The Witch E-Book

Michael Harbron

• Herausgeber: WS
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Serie: Interview with the Devil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 397

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Lilly Thurman has fled Manhattan and the grasp of Joseph Banbury. For centuries, her power has bent reality to her will, but now, she returns to her hometown of Bridgewater to confront the shadows of the past. But here, the past refuses to remain buried, forcing Lilly to face both her own demons and the ghosts of those she could not save.

In Bridgewater, she befriends seven women, each marked by their own flaws of greed, lust, jealousy, and more. As Lilly gifts them with magic, they embrace their newfound abilities, unaware they are part of a greater test. As their desires consume them, the sinister truth unfolds. They are not who they think they are, and Lilly holds the key to their fate.

“The Witch” is a chilling blend of horror and magic, exploring the price of immortality and the thin veil between life and death. Uncover Lilly Thurman’s origins, her dark beginnings in Salem, and her first encounter with the Devil in this gripping tale of power, jealousy and witchcraft.

Leseprobe

The Witch

An Interview with the Devil Story

Michael Harbron

Copyright © 2024 by Michael Harbron

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

“The power you unleashed that afternoon was enough to shake the very foundation of Hell, and stir Satan himself out of his crypt to come for you.”

Mallory

Contents

1. Salem

1692— A Spring Awakening

1666—A Collector Calls

1692—A Touch of Destiny

1692—A Reckoning of Witches

1692—This Town Will Burn

2. Bridgewater

Salem’s Little Sister

Reminiscence

Scrying Into The Past

In Our Midst

Once Bitten, Twice Shy

3. The Introduction

1852— A Disruption in Quietude

Mallory

Dancing With The Devil

4. The Floating Feather

The Diary

The Confrontation

The Test

5. The Ways of Magic

The Consequences of Marriage

The Witching Hour

6. The Fall of the Bridgewater Witch

The Torture Vault

Witches’ Sabbath

Until The End

7. The Aftermath

1

Salem

1692— A Spring Awakening

Twilight descended upon a layer of thick mist, illuminating the small town of Salem in vivid layers of light perfusing through the air, giving the place a touch of spectrality. No man nor woman was expected to walk the cobbled streets at such a time when even the oil lamps were providing a meager halo of light and no more. The marshlands were responsible for the creeping fog, smuggling their cold and wetness toward the town, eager to reclaim it.

It was the kind of evening where shadows moved of their own volition, and the cries of night birds were muffled and distant. Every breath of wind carried with it the whisper of dread.

And yet, amidst all this, a blonde-haired woman, having done away with the bonnet and coif she was supposed to wear, strutted with staccato steps on the cobblestones, her wavy luscious hair bobbing with the motion of her gait, a smile bejeweled upon her face. There was a bottle of rum with her name on it in a tavern somewhere, or better yet, a nice cold cider. She would decide when she would reach the tavern, but there was one matter of fact, tonight was for getting drunk and Lilly was going to make the most out of this otherwise dull night.

All nights were dull nights when you were a woman, but if word of that ever slipped from a woman’s tongue, it was seen as heretic. Despite every woman feeling the sentiment at one point or another, no one dared to say it. After all, rebelliousness was seen as the first sign of witchcraft, and given just how obtrusive the atmosphere had become around that word, no one wanted to be misconstrued as a witch or someone sympathetic to the cause of witches.

Not if they wanted to live.

But Lilly was going to be damned if she was going to let that fear keep her from letting her hair flow freely. It was no ordinary feat, washing her hair and then retaining its luster, and she was not about to tie it all up in a coif and render all her efforts pointless. There was no law that said she couldn’t walk around with her hair loose. The Puritans were quick to quote First Corinthians to one another, pointing out that the Apostle Paul emphasized the importance of women covering their heads as a sign of modesty and submission to male authority, but unless they were going to personally drop off buckets of fresh water and bars of soap at Lilly’s doorsteps, she was not going to ascribe to the teachings of any apostle. They did not have to deal with deterred scalps in such humid weather. She did.

Besides, there was no one out and about at this hour. The farmers had farmed, the bankers had banked, and just about everyone had headed back to their abodes in the village and the town, leaving the streets empty. Mothers had grabbed their children by the collars and yanked them inside in the wake of the mist. Husbands had scolded the unrulier of their wives and told them to bolt the doors and shut the windows lest they wanted the water in the air to ruin the food in the pantry.

Lilly, unencumbered in the sense that she had neither a husband to report to nor a child to take care of, walked freely through the streets, peering into the windows of shops, wondering if it was warm inside.

The Salem Town Hall stood imposingly amongst the brick buildings that adorned the main street. With its two chimneys standing high above its rooftops, its rectangular windows looking like the eyes of some brooding machine, and its steeple at the center of the roof, it was a distinguishable building by all accounts. It was the town’s gathering place for all purposes, both religious and civic. Worship, town meetings, court sessions—this was where it all happened, and as such, Lilly had come to loathe this place for the oppressive governmental entity it had become.

