Prologue Part I


"What is it, Tania?" The eight-year-old's eyes were wide and curious. The water buckets had been put aside, forgotten by the two girls. Within the gentle cupped hands of the elder fluttered a bright mix of majestic orange and black.

"It is called a butterfly, Emily. A monarch butterfly." Tania opened her hands in a small movement to allow the butterfly to climb up her thumb, while folding its wings in and out in time with the girls' breathing.

"Emily! Tania!" The butterfly, startled, beat its wings and floated off into the stream's beauty. The monarch landed on a nearby branch overviewing the creek, as the girls turned to the source of the disturbance. Emily pouted at her older brother, who was coming toward them from off the well-beaten path. Tania immediately got to her feet and grabbed one of the abandoned pails to fill it with water.

"Thackery Binx, thou hast frightened it!" Emily yelled at him as she handed the second bucket to Tania when the older girl called for it. The boy chuckled and hugged his sister from behind.

"What is it that I have frightened?" He asked, staring at Tania, who was pretending to fill the water bucket.

She could feel his eyes on her as she waited for his inevitable reaction. "A butterfly, Thackery. Tania was showing me." Emily said, gesturing toward the waving insect upon the leafy branch.

Thackery moved to shield Emily as his features twisted with fear and anger. "Emily, do not touch it. Tania, thou of all people in this village shouldst know better than to play with the witches' spy." Emily gasped from behind and Tania sighed heavily.

"It is just a butterfly, Thackery." She countered while picking up both pails by their handles. "It can't do any harm."

"Not do any harm? Tania, that demon is the witches' eyes to the world. It is poison." He scolded, angry with the girl that had put his younger sister in harm's way.

"Aye, that it is. But it is only to protect itself from predators." The Binx siblings looked confused but curious. She glanced at them and sighed with impatience. "Never ye mind then." She smiled at them, but it was a sad smile, a lonely one. "Thou art closed-minded, Thackery"

"I am afraid that I do not understand." He said, watching the girl he trusted fall into the devil's hands.

"Aye. I figured you wouldn't. Tell me why dost thou hate magic?"

"Tis unholy. An act of the spawn of –"

"The devil himself." She finished for him. "I thought you might see things that way; hence, you are closed-minded. You cannot see what is right in front of thee."

Thackery held Emily closer to him, backing away slowly. She noticed this but refused to act upon it, rather than give him more reason to hate her. "Thou art a witch, art thou not?" Emily gasped again, clinging to her elder brother as if he were her last lifeline into this world. Tania turned to them with tears in her eyes, yet she refused to let them fall.

"Would you believe me if I said 'nay'? And would thou hate me if I said 'aye'?"

"Aye, Daughter of Hell, for I shall despise anyone who would sell their soul and dance for the devil." This she was expecting, but it was still a shock as she stared at the boy, gaping slightly.

"You dare… I am nothing like the Sanderson hags down in the woods, who deserve every ounce of misfortune that befalls them for what they have done. Hate me if you must, but do not link me with those demons and call us the same. I did not choose to be what I am. I cannot help what I was born with.

Black magic as that which the sisters use, I would never touch. Call magic unholy, Thackery? How can you say that when it is the Lord above that gave us the purest of magic? Try and escape it, but you cannot, for it is all around you: in the water, in the plants, in the sky, in the moon and her brother sun… in ourselves. You try to rid the world of it, and lo and behold, all you have left is barren wasteland. This purest of magic is the kind I use. Please, I only ask, do not change your opinion of me. The girl you have known for eight years is still the girl who stands before you."

The siblings only stared before Thackery moved his sister up the path. "Come along, Emily." He gave his sister a gentle push, and she walked up the path while he remained behind.

"Thackery –"

"For a long time now thou hast been my friend. Now I am sure not to trust thou the same again." He looked at her, and never before had he seen her so defeated. Her head was bowed to hide the tears he thought were running down her normally cheery face.

Looking back on things, he was unsure how he had never known that she withheld something so vastly important before now. A young girl just barely nine years old found almost dead on the edge of the village. There were gaps in her memory and the father called it the response to a most horrific event. She claimed to have lost her family and entire village in an Indian raid that summer and for a long time she wandered around like a lost puppy confused, yet sure of where she was, positive of whom she was: a Miss Tania Miles. She, however, did not know her age or the name of the village she hailed from. The day of her birth she knew quite well, yet the year was lost to her. Eight years ago she wasn't hiding anything except from herself, and the priest called it a miracle of God, but when they were twelve she had fetched water just like today, alone for Emily had yet to be old enough. It began when she came back from that short trip that she hid secrets. More often did she grip the locket around her neck, something she then claimed she'd had since birth. If she had chosen to be a witch and sold her soul to the devil, that would have been the time.

So he did not believe her, and once again she hid something. Another thing separate yet much larger that this. "I do not trust thee, Tania. Thou art a witch and should be treated as such."

