The Winter's Witch || Bucky x Reader

Chapter 1

Note before reading:

Well, here we go. This story is very dear to my heart and, like the other ones, will have 15 chapters. Let me know what you think.

Love, 

Nina

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Here's to the girls who come alive when the sun disappears and the rain and storms come in; to the girls who wish they were a feral little witch who brings down the bodies of the heavens onto anyone who wrongs them; to the girls who need magic as desperately as I do. I hope you enjoy this story as much as I have enjoyed writing it. 

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Autumn equinox, 1993. Outside a town called Winter.

Unaware of the blood that coated the soles of your feet, your laugh was unapologetically loud as you chased Agnes and Cordelia through the woods. The three of you were wild and undaunted, with mischievous eyes drinking in the moonlight and half-empty bottles of cider and red wine clutched in your hands.

It was not unusual for you and your coven sisters to revel in the power you felt coursing through your veins after the celebration of the Autumn equinox. You wish you could have seen it from afar; twenty women, clad in thin white dresses with crowns of chrysanthemums on their heads, bare feet dancing across the holy forest floor. The Triple Goddess, both the Maiden, Mother and Crone, would savour in the unwavering devotion and celebration of her most beloved and fiercest creatures that walked on her earth.

And so the three of you had left with a blessing of moonlight in your eyes. You felt drunk on the power you felt thrumming all around you; in the trees and the ground; in the light of the stars and the coursing of the river. It was all waiting, like it was begging for you to call upon it with only a few words on your lips and a twist of your fingers.

You heard the laughter of Cordelia in the distance, knowing that Agnes would already have reached the edge of the forest. She had always been the quickest. Agnes was as fierce as her fiery red hair, impulsive, and wore her heart on her sleeve. Even though she could be a little too direct sometimes, you knew she meant well and was simply being honest. She was passionately protective of those she loved.

As you skirted around two fallen trees you felt quite certain you were catching up to Cordelia, hearing her careful but swift footsteps crackling on the fallen leaves. Cordelia was a quiet observer. She truly revelled in whatever life gave her; in the little smiles she saw that went unnoticed by everyone else; in the stories people told. Her magic was precise and calculated and utterly beautiful.

You knew that if you skirted left at the clearing, you would outrun Cordelia by taking the shortcut past the old cottage. So, still clutching the bottle of home-made cider in your hand, you veered left and bounded down the forest path like a feral creature. Your heart was racing, wild and unrelenting like the nature around you, causing you to smile wildly and linger in the feeling. You dashed through the hedge's opening, which, in your rush, you failed to recognize didn't look far as overgrown as it usually had.

You had run all the way to the cottage before you realized the terrible mistake you had made. A single oil lamp was burning on the old cottage's porch. You halted instantly, holding your breath as the magnitude of your stupidity dawned on you. From the dark, you could see a man sitting in an old rocking chair, his booted feet resting cross-legged on the porch's railing. You could not see his face, for it was leaning out of the oil lamp's light, but you did see the glass of whisky clutched in the right hand by his lips.

For a brief moment you felt positive you could bound out of there and that he had not noticed you. But then you heard the inevitable creaking of the rocking chair as he leaned forward, having clearly noticed you, and his face was basked in the glow of the oil lamp.

You had thought up an illusion charm, but found the words dying on your lips, the magic tingling restlessly and unguided at you fingertips. The only reason being that his eyes had found yours; yours unnaturally bright with moonlight; his eyes more blue than the kyanite stone you usually wore around your neck.

His face, now bathed in a warm light, showed him to be a little older than you. His long dark hair was pushed back and he carried a stubbled beard on his jawline. He was wearing a large plaid shirt that only barely managed to contain his big shoulders. Despite the fact that you were mostly hidden by darkness, his eyes were focussed on you, drinking in as much of you as he possibly could.

He had a look of shock on his face; seeing you bare-foot, clad in a thin white dress that did nothing to hide the contours of your body underneath. Your untied hair was wild beneath its crown of red and orange chrysanthemums. He looked at your eyes most of all; at the brightness that felt he would be swallowed whole. But then he blinked twice, wondering if his eyes were tricking him, and he briefly looked at his glass of whisky before he looked back up finding you were gone.

You were bounding away, rushing into the cover of the pine trees with no regard for the snapping branches against your bare skin. How foolish you had been.

"Forget me," you whispered pleadingly to the Goddess of the earth. You whispered it over and over again, but not even the deepest and most ancient power in this world could make him truly forget you. Because the stoic blue-eyed man was frozen in place, staring breathlessly after you. He felt like you had stolen the moon and locked its light and beauty into the depths of your eyes, with no intention of giving it back.

You didn't tell Agnes or Cordelia what had happened, and you couldn't quite explain why you hadn't. It was not that you felt reluctant to hear their thoughts, or that you feared their judgement. Perhaps it was because you felt like the moment had been too private or intimate. Why it was so, you could not quite put to words.

When you eventually got home, just in time before the sunlight started lighting up the sky, you tiptoed up the spiral staircase to the top of the house. You found your bedroom in the mess you had left it in while you were getting ready for the equinox celebration. You moved all the dresses and flowers to a chair and flung yourself onto your bed, your eyes staring restlessly at the ceiling. It was quite wondrous to look at still as it held ancient constellations that one of your ancestors had painted on them once.

You were wondering about the blue-eyed man, about whether he would remember you tomorrow. It should not be possible, should it? You hoped that the Triple Goddess had heard your desperate plea and had answered it. But, even if she hadn't- you felt you ought to be safe. Because not only had you been almost complete cloaked in darkness, he had been drinking. Yes, you felt quite certain now. He wouldn't remember much of you at all. How could he?

Reassured by this notion, you got up to ready yourself for bed. But then, finally, as you stepped out of bed, did you see a speck of red on the side of one of your toes. Slowly, you sat down lifted up your feet and saw that both soles were entirely covered in dried blood and dirt.

You gasped as you felt your heart hammer in your chest. Where had the blood come from? How long had it been there? Perhaps you had stepped into a puddle of animal blood in the forest, maybe a hunter had left his kill behind. But you were only trying to fool yourself, for you had learned at a young age how to differentiate between different kinds of blood. You'd be a poor excuse of a witch if you couldn't.

You felt absolutely certain that it was human blood which your feet were covered in.

You immediately realized that it could only have happened in the forest. Or at the cabin. Was that blue-eyed man harbouring some dark secret? Had he killed someone? The cabin had been abandoned for over four years. Why had you not heard anything about anyone moving back in? It could be his hideout.

If he had killed someone and you had accidentally stepped onto his murder scene, you realized that you could not expose him. Not without him exposing you for how he had seen you. The entire town would find out what you, and therefore you aunties, were.

You tried to calm yourself and make sense of it all. You were a damn witch, and if anyone would be able to figure this out it would be you. You could ask your aunties to brew you a potion that would erase his memory, then you could look for the body and make sure the right people found it then.

That night, you sat on the edge of the bathtub, vigorously rubbing your feet clean while a blue-eyed man still sat on his porch in the dark, wondering whether you had been real or whether he had dreamed you into existence.