Magda had kept a list. It was one of the few things that survived each reincarnation, carried over from life to life like a spiritual birthmark, a ledger of debts and credits in the great accounting of divine intervention.
She called it the Inventory of Miracles, though it was really more of an inventory of near-misses, partial successes, and catastrophic failures. It was written on vellum in the current incarnation, though it had previously been etched in stone, painted on papyrus, encoded in knot-language, and, during one particularly technological future that Magda didn't like to think about, stored on something called a "cloud" that had nothing to do with actual clouds and everything to do with the complete surrender of privacy to corporate interests.
The list was currently seventy-three feet long when unrolled, which made it difficult to transport and nearly impossible to read in anything other than a very large room. Magda had solved this problem by developing a spell that allowed her to access any portion of the list mentally, simply by concentrating on the date or location she was interested in.
She was currently reviewing the entries for the year 33 CE, which was not technically called 33 CE at the time, but was instead known as "the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, approximately, give or take a few years because nobody can agree on when exactly the crucifixion happened."
Entry 4,721: Water into wine at Cana. Successful. Witnessed by six coven members disguised as servants. Result: Immediate recognition of divine power by those present. Long-term result: Complete erasure of female involvement from Gospel of John. Note: Should have worn more distinctive clothing. White robes blend in with tablecloths.
Entry 4,722: Healing of the centurion's servant. Partial success. Coven member Tabitha (first incarnation) provided prophecy of healing. Result: Centurion praised Jesus's authority. No mention of prophecy source. Note: Centurion was actually a woman in disguise. Check if this is relevant.
Entry 4,723: Feeding of the five thousand. Successful. Coven members provided the loaves and fishes from secret stores. Result: Mass conversion. Long-term result: Story retold as solely Jesus's miracle. Note: The baskets were wicker. Wicker is important. Remember wicker.
Magda sighed, causing the vellum to ripple in a way that suggested it was considering becoming something else. The problem with the miracles was that they had worked too well. Jesus had been spectacularly, undeniably, inconveniently miraculous. He had healed the sick, raised the dead, calmed storms, and walked on water. And because he had done these things with such flair, such theatricality, such undeniable showmanship, nobody had thought to ask where the power came from.
They should have asked. That was the point of the coven's involvement—to be asked, to be acknowledged, to be recognized as the source of the prophecies that made the miracles possible. But Jesus had been too good at his job. He had made it look easy. He had made it look like he was doing it all himself.
And then there was the resurrection.
Entry 5,001: The Crucifixion. Coven members present: All thirteen. Roles: Mary Magdalene—primary witness, provided anointing oils and psychological preparation. Mary, mother of James—provided tomb access through family connections. Salome—provided spices and ritual knowledge. Joanna—provided political intelligence and escape routes. Others—distributed through crowd, maintaining energetic containment field to prevent spiritual dissipation during death transition.
Entry 5,002: The Resurrection. Coven members present: All thirteen. Roles: Primary witnesses to empty tomb. First to see risen Christ. Provided continuity of narrative. Result: Complete erasure from official accounts. Long-term result: Church founded on male apostleship. Note: THIS IS THE PROBLEM. THIS IS WHY WE ARE DAMNED. FIX THIS.
Magda rolled up the vellum with more force than necessary, causing several nearby candles to flicker and one particularly sensitive nun to faint. The problem was clear. The solution was not.
"You're brooding," Constance said, entering the scriptorium without knocking, because after six thousand years of reincarnation together, privacy had become a theoretical concept rather than a practical one.
"I'm reviewing," Magda corrected. "There's a difference."
"Brooding is reviewing without the intention of finding solutions. You're just wallowing in the failures."
"The failures are extensive. They require significant wallowing."
Constance sat on the edge of the desk, displacing several important documents regarding the proper preparation of mandrake root. "We've made progress. In this incarnation, we've taught twenty-three nuns. In the previous one, in what will become Germany, we taught forty-seven heretics. In the one before that, in Constantinople, we taught—"
"We taught people who died," Magda interrupted. "We taught people who were forgotten. We taught people whose knowledge died with them because the world wasn't ready to hear it. The printing press hasn't been invented yet. The Enlightenment hasn't happened. Women's suffrage is six hundred years away. How are we supposed to teach the world when the world doesn't even have the concept that women can teach?"
"Then we change the world," Constance said simply. "That's what we do. That's what we've always done. One person at a time, one life at a time, one death at a time. We plant seeds. Sometimes they grow. Sometimes they don't. But we keep planting."
"And when do we get to harvest?"
Constance was quiet for a moment. Outside, the plague continued its work, indifferent to theology. "When he comes back," she said finally. "When the business plan is approved. When God finally listens."
"And if He never listens?"
"Then we keep going." Constance stood up, brushing dust from her robes. "That's the curse, Magda. That's the damnation. We don't get to stop. We don't get to rest. We don't get to go home until the lesson is learned. So we might as well make the teaching interesting."
She pulled a knife from her belt—a knife that had been forged in the fires of a dozen different centuries, that had tasted the blood of sacrifices and the ink of contracts—and cut her thumb. Blood welled up, dark and vital, and she pressed it to the vellum of the Inventory.
"New entry," she said. "Year 1348. Location: St. Agnes of the Perpetual Headache. Lesson taught: The nature of the Trinity. Students: Twenty-three nuns. Result: Unknown. Prophecy: They will remember. They will teach others. The knowledge will spread. The coven will grow. And one day, one day soon, the world will be ready."
The blood sank into the vellum, becoming part of the record, part of the inventory, part of the endless accumulation of evidence that they had been here, that they had tried, that they had never given up.
"You're optimistic," Magda said, but there was something like hope in her voice.
"I'm stubborn," Constance corrected. "There's a difference. Now, come on. We've got a class to teach, and Sister Beatrice is having visions again. We need to make sure she writes them down properly this time. No more of this 'I saw a dragon with seven heads' nonsense. Specificity is important in prophecy. Dragons are vague. We need details."
They left the scriptorium together, two women in a convent full of women, teaching lessons that would get them killed if anyone found out, carrying the weight of six thousand years of failure and the hope of six thousand years of persistence.
And somewhere, in a place that wasn't quite Heaven and wasn't quite Hell, Jesus was still waiting for his meeting to end.