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A/n this story is nearly complete, so you will have fairly regular updates. I started writing this in July, so the time frame is set after season eight, but none of what happens in season nine will be dealt with in this story as canon. Also, a warning. This story has many supernatural elements because it is my Halloween story for this year, if you don't like the supernatural, turn back now.
Prologue - The Burning
October 3rd 1692 - Salem Village, Massachusetts
Low voices murmured in counterpoint to the beating of drums as the town's people watched Abigail Hawthorne tied to a tall wooden stake in the town square. A light breeze ruffled dresses and teased the hats and bonnets worn by the inhabitants of the village. The smell of fear permeated the nostrils of the men closest to the stake and drifted over the heads of the men and women gathered to watch the execution of another witch.
The young woman, clothed in a filthy dress and tattered apron struggled against the men who dragged her toward her awful death.
"I am innocent," she cried.
Her voice rang through the square and several people gasped and drew back from her as though she carried some virulent disease.
Someone threw an old apple core from the middle of the crowd. It smacked the girl's head. She tripped and nearly fell, but the men around her yanked her up to her feet. Suddenly the air was full of missiles that pelted the condemned woman about the face, abdomen and her feet. Some of the refuse hit her captors, but they ignored it. They wrestled her to the stake and tied her fast as the full moon began to rise in the ebony and star filled sky. The wind rose from a breeze that merely fluttered the torch flames, to wind that nearly blew them out.
"Burn the witch!"
One voice shouted into the wind, but soon everyone called, 'burn the witch' and it became a chant as the men climbed down from the pyre and reached for their torches. It rose and fell until even the animals fell silent against its might.
"Hear me," the accused shouted over all of them. "I, Abigail Hawthorne condemn you all."
Her cerulean blue eyes seemed to blaze in the orange light of the torches and the golden light of the full moon.
"Under this full moon I call upon the powers of darkness to avenge my death. As I burn so shall you burn. I shall arise from the grave and bring sorrow and the gnashing of teeth. Beware the rise of the full moon and the golden triangle."
"Enough," shouted a man near the pile of wood and stake silhouetted against the black sky and stars. "Abigail Hawthorne, thou art condemned to death for the murder by witchcraft of Sarah Sanderson. Thou shalt suffer death by fire. May it cleanse thy soul."
Abigail Hawthorne began to laugh as the men lit her pyre on fire. The crackling of the flames, and the whisper of the wind, added counterpoint to shouts of the people who had resumed their chant of, "Burn the witch."
Abigail laughed and then screamed as the flames consumed the pyre and began to lick at her skin and hair. She howled up at the moon and then all was silence as the people watched her body burn black.
Later - Midnight.
A figure clothed in ebony approached the empty town square and the pile of ashes that still smoldered in the autumn air. A hand reached down and swept up some of the wood ash and some of the partially burned flesh.
The hand, blood red in color, dropped it's find into a leather bag and tied it tight with rawhide and the finger bone of a young child. The figure turned and hurried away into the forest. It seemed to vanish into the blackness of the night as though it had never been there.