It wasn’t the Town Hall she’d come to town for. The twenty-five minutes she’d spent walking from the village to the Hall were spent fantasizing about warm company and cool drinks. Such was what she deserved and such was what she searched for. A perfect way to cap off a tiring day.

Even on days when there was nothing momentous to be done, you had the days’ worth of chores to get through. Jonathan, the grump of a man and her elder brother by blood, needed his breakfast before daybreak so that he could get ahead of the day out in the field. Then there was making sure that there was enough firewood for the evening, water fetched for cooking and cleaning and washing, animals tended, wool spun, herbs in the garden tended to, clothes washed and mended, and after all of that, preparing dinner.

It was just about hectic enough that her body felt swollen and tired each night, and there remained little in the way of enjoyment other than enjoying a good night’s worth of sleep. Even that was a luxury come hard by, as the cattle mooed and bleated in the barn all night.

Not tonight, though.

Tonight, Jonathan was away selling the fruits of their labor in Boston, and Lilly had no one to account to other than to account for herself.

A well-deserved break on a rather bleak eve.

But that was the only way she knew how to live. Sneaking little pieces of silent rebellion here, packing them with unspoken desires, and surviving in the suffocation that her society imposed upon her. She had heard the rumors. They thought her odd, too quiet, too secretive, and lately, they began to think that she was suspicious.

Suspicious on account of her being bold, unmarried, and childless past the age of thirty. If it wasn’t enough that this suspicion came from outside, her elder brother, the paragon of puritanical conformity, was the one who eyed her with disdain the most. Could she blame him? He, like her, stemmed from a family that cherished tradition above all else. Her father had been a stern man, a blacksmith who believed in the rigid structures laid down by God and enacted by God-fearing righteous men. Her mother was a quiet woman who bore the weight of her husband’s expectations without complaint.

A free spirit from the get-go, Lilly spent most of her time in the woods during her childhood, talking to trees and her imaginary friends and making pretend potions from flowers and plants. As she grew older, her desire for independence clashed with the expectations placed upon her. Her parents pressed her to marry again and again, but Lilly refused every suitor that came her way, much to their dismay. When her mother passed away, the bond between Lilly and her father became much more strained. It got so bad that the two wouldn’t speak to each other and, when forced to do so, would only use the bare minimum of syllables to fulfill the obligations of conversation.

After her father passed, it was just her and Jonathan in the house. Instead of letting her move elsewhere and live on her own, he insisted that she live with him for the sake of protection. Lilly knew well enough that it was more about him overseeing her and controlling her behavior than it was about protection. He, being her elder brother, wanted to keep her out of trouble.

Despite her brother’s intentions, she felt trapped. The house she shared with Jonathan was stifling, a reminder of the kind of life she was expected to live. Despite his temperamental flaws, was a good man, kind and hardworking. But he was not an understanding man. He refused to acknowledge Lilly’s desire for something more than this meager life. Whenever she brought up the issue to him, he dismissed her dreams and told her to quiet down her childish whims of defiance.

No one suspected the depth of her dissatisfaction.

She believed that she was born in the wrong place at the wrong time, and there was nothing much she could do about it other than perhaps change her place. There were cities where liberty was cherished. There had to be. When it came down to it, it was only a matter of finding them. She had heard tales of cities on the coasts where women could walk unaccompanied and no one batted an eye. Where women could talk freely to men and drink according to their heart's desire and work. Sometimes, she figured that such talk was just fantasy woven by gullible women who wished that such a utopia would exist. Other times, she felt it in her bones that there were such places and they were calling out to her.

What about that port city, New York? Or St. Augustine? There was an English settlement she had heard about called Jamestown in Virginia. A Spanish one called Santa Fe. The word was these weren’t towns that were settled by Puritans and as such, did not have such tyrannical structures in place that belabored women like stray bitches in the streets.

Perhaps she would have some semblance of a social life in those cities. Here, in Salem, it was nonexistent. And even in that nonexistent state, a state that she likened to the dark before God said let there be light, she frequented taverns that catered to the spritelier folk, folk who weren’t too bent on religion. As such, these places were marked with the black stamp as taboo places. Taboo, yet not altogether illegal. Regardless, folk who visited such places were not looked upon with admiration but with shunning disdain. Lilly could bear the shunning disdain if it meant that she could sit at the bar, enjoy a pint or two of apple cider, and be on her way back home before the night became too quiet.

The town square hosted a barrage of buildings, all of them drab, built of wood and stone, a stark contrast to the brilliant display of overgrowing nature all around the outskirts and beyond Salem. This brilliant display changed colors according to the time of the year, and right now, with spring yawning awake after its deep slumber, nature had taken on colors aplenty. Colors that would have looked beautiful if not veiled by the mist.

