Agatha didn't remember her childhood much more than what her mother had told her. Elizabeth had said she had disobeyed and had gone some part of the woods where she shouldn't have gone. An accident had occurred. The details were blurred. Apparently, Agatha had bumped her head somehow. Her mother had found her unconscious on the floor. After that, her memories were gone. The girl was otherwise alright. It could have been so much worse.
Agatha wanted to be accepted for who she really was and that wasn't that so much to ask. She was trying to fit as much as she could within the girls of the coven. Agatha had even been tempering down her own capacities. Her mother was always encouraging the others to do better, to do more. Agatha was never enough or always too much. Most times it was difficult to say. That day, she had not planned on breaking the rules per say. She just wanted to understand the nature of her magic so she could understand herself. Her own mother wasn't willing to help, always telling her those things were not to be talked about until she would learn to restrain herself. The truth would have to be found somewhere else. Her options were few but there was a man in the village everybody suspected was dabbing in magic. Nobody had proof of it, not even Elizabeth. He was quite wealthy and in a high position in the village. It protected him quite a lot.
It was a dangerous move but, maybe, he would have some of the answers she was desperately looking for. That man could do damage to her reputation and rat her out to the village or to the coven. Agatha knew that full well. The need to know was stronger than the threat of being burnt alive. She was already living half a life as it was. They could go on and kill her, it wouldn't change a lot. Sometimes people just had to risk it all in order to move ahead with their lives. Things got out of hand. Her mother might have been right when she told her she was a bad girl. It was not like she had wanted for all this to happen.
The old man answered the door and had been nice to her at first, all smiles and kind words. He had let her in without trouble. The man had been willing to explain the little he knew and that was already more than what Agatha's mother had told her so far. Her powers were very old and powerful magic apparently. He had never felt such powers before. The little he knew didn't feel like it was nearly enough though. He was still hiding things from her, she was sure of it. The old man or her mother didn't trust her with the knowledge and Agatha didn't understand why? Was she an evil being? Were they afraid of her? She was more powerful than the others after all. That might explain why they were keeping her in the dark.
Agatha looked around her for a second. The interior was showing how wealthy the man really was. The Harkness weren't poor either but nothing to that extent. Because Elizabeth was helping the young girls, the people from the village were more than generous with her mother. They didn't give money of course, Elizabeth was above that but gifts were always welcomed. Despite all that, Agatha's house was nowhere this opulent. It crossed the young girl's mind that maybe, just maybe, that man wasn't totally a good guy.
Frustration boiled inside her so much so that she was then unable to contain it further. Agatha screamed at that man, lashing out, asking for answers, asking for help. She just wanted to know who she was. Why were they all keeping secrets from her? She wasn't a child anymore. Whatever it was she could understand. The old man tried to calm her down. A woman screaming in his house would probably raise some eyebrows in the village.
He tried to calm her down with kind words and soothing gestures. Things weren't as bad as she thought. The fight left her all of the sudden and tears started rolling down her cheeks without her wanting. There was nothing for her here. She needed to run away at that moment not only from that man and his golden house but also from that village, from that life. Nobody would miss her anyway, certainly not her own mother.
The forest had always been her refuge even knowing she had an accident there once. The trees were touching the sky. The smells of damp moss and pine sap and the sounds of the wind in the leaves and the crunch of the needles under her feet, all of that talked to her like nothing else in her life. There was no pressure there, no need to be somebody special, only herself. She needed to go there right this instant. Maybe then she would be able to calm down and think things through.
Agatha bolted for the door but it was locked. She tried and tried again to get it to open but the door wouldn't bulge. Panic was rising inside her. The young woman turned around slowly to find that man standing there, tall and menacing, looking straight into her eyes. The kind old man was gone and replaced by a scary figure smiling at her like a predator looking at a prey. Something was very wrong. She needed to get out of there for a whole new reason. Her mother would know what to do.
"Thank you for coming to me, Agatha. I saved me to find a way to lure you out of your coven. Elizabeth tried to keep all your power to herself. It's not nice to share, you know." the man told her, his voice saccharine, disturbingly so.
She couldn't help wondering why he had faked the kindness if it was his plan as soon as she had knocked on his door. Agatha had literally walked in the lion's den. Elizabeth had been wrong in the end. That would be a consolation for the old woman.
A brownish aura was surrounding him, oozing sickness, pulsing malice and hostility. It made her physically sick. Agatha didn't have time to think things through. She wouldn't have known what to do anyway. All her mother's teaching had never prepared her for an attack. The man sent a ray of his power directly to her chest, at heart level, weakening her. Agatha fell down on her knees quickly. That man had no compassion.
It would be so stupid to die like that she thought. What a crazy idea to have then when it was about to happen. For all the old magic and strength she was meant to have, she was powerless. Her powers were absorbed by that man with a certain ease. Her mother had always told her that a witch without her power was as good as dead. Agatha tried to gather everything that she had ever learned to fight against what was happening. She couldn't cast a spell even if she wanted to. Nobody would come save her now. This was the end.
Elizabeth would be pleased to see her theory proven true. She had tried to warn her. Her own daughter wasn't that good. Raw power meant nothing in face of experience. For once, Agatha would make her mother proud.
Chapter 01
Start from the beginning
