When the coven lost its home, it fell to me to provide, or at least to find, a new one. There were many ideas put forward by senior witches, all of a uniformly gothic and gloomy nature. But I felt the need for change. For a sacred space that would signify our commitment to the future, as well as the past. Who is to say that we must dig downward to reach the spirits? It is only tradition that has dictated this. We are not in the business of plucking the dead from their graves; we do not require them to physically clamber to the surface, so why must we burrow underground like moles? Spirits exist on a plane all of their own. It is the night that gives us best access to them, not the subterranean dark. There was much dissent among the coven at my idea. I expected it. But I held to my view. I even said that I would be happy for the senior witches to have an alternative venue for their meetings, so long as they realized that I, as Head Witch, would maintain the sacred space where I chose to. They were, after all, free to stay away from meetings held here if they wished. After a deal of argument it was agreed that the observatory would be the new home for the Lazarus Coven, so long as it proved successful. I had cushioned seating installed around the inside of the low wall, and the floor is painted exactly as the one in the Great Chamber had been. If spirits were reluctant to come to it, the matter would be reviewed. In fact, the spirits have shown themselves happy to come here when called or summoned, and to feel very at home in the airy, ethereal space.

There was another reason for my wish to free our rituals and meetings from such a place as a catacomb. I still wake gasping and panic-stricken some nights when the sight of what I saw in the Darkness when Freddie was nearly taken into its depths fills my nightmares. To think that I might have lost him to such a place. To such … beings. The Darkness holds all that is bad in this world once it no longer treads the earth. I will do all I can to stay away from it and not to put my fellow witches near such danger ever again.

A bell in a small alcove by the door rings gently, alerting me to a visitor. I pick up the telephone on the wall next to it.

“Who is it, Terence? Oh, please send her up to the observatory. And would you be so kind as to bring a tray of gin and tonic, too?”

One further advantage of the observatory over the catacombs is that it can be used for entertaining my friends. I could hardly have invited them into the Great Chamber, even if its existence had not been a secret.