One of the buildings that stood out from the rest was an old barn house, a remnant of the time when Salem Town and Salem Village were one and the same. Dilapidated, this old barn house had been converted into a tavern owned and operated by Bridget Bishop. With women unable to own land, Bridget had gotten hold of this barn house under the legal doctrine of coverture. Her husband, Edward Bishop, had bought the place and given it to her, himself retaining the rights to the place. She figured that she didn’t need the rights to the place; only the place itself, a place she had turned into a warm and welcoming tavern for all of her ilk to come by and drink heartily and avoid the company of those who did nothing other than gossip, fearmonger over smallpox, and feverishly follow the Bible.

As this was the town center, the mist in the streets was thinner. Fearing that someone would see her with her hair flowing loose like that, she took her shawl and covered her wavy blonde hair with it, now looking no more nondescript than any other woman. She knew how to cover herself well. Well enough to pass by.

Lilly approached the heavy barn door and knocked in the pattern she’d learned from someone long ago. You could not be granted entry into the tavern without knowing the right knock. Even then, someone standing on the other side of the door opened a thin sliding panel to ascertain if it was a friend who had knocked or a foe. If it was friend, then the smaller door affixed to the bigger, heavier barn door would swing open momentarily, and you could step inside. If foe, then foe begone, and come back with a warrant for cause if ye must. Since most people did not bother with the bureaucratic process of procuring warrants, most foes just let the place be, conspiring amongst themselves as to what would be the best way to burn this barn house without being caught.

“Let God himself strike thunder upon this den of debauchery,” Lilly once overheard someone say. She laughed, amused at the notion that if there were a God, he was some nobody puritan’s personal thunder deliverer, to strike where commanded. Lilly held the belief that if there was a God, he had taken a leave of absence and had left the world in the hands of insufferable children.

Four raps, then after a long wait, a fifth, beckoning the door slit to slide open and a pair of green eyes to stare at Lilly and ask, “Hark, who goes there?”

“Clive Robertson, you know better than to ask me that question, don’t you?”

“I have to be careful, Lilly,” Clive asked. “The answer, if you please.”

“A weary tongue and parched lips,” Lilly groaned, rolling her eyes hard at the banality of the passphrase.

It did the trick, opening the smaller door. Lilly, knowing that it would close in another ten seconds, quickly stepped inside, into the warmth of the bustling tavern. Since she had never seen real bustle, the barely a dozen present within the place, drinking quietly, talking even quieter, and casting each other conservative looks was the equivalent of good bustle for her.

Fire fumed in the fireplace, its broad licking flames making firewood crackle, sparks turning to embers mid-flight. Snow was still thawing out on the pathways in the wake of spring. It had been a rather cold and long winter, and spring, as spring always did in Salem, was slow to come, meaning there was still need aplenty for fires such as these, and just as much need for stronger drinks that set a similar fire down your throat and into your body.

Lilly walked over to the bar, taking off her shawl, her feet crunching sawdust and floor-hay, and sat at a stool at the far side of the bar, waiting for the bartender to come to her. The usual, Thomas McLarty, was not here tonight for some reason. In his place, an aging woman with silver hair stood pouring drinks in glasses, looking sharp while she did it.

“And what will you be having, young miss?” she asked without lifting her head up. “Ale, for what ails you, or beer to bear your burden better?”

Her words made Lilly fall into a weak trance, muting the others in the tavern and making her fixate on the woman, everything else dulling in the background. What had she just said, and why did it awaken something in Lilly, something that beckoned her to say, singsong, “This young miss will help herself to some cider to stoke the fire inside her.”

Funny. She wasn’t one to indulge herself in nonsense such as limericks and verses, and yet, at this time, it had come out of her almost spontaneously.

The woman laughed, showing a couple of missing teeth in the back of her mouth.

“I don’t believe we have had the pleasure of meeting each other before,” she said, giving Lilly her drink of choice. “I am Bridget. Who may you be?

As Lilly drank her cider—and verily, it did indeed stoke the fire inside her—she gasped like a thirst-parched person coming across the water in a long time and then was quickly reminded of her manners. The woman had asked her something.

“Lilly Frost. Err. My name is Lilly Frost,” she said, returning the woman’s beaming smile. “I actually love this place a lot. I’ve been here a couple times. It feels homelier and cozier than those two pubs down the street or the one at the left of the Town Hall, for that matter. Besides, they look at me funny if I’m there alone, as if I’m barging in without permission. No one does that over here.”

“That’s because this place welcomes strays of all kinds,” Bridget raised her hand and waved at the frugal company in the tavern. “And its owner also got tired of being harangued by men in men-owned taverns. This right here’s a hundred percent mine.”

