The Winter Witch

The Bad Wife

200 YEARS PRIOR

Cataliana's mother brushed her hair on the moss covered stone step outside of their home. Every evening she would sit still for as long as her mother needed her to while she told her stories about what her life would be like if she married well. She would have a wonderful life far away from her straw roofed home and hearth floor. She would have a home with marble floors and dresses made by hand. Cataliana thought of one day having her own little girl who's hair she would brush. She would then dream of her life and pass on the love that her mother showed her.

Cataliana loved her mother very much. Her mother had eyes like a cat, but a bit more round. They were a light brown - hazel with what looked like flecks of gold. They were so warm and welcoming, she couldn't understand why she wasn't loved by all the village. She was so mesmerized by her mother sometimes and wondered how come she herself wasn't as beautiful. Though the one thing she had gotten from her mother was her thick and lusturous curly hair. The only reason she let her mother brush her hair for what seemed like an eternity was so that she would have them twisted up in hot cloths before she was put to bed. This made her curly hair all that more bouncy and shiny come the morning when it was taken down. It had taken her some time to get used to sleeping with knots of cloth in her hair but as taught by her mother "beauty is pain".

One day that she will never forget is the day her mother died. There was so much that she had wanted her mother to be a part of. There was so much that she wanted to say. You see Cataliana was a bastard. She was illegitimate. The product of an affair that her mother had with a Lord in a neighboring Village. Even though she was only 12 she had already learned a very valuable lesson. People could not be trusted. The wife of the Lord her mother had been with demanded that she either be flogged into losing the child she was carrying or to be ostracized and never to return. Her mother fled with the new life growing inside her and moved to the edge of another village. She made a home at the beginning of a marshy river. 

The day her mother died she put her in one of the many canoes her and her mother had built and covered her in the things she loved most. She was wrapped in the blanket she had since she was a child, one of the few belongings she was able to carry on her way out of the village. She got some fully bloomed Perpisson flowers that had been her mother favorite and put them around her whole body as a veil of protection. Lastly, she tore out a page of a bible that she had been given by the village priest on the night her mother died. She folded the page and placed it in her mothers folded hands.

As soon as the page touched her mothers skin she was pushed back by a jolt of energy. She felt as though the sun had blinded her and she was submerged underwater for the briefest second. She opened her eyes and found herself on the ground with the page next to her. She decided that the page would remain with her. Instead she kissed her mother's fore head, sent out a silent wish and pushed the canoe out into the water.

After days of crying and wallowing she knew what she had to do. She decided to go through her mother's things and take what she could and sell the rest. Witout her mothers sickly clients coming around money was low and she was running out of provisions. She had not been able to hunt any sparrows or rabbits. She had to get back to normal life. She knew that is what her mother would have wanted and frankly she did not have another choice if she wanted to survive.

In going through her mother's things she found a broach. It was made with silver as the base and a half moon glass ball on top it was more than half filled with a white substance that was slightly fluorescent. The glow was unlike anything she had ever seen before. What was even more strange was that she had never seen her mother with it before. How could she have never laid eyes on this? She could tell it was old but just where did it come from and why had her mother never showed it to her? They shared everything.