Into The Unknown
At eighteen Agatha was still filled to the brim with questions. Each answer she received in return was unsatisfactory.
What she would ask her soulmate questions the answers never felt complete. She knew the girls name was Rio, but she did not give a last name. When she had asked her soulmates age (something that admittedly may have been a little rude on her part, but she was curious) she only got back “older than you think.” The vagueness of such a response only brought more questions forth. Asking where her soulmate was from yielded similar results.
It seemed like either her soulmate truly did not know or more likely, her soulmate had been having a laugh at the expense of her sanity. Not knowing was going to drive her mad.
The even more infuriating thing was when she tried asking for more detail on her soulmate only to be met with “All will make sense when we meet at last, face to face.”
Whenever Agatha tried to theoretically orchestrate a meeting with the other woman she was denied. “It is not yet time, be patient.” Patience, Agatha was not, she was however cunning.
It was September when she had decided, she would get her answers one way or another. She had mere days to plan this out.
She had started forming a plan when she remembered the existence of a spell that could unlock things. It was mostly used when sons or daughters of coven members accidentally locked themselves in a room only to cry when their mothers could not get to them. Really, Agatha had first stumbled upon it by chance.
Such a spell was not commonly used but just to be safe she wrote a copy of it on her skirt. She could not waste parchment and did not wish to risk someone stumbling across the book only to find a page torn out. It would only rouse suspicion. She had been doing her own laundry for the past ten years so there was no chance of Evanora noticing it scrawled there anyway.
Every night she practiced the spell over and over again on her bedroom door until she could no longer keep her eyes open. Even after she had perfected the spell, she kept at it to the point the spell was as ingrained in her as her own name.
She had heard Rio trying to ask why the spell kept repeating itself in her mind but rather than answering, Agatha chose to spell a piece of twine to silence her mind. She began wearing it around her wrist after the second day.
While everyone in her coven was cleaning the remains of the feast for the Fall Equinox she snuck into the study, creeping towards the locked chest.
Peeking over her shoulder she made sure she was alone before casting the spell to unlock it. At the bottom of the chest lay a book of spells designed to exert control over others.
It was a book mostly reserved for those chosen to be coven heads. Given her mother's disdain for her she knew she would never get a chance to read it if it were up to Evanora.
Agatha read through all that she could trying to find the perfect spell. She knew it was a terrible thing to think but if she could somehow make her soulmate tell her where she is then she could be free. Free to leave her coven. Free from her mother's hatred. Rio would forgive her eventually, right?
She was so engrossed in the book that she failed to notice the quiet hum which came from a small beetle that flew into the room. Completely unaware the beetle was just the kind of feeble mind that was easily controlled and blissfully ignorant to the fact someone else could see through its eyes.
Evanora’s right hand, Eleanor, was the one to pull her aside. It was her duty to guard the study where the grimoires were stored, whenever she could not be there in person she used insect as eyes. She had seen it as soon the girl snuck in but waited until she could be caught in an even more treacherous act before informing the coven head.
Though Evanora knew not of Agatha’s plans for the book she was quick to inform her sisters in the craft of the girl's treachery. This was her first real offense against the coven and had it not been such a major one it likely would have only ended in her banishment.
Unfortunately, that particular book held many dark and dangerous spells all about exerting control. The book went so far that one of the spells was about controlling corpses to fulfill your whims (not that Agatha had been aware of the lengths the book went to when she had first decided to steal it).
Agatha would have to face severe punishment, one chosen by her coven head and enacted by her sisters in the craft. For her there lay only two possible paths: spending her remaining lifetime (possibly even centuries) cut off from her magic or execution at the hands of those she was once closest to.
To be bound is one of the worst fates for a witch but if she can redeem herself, there is an unbinding ritual. Death is not a fate that can be reversed though.
Witches who are executed by their coven are scrubbed from their coven's memory, the only proof of their existence being a lifeless husk and a spirit forever bound to the mortal plane.
As the coven raced toward the study it became increasingly obvious which fate Evanora had chosen for her daughter.
The door to the study slammed open and before Agatha knew it multiple pairs of hands had seized her, drawing her to her feet. She was powerless against it.
Agatha knew not where she was being lead, only knowing it was somewhere outside. Fear knowledge at her as the ground grew more uneven under her feet and the crunch of leaves under foot grew louder.
Her pleas, her every whisper of “no” fell on deaf ears as they walked thought the forest until her eyes fell upon the large wooden steak planted firmly in the ground. Her knees went weak for a moment but the two carrying her heaved her back up. She tried to petition them one last time, hoping someone might take pity on her “No, please, no.”
Once her back connected with its surface her arms were brought behind her. Her wrists were bound together using rope and magic. With that, the trial of Agatha Harkness commenced.
Evanora stepped forward “Agatha Harkness are you a witch?”
“Yes” her voice quivered slightly, and she paused a moment to put more conviction into her next words “I am a witch.”
“Yet you have betrayed your coven” Each of the women circling her removed their hoods only a moment after Evanora, revealing their identities.
“I have not”
“You stole knowledge above your age and station. You practice the darkest of magic.”
“I know… I know nothing of these crimes. I-I swear it.”
“Enough deception!”
Agatha took a moment to breathe. She knew her mother had made up her mind. She would forever be the villain in her mother's story, so the villain she would be. “I did not break your rules.”
She tried to sound condescending but in that moment it was difficult. “They simply bent to my power,”
All around her the coven's chants echoed.
“Wait.” Agatha tried. “No, I cannot control it. I…” They did not stop.
Agatha knew her magic was different, dangerous. She had known that for years, ever since she accidentally siphoned a girl only a year older than her. No one had known how she had done it. They only knew that she had run to Margaret in fear of what happened but with newfound energy. They tried to find any record of a witch with such abilities but found none.
After that no