“I’ve heard so many things about you,” Lilly said. “Somehow, I thought you’d be older. But you don’t look a day over forty.”

“I’m sixty, kid,” Bridget said, “but you’re sweet. And for that bit of flattery, your next drink’s on me.”

“Gee, thanks,” Lilly said, gratefully taking the pint of beer from Bridget and setting it in front of herself. She wasn’t one to mix drinks, and right now, her tongue was still relishing the distinct flavor of cider upon it.

“Not many people in Salem approve of a woman enjoying a pint on her own,” Bridget said, procuring a cloth seemingly out of thin air, and wiping a spotless glass with it. “But it’s good that you’re marching to the beat of your own drum. I always appreciate a woman who does that.”

“And I always appreciate a free drink and pleasant company to enjoy it with,” Lilly said, lifting her beer.

“Ah, what the hell,” Bridget said, put her glass down, and filled it with beer. “I’ll drink with ya. Cheers, lady.”

They clinked their steins and drank deep, drank away their worries and sorrows, drank till their glasses were empty.

Bridget burped heartily, and then laughed loudly, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Lilly Frost, is it? I think you and I might have more in common than either of us realizes.”

“Do tell,” Lilly said, helping herself to some roasted nuts from a bowl within her hand’s reach.

“I don’t know how to,” Bridget said, busying herself with serving the new customers who’d just turned up at the bar. “You, Lilly Frost, have a touch of destiny about you, and for now, that’s all I can say on the matter.”

“A touch of destiny?” Lilly asked once the customers had thinned at the bar once more. “I’m in my thirties, Bridget. I’m unmarried. I’m childless. I have never stepped foot outside of this State. If there’s a touch of destiny about me, it must be a faint one, because I’m as ordinary as it gets.”

Bridget smiled once more, her wrinkles pulled back, her skin seeming translucent with the sweat accumulated on it and the way the lanterns beamed light upon it at just the right angle, making her seem like an ethereal vision. She wiped her hands clean on a dishcloth and came over to Lilly’s side again.

“Be that as it may, you cannot deny that all your life you have felt that you were different,” Bridget said.

“What would give you that impression?” Lilly felt suspicious of this woman. Was she in cahoots with the townsfolk, eager to get a confession out of Lilly and then have her punished?

“Because I am the same as you,” Bridget winked.

“Bridget, people say you’re on your third husband nowadays. You’re married. From what I've heard, you’ve got a daughter, and you’re quite vocal about everything and anything on your mind. On top of that, you’re operating this tavern. It’s no secret that you’re one of the richer residents of this town. You and I couldn’t be more apart,” Lilly said, the heaviness of her statement sinking in her chest. Thirty years had gone by and she had done nothing with them other than bid her time in passivity.

“There are more ways to be similar with someone than money, marital status, wealth, and children,” Bridget said.

“Well, you just named all the major ones, so what’s left?” Lilly asked, tapping her stein for another drink. Bridget filled it deftly and handed it back.

“The fire in your heart burns the same as it does in mine!” Bridget leaned in and whispered with her lips close to Lilly’s ear.

Lilly did not know what that meant, but she liked the sound of it. It beckoned her to talk about all her aspirations, dreams, and desires with this woman she had never met before. As the night wore on, the tavern began to empty and the lively chatter died down to a low murmur. Lilly and Bridget found themselves alone at the bar, the flickering candlelight casting long shadows on the wooden walls.

“There’s been whispers,” Bridge said with caution. “There’s talk of…strange happenings in town. Things people cannot explain. Have you perchance noticed anything of the sort?”

“Like the cattle suddenly dying? Kids disappearing in the dead of the night? Blood in the wells? Those sorts of things?” Lilly asked.

Bridget was not amused. She shook her head, her mane-like hair whipping back and forth with the intensity of her movement. “Do you believe in the Devil?”

“About as much as I believe in God, which isn’t to say a lot.”

“Child,” Bridget shook her head once more. “When the Devil comes to a town such as Salem, do you think he sows temptation in the hearts of harmless women or do you think that he instills fear in the hearts of men who can act upon their faulty premonitions? Who would stand to do more harm in such a situation?”

“Well, seeing as how this topic has been thrust upon me out of nowhere, I don’t really know because I have never given it much thought,” Lilly answered. She was done with drinking for the evening, and from the looks of it, it was getting late. Later than when she was usually out. “Interesting conversation though, I think we’ll pick it up later.”

No sooner than she had gotten up to leave did Bridget shoot her hand and grab Lilly’s arm, holding her in place.

“Not so fast,” the woman said, her eyes narrowing with an emotion that was altogether alien to Lilly. Later, she would learn it by the name of ambition.

“Let me go!” Lilly grunted, wringing her arm free from Bridget’s strong grip. “What gives?”

