Witch Child - Secrets of the past

9 - Believing

Present Day....

"Is my dad alive?" Will thought it best to ask the most important question first. His hands clasped together tightly as he looked his aunt in the eyes, eyes that were very much like his, filled with the woes of the world.

Crissy sighed and hung her head, "I honestly don't know," she shifted on her chair, "I'm sorry, Will. I haven't heard from my brother for quite a long time."

Will's knuckles grew white, "Then why bring him up?" Will let out a sharp breath, "He abandoned me when I was four, why should that man have anything to do with my life now?"

"I'm truly sorry for what happened to you when you were young Will," Crissy leaned forward, seeming to implore Will for understanding, "The problem with being a Stone is our family seems to have problems with bad luck."

"Are you trying to say we've been cursed or something?" Will scoffed, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms, "I'm having a hard time believing in witches, let alone curses."

"You don't believe in witches?" Gilbert frowned on the opposite side of the table.

"I don't believe in nonsense," Will corrected, "If I can't see it, it doesn't exist."

"That's a terrible way to live," Trish's eyes widened almost comically, "What about things like gravity, you can't see that."

"Yeah, I can drop an apple," Will's mouth quirked into a smug smile as Trish struggled to come up with another point. Just as she seemed to collect her thoughts Crissy stood up with her hands on the table, the chair scraping gratingly against the timber floor. Her hard eyes locked on to Will.

"You only believe in things you can see?" she pushed herself away from the table and stood to her full height, "Let's go see then."

Gilbert's chair shot back as he stood, "Mum, you can't-"

Crissy held up a hand to stop her son, her gaze never breaking from Will, "Let's go see a witch."

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It was in a basement under the pub where Crissy pulled out a key and unlocked what seemed to be a heavy steel door. She gestured Will and Gilbert ahead of here, Patricia having chosen to stay upstairs. Will stepped into the room and immediately his whole body tensed. It was a dungeon. A metal dungeon. The whole space was covered floor to ceiling in metal. There were three cells in the space, all quite roomy, with each covering an entire span of wall, corner to corner of the almost square space. The cell walls were chest height with metal bars covering the top of the walls and stretching to the ceiling allowing Will to see into each of the cells without too much trouble. There was only one cell occupied. The one at the far end of the room. 

"What are you doing keeping a girl in here?" Will blinked to make sure he was seeing the woman right. The girl looked about nineteen, small, huddled in the far corner of her cell. As she stirred, the long, golden brown hair shifted to reveal two almond coloured eyes peering out from a small, oval face. She had a smattering of freckles across her nose, giving the woman a very innocent look. Though she had obviously been kept there for a while, judging by the state of her  tattered clothing, her skin possessed a healthy, sunkissed glow, as if she had spent the day frolicking in a field of some kind. 

"Will," Crissy startled him by grabbing onto his hand. Will shook his head quickly and pulled back. Somehow he had crossed the room and was centimeters away from the bars of the cell. 

"Who is she?" Will asked.

Crissy released Will's arm, "This is a witch," she explained, "A wind witch to be precise. One of the more docile types."