The Witch beside the Stake
Chapter 1: Gone
A cool breeze picked up, Clairit clutched the cloak about her more tightly, and while steadying the aged branch beneath her as she glided through the air to the moonlit town of St. Toby's. Like every other year she was heading to visit her father and sister at midnight. Perched upon her oak branch, she stared down at the little town to pick out the tinsmith's home. As she approached the little house, something was terribly wrong. She landed lightly on her feet gripping the branch tightly in her hands, her knuckles turning white. Nothing but rubble was left.
There were weeds sprouting in between the rubble; a sign that the wilderness was claiming what had been abandoned. What possibly could have happened in the time she had been away for things to end up like this? Clairit leaned her branch against what was left of the outer walls. Clambering through the rubble, she looked about for clues. It smelt faintly burnt. There was ash here and there. But surely a fire could not have brought down the walls….
Last time she visited, her father was not in the best of health nor was he terribly ill either for her to feel the need to sneak in some mild concoction into his food to strengthen his health, without any, even himself, noticing. She had brought her cloak this time with its thousands of hidden pockets with herbs and stuff, just in case her father did not seem better. Fear grasped her heart as she thought of her father possibly having died already… Perhaps she was too late… No, she must figure out what has happened not worry about what might have happened. There was no point in grieving about something that has not happened.
She found bits of metal here and there. Her twin sister, the last time she had saw her, had been learning their father's tinsmith craft. She too seemed healthy, well as healthy as a tinsmith's daughter can be. If this world could have let her to live like the daughter of a highborn witch, she would not have had to face so many hardships. Neither of them would have. Clairit's family could have been whole. It was nothing but a dream. Her mother had been killed by a witch hunter, despite all her efforts to hide it and use her abilities for the good of those who rejected her. With her own magic, Clairit had managed to escape, though heart broken by the fact that she had to leave her mother behind. She shuddered, shaking the horrible memories away.
She recalled a few good memories with her mother to make herself feel better. She remembered the times when her mother taught her how to make the basic brews and then those that required magic. The first night she flew on her oak branch, with her mother beside her, leading them to see her father for the first time. It was a strange night; a night full of answers and questions. She was nine when she first met her twin, Alys.
She was girl much like herself, but with different coloured hair, hers was brown while Clarit's was black with a streak of white, the hair colour of a witch in her family. Her mother, her grandmother and her great grandmother had the same. Clairit's great grandmother was a faerie, so she was the source of the magic in her blood. Among the fey, her great grandmother was respected, and so of course was her and her mother, once they made it known that they were descendents of the forest oak faerie. Her great grandfather had slowly begun to age despite the magic that kept him healthy for however long, and so to preserve her love, her great grandmother turned both herself and him into a mighty oak tree at the centre of a forest, so they may dwell together forever. Clairit's oak branch came from that very tree, so her great grandparents could always keep watch over her.
Anyways, the magical abilities are only passed on to one of the children, and Clairit was the one to receive the gift. She had always wondered what life would have been like had it not been her but Alys. That night, upon which she met her twin sister, she had her answer. She saw life as it would have been normally, through Alys. Clairit would not say she did not envy Alys, but at the same time she appreciated what her magic gave her in life as well. Clairit talked to Alys all night. Alys answered her truthfully, but a little distantly. It was the effect of the potion her mother gave Alys and her father before she woke them up. It allowed them to speak truthfully to Clairit and her mother, yet when morning came they would remember none of it.
Her mother always told her how they could not disturb her father and sister's life, lest it brings unwanted attention to them from others. When Alys and her father had gone back to sleep again, they would check everything and be sure to put everything away, just how it was before they came. They would smudge away the silence spell circle around the house before they set of on the oak branches. That first night was truly a magical night for her. She had found out that she did indeed have a father, and even a twin sister. She even found out why they did not stay with them when they flew back. Her mother had faked her own death when Alys and Clairit were born. Upon seeing Clairit born, her mother had known she was a witch and that she could not continue to live under the noses of the village people and her own husband with a witch child in tow. Leaving Alys with her father, her mother had taken her to her grandmother's place in Griswold. It must have broken her mother's heart, but she loved her father too much to let him carry the burden of having witches in his family. "To protect them," her mother had said, "They must not know about us…"
So even if Clairit had wanted to give her twin a dress that would make her seem more womanly than her girl's dress allowed her to seem, she could not. She wondered if her sister shared the same anxiety as she did at being more to the flatter side of things. But, she did not have the heart to ask her the last time they chatted, knowing Alys would only truthfully reply. And now she does not even know if Alys did develop curves like she had this past year. Where could her sixteen year old twin have gone?
She knew her father had worries about getting Alys married, for she had asked him, but from where could he have provided her a dowry? Business was poor, and not only that, her father was not doing as much work as he used to. Alys was doing more things now. Perhaps that's just it….
Maybe Alys did get married…. Some boy from another town that may have bought some tin and caught her eye might have married her. She may already have children to cluck after. She may be enjoying life as a young woman ought to. And perhaps father had gone with them to a better town… Clairit let out a sigh, if anyone heard the rant going on in her head, they would think she was insane and definitely in denial. Her intuition told more than moving away had happened here… And it was times like this that she wished her witch's intuition would keep to itself.
She had not found anything human yet, so it gave her more hope that her father and sister might still be alive. As she lifted another block of the walk to the side, she found a partly burnt wooden wheel, preserved only because it was under the block. It was still incomplete, because some its spokes were not put in. What was a wheel doing inside of the house? She turned to look at the neighbouring wheel maker's house. Looks like someone else will have to give her an update on everything that has happened.
I hope you like it so far. And just to give people a warning, I won't be updating this one too often, because my other fan fiction has priority. But I will try and update this one as soon as possible.