“Are you seriously stupid? Head in the cloud sort of girl? Or are you simply feigning ignorance just so you can get by without trouble?” Bridget asked, severe indignation masked on her face, her nostrils flaring.

“Listen, lady, I just came here to get a drink. I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lilly said, eager to turn her back and head toward the door. The sooner she could be out of here, the better. She strode fast, crossing the empty tavern, her heart palpitating upon seeing the emptiness inside and the utter dark of the night sky through the rafters. If she were any later, men who roamed around with torches in their hands and bloodhounds on leashes would come across her and ask her all manner of questions in all kinds of mannerless ways. Questions the answers to which would inadvertently land her in trouble.

“Calm down,” Bridget said, not from behind the bar, but suddenly, inexplicably standing before her. “And breathe. It’s all right.”

Rather than ask her how Bridget got so quickly from one place to the next, Lilly did as the old woman bid, and breathed deep. It was not that late, surely, and even if it were, she knew of ways to go back to the village that would avoid the patrolmen. And what was there out in the night to be afraid of? On that note, what was there to be afraid of in here?

Bridget was just a harmless woman and nothing more.

Yet the fear and panic persisted in the form of a layer presiding under her consciousness.

“Witchcraft has made it to Salem,” Bridget spoke warily, standing her ground by the gate. “And they’re looking for women like us. They are not going to stop until we’re out of their way.”

“Witchcraft? Who are they? What do you mean women like us? I don’t know anything about any of that,” Lilly replied, her voice shrill.

“Come now, dear. Let’s not stand on occasion and lie to one another. I will show you mine if you show me yours,” Bridget grinned, and lifted her hand, making all the lanterns in the tavern go dim.

“You…you’re one of them?” Lilly whispered, eyes growing wide in terror.

Bridget snapped her fingers, making the lanterns go back to their optimal brightness once more. “Well, that was disappointing. I was expecting you’d show me a trick or two of your own, but you’re strange. You don’t quite know that you’re a witch, do you?”

“I’m not a witch,” Lilly whispered, looking around. “You are mistaken.”

“I’ve taken a shine to you, dear, and believe me, we of the craft are rarely, if ever, mistaken,” Bridget grinned, her face cast in stark shadows in the questionable glow of the lanterns. “But I won’t hold you against your will just about yet. Go if you must. But should you feel that touch of destiny I was telling you about earlier, you’ll know where to find me.”

Lilly did not acknowledge Bridget’s invitation as she barged through the door and left in the dead of the night, her heart hammering for a handful of reasons, one of which being that a self-proclaimed witch had shown her a magic trick that was too vivid to be an optical illusion, and another one was the sudden revelation that she, too, was a witch like her.

The next morning, there was no sign of the mist anywhere. The sun, in its benevolence, had shown with its brilliant spring fervor, striking darkness in whichever pools it dwelled, doing away with the mist, doing away with the humidity.

The Sunday ritual of church was attended by mostly everyone, but it was missed by one Lilly Frost, who had claimed sickness as her reason for not showing up.

She had not slept all night, tossing and turning in bed in the throes of what she thought was a fever. Why else would she be burning so hot?

When daylight beamed, Lilly got up and dressed in her most conservative clothes to not draw any suspicion, and while most of the townsfolk were busy gathering in the church for the service, she let the compass of her heart guide her to the woman who had awakened something in her.

1666—A Collector Calls

The forest hummed like a living being with the sound of bush crickets and stream water. Every so often, the impermeability of the humidity would be disturbed by a gust of wind, breathing fresh life into this packed grove, making the towering trees whisper ancient secrets to those who dared to venture within. Sunlight filtered through this quiet place of mystery through the dense canopy in soft, dappled patches.

Sentinel-like, the forest, in all its autumnal colors, stood its ground over the fallen leaves, sheltering the fauna within, surreptitiously paving the way for a four-year-old, blonde-haired girl to traipse through its twisting paths with her tiny footsteps.

This was not the first time Lilly Frost was making her way through this forest, and in the coming years, she would acquaint herself intimately with every secret that this quiet, almost sacred place held within. Where most kids her age would get scared at the sight of the twirling, fingerlike branches poking out of the dark, Lilly held out her hand to each of them, shaking them as if they were the hands of friends and family members.

“Enough dawdling now, child,” a matronly voice boomed deep within her head, but rather than frighten the little girl, the voice served to focus her. “The trees will take you for one of their own if you keep touching them. Do you want that?”

“No, madam,” Lilly giggled. The ludicrousness of the notion of her being adopted by trees rendered Madam’s warning inane. Lilly hesitantly let go of a low-hanging pine and carried on her merry way. All ways were merry when you were a child. Merrier if you were a child named Lilly Frost, for instead of the blanket of darkness that had most of the forest still submerged in sleep, she saw the yellow-orange of the maple leaves smattered about the ground and sought it as an opportunity to jump upon the crispy leaves and hear their satisfying crunch under her shoes.

