Witch Hazel

Chapter 1.2

The workroom was blooming with a thin dusting of light. When I looked down I saw it burning across my hands and the jar on the table. The little almanac too.

I felt myself laughing. 

Giggling more quietly now like a kid with a secret, I slunk toward the door and into the hall. Almost nothing out here glowed. But, hmm. I knelt to the ground and put a finger to the stone. It felt warm somewhat. And I knew somehow that maybe years ago it would have glowed too. Something had passed through here. 

I followed the trail up the stairs. It lead past the great hall doors. The keep was ghostly quiet now, so I couldn't just bust through. Two guards slumped against the wall. One was clearly asleep. The other's head was bobbing...drifting down slowly in sleep then jerking back up as he caught himself. I covered my mouth with my hands so I could snicker.

Well how could I follow the trail?

My eyes drifted to the wall. There had been murderholes there which were widened into small windows a few years back. I stuck my head out to take a look at the village. One hut was glowing. Before I could reconsider I was pulling myself through the stone opening and dropping into the snow below.

Ploof! The snow caught me. The bits I'd touched came alight, just barely.

Tossing more snow up into the air, I began to head through the woods. It was faster than trying to sneak down the main road. My mother had said that when her mother's mother was a babe, nobody dared enter the forest. But in my lifetime everyone traipsed through it.

It was a deep dark in the woods. But somehow I knew which way to go. Small branches pulled at my skin and hair but I kept onward. 

Somewhere along the way the hair on the back of my neck raised. I turned to look behind me. Nothing.

"Hello?" I called out.

Then suddenly I felt it. At the peripheral of my vision I saw the hint of an aura in the dark. I whipped my head toward it. Nothing but darkness and woods.

"Hello?" I called out a second time. 

Again, I saw it in my peripheral. Closer this time. I looked toward it and it was gone.

"You tricksy thing." I laughed "I've figured it out, you know."

I caught it again, in my peripheral, but this time I didn't turn my head. Making sure to keep looking away I began to walk closer, hand outstretched. I fell to the ground and covered my ears as an awful sound pierced through the gloom. It sounded like rusted gears grinding together. The glow in my peripheral burst into my central vision. 

In front of me was a creature the size of a dog on it's hind legs. It's neck and thin spindly limbs wobbled under the weight of its massive head. The creature's skin was a sallow green. A dark red-brown hat sat on it's pocked scalp. The material was crumbly. As the creature walked closer, the ghost of a smell hit my nose. Iron and sweetness. Blood.

I took a step back. Sensing my fear it leaned forward and made the noise again, baring pointed rotten teeth. Then it lunged. 

My hands had always shook, but I didn't now with what. Yet now, as a small metal pike rushed toward me, they whipped out to grab it by it's length. The pike's blade whizzed past the tip of my nose by an inch. I'd clearly caught the creature by surprise. It tugged at the handle. But I was bigger and stronger, so I ripped the pike from its grip.

The creature screamed and ran at me teeth bared. Though I was fast now, I'd never held a weapon before, and the metal slipped in my sweaty palms. I grabbed it back out of the snow and just barely stepped back and out of the way of my opponent's charge. When it ran at me again, I braced myself and flicked the pike's tip toward my target at the last moment. I hit true and suddenly a dead bag of skin and bones was hanging off the end of my pike.

I dropped the whole mess into the snow. Like a single-minded animal, I rushed toward the hut.

I knew I'd reached it when I was staring at a wooden door with light dusting it's surface. 

"Please." I said while pounding on it. I meant to sound pleasing but my own ears heard it as a laugh. "Open the door."

"Bugger off." a gruff voice said. "Don't you know what time it is?"

"Open. Open. Open." I said, and slammed my fist into the door with each repetition. 

The weight of my body was behind each blow. So naturally, I fell when the door did open. As I hit the ground I could see links of chain, a hammer, horse shoes...was this the blacksmith's place? In the dark and in my rush I hadn't noticed.

"What's wrong with you girl?" 

Big hands picked me up by my underarms and plopped me down into a chair. I slumped into it and snickered. 

The old town blacksmith slouched before me. He was broad shouldered. His arms bulged with muscle, the right arm slightly bigger than the left. His beard curled with hairs that alternated between snow white and steel grey.

He leaned forward. I flinched back but he kept on. He grabbed my jaw with one hand, and lifted each eyelid in turn. I tittered and watched.

"Witch's sight?" His voice seemed to boom in the small building. "You come to my house in the middle of the night  laughing it up with witch's sight?"

"What's that?" I asked. The room's glow was beginning to dampen, and the laughter rang hollow in my chest.

"Gods girl, you don't know what you've done." Wood scraped against stone as he dragged a chair across from me. "Tell me."

"There was a book. I did the thing and shwoof! Light everywhere! So I follow it into the woods. And there's a thing that looks like a starving child with a pointy stick. It had a thing." I waved my hand manically above my head. "That smelt of blood. I killed it then came here."

"That's a red cap you saw in those woods lass."

"Woz that?" I asked and I could hear my voice slurring, the edges of my vision darkening.

"Shhh, you're coming down from the sight. Just relax. You can't fight it."

"The world is getting dark, and I can't stop shaking." I said. Or perhaps thought. 

Black.

A/N: Leave me a ★ ?  You read through 3 chapters! Finally we get to see some magic. ٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و