Mirror of Echoes

5. Coven Two

{TW: mentions of torture and sexual harassment}
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Agatha Harkness, Aurora Vaire
[ 1760]
[ Salem ]
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Witches died left and right, hunted by numerous humans. Said killings were not limited to humans; hence, a certain witch literally swallowed her own kind like a beast. Sorrow and grief brought Agatha Harkness to where she was now. The woods. The very woods where her son lay in a grave. The only piece of herself that she could truly love—according to her own beliefs—remained in a different realm as she did. The realm of the dead. A place she feared like no other, for she would possibly cross paths with every single witch whose life she cut short. With certainty, she wouldn't get herself anywhere close to crossing that border. No, Agatha Harkness would defeat death for centuries.

Alone. Utterly alone and lonely at the same. It was one thing to be alone—it could be peaceful, quiet even—and a totally different thing to be lonely—longing for a deep bond of connection.

Grazing her fingers across the dried lavender sitting atop the stone, her head bowed. A million thoughts crossed the witch's mind—dominantly the idea of her own doing in reality, the profound guilt she couldn't shake and wouldn't shake. She was a monster. How could she not protect her son from being taken from her?

"If sun be gone," she sang—her voice shaking with the gravity of emotion. "We carry on..."

Shuffling reached Agatha's ears, forcing her stern gaze to find the intruder of such a sacred place.

"Your mother never taught you manners, didn't she?" She snapped at the fairly young girl with waves of scarlet and eyes of nature.

A stinging hit the girl's chest; her young heart was awfully used to pain; therefore, the agony was but a prick to her finger. Still, she swallowed and tightened the grip on the stems of lavender in her grasp.

"I didn't mean to intrude, Miss." She blinked and stared at Agatha with big eyes full of sorrow. A shared pain remained unnoticed by both; hence, they were nothing but acquaintances for now. A relationship that wouldn't remain as it began. "The name is Aurora Vaire; I came to refresh the flowers."

Waving the bouquet, she dared step closer to the kneeling woman by the constellation of stones. Agatha's skin ran cold one second and hot the very next. She hadn't questioned the relatively fresh flowers the prior times, but it made sense. There was no spell she had cast to keep the lavender alive; of course it had been another person changing the flowers.

"You had no right!" Agatha hissed and still the girl came closer, until she stood there close enough for the older woman to take her life or whatever it was she valued. She held no fear for Agatha. No, Aurora was as brave as a woman could be in a time as such. "Do you have a death wish, girl?" Agatha seethed and Aurora tensed briefly, her actions reluctant for a second before she held out her palm—a gesture against what her instincts screamed at her—the lavender tied with a bow of purple for Agatha to take. "You don't fear me."

"Is that a question?" Aurora's tender fingers grazed Agatha's as the brunette took the bouquet.

"You know who I am, don't you?" Hazel eyes found blue ones staring up at her with malicious intentions.

"Even if I did"—she sighed, not answering the question at hand—"I am not to judge a woman by her reputation." She held out her hand after watching Agatha switch out the old with new lavender. "You are a witch, aren't you?"

"Agatha Harkness," Agatha decided to finally introduce herself.

'Nobody is coming to save you' Agatha heard all her childhood. The following decades, after killing her mother and many more on her way, the phrase stuck to her like an old friend, reminding her of her worth and loneliness in the world.

There comes Aurora, barely a witch—a baby witch and teenager with her sixteen years of age—stretching out her hand for the older witch to take. It was a simple introduction—an exchange of names—and still Agatha knew this girl just told her to get up. If it wasn't enough, she even helped her up from the ground she sat on.

Upon touching Aurora's hand, a hiss of discomfort fell from her lips. A rash had burned into the tender skin of the girl's hand. Leaking wounds littered her hands, back and palm alike.

A questioning look laced Agatha's face and as if on cue, Aurora withdrew her hand, her sleeve falling above the nasty tissue she called her hands.

"It's nothing." A remark made too quickly to be convincing. It was a futile attempt to make Agatha Harkness pity another being. Under normal circumstances, she'd shrugged it off or ignored it all together, but she did not. Agatha did not leave the injuries uncommented. It was the entire opposite of what her head would have told her on the regular. However, for once, her rational, stubborn head aligned with the little parts left of her tender heart.

Taking Aurora's hands in hers, they sat down on the meadow, the river at their feet—a floating and flowing sensation. An utterly natural instinct had Agatha pull into action, touching her opposite's hands and tending to the wounds.

"Not every plant is meant to be picked off the ground," Agatha sighed. "Not with bare hands anyway." Had no one taught this girl anything?

She was aware it was a poisonous plant, one deadly if mixed correctly into food or a potion. So, what was a girl like the one she tended to do with it?

"My coven," Aurora set to speak. "They've ordered me to bring an oak of purple leaves."

A plant growing like a plague, if not pruned too often and definitely meant to harm others. Agatha's jaw set painfully harshly. She had a coven, one who let her walk into her own demise. "What would a coven need with the deadliest of them all?"

"I've not been aware it was deadly.."

"It's... name resembles the torture it takes to find a dreadful end. Deadly is more of a.." Looking for the word to accurately describe the agony one lives through when consuming the oak, the brunette never once thought about pausing and not taking care of Aurora's hands.

"Vision of what's to come?"

For an odd reason, Agatha found a small, yet sincere smile returning to her lips. The two witches exchanged a breath of calmness. Peace settled in their chests in the presence of the other.

A breath of power left Agatha's long fingers, the purple wrapping around the baby witch. Giggles fell from her lips—a sound the brunette wouldn't hear in years after Death took her precious boy.

"Your purple tickles," Aurora stated with her hands protectively wrapped around herself. Her purple. Agatha swallowed thickly, awfully aware of her own body. It seemed not only the well-known witch realized something, but so did Aurora as her eyes widened with an indistinguishable expression. "You are the witch killer."

"Before you say another word, do consider your future, girl." A clear threat and yet Aurora stared at the woman in a sense of awe.

"You've walked The Road."

Almost as if the phrase meant a summoning, Agatha sensed what she must do. "I have."

A strange wariness should have crossed Aurora's mind by now. She could never wish for the very thing she craved at the end of the journey. A glimpse into the mind of the girl—one remaining unnoticed by her at that too—told a vast amount about Aurora's intentions.

Pain and sorrow had accompanied the young witch all her short life. All things that could've been prevented. Torture to an extent larger than the oak's purple death could ever summon. A woman of the same hair color played a key role in the agony. Blood and gore, torture and humiliation. Aurora was still considered a child and went through all nine circles of hell at once. Her mother? Her personal torture master.

A fickle of an image flickered Agatha's vision momentarily. A blonde girl stared at Aurora with a honeyed expression. Ill intend on her mind—no doubt. As their lips met, a fluttering heat had gone through Aurora. It was a tiny moment, one that had cost her her innocence the night that was to come. A punishment in a form not common yet crueler coming from someone she was meant to be able to put her trust in.

"And you need The Road." Agatha came to the conclusion after a brief glimpse into the girl's head. Mind abilities came in handy; in terms of getting people riled up and her traps to work, she always knew exactly what to say.

A pink hue found its way onto Aurora's cheeks, painting an adorable image of shame. An almost perfect impression of it at that. The very same pink as the flowers surrounding them.

"My... magic is defect." Agatha wondered who had implanted such an awfully wrong idea into her head. "I cannot focus it on one subject. It is broken."

Wiping off her hands, the older witch tilted her head with curiosity. "Show me, flower."