BANKHEAD TALES OF SOUTHSIDE

GRAVEYARD WITCHES

Bartrim had gathered a few witches willing to return to Bankhead Providence and its surrounding areas in the 1900s, and would bother to travel the distance for his family back to King's Ground to guard the castle. They'd casted a spell that allowed no one besides the Helena family beyond the castle gates. Any other witch not within their covet who tried to break the spell would burn. The remaining servants, the ones who stayed were put to rest for the day. The slumber that they'd awake from would leave them with no memory of the past 48 hours. Whatever mess was made, the family would have to tend to it themselves.

"I don't want any of your graveyard witches to know about this," Bartrim walked closer to the gate and it opened for him, "The ones who aren't here don't get to know."

Saha Coax smiled down onto the ground. She'd come alone. Besides the King being in contact when he needed protection from enemies who were scavenging the town, no true witch had stepped foot on the yard. Her mother had, but was burned on top of a pile of leaves by voyagers who weren't familiar with their presence. They didn't like the energy that followed them; they all swore they could feel it even miles outside of the town. Her memory of the incident would come back in pieces, she was seven when she watched her burn. Her toenails scrapping against the wood sticks that bedded her. The alarming scenes would wake her from her sleep, the memories playing out in front of her. The streaking cry of her mother plowing at her eardrums and she'd fall to the floor. In the morning, when her sister Vivian circled around to her room she'd look untouched in her bed. The night had no affect on the morning to come.

No one in her coven trusted the ones who walked on the grounds. They'd advised Saha against it saying not to trust humans and their sick promises. The people from King's Ground — they lie for peace and they'll do anything, Valentine Good said. All of the older witches thought she'd know better by now. My mother would go there to help the girl, she answered tucking bread and cheese into her side bag, the one she'd walk three days on feet to the Grounds with.

"Our mother wouldn't be so foolish, honey, " Vivian spoke with unnerving ease and the winds whistled with her presence. She'd never forcibly keep her sister from going, not in the name of their mother. Her tight braids laid behind her as she twisted against the pole.

"She has people she trust up there," Saha answered.

"That was over a hundred years ago," she corrected.

"How do you know that? Because she took this same death walk without question? That doesn't mean she trusted people up there, it means she was trusting of people," Vivian responded.

"If you listened to her stories you would know everything," Saha smiled at the thought of it. The thought of everything she knew but Vivian didn't. And there was no time to explain. She recalled the times when her mother would sit on the feet of their cot and speak about the people at King's Ground. How some of them still had souls worth admiring; how even some of their wild minds could still be savaged. She believed in the promise of the the witches on the other side too. How in her sleep, she could hear them whispering of the ones who still live around here, mortals and all. Even some people within the castle walls were of some good. Elders, the witches who died still having done good within the world. The ones who tried to restore order to the natures even from earth side. They were the ones Mama Coax would said to have been caught speaking with in her dreams —the ones who whispered to her even when she was awake.

"Never be so trusting of those outside of your kind, child. They are using your powers and the Elders won't like it, not one bit. And if you go up there and get yourself killed you won't rest with our ancestors," Vivian warned, watching Sasha walk out of their cabin.