A deer poked its head from behind a pine, perturbed undoubtedly, by this two-legged creature raising a ruckus. When it saw that the child bore no malevolence nor possessed any urgency to leave, the deer retracted its irritated head back behind the thicket, salvaging some more minutes of sleep from its disturbed slumber.

Given that she was only four, she did not possess enough vocabulary to explain her uncanny ability to perceive the world—and more specifically, these woods—with a depth far beyond her years. While most toddlers feared the wilderness that stretched long and dark, teeming with shadows and whispers, Lilly had always felt welcomed here, as if the trees themselves had called her name and beckoned her into their embrace.

It wasn’t just about the trees. It was everything that this forest represented. Old stonework covered in moss. Puddles of rainwater in the troughs of the terrain. The mist that weaved in and out of this labyrinth of nature. The birds peering at her from their perches. Animals rearing their heads to acknowledge her. It was by no means a quiet, lifeless place wreathed in foreboding. Not to Lilly. To her, it was as busy and bustling as the town square.

When her mother would be hanging the clothes on the rope, and her father would be administering the routine health check on their family’s aging horse, Lilly would climb over the wooden fence. She would make sure that her elder brother, Jonathan, was busy tending to the goats and the chickens, and once affirmed that all three family members were trapped within the wheel of banal routine, she would wander. Her small hands brushing against the barks of cedars and firs, the pulses of their arboreal lives felt in a rhythm on her fingertips, a rhythm that matched her own heartbeat.

Today was no different. Father had been diagnosing some new malaise that was causing the horse to neigh in pain. It had been raining for the past two days, which meant that the pile of clothes that Mother had to wash was bigger thanks to two days of missed washings. One of the chickens, having been cooped up for two whole days, had attacked a goat in excitement upon newly securing post-rain freedom, and Jonathan was busy breaking up the scuffle.

She knew she would be back before they’d even noticed she was gone. Such was how she always did it. A child, she had learned rather early on—almost as early on as she had learned how to speak well before the other children her age—how to make herself subtle and evade notice of the adults. Barely past their knees, she often eluded their lines of sight.

Her own line of sight granted to her by her two piercing green eyes, held wisdom that belied her age. Not only did she use that to discern the nature of things beyond what they seemed, but she also used it to intuitively know things before they happened. It was as if the very earth whispered its secrets to her, and she alone could understand its language.

“You have to walk gently today, Lilly,” Madam crooned, a formless presence whose voice resided within Lilly’s head. “I sense bears suckling on honeycombs in the woods today. You wouldn’t want to get eaten by one of the bears now, would you? What a horrible end that would be for you.”

“No!” Lilly giggled, finding the idea hilarious instead of scary.

“Just a little further, my child.”

Lilly did as the ethereal voice bid, her mind realizing but not understanding why the Madam was being more insistent, more imposing today. However, the urgency in her guide’s voice beckoned Lilly to move past the smaller clearing in the forest and head toward the bigger one, where a small lake lay in somber silence, its miasmatic surface covered with algae and leaves.

All around it were trees of all kinds—oaks, maples, cedars—but the ones that were present the most and pronounced their presence with their imposing branches and leaves and trunks were the firs and pines, their packed vicinity making the area feel cloistered. Here, even the sunlight was sparse. It tried to reflect upon the surface of the lake, but the mist prevailing atop the lake's surface prevented it from doing so.

Lilly was quick to notice the sudden silence that had befell this clearing. It did not shake her, as such an unnatural silence would any other person, because all the while, Madam was accompanying her in her head, telling her to tread ever so gently toward the surface of the lake.

“Where are we going, Madam?” Lilly asked, her big green eyes affecting the area with curiosity. She had never been here before. It was beyond the rolling slopes on the uneven forest surface, and Lilly almost never made it this far. Not on her own. She knew that if she were to wander further,

“Do you know what scrying is, my dear?” The Madam asked.

“Is it what the baby Sarah does and her mother slaps her on her butt for it?”

The Madam laughed.

“No, Lilly, don’t be absurd. That’s crying. Scrying’s when you look at the surface of water and see things.”

“Like fish?”

“No, child. Not fish. People like you see the world differently. Don’t you? You can look at the trunk of a tree and see the rot inside it. You can see, can’t you? When someone such as you stares at the water, they don’t see just fish. They see the future. They see the past. They can see other places. That’s what scrying is.”

“It’s like a game, is it? I scry with my little eyes, tadpoles in the lake water!”

This time around there was no laughter. Whatever the Madam wanted her to see warranted graveness.

“Keep looking at the water, and whatever you see, tell me about it when I return.” the Madam said, her voice absconding, leaving Lilly alone next to the lake, looking around at the tendrils of fog swiping finger-like atop the still lake, grasping the trees as it moved across the clearing, enveloping everything with deliberation.

