King of Hell (AHS: Apocalypse)

Chapter 2 - Seduction

"This is Spanish moss... it's got amazin' healin' properties."

Misty was surrounded by some of the students from Miss Robicheaux's Academy the following day to give a lesson on how to make her magic healing mud, a poultice used to heal wounds and burns. The sun was high, and the beams glistened on her tall, statuesque form; her golden curls were radiant, and her white dress and shawl looked absolutely ethereal as she put some of the moss in a jar she brought with her. A few other students gathered some as well, at her instruction.

"How much do we need, Miss Misty?" a student asked.

"Oh, not a whole lot. Maybe a handful," the white witch replied with a smile.

"Did you say there was... poop in this mud recipe?" another novice witch asked.

"Oh yeah, alligator dung."

"Ew!" exclaimed a few students.

"It's nasty, I know," Misty said, standing up and closing the lid on her mason jar in which she put her handful of the soft botanical. "I was burnt 'live a few years ago. This mud helped me. Looked good as new, and still do."

Misty began to walk with the students, Myrtle walking in front of her like a bodyguard, dressed in an eccentric ensemble featuring a black cape over a white polka dot top. On her hands were canary yellow gloves, and her bright red crimped hair extensions blew slightly in the wind that brushed against her wrinkling face.

"I, too, was burnt at stake. Twice," the old witch said, "and Misty's magic poultice helped me regain my appearance. I had lost all of my hair, but luckily, I was buying from Korea for years."

"Extensions?" Mallory, who stood nearby asked. Myrtle nodded.

"They look so real, don't they?"

Mallory nodded slightly in agreement to avoid insulting her elder to her face.

"Where to next, dear bird?" Myrtle asked Misty.

"Mud."

The group of witches went forth on foot to the bank of the swamps nearby, the place where Misty remembered calling home. After she was discovered resurrecting a dead bird at a Pentecostal revival, she was dragged from her home in the night and burnt alive. Through her natural-born power of resurgence, she rose like a phoenix from the literal ashes and it was as though she never died. She hid out in the swamps, spending her days tending to a once-flourishing garden outside her cabin, listening to Stevie Nicks on her boombox, and meditating in the woods. That was until a witch hunter found her in hiding and nearly killed her and a recovering Myrtle at the time. The memories passed through her mind before she snapped out of it and instructed the students to get some mud from the moist, nutrient-rich bank.

"Here," Misty said, leaning down. "This is good stuff."

"All along this bank?" a student asked.

"Yes, go right along."

As Misty stood up from gathering a fair share of mud from her demonstration, she bottled it up and twisted the cap, but looked beyond the water at a very familiar cabin overlooking the swamp. Her eyes were drawn to it like flies to honey, and she found herself wandering closer to the small house; it was her house, still standing, but vacant and abandoned. Carrying her jar of mud and moss, she kept walking as though in a trance until a familiar voice snapped her out of it.

"Misty, my dear. Where are you going?"

The white witch turned around and looked to see Myrtle, standing there in her unusual designer garb looking at her through thick-rimmed cat eye glasses. Her hands were clasped in front of her, looking refined even in a place where it was not necessary.