Prologue

The mob of townspeople were slowly moving through the street with their pitchforks and their torches. They were heading towards the house at the end of the street. That house belonged to Martha Blackburne and her daughter Bella. Martha was the town witch, and everyone knew it. Since it was the time of the Salem Witch Trials, all of the witches were being burned at the stake. Since she was the town witch, and she had a daughter, they were next.

As the crowd was advancing down the street, they were yelling things such as "Burn the Witch" and "Tie her to the stake!" Martha heard them coming, and started to make preparations. She went to her daughter's room and got her, whispering to her, "Come with me, Bella. You need too hide."

So she went to the living room, lifted up the rug, and revealed a trap door in the floor. She opened it up and slowly descended the ladder. She then told Bella "Come down here... Quickly!" So Bella went down after her mother. "Sit here on the floor, and don't make a sound" said Martha.

So she went back up the ladder, shut the trap door, and covered it up with the rug again. She ran upstairs, and sat in a chair, waiting for the mob to get there. The townspeople entered the house, and started searching for Bella and Martha. They were tearing apart the whole downstairs looking for them, and they happened to move the rug, and found the trap door. "Hey! We found something," they yelled.

They opened the trap door, and went down to see what they could find, and of course, there was Bella. As soon as she saw that it wasn't her mother, she started to scream at the top of her lungs "MOMMY!" The townspeople took her outside, and tied her up to a stake. They then put kindling, and sticks, and all sorts of wood underneath her.

They yelled, "Martha, if you don't come out of the house, we are going to burn your daughter alive!" Martha heard them, but didn't want to die, so she snuck out the back window, jumped down, and ran into the woods behind her house. She sat in silence, tears streaming down her face, in the woods, watching.

The townspeople kept yelling for her to come out of the house, but when she did not, and further searching for her did not come up with any idea to where she was, they finally said "Fine! Then she dies!" Martha sat in deafening silence listening to the screams of her daughter as she was burned at the stake alive. As she watched her, she vowed that she would find a replacement for her soul. So she set out in the woods looking for a suitable little girl to take her dear Bella's place.

1 Year Later...

After careful searching and planning, she finally came upon a little girl whose name was Ema. She belonged to the Johnson family. She went and started to talk to the little girl, and found she was just like Bella was. So Martha went up to the little girl's father, and started to talk to him.

"Hi. My name is Martha Blackburne. I was just talking to your little one over there, and she is beautiful," she said.

"My name is Kyle Johnson. Thank you for the compliments of my daughter. I know she would enjoy hearing them."

"Oh I already told her" said Martha. "I just wanted to meet you. Now, I do have some bad news for you. In three days time, I am going come back to your house, and take your little girl away from you. Goodbye."

She made a little swirling motion, and just like that, she was gone, it was as if she wasn't even standing there just 10 seconds ago.

Kyle just stood there dumbfounded. He did not know what to say, or what to do. When he thought of what the woman said, it made him shudder. He saw nothing but evil blackness in her eyes when she said that. So he did the only thing he could think of. He went to the townspeople and asked what to do. They made a plan to catch her when she came to get Ema. So things went into motion, setting up the plan.

Three days came and went with no sign of Martha. So the townspeople sat in wait for her. Late into the night, they heard a strange noise. It was like a muffled scream. They all rushed into the house, and went into the Ema's room. When they went into the room, they found Ema in the arms of Martha, with a rag in her mouth. The townspeople all rushed in and grabbed Martha. Kyle looked at her, and saw hatred staring back at him from the deep, black depths of her eyes.

Everyone rushed out of the house, still holding Martha. She was making no attempt to flee. It was as if she WANTED to let this happen. So they set up a stake and tied Martha to it. They stuck her in the ground, and lit the stake on fire. She wanted to die.

She looked at Kyle and said, in a calm voice, "From this moment forward, any daughter born to you will be cursed. There will be a little beauty mark on the left-hand side of their face, right above their top lip. By the age of 17, they will need to kill and eat humans to survive. If they cannot find a cure for the curse before the next eclipse, every single one of your descendants will die." Then she laughed shrilly, and stared him right in the eyes as she burned to death.

This was the start of the curse.