It was at this moment that Lilly felt all of it, the sudden quietude, the aloofness of this place, and just how dark it was even in daytime. Fear found foothold in her heart, made her breath shallow, and caused her to sniff as tears—brought on by the sense of abandonment—surfaced in her eyes.

“Madam?”

There was no Madam, and it was beginning to dawn upon Lilly that there had never been a Madam to begin with. Just as she had ascribed voices to the rabbits and katydids, so too had she ascribed a voice to the forest itself, dubbing it the Madam. Of course, there was no Madam. There was only her childish voice, teaching her nonsense words such as scrying.

Before the saner part of her mind could pontificate further, something befell, something far more silent than silence itself. Perhaps it was because she had never seen someone cross the threshold before, or perhaps because no matter how mature her mind was for someone her age, she had yet to come to terms with the concept of dying; Lilly did not recognize this new, alien perfusion in the atmosphere.

It was the stillness of death.

She sighted ripples disturbing the placidity of the water, a gust clearing away a path in the surface mist. She tried as she did to move away from the bank, but she could not. The water spilled past the sandy surface and onto her shoes, wetting them.

As she stood there, stifling her sobs, she saw the presence suspended over the surface of the water. Where it currently floated (making Lilly wonder if you could stand on the surface of the water, and what did that mean about everything that the adults had told her about not going near the water lest she drowned, were they lying?), it was hidden in the remnant mist, its form rendered a silhouette in the dark of the cloister.

And then it began its approach, floating upon the surface of the lake, making its form clearer as it moved from a place of darkness to a place of light. But it was a remarkably draining form of light that shone near the end of the lake where Lilly stood. Not the warm, yellow sunlight she was acquainted with, but a graying light that seemed to fade the rest of the forest away.

Earlier, Lilly had been afraid. Madam had always been her guide whenever she stepped into the forest. It was her voice that turned this otherwise wild place into a serene one, her reassurance that the animals wouldn’t harm Lilly, her affirmation that all the paths she saw twisting and turning in the woods would lead her back home. To that effect, Madam would, without fail, guide Lilly back to her backyard whenever she lost her way, and she lost her way every single time.

When the Madam’s voice left, it made Lilly feel like she was abandoned. That none of the paths would ever lead her back home.

But this presence, this strange creature gently moving across the water, gave off an energy that placated Lilly in a similar manner as the Madam. This was no foe that approached her. Whoever, whatever this was, it meant no harm. Lilly no longer felt fear, for whatever bit of alienation and strangeness was left within her mind was now replaced by a sense of familiarity and recognition. As if she had been waiting for this moment her entire life of four years.

The figure, now having run out of lake to float upon, hovered in the air, cloaked in a robe fashioned out of Hessian fabric. She tried to pry underneath with her inquisitive stare, but could make no sense of the thing within. It wasn’t until the floating figure extended its arms from its sleeves that she saw its graying, skeletal figure.

There was no flesh covering the bones of this creature, if it could be called a creature.

A decade later, Lilly would come to learn the word ‘specter’ and while her mind, having been made to forget this meeting, would try to place a picture next to the definition of the word, she would come up dry. Just as she was coming up dry right now as she tried to put a word to the sight she beheld.

The Collector beckoned to her, and Lilly stepped forward without hesitation. The air around her grew colder, the colors of the forest fading to muted shades of gray. As she drew closer, the figure began to take shape, its features becoming more defined. It was cloaked in darkness, with eyes that gleamed like polished onyx, and though it did not speak, Lilly understood its message as clearly as if it had whispered in her ear.

The figure before her was a being from beyond the mortal plane, tasked with maintaining the balance between worlds. But this Collector was different from the others. It had not come to mark Lilly for death or to claim her soul—it had been summoned by the Madam herself, the Keeper of the Axis Mundi, the ethereal plane that lay between this earth and the next realm.

The Collector was here to protect Lilly from a fate that was still decades away. Madam knew what was to come—she had seen the trials, the fire, the death that awaited Lilly in the distant future. And so, she had enlisted this Collector not as a harbinger of doom, but as a guardian, a shield against the dark forces that would seek to extinguish Lilly’s light before her time.

As the Collector reached out, its hand hovered above Lilly’s head, and she felt a surge of power unlike anything she had ever known. It was as if the forest itself was pouring its essence into her, filling her with ancient knowledge and a deep, abiding purpose. The world around her faded away, and for a brief moment, Lilly glimpsed something far greater than the woods she had wandered into—a vast, cosmic order in which she was destined to play a crucial part.

The Collector’s touch was gentle, almost reverent, as it bestowed upon Lilly a mark of protection, a seal that would bind her to the Axis Mundi and to Madam’s watchful care. This mark would ensure that when the flames came, when the townsfolk gathered to cast judgment upon her, Lilly’s soul would remain intact, her destiny unfulfilled until the time was right.

