The Witches of Andover
Prologue
The fall leaves were lifted up by the wind and tossed about Maria's ankles. Her skirts kept tangling under her feet as she made her way casually along the cobble stone street. She tugged nervously on the strings of her bonnet as the heavy leather-bound book weighed her down that peeked just outside of her small satchel. She hummed a tune that would usually get her ears boxed at home but she was free to now. When she approached the mausoleum with a bit of fear and true regret because if she were to get caught, they would hang her like her mother was. Maria noticed that no-one was there yet so she walked to the center of the room and slowly knelt on the ground. She took the book from her satchel and struggled to lift it in her tiny stick arms. She set it down on the ground before her and flipped open to a summoning page.
Maria produced a thin piece of white chalk that she used on her slate and started to draw the sigil for the summoning. She sat back and clapped her hands together to remove the dust from the chalk. She tucked her black hair behind her ears and grabbed the small make-shift knife from the bag as well as four black candles. Maria lit them with a chuck away and picked the small thin knife up. She stared proudly at her set up and smiled wickedly,slicing the palm of her hand open and watched as blood dripped on the sigil before starting to chant the incantation on the page.
The wind began to whip fast around her, her black locks tangling around her face as she pushed them impatiently out of her view and kept chanting. The mausoleum began to shake, cracks forming in the molding of the wall and the window at the far end of the building chattering. A grin slipped on to her crimson lips as she watched a shadow form into a human slowly. Maria let out a pleased sigh,"Mother."
The woman stepped out from the shadows and gently placed at hand on top of her daughters head,"You've done well but I still need a human sacrifice."
The girl smiled at her and gave a nod, a curt one at that, and stood up from the sigil before moving to a coffin and slid it out, letting it fall from its little compartment with a dull thud. Maria pulled the top of the coffin off and stared down into the face of a young boy in slumber from the girls magic. Maria looked up to her mother and she nodded before hefting the boy from the coffin and brought his body towards the sigil that was drawn. She took hold of a small bowl and laid it down in the middle of the sigil before drawing up the blade into her hand. Maria gripped the boy's hair in one of her tiny hands before pressing the blade firmly to his throat, intending to cut as far through as possible. The boy began to stir awake, the way he needed to be. He saw the witchcraft before him and began panicking and flailing his arms at Maria. He let out screams and begs but they fell on deaf ears.
Maria slid the blade across the boys throat in a swift motion,cutting deep into the larynx and the throat. Blood spurted out and into the bowl as well as onto the sigil, as directed within the book. She began chanting again, Latin slipping out between her lips as though she knew it better than English itself. The mother grinned proudly and cackled as her daughter was looking more and more like she had at twelve years old. When the child finished, she tossed the body of the boy carelessly to the side and lifted the bowl of blood up to her mother. The woman's boney fingers slipped around the bowl and she hefted it to her lips and the mother drank down the blood as it ran from the corners of her mouth, down her pale skin and to her bosoms before staining the fabric of her corset top red. She set the bowl down and looked at the body of the boy then walked over to him and picked his limp body up before dropping him into the coffin and slid the lid over top of it, leaving it to be undiscovered. She placed it back into its little compartment as Maria cleaned up the book,the candle and the chalk,slipping them into her satchel but left the sigil and blood there as a threat, a sign they were here. They hated witches so much, they can face the most powerful one and that is her mother, Annabelle Winstead.
Maria reached out for her mother's hand who instantly snatched it up and let out a giggle to her daughter,"We shall reign again, my sweets."
They both stepped out of the mausoleum as the new witches arrived. The one thing would be that they wouldn't even make it into the building. Both Maria and Annabelle raised their hands, palms facing the very few witches in front of them. A black smoke emerged from their bodies and flew to the witches. The men and women began to shriek in agony as the shadowy force began to manipulate their bodies then Maria and Annabelle walked hand in hand away from the scene. They were so careless but they didn't need to worry about it. Maria and Annabelle watched as the town slowly began to be devoured by their shadows in full control by the two true witches that stood towering over the people of Andover, Connecticut.