Witch {Book One} [UNEDITED]

XLI: Prelude

Salem, 1692

It was October and it was raining. Adeline told her children to go play in the forest. She seemed urgent and scared. Annie ushered her siblings outside and they were gone in the blink of an eye. Ada, despite hating her sister's children, went after them to make sure that they were okay. Their brother followed Ada, though he wanted to stay behind and make sure that Adeline was okay. 

Adeline barely had enough time to wipe her tears before the knock sounded on her door. She strode to the door and opened it, trying to seem as calm as possible. She didn't have time to even speak before the men grabbed her and bound her wrists with iron chains. She tried to scream but they tied a gag around her mouth and yanked her outside. 

It was raining but they still managed to light a bonfire. 

The youngest of the Gavel children, Caroline, snuck away from where the  children, Ada, and her brother were hiding. She was only two years old and was as curious as a kitten. Caroline watched as Adeline was forced upon the pyre. She was tied to the stake and couldn't even scream as the pyre was lit. Caroline watched as her mother was burned alive. She ran back to the forest, sobbing. 

Ada was the first to realize what happened. Despite all the rules, she took off running. She made it to the village just as all the people grew bored and left. The flames of the pyre were dying and being extinguished by the rain. Ada sank to her knees once she identified the burned remains of her sister's body. She let out a loud wail and didn't stop crying for an hour. In that time, all of Adeline's children came to see what had happened both to their mother and to their Aunt Ada. 

Without second thought, Ada drew her carving knife from her pocket and turned on the closet of the children--Annie. It took several seconds for everyone to react to what Ada had done and by then, it was too late. Annie fell back, holding her stomach where she had been stabbed. She looked up at Ada with a look of betrayal but said nothing. Ada looked at the blood on her knife and then turned on the next child. William was the first to die. Then Caroline. Then Elouise. Then Addison. Then Bailey. Soon, all but Annie were dead. 

"Why?" Annie whispered. She died a second after saying the word. Ada stared at the bodies of her nieces and nephews and then at the body of her sister. Her brother was nowhere to be seen. Bastard. 

Ada, without thinking, took the carving knife and stabbed it through her left eye and through her brains. She let out a sound that was a cross between a mangled cry and a maniac laugh before collapsing in a broken heap, dead. 

New Orleans, 1923

It was October and it was sunny. It was rare to have a sunny October, but it was the sunniest October day New Orleans had seen in decades. Everyone was outside. 

There was a ghost in the streets. Which wasn't a surprise, because New Orleans had lots of ghosts. But this ghost was special. This ghost was the ghost of Ada Gavel. She wore her old white dress and her hair fell from the pile on top of her head. Her left eye was a milky opaque color but it still dripped blood. She was a monster. 

She went to the town square first. Her first kill was the most satisfying, but the second was even better. By the tenth kill, she was starving for power. It had been 231 years since her last massacre and she had spent the whole afterlife lusting for power and murder and death and blood. 

She killed every single person with relations to her that day. Half of New Orleans was dead. 

It started raining. It wasn't enough to wash the blood from the streets. 

And Ada, well, she wasn't the only Gavel ghost present that day. 

Annie Gavel watched in horror as her aunt murdered everyone. 

She was bleeding from the wound on her side as she bent down and touched the body of a young girl, no older than six. 

"No one else will die because of Ada," she whispered. "I will make sure of it." 

Seventy years later, Adelaide Gavel Lee was born and Annie was present for her birth.