A/N: Warning: This story will contain graphic depictions of violence, mature language, abuse and lemons in later chapters.
Prologue
-Fire-
The night was cold and the torches burned bright.
With every step I took my gown pulled the wet from the icy path below, gathering the cold up past my ankles and moving toward my trembling , I pushed forward, moving through the achingly frigid winter air and raising my hand against the violent curl and snap of lightning in the sky.
I couldn't go home. I had to keep moving.
The small cottage I had spent the whole of my adult life in was now consumed with wild roaring fire. Instruments and texts reduced to ashes, floating up in tendrils of dust from the still smoking embers of the destroyed hearth.
The rug I had spun and knotted myself, gone. The dairy cow and the two pigs I had named after my favorite constellations, now nothing but broken bones and liquefied fat against charred soil. There was nothing left now but aching memories soaked in hot melted nails and door jams.
I could no longer hear them behind me.
The people I had once called friends now hunted me with scythes and pitchforks in the night. Their faces, etched forever in my mind, were fearful. Filled with an ignorance that birthed hatred for that of which they did not understand.
My toes were numb now inside my soaked wool slippers. I hadn't been ready for an excursion into the frigid winter winds and my bare arms held tightly the cloak I had managed to flee with. There was nowhere to hide, the small town of Irised was bordered to the north in only vast stretches of forest, all flat and tightly packed with huge trees and flora. It was a place of the wild. Songs were written from long ago chronicling the stories of those that sought to find purchase in its depths. Stories of murder and death, of blood raining from the heavens and eyes of black of coal staring from the shadows.
For this was The Woods of The Deep. And in The Deep many horrible beasties dwelled and hungered for flesh that I could not defend against. I could not see far in the darkness, but the stories I had been told as a small girl filtered through my mind's eye as I imagined each shadow stretching unnaturally, reaching for me with clawed hands and sharp teeth.
But there was nowhere else to go.
Irised was bordered one side by the Martessa Sea and I was certainly no sailor and had no vessel in which to captain.
My wild dark curls slapped against my flushed cheeks, joining into the dance of chaos around me in the festering storm of electrical currents and ice.
A glance behind me told me all I needed to know. I had survived past the edges of the treeline and the flickering of their torches were now only sparkling fireflies behind the large oaks and cedars cloaking me.
Even if they had seen me, even if they were feet away, no one would follow me here. My heart raced in my chest and I held my breath as I turned back and walked deeper into the woods. My nails dug into my palms as I fisted them in effort to keep from shaking.
I had only ever seen the top of the keep, emerging like spears of heavy stone cutting into the clouds. Five long towers, circled in tight formation, so tall the tips of the curved glass roofs could not be made out through the constant cover of fog. Perhaps it was magic that kept the clouds from sighing away across the sky. Or perhaps it was the will of its master. The castle was buried deep inside The Woods of the Deep. No merchants or visitors ever emerged from its harbor. And those who had braved the journey and survived, reported such horrible sights that most were content to listen to the tales and stay away.
The stories spoke of black walls carved from weighty stones, huge wrought iron gates, blood red stained glass windows that glowed into the long courtyard of cracked gravestones. Some ancient, some new and reflecting moonlight. The echoes of screams and despair rang true as the manor shook from roars of rage emanating from its Master, dwelling somewhere inside.
I had never seen him, only heard of him in whispers and clenched teeth. He was a monster, yes, as the rest of the inhabitants of the woods could be considered. But he was more than that. More powerful and deadly and isolated than any before. He was a myth of the Deep, a name most refused to utter in fear of invoking his wrath. The only proof he still bore breath, if you could even call it that, was the monthly visit of his servants to Irised to procure and facilitate the necessary business he required to keep his keep operational.
I walked quietly, step after step into the foreboding darkness. My breath fogged ahead of me and my jaw began chattering as my cloak's hood flew from my shoulders in response to a gust of wind flowing from behind the blanketed horizon. Snaps of twigs, flutters of wings and gnashing of fangs all seemed to be playing off one another in a terrifying symphony behind the howl of the wind.
Tears fell from my brown eyes, still stinging slightly from the smoke. My lips parted in a small gasp as I tilted my head down and pushed my way through the trees and the punishing wind.
I had gone to the one place they wouldn't follow. The one place I knew they would expect me never to return from. I had been in shock originally, too overwhelmed to truly accept that the weapons they wielded against me meant me harm.
"You're nothin' but a filthy witch you are! The Devil has taken your heart for 'is own, and I'll not let your wicked tongue keep waggin' at the children! You must be burned, burned!"
"Burn the witch, burn the witch, burn the witch!"
Their chanting had stolen my breath away. I had begged, pleaded, wept… but they had destroyed my Father and I's life's work with one fell swoop. Their mob knocking over my precious scopes and maps, tearing into my journals and smashing his models.
The betrayal…the hurt that dwelled inside me…it was nothing compared to the bone wrenching grief that had settled into my heart.
When they had come, wielding their instruments of intimidation and promises of death, my father had stepped in front of me. Shielding me from the mob as they pushed their way inside our home and claimed what they had no right to. And when they were finished, as I sobbed behind his back, he had declined to let them take me too.
Denied their claims and shielded me with his body.
"You dare keep a witch in your home?! You dare keep her from the rightful wrath of God?!"
My father had only glared, his unruly gray mustache pursing with his slow deliberate words.
"God has no place here."
Those words… I'd heard them hundreds of times. As he leaned over a magnification orb, or rewrote an equation in chalk. I had a habit, as did much of the town, to utter God's name in vain as I made a mistake, or found an outcome particularly surprising. And he had always corrected me. Guiding me towards the honesty of science.
"God has no place here."
It was a statement of purity. Not a denial of omnipotence.
He was telling those people, some of the faces in the crowd previous students of his, friends of mine, that they would find only the pursuit of scientific knowledge inside. Nothing otherworldly or spiritual or in any way paranormal found its way into our home and into our laboratory. He was, as was I, a creature of fact and proof.
But to those men and women, blinded by fear and prejudice…
He inadvertently accepted the charge they leveled at us, at me.
And so while I had run, found my way out through the chaos and the fire, he had not. He had fallen in pursuit of protecting his only child. His livelihood, he had watched destroyed in front of him and not lifted a finger. But for me, he had given the ultimate sacrifice so I might run.
So as I climbed through the brush, into the darkness that contained the house of horrors I had grown up hearing tell of, I could not feel relief that I hadn't been followed, that I had escaped the furious mob.
Walking in silence, the world loud enough around me, I wept. The tears that fell to my cheeks swiped away by cold wind and my broken heart hammering in stuttered terror.
I wondered briefly what stories they would tell of me in my absence. Would they soon sing my song in the small pub facing the ocean? Would I become just another soul to be feared in the darkness?
As the last of the fire light disappeared behind me, and I was thoroughly alone in the swaying tangle of trees, I realized what I had become.
A Witch of the Woods.
A/N: What do you think? Is this a journey you're interested in?
Inspiration:
Castlevania, Netflix & Games.
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Never My Love by lost_in_wonderland99 (a03)
A Court of Beasts and Beauties by jacklynew
Stephanie Meyer is the sole owner of the Twilight Franchise, and she owns all related characters you may see here. This is merely a fanfiction of her work.