Tania closed her eyes, trying to block out all of the pain she felt hearing his words. "When will you tell the council?" She asked in a whisper.

"I shan't." Her head shot up, not believing what she was hearing. "Not yet, at least. You are still hiding something Tania, I can tell."

She met his eyes and nodded. "Yes, you are right, and I hope I will be able to tell thee, but one secret at a time perhaps. Give it time to let the shock subside." Thackery nodded, grabbing hold of one of the buckets Tania held.

"Thou couldst probably use help with these. I believe I have shooed away thy helper."

Tania laughed. "Nay! Tis not necessary. I've managed well enough without her before, if you recall. She is merely good company, which makes up for her hinderance, I believe." They started up the path but didn't go very far before they met with Emily curled up sleeping by a tree. Tania smiled. "Take thy sister, I shall handle the water."

"Very well." He held out the pail and when she had taken it he easily picked up the lightweight girl. The trio made it to Salem just as the sun began to sink beneath the trees, bathing them in an illuminant flame.

"There art thou. Father was about to go searching for thee." Mrs. Binx beckoned the children into the home, closing the door soundly behind her. "Shall not be wanting to be out late these days, not with All Hallows Eve approaching." She turned to her son, Thackery, after placing Emily onto the trundle bed. "Your father is over at the church, Thackery. He was waiting for thee to return."

"I shall go, then." Thackery bowed slightly to his mother, before leaving the house. Tania watched him from the glass window, wondering in the back of her mind if he would keep his word and not tell the council, though he never actually promised not to tell. Mrs. Binx watched the girl curiously.

"He is a good boy. He thinks very highly of thee." Tania turned away from the window, a confused look upon her face. "It is true, ye of little faith." Mrs. Binx said, smiling.

"I have faith," the girl protested.

"Aye, I know. Help me undress Emily, the poor child." Mrs. Binx removed the bonnet atop the young girl's head before moving to the buttons of the black puritan dress.
Tania brought up the child's nightgown from the trunk at the end of the bed.

"Ma'am?" Tania asked cautiously.

"Aye?"

"I am grateful for all thou hast done for me." Mrs. Binx looked up from her daughter to the young woman before her.

"And what hast brought this about? I was glad to help thee in thy time of need, as thou hast helped me in mine. Thou hast a healing touch, child, thou hast saved my life and Emily's during her birth. What would we have done without thee?"

"They thought me a witch, some still do." Tania sighed, brushing out Emily's hair, who, though awake, was falling quickly into slumber.

"Aye, but the Lord and the Father is on thy side. Emily sees thee as an older sister –"

"But I am but a servant."

"Now, Tania, thou art more than a servant. Thou art as much a member of this family as any. And perhaps in the future, thou shalt be officially a part of this family."

"What dost thou mean?" Tania asked, not looking up from her work.

Mrs. Binx just shook her head gently. "Never thee mind, child." She said, knowing that the girl understood. Tania sat upon the trundle bed that the two girls shared, humming a mournful song.

"That is a pretty song, Tania. I've heard it before…somewhere…" Emily mumbled, snuggling into the sheets.

At this, part of Tania shook. "Where? Where did you hear that song, Emily?" Tania asked urgently panic stricken, and worry mixed with fear plastered across her face.

"In church, I think."

"Emily, Emily, listen to me." Tania said in a panicked whisper. "No church would sing that song: the song of a siren. That song is dangerous; should thee ever hear it again, thou must run away from it. Put thy hands over thy ears and run far away. Emily?" The little girl was asleep and Tania bit her lip hard in anxiety.

"Warn the girl tomorrow, Tania, of Sarah's Song." Tania looked up from Emily to the girl's mother.

"Thou knowest of that song?"

Mrs. Binx nodded, "Aye, all of Salem knows the youngest Sanderson's song. I warn thee, do not allow anyone to hear thee sing it."

"It is burned into my memory; it haunts me over my shoulder. I do not know, but if Sarah Sanderson sings, then it confirms its evil.

"Where didst thou hear it?"

"Back at the village…" She faded her speech, thinking deeply. "If I have a healing touch, Ma'am, why is it that I was unable to save my parents?"

"Child, perhaps it was their time to join the Lord in the holy place on high." Mrs. Binx said, holding Tania's shoulder.

"I miss them, but I know they are in a better place away from the sins of the mortal world."

"Aye, go to sleep child. Give Emily her warning in the morning."

It was as Tania drifted off between the world of the unaware and the aware that she realized that tomorrow might be too late.


Hocus Pocus really needs to have it's own page...best Halloween movie ever.

I'll only have a few chapters end with authors notes. This one, the last one, and perhaps one in the middle to answer any questions people have asked me through reviews. Similarly, dislcaimers will only be placed at the beginning and at the end of this story.

Thanks hugely to my beta whose already edited this particular chapter twice!! You're awesome Kimmy!

-DD
September 16, 2009
began approximately November 2006