To Kill a Witch (ONC 2024 SHORTLIST)

After

When the story of Devil's Corner was told, it would go a little something like this.

There was a young girl. She was a half-wild thing, headstrong and fearless, who did not listen to what she was told, who ventured into the Wood one morning on a dare and found herself face to face with a demon who offered her a deal. 

That story, she supposed, was true.

Or it was the story of a cat, and a crow, who went looking for she who had brought them into the world, because they wanted to return home. They had found her, and the three had passed on together, because home was wherever they came together. 

That story, too, was true.

Or there was a group of Watchers, who had grown tired of seeing their home die every night, who set off to find the source of their nightmares, and break the curse. Even that, she thought, was true, because she did find some Watchers, some people who had noticed her leaving, and followed.

In a small encampment in the middle of a dark forest, a group of people muttered a girl's name under their breaths, or screamed it at the Saint, standing beside long rows of filled graves.

In a small house where twins played cards and a new child wore a locket she never had to draw for, where there was always the soothing sound of a ticking clock and a black cat pawing at the door frame, a voice would ask for the same story every night. Sometimes, she would tell her the little lies that other people told their own nieces, and laughed when she made up her own endings. But other times, when the night was bright, she would tell her the story of Devil's Corner, and it would go a little something like this.

A young woman with one hand, who wanted to save her brother, who met a cat and a crow, and carried a head full of truths her Pa had taught, and who was not afraid, wrote her own ending to an old story of a girl lost in the woods.