It’s been several days since the last full moon and I thought you guys may want an update as to how my witch hunt has been going.
Not so great.
I spent as much time as I could roaming from library to library, even various campuses where I might be able to find anything about how to bring these twin sisters down. I couldn’t find much about how to kill a witch other than your typical burn em at the stake or throw em in the lake with a big ass rock and see if they float - then burn em at the stake, naturally.
The black book has been burning a hole in my backpack. When I finally worked up the courage to do something about the witches that killed my mother, I thought for sure that I would be able to learn enough to decipher what had been written in the book. Well as it turns out, 23 days is not long enough to learn a secret language. The book yielded nothing I could understand, other than the anatomy drawings spread throughout. Every other page was filled top to bottom with elegant cursive writing and the language, even when I compared it to as many as I could find, didn’t match up. I think the text might describe what they are supposed to do with each organ when the witches cast their spells. I hope I’m wrong and it’s just the weirdest secret anatomy book I’ve ever seen. All I know is, it hasn’t helped me.
On the morning before the full moon I went to a small coffee shop and eatery where they also served breakfast sandwiches, thinking it would be a good place to write out my plan for the night.
I had already downed three cups of coffee, fully loaded with sugar when a barista appeared at my corner table to place yet another cup of coffee infront of me.
“I didn’t order this.” I said to the barista as she put both her hands in her apron to place a napkin and more sugar packets on the table.
“I know. That nice lady bought it for you.” She said through a customer service smile and pointed toward the door that was now opening. A slender woman with raven black hair was exiting the coffee shop and walking down the sidewalk, her back facing me so I couldn’t see her face.
My throat immediately went dry, I could feel my heart beat inside my ears as every hair on my body stood at attention. It was one of the witches, I could feel that certainty in my bones.
The barista walked away from the table then, lifting me out of my mini nightmare and reminding me to breathe. I turned the to-go cup of coffee in my hands and saw an address written on it.
The address of the cabin my mother had rented. The address where she had been slaughtered.
There was no doubt in my mind now that they knew I was planning something. How long had they been watching me? I was maintaining a low profile, constantly moving, yet they found me and one of them just wrote down the location that I planned to be at that very night! My skin crawled and fear faded into a deep rage. That sick joke of a coffee cup was not going to stop my plan.
That day I bought two knives. What I really wanted was a gun but after looking at them for all of 5 minutes I realized that 1. I couldn’t afford a gun. And 2. I’d probably shoot myself on accident as I’ve never actually used a gun before. So I went with the biggest within my budget range knives that I could find.
My ultimate, completely unfailable plan was that, these witches are old right? So they can’t be that strong, they probably can’t see very well since their eyes are older than dirt and they probably don’t have quick reflexes or good hearing anymore either. Sneaking up on them in the woods before they light their bonfire, I would stab them both and they wouldn’t even know what hit them. Easy peasy!
I drove out to the cabin around 9pm. I had not been back since mom was murdered and there was a for rent sign posted out front. I let out a relieved breath as I parked the car. I grabbed my flashlight and both knives out of the trunk then got the map from inside the black book and studied it. Looking up at the clear night, the moon had not completely risen yet but I could tell where it was in the sky. Bright as a beacon and in the direction of the rites clearing beyond the forests edge.
Flashlight in hand, I made my way through the trees, following the map and the moon. I found the spot I sat in before, 30 feet from the clearing. The cicadas and crickets were in the midst of their nightly melody and everything seemed calm within the forest itself. In the rites circle, the pyre stood unlit. Fresh and ready to burn. The hole that was dug on the other side was much harder to see without the light of a fire. But I could make out the pale figure laying just above it.
It was a man this time. Probably not much older than me who was bound to the wood stretching across the shallow hole. His eyes were closed but I knew he was alive. I don’t think this ritual would work if he were already dead. I crouched in the darkness and readied my knife. Listening to the sound of the night. I knew once the bugs stopped singing that the witches were near. So I waited.
Midnight inched closer and the crickets suddenly went dead quiet. I stood slowly to move back out of the moonlight that was now directly over head, trying to hide myself a little better for my sneak attack to work. I stepped on a twig and it snapped. Making possibly the loudest sound I had ever heard in my life. I winced and cursed at myself, holding my breath. That was when the man stirred.
“Hello? I-is s-s-someone out there? Who’s there?”
I couldn’t answer his whimpering questions. I couldn’t give myself away before the witches arrived. If I had my way and everything worked to plan, then his life would be spared.
“P-please help me! Please! Don’t kill me!” His cries echoed through the clearing and bounced around my brain driving the tinge of agony even deeper into my soul.
And then I saw them. Far away on the other side of the circle walking through a narrow trail among the trees. Two haggard naked and gnarled women hobbled slowly up the path towards their next victim.
I rounded in their direction, being careful of my footing this time so as not to make any more noise than I already had. The hand I had wrapped around the knife began to sweat and though the air was cool, I had to wipe beads of perspiration from my face.
Silently they went to the pyre, their long grey hair lopping from side to side as they took their uneven steps. The man was still yelling for help and one of them kicked him in his face as she passed by. Her laughter filled the air as his muffled cries droned on. But he was no longer screaming for help.
As their backs turned to me, nothing but skin and bones and that overwhelming scent of decay, I readied myself for what I knew I had to do.
A hand wrapped around my mouth and another arm dragged me back from the edge of the woods. Trying to fight my attacker I kept my eyes on the clearing. The witches were both still there, so who the hell was this person? I thought to stab them with my knife only after I realized I had dropped it in the panic of being attacked and couldn’t reach the other one at my back. Abruptly we stopped moving once the clearing was well out of sight. Just a tiny glow of where the fire was now blazing. My attacker sat me down at the foot of a tree and squatted infront of me. Her hand still over my mouth. She put her finger up to her lips in a sshhhhh motion and slowly removed her hand from my face. I kept silent as my eyes finally registered.
She had raven black hair and crystal blue eyes. An amber colored pendant hung against her skin just below her collarbone. She was identical to the twin witches currently devouring that poor man. I made to scream and her hand was back over my mouth before sound could escape.
“My name is Eliza. And your plan sucked.”