And then, just as quickly, the vision was gone. The forest returned to its familiar hues, and Lilly found herself standing alone in the clearing, the Collector vanished without a trace. But something had changed within her, a seed had been planted, and as she made her way back home, Lilly knew that her life would never be the same.

This was the beginning of her awakening, the first step on a path that would lead her to a destiny she could scarcely imagine. The forest had claimed her as its own, and Madam’s whispers would follow her for the rest of her days, guiding her toward a future where she would play a pivotal role in the eternal dance between light and darkness.

1692—A Touch of Destiny

“There’s a great blockage in your mind,” Bridget said, concentrating with her eyes closed and her hand on Lilly’s forehead. They had met once again in the tavern, only this time around, it was not in the bleak dark of the night but in the stark light of the day. The scent of spirits lingered in the air, making Lilly’s eyes water a little. From outside, they could hear the chatter of townsfolk going back to their homes after the service.

“It’s almost as if someone or something is trying to make you forget a part of your life,” Bridget summarized, and then retracted her hand from the confused woman’s forehead. “You really don’t remember anything, do you?”

“The more you mention it, the more frustrating it gets for me, because I don’t know what it is you’re talking about,” Lilly said, crossing her arms. She tried to remember last night and wondered if that little trick Bridget had pulled was real or a trick of the lights. It felt a little embarrassing to ask Bridget for another magic trick to ascertain if she was really a witch or not.

“You think I spew bullshit,” Bridget grimaced. “That I am deliberately wasting your time?”

“The more you speak, the more I do, aye,” Lilly said, getting up from the bar stool and grabbing her purse. “And you made me miss church on top of that, so there’s that.”

“I did not make you miss anything. I did not even call you. You came here of your own volition. Or have you forgotten that?”

“If you did not call me, why were you waiting here for me?” Lilly asked, making Bridget smile slyly.

“Because I wanted to see if you would come. And you have. Which means that you are just as curious about knowing more as you are afraid. I can help you with knowing more, but as far as being afraid goes, you better hold onto that fear for now. Not of me, mind you, but of those who would seek to strip you of the power you hold,” Bridget said. Unlike last night, when she had been wearing a loose flowing green gown, today she was dressed in a black gown, as if she was in mourning. The hat she wore was a standard pilgrim hat contorted to appear crooked and pointy. It suited her, this unorthodox appearance.

“You keep implying that I am something that I am not. What could you possibly know about me?” Lilly asked, the very same skepticism that propelled her to leave this tavern also rooting her to her spot, dispersing uncertainty in the forefront of her mind. What if this woman was right?

“What I do know is that the old world as we know it is dying. Like a diseased elephant on the verge of collapse, our world is swinging back and forth, tusks moving, trunk striking every which way. The men of this old world are not willing to go without a fight. They appear their strongest, traveling past the seven seas to newer continents so they can continue to oppress and stifle what should never have been stifled in the first place. I know that you know that. I can see it in your eyes. Just as I can see it that you, Lilly Frost, are not just touched by destiny, but by magic too,” Bridget said, holding Lilly’s hands in her own and staring into her eyes intensely. “Don’t tell me strangeness doesn’t have a way of finding you on its own.”

“It oddly does,” Lilly remarked, thinking back to all the times something inexplicable happened. Such as when just last month, during a winter storm, the roof seemed like it would collapse and crush both her and her brother underneath. Lilly had closed her eyes and prayed, not to any God out there, but to the thrashing wind and the downpour, requesting it to cease its violence. No sooner than the whispered words had left her pressed lips did the storm stop, and the roof that would have caved in had the downpour continued for a couple more minutes stayed on stalwartly.

Bridget’s insistence upon strangeness brought to mind something that happened a year ago, when a pack of coyotes had somehow found their way past the fence of their homestead. They were sniffing around the closed barn, eager to get to the cattle and poultry inside.

No! Lilly had ordered, the instruction sharp and adamant in her mind. Each of the coyotes had lifted their heads and looked in her direction as if understanding what she was saying, and then whimpered in submission as they walked out of the homestead with their tails between their legs. She had not told this to anyone.

Just as she had not told anyone when one of their aging cows had squirted a copious amount of blood into the pail along with milk, and Lilly, knowing that this would be the only milk they’d get for the next day, somehow, with the motion of her hands, siphoned away the blood, leaving the milk unadulterated. Then she put her hand on the cow’s abdomen and wished upon her to get better. Get better the cow did, for after that one time, she never squirted blood from her udder again.

There had been other innocuous occurrences like that in her life, things that could be brushed off as bizarre, things that she had forcibly put out of her mind because there was no explanation for them, and to share them with someone would be an invitation to get called mentally unstable.