Nearly Witches

Chapter One

A gunshot.

Normally Tower Street was quiet, but that Saturday morning the silence was broken. A suburb like this one has never been affected by anything out of the ordinary until now.

Lydia Johnson, a teenager who had just woken, disturbed by the gunshot, peered out of her window, trying to catch a glimpse of the action. A tall figure in black was running towards the end of the street, then with a small blue crackle, almost like lightning, the figure disappeared.

By now, the residents of Tower Street had gathered on their lawns in dressing gowns and slippers, calling out to each other about the commotion.

Lydia could not hear what they were saying but assumed they were trying to figure out where the gunshot had come from. Mrs Carlisle let out a small scream and pointed towards the bungalow hidden from the rest of the street by the shadow of the large oak tree towering over it. The inhabitant of that house was a mysterious young woman, Luna. No one knew whether that was her real name or not as she only ever left her house to collect herbs from her garden.

Luna was sprawled out across her front lawn, her long silvery hair and black dress tangled around her, left arm still holding on to her basket of herbs, picked from her garden. Her sleeve had been pushed back revealing bracelets adorned with crystals, skulls, and black jewels, on her skin tattoos of moons and characters in an unrecognisable language.

There was now a crowd gathered around her, a man checked for her pulse before raising his head with a look of sympathy on his face, he turned her over gently, but dropped her to the floor when he saw her face. A circular gunshot wound was on the centre of her forehead, blood trickling down from it. Her eyes had rolled back, leaving glinting white orbs in their place. The shocking thing was the scars. Her face was covered in cracks that looked like a lightning storm had hit her face and left its marks.

"WITCH! I always knew there was something off about that one! She deserved to die. The witch would have led us all to hell!"

Mrs Wilson, a devout Catholic, had always been suspicious of her neighbour; she refused to let her two children walk in front of her house and forced them inside whenever she was in her garden. Most of the other woman ignored Mrs Wilson's accusations but after seeing Luna's tattoos and the scars on her face many of them were too scared to disagree with her.

Another woman near the back of the growing crowd spoke up,

"Margaret, I think you should see this. It's Caleb. I think he might be dead."

Mrs Wilson's eyes widened, in fear of her eldest son's death. She took a step back and looked over the circle around her. The residents of Tower Street stared at her, some still with disgust from her last remark, most with empathy.

Mrs Wilson stepped around her neighbour's lifeless body, but came to a standstill when she saw the scene before her eyes; her eldest son Caleb pinned against the side of the house as if he had been crucified, bleeding holes in his hands and his crossed feet with the same lightning scars across his face which was contorted into an ugly expression of agony. Next to him on the wall, in red paint it read: 

"THE WITCH SHALL BURN IN HELL"

Just below his feet, the red paint had spilled over the ground, coating the small shotgun, which presumably Caleb used to kill Luna.

Mrs Wilson dropped to her knees, screaming at the sight of her crucified son, yet no one stepped forward to console her or stop her screams.

Everyone was in shock, many were questioning what they knew of the straight A student, the star of the football team, the most "popular" boy in school, the older brother and the murderer.

Lydia had gone to her mother's room and told her about the commotion outside, however, she didn't know that anyone had died, or been murdered.

Her mother, still half asleep didn't fully grasp what was happening, all she heard was that there had been a loud noise and the other woman were gathered outside.

It was only when she was on her way to get a cup of coffee and she heard screaming, that Mrs Johnson realised there had been a tragedy and shouted for Lydia to stay at home before running onto her lawn. Frantically turning around, heart beating faster than usual, when she saw the group outside Luna's bungalow she ran towards them, not caring that the soles of her feet were bleeding from a piece of broken glass. Mrs Johnson had not seen or heard from her husband in three days, so she feared the worst was yet come.

Breaking through the crowd, she was horrified, yet slightly relieved at the sight before her. She knelt beside Mrs Wilson and rested her arm around her shoulders, who then proceeded to bury her face in Mrs Johnson's chest. They did not know how long they stayed in this position for, for all they know it could have been anywhere from five minutes to an hour. They were broken apart by a paramedic, who wrapped Mrs Wilson in a blanket and ushered her into an ambulance.

The other paramedics were perplexed by how Caleb was being held on the wall, no matter how hard they tried, he was there, frozen in agony. They also couldn't work out how Caleb got there or got the strange scars, which weren't scars, more like deep cracks in his skin.

Policemen were taking statements from people, while leading others back to their homes.

By now more people from different neighbourhoods had heard the sirens and come into Tower Street, comforting friends, hiding children from the scene.

Luna was put on a stretcher and carried into the back of an ambulance, but as soon as the doors of the ambulance closed, Caleb fell from the side of the house, slumped in the pool of red paint, the dark blood from his wounds merging with the bright paint.

One of the paramedics walked towards Caleb, but before she could get close to him, his body was thrown into the air; it twisted and moved as if he were a puppet on strings, being shaken violently by a much more powerful force. His face became expressionless as his body calmed and slowly lowered to the ground, at the feet of the stunned paramedic.

Everyone at the scene stopped and stared in bewilderment

Lydia didn't know why she hadn't left her house, something was telling her not to. She could sense danger. Her mother had not returned, so Lydia sat in the kitchen staring at the clock until her mother would return. Three hours passed by before her mother returned, she walked through the door and went straight upstairs to heal her foot and get ready for the day.

"What happened?"

Lydia called after her mother, who seems to be in a trance, blocking out everything as she went other room and shut the door behind her.

Lydia returned to her room as well, grabbed her phone and texted Keira Wilson, asking her if she had seen what had happened. Keira simply replied with

"I'm not sure, my mom made me stay inside. Caleb told me yesterday he was going to get rid of that witch and I think he did. Good riddance"

Lydia wasn't sure anymore. Of her best friend, of her neighbours, of The Wilsons, of the woman people branded a witch.