Ryder, Lily and Lydia owned a total of two hundred acres of land. At least fifty acres was used for growing apples, peaches, blueberries, hay, strawberries and pumpkins. Lily and Lydia had a greenhouse where they grew all sorts of herbs and flowers. The other hundred and fifty acres were used for raising horses and cows. It gave them plenty of room to roam. The grove where the Silver Crescent coven did their rituals and meetings during the warm months was just twenty feet behind the barn. The path that leads to it is hard to find, unless you knew where to look.

Yasmine was heading out towards where she woke-up when she first arrived here. It has become her favorite spot on the whole property. It allows her to see nothing but land all around her. You couldn’t even see the fence or the road from the spot. She sat there on top of Charlie and just looked around. She takes a deep breath and fill her lungs with fresh air. There was never anything like this back in Richmond, Virginia.

Everything here smelled so fresh and cleaned. Yasmine felt Lydia’s presence as soon as she crossed over the boundary of the property. She could also feel three other presences with her. Yasmine turns Charlie in the direction where the road is and rides down towards the fence that separates the driveway from the pasture. The drive way cuts right through the middle of the property and connected it to the main road.

Yasmine waves at Lydia when she gets close enough and follow her silver suv back to the house.

“Welcome home, mom.” Yasmine stops Charlie a little away from the suv. She had found out he doesn’t like cars at all.

Lydia just looks up at her daughter and smiles. She liked being called mom.

“Where’s your father at?”
“I think he’s in the back of the orchard with the rest of the crew. Do you want me to go and get him for you?” Yasmine smiles down at Lydia.

She liked thinking of her as her mother, just like she liked thinking of Ryder as her father.

“Yes, tell him that Lady Blair, Lady Clara and Lady Moria are with me and if he could come up and join us in the living room. Also, where is
Lily?” Lydia knew where her husband was. She could feel him through their bond. She figures this would give Yasmin something to do.

“She’s on the side porch working on that quilt she’s been making, mom.” Yasmine gives Lydia a smile when she called her mom.
Lydia notices Yasmin’s smile “okay, go fetch your father please.”

“Yes Ma’am.” Yasmine turns Charlie around and head towards the back part of the orchard, where she knew Ryder was.

Yasmine spots Ryder or she should say dad helping one of the laborers that work for them.

“Dad, mom wants to know if you could come up to the house. Lady Blair, Lady Clara and Lady Moria are up there right now with her.” She had no idea who they were.

Ryder looks up at Yasmine when he hears her call him dad again and listens to what she said.

“I’m on my way, Yasmine.” He looks towards the guy he was helping and tells him to finish up this row and do as much as the next row before they leave today.

Yasmine watch as her dad heads over to his four-wheeler and drives back towards the house. She heads off out towards the pasture and spend some time riding, before she needs to head back to the house to help fix dinner tonight. Yasmine was lucky, because her chores are easy. All she had to do was clean the stalls in the barn each morning and feed the horses. She also took care of the tack room as well. She feed the cows and milk them if they need milking. Lily normally helps her with the milking. She collects the eggs from the chickens and fixes breakfast along with her mother helping her. Lily and her shared the lunch duties, because her dad was normally out in the orchard taking care of it or doing other things around the farm. Yasmine and her mother do the laundry together. If the weather is nice, like it has been for the past few weeks, they hang everything outside on the clothes line. If the weather is bad, they take them upstairs to the attic and hang them up there to dry. The house duties were split between the three of them, because her father is always working outside. Yasmine has the bathrooms, the living room, and the study to keep clean. Her mother does the kitchen and her father’s office, the dining room, the coven room and Yasmine’s practice room. Lydia and Ryder reinforce the protection wards on the room, so none of Yasmine’s magic leaves that room or blow her up. Lily does the library, the den, the sewing room, the spare bedrooms and her office. She runs an on-line quilt and reenactment clothing store.

Yasmine stops and look at the fence that separated their property and their neighbor’s property. There was a broken broad on it that she would have to tell her dad about. Yasmine turns Charlie in the direction that the fence went and followed it all the way down towards the road, where it began. They lived out in the country, away from the city and the roads back here were quiet. Every once in a while you would see a car or truck, which was why it seemed suspicious that a black suv was sitting on the side of the road not that far from the driveway entrance to the property.

“Yasmine wonders who or what they are?” She sat there on top of Charlie and watch the black suv. She knew they couldn’t see her, because she was hidden by a few trees that grew next to the road. The fence went around them, because they were part of their property.
Yasmine closes her eyes and point her hands at the suv. She wanted to know who or what they were and the spell she had in mind would let her know. She forms the spell in her mind like Lily taught her and sends it towards the black suv.

What the spell did is let her hear what they were saying inside the van.

“Are you sure that the people here are witches?”

“Yes, I’m sure. One of them owns an occult store in town and her husband runs this farm. The couple is the High Priest and High Priestess of the coven that meets here. The other woman that lives here owns an on-line business that specializes in homemade quilts and reenactment clothing. We know she is a member of their coven, because she has been with them from the beginning. What about the girl we saw last week? How does she fit in with them?”

