Page 4 of SIN Bone Deep

We went from honored wise women, to reviled witches very swiftly, and practicing our craft, the sacred rituals, and ceremonies, became a death sentence. We came to the new world, seeking freedom to continue the traditions of our people, and found that it was just like everywhere else. In the new country, men wielded religion like a whip and chain to bind their womenfolk and keep them powerless, and as an excuse to hate and harm those whose beliefs did not fit their own.

As I descended the front stairs, I could hear the aunts in the kitchen and could smell pancakes. Breakfast. The backstair would have taken me to the kitchen, and that was the more direct route to the vegetable garden… if it had not also included their questions. The formal front stairs, the now-empty front hall, and the front door offered a more unimpeded progress, so I would bury the glass shards in the cemetery instead.

Vossen house was built just down the slope from the Mortensby lighthouse. It was probably not surprising that our ancestors became lighthouse keepers. Magic and flame are intricately intertwined, and keeping the hearth fire lit is natural to witches. In even the most tumultuous storm, a witch will seek to keep her hearth aflame.

The isolated position offered the Vossen women some protection from the town, enabling us to keep up our rituals away from the view of malicious neighbors, and keeping the lighthouse enabled a household of women to earn an income, which was supplemented with what was grown in the extensive gardens, soaps, candles, perfumes, and, more discretely, potions and tonics.

We had periods of wealth that enabled the house to be built, extended, and furnished to reflect the taste of those living there at the time, and periods when money was sparser, such as our current generation. With the automation of the lighthouse, that income stream had come to an end, and we were reliant on past investments and what we made in town through our garden and… our skills.

The gardens to the front of the house were walled in defense against the wind that blew in from the ocean, but beyond them, an ancestor had planted rows of pines to extend the protection to where a little graveyard had formed as the centuries had passed.

At the edge of the graveyard, I used a sharp-edged rock to dig into the ground and emptied the shards of glass from the frame, before covering it over. As I stood, my eye caught on the wide-spread black wings of a raven as it descended towards the ruins of the original Mortensby settlement at the bottom of the hill.

On the opposite hill, Pinegrove Academy was only just visible behind the trees of the estate. The acceptance and rejection letters would be sent soon, and I hoped, dearly, that I would be accepted to study at the Academy. I was definitely the first Vossen who voluntarily wished to go to what had formerly been known as Bishop House – it had a dark history of being dangerous to us.

“Hail to the raven goddess,” I whispered. “Hail to the lady of wind and wings. Hail to the mother of blood and bone. Hail to the giver of all sacred things. Hear me now, I beg of you. Hear my heart’s desires true. By North, by South, by East, by West, in your hands my fate does rest.”

I was going to be late to work. I hurried back up the hill and into the kitchen.

“What is that you have there, dear?” Fennel wondered as I set the mirror frame on the table.

“Broke it this morning. Don’t worry, I buried the pieces in the graveyard.” I stole a pancake off the table and shoved it into my mouth as I grabbed my bag from the hook against the wall. “Late,” I said through crumbs. “Work.”

“Oh, but…” Fennel began to protest.

“Sorry. Late,” I apologized already halfway out the door.

As I rode down the hill towards the town, I thought of the little girl. After she had passed, I’d had little choice but to pick her up and move her to the side of the road. Doing so had covered me in her blood and I had been a gory sight to see riding through town to the police station.

Despite their bias against me as a Vossen, the tire marks and blood on the road spoke of what had happened enough that the police had been unable to blame me for her death, though, in their anguish, the parents had accused me of having something to do with it. They did not say hex, but it was there in their eyes.

The road still held the strips of rubber, although the blood had been washed away. I avoided riding over the same area, swinging out wide around it.

In my dream, the horns and skull had been a mask, and the grim reaper had kissed me.

“Fuck.” I was hot and flustered again. I paused at the base of the hill road where it intersected with the main thoroughfare, and tried to compose myself, on the verge of tears in frustration and guilt. I had seen a little girl die, and instead of being wracked with grief over her death, I was obsessing about the supernatural being that had come to escort her to the Underworld.

I pushed on, crossing the road, and heading past the signs for “The Historic Settlement Village” and “Beach” towards the thoroughly modern little town that nestled in the valley between the two opposing hills.

As I rode through town, I knew people watched me. I was a Vossen after all, but even more so, I was the Vossen who had found a little girl dying on the side of the road.

The coffee shop was busy from the overflowing car park and through the windows as I circled to the rear. It was going to be a long, tedious day.

There was a car parked in the rear. Mortensby is small enough that everyone local and their cars were vaguely familiar. I had seen the car, it had passed me, or I had passed it regularly, but I did not know the man behind the wheel by name or occupation. I vaguely connected him with a woman and children who I might have served in the shop sometime in recent weeks.

He did not belong in the employee car park.

Whilst some might have approached the car and told him to move on, I was a Vossen. We kept to ourselves and out of other’s business as much as possible. It was a caution learned through generations of women’s suffering.

I took my bike behind the industrial bin set to the side of the rear entrance and secured it to the railing. The door opened and Kristine Sawyer came out. She waved to the car as she dropped a garbage bag into the bin and saw me, her expression shifting from flirtatious into a sneer.

“What are you doing lurking back there?” She demanded, one hand on her hip. “You’re fucking late again and keeping me and Shelley waiting.”

“I’ll be right in,” I finished with the bike lock.

“Snooping and spying,” Kristine was angry, her eyes flicking to the car. “Sticking your nose into other’s business.”

“I was locking up my bike.”

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