The Pendle Curse

Chapter One

The frostbitten dead grass crunched underneath Georgina's black, scuffed boots. She could picture the clearing she was stood in being very beautiful during the summer. Full of meadow flowers and brimming with wildlife. Surrounded by dense forest with a break in the trees looking out on to a large pond. But now during winter the grass stands up like brittle glass spikes. The ground beneath is cracked and dull. Even the trees around her looked lifeless. Silence engulfed her.

Falling to her knees, the frozen grass breaking under the impact, she tried to hold herself together. Sweat covered her skin and her face contorted with absolute pain. Her breath came out in short gasps of clouded frigid air. Her body convulsed like she was having a seizure. Grinding her teeth together, she clawed the ground in front of her. The dry dirt was hard, but she managed to push her fingertips in it.

Holding back a scream of pure pain, she opened her eyes. A circle of fire flamed out from her iris until her eyes were pure black. A distinct shiver took over her as it moved down her body. Underneath her pushed back long sleeve shirt vein like lines started growing and travelled down her forearms. She watched as the thin black lines went over her knuckles and disappeared into the packed ground through her fingertips.

The pain grew too much for her as she let out a scream. Her long dark brown hair billowed out at the power she was releasing. Scrunching her eyes closed she waited for it to pass. Feeling the excess power drain from her and into the ground beneath her, the pain left her body. Pulling back her power, she felt her eyes return to normal as the power in her body came back to a manageable stage.

Opening her eyes, she looked around at the transformed meadow. It was now exactly like how she imagined it would be. Tall meadow flowers had bloomed and colour returned to the clearing. The air around her was still cold as it should be during the middle of winter but now the land looked like it was the height of summer.

Tired, Georgina fell sideways to the ground. Her back crushing the new flowers her power had bought back to life. Looking up to the grey sky, she fought against the tiredness but she felt her eyes close.

Georgina

She tried to shake her head. To wake up. To scream. Anything other than this.

I know you can hear me.

Stop it, she thought to herself. Please, wake up.

You belong to us. Your power belongs to us. It's our law. Your mother had no right to you. To hide you away for this long. You don't belong in the outside world.

Please, she pleaded. Leave me alone.

You can't hide forever. The Protection of Innocence only lasts till you ascend. And then we can find you anywhere.

Enough, she screamed in her mind.

Waking up, she sat bolt up right in the flower filled meadow. She shivered from the cold air, but she knew it had nothing to do with the winter temperatures. Her Uncles voice still rang in her mind. To the laws of her family line, she did belong to him. And the others like him. She was the last surviving female heir. With unlimited power, she would have been used as a power source by the male witches in her family. But her birth mother found her when she was nine years old and snatched her away. Hiding her from her abusers. Travelling all over the UK, never staying in one place for too long.

That was until two years ago when they found her in a remote Scottish decrepit manor and murdered her mother. Georgina, hiding in the undiscovered priest hole had to listen to the whole thing. Only crawling out when it was safe and her Uncle and his men left. She was nearly sixteen that night when she left her mother's tortured body behind in that house. She didn't want to leave. But following her mothers instructions that if anything ever happened to her, she were to seek out her old friends.

Coming back to the present and heaving herself off the ground, she tiredly brushed off the dirt and flower petals that stuck to her back. Reaching out, she picked a flower off one of the swaying plants around her.

"Shame you won't last," she whispered tiredly to herself. In the cold, the newly grown plants will die quickly.

Dropping the flower, she trudged through the clearing and followed the trail through the forest until she reached a single lane road. Her dusty soft-top mustang sat waiting on the side of the road. It was the only car make she knew of and it was the first she bought off a balding, bloated man when she first came to the States two years ago.

Sliding into the drivers seat and turning the ignition to heat the car up, she paused to catch her breath. Pushing her dream out of her mind she pulled out a battered, folded map. Finding her place, she pulled out and drove away.

A few hours later, with a steaming take out coffee cup nestled between her legs, she drove down a popular highway. Her tired, light green eyes glanced up at the green sign with a white arrow on the side of the road. The sign said one word.

Ipswich.