“I don’t know. She’s an unknown variable. We haven’t been able to learn much about her past, because she is home schooled here and what we do know is that she is passing herself off as their niece. We did a background check and it’s true that Lydia Quinn has a sister, but there’s no mention of her having any children the girl age. She looks like she is about ten years old, so it’s hard to say.”

“Can we get someone out here to get close to her and find out about her?”

“We’re working on it. Right now, we’re having problems out west with the supernatural community because one of the HSL agents went to the other side and told them all our secrets. All our resources are stretched thin right now. That’s why we’re only doing recon and avoiding all possible contact with this group.”

Yasmine opens her eyes and think about what she just heard. She needed to get back and tell her mom and dad, but she was going to make it, so these guys wouldn’t get far. Yasmine concentrates on their back tires and give her hands a little flick. Their rear tires exploded like a hand grenade. Yasmine turns Charlie around and rush back to the house to tell her mom and dad what she just learned. She knew her mother was going to know she used magic, because any magic used on their property is automatically reported to her mom and dad. Yasmine’s magical energies have a unique signature to it, so they will know she just used magic.

Yasmine urges Charlie on and as they got closer to the house, she saw her mom and dad come rushing out to the porch.
Lydia looks towards Yasmine with a stern look on her face “Okay, young lady explain why you just blew something up.”

“I didn’t blow anything up mom. Well not exactly, per say. There’s a black suv parked on the side of the road about a quarter of a mile down from our entrance with four guys inside and they were talking about you, dad, me and Aunt Lily.” Yasmine stayed seated on Charlie’s saddle.

“What do you mean they were talking about us?” Ryder looks towards Yasmine when he asked that question.

“I used a little spell to see who they were. It allowed me to hear their conversion and they knew everything about you, mom, me and Aunt Lily.
Well, not everything about me, but they knew a lot about you, Aunt Lily and mom and about the coven. They mention that they were only allowed to do recon right now, because their resources are stretch thin because of something that happened with a group called the HSL with one of their agents and the Supernatural's out west.” Yasmine felt a little tired from casting those two spells. She still hasn’t built up the reserve most spell casters have.

Lydia looks towards Yasmine “go put Charlie’s tack away and come inside and tells us everything that happen.” She then turns towards Ryder.

“Why don’t you go and peek at what our daughter did.”

“I’ll make it look like I’m heading to the store to get supplies.” Ryder leans forward and places a kiss on his wife.

Yasmine walks Charlie back to the stalls to cool him down and put his tack away. She saw her dad kiss her mom, before heading towards his pick-up truck and head out towards the back entrance.

Once Yasmine was done with Charlie, she heads inside to tell her mom everything they said and what she did as well. The three ladies that arrived with her mother listened to what she tells her mom. Yasmine looks at them and her mother afterwards.

“Mom, who are those men and why do they know so much about us and what is the HSL as well?” Yasmine sits down on the floor in front of her mother.

The three ladies look towards her mother and then back towards Yasmine.

“The HSL is known as Human Supreme League. They are the sister organization of a group called the Hunter Organization. Both organizations serve the church and hunt down supernatural creatures and groups like us. They believe that the world would be better off without our kind in it. They were why so many witches were burn in Europe during the witch trials and then over here in America in Salem. They staged the whole event, so they could track down and kill witches and other supernatural creatures of the time. The Organization has suffered some major setbacks, but they still won’t stop coming after us. That’s why I was concern about you. They will kill you and they don’t care if you’re a child or an adult.”

Yasmine could see the concern in her mother’s eyes for her. It made her feel loved. Yasmine real mother never looked at her like that.

“I promise not to do anything again mom.” Yasmine meant what she said to her mother.

She gets up and walks over and sits next to her mother. Lydia and the other three women continue their conversation about the upcoming Halloween party and the ritual afterwards. Yasmine sits quietly by her mother’s leg and listen to the conversion.

“Well, Yasmin was right. They were members of the Hunter Organization. One of their other members showed up to help them out.” Ryder says as he comes walking into the living room thirty minutes later.

He looks over towards Yasmine “you, young lady need to be a little bit more careful.”

“Oh? What did she do?” Lydia looks over towards her husband.

“She nearly blew the back of the suv off. The tires and rear axle were lying in the middle of the road.” Ryder looks down at Yasmine.

Yasmine cheeks turn red from embarrassment.

“I thought I only used a little bit of power. I didn’t know I blew their rear axle off.” Yasmine shift uneasy next to her mother’s legs, where she had sat down.

“I think you need to practice a little more on control, sweetie.” Her mother just pats her on the shoulder.

“It was as she said. They were doing recon work. I waited till they left to search their suv and found the equipment and their notes they had on us.” Ryder walks over and sits down in his favorite chair.

Yasmine looks at him and then lay her head against her mother’s leg. The rest of the afternoon is spent talking about security for the Halloween party and where the ritual was going to be conducted on the property.