visuals was usually done at night because a reflected image was more easily seen when it got dark outside.
Using the water's reflective surface, they simply combined it with a small light source, which in their case was the moon's light, to see the reflected light waves that had been sent to them. This was the same principle that allowed a person to see their own reflection on a window pane at night.
It was just a flat reflective surface to project the visual upon so it could be more easily seen, and it worked every single time, no fail. There was no need to dance and chant and ring the bells.
Heh. She sniffed with disdain. Whatever.
It wasn't her job to demystify that which had been turned into a religion. She didn't have time for that.
On that note, Lucile needed to call up Sib.
Without any more dirty bath water to use as a reflective surface, she was going to have to use her makeup mirror.
"Sib. You there?" She called out and waited.
It only took a couple of minutes for Sibyl to respond.
"Aaaaaaahhhh!!!" Sibyl screamed, covering her eyes with her hands.
Lucile chuckled. "Oh relax. It's just my beauty mask."
"Lulu, that's an ugly mask!" Sibyl cried out, still trying to recover from the near panic attack. "You look so ghastly you nearly gave me heart failure!"
Lucile's classically beautiful oval face with perfect features, soft plump lips and large brown eyes were marred by a thick layer of garish white cream slathered over her face.
"Sorry Sib. A girl has to do certain things to keep pretty looking. Want to try some of this?" She held up the glass jar filled with the white paste.
Sibyl shuddered. "No thank you. I have my own mixture. It's clear, thank the heavens, so it doesn't make me look like a demon."
Lucile cackled and took her towel turban off. Her hair had mostly dried and bounced from the towel in a deep coppery red.
"Guess what."
"Hmmm."
"Your daughter has arrived in Faria."
"Whaaaaat???" Sibyl slammed her hand down, disturbing the pan of water that she was staring into. The reflected waves made her face move in a sloshing nausea-inducing motion.
Lucile clicked her tongue and took a sip of her martini. "Tch. She came with her boyfriend, the new King of Faria."
"Oh for heaven's sakes. How could those two possibly have even met? I took her to the other side of the veil to keep her away from him, for crying out loud!" Sibyl scowled and heaved a theatrical heavy sigh.
"Sibyl, Sibyl, Sibyl." Lucile chanted. "How long have you been a witch, dear? Do you honestly think anyone can escape destiny that's been foretold to a High Seer?"
"But what are the chances that they would even randomly bump into each other on the street?"
"For someone who's been mentioned not once but twice in a prophecy, the chance is 100%." Lucile responded drily.
"Add a second person who has also been mentioned twice and the chance becomes 200%…is there such a thing as 200%?"
"Ugh, I'm so disgusted." Sibyl pounded her temples with her fist.
"What are you worried about?" Lucile chided. "Doesn't it say she's going to rule the kingdom with him?"
"Yeah well it also says he's going to kill her!"
"Oh come on, Sib. It didn't say 'kill'." Lucile waved her martini glass around. "I think the word is 'sacrifice'."
"Doesn't that mean kill?"
Lucile grimaced. "Not—not always. Sacrifice could also mean 'do without' or 'doing something for the benefit of another'."
"None of that fits the context of the prophecy." Sibyl grounded out.
"Honey, it's a frickin' poem. There's so much ambiguity in it that you can read just about anything you want."
"Still…" Sibyl threw a spoon into the water in frustration. It rippled the smooth skin of her face yet again.
"A spoon? Really?" Lucile rolled her eyes.
"I was washing dishes, okay? You called, so I used—"
"…the dirty dishwater to talk to me, yes yes." Lucile sighed. "I did the same with Mattie, only mine was from the bath tub."
The two witches looked at each other for a moment. Suddenly, they both burst out laughing.
There was a reason why the two of them were no longer part of the Seven Seers and did not keep in contact with the remaining witches.
They were the only practical witches.. The rest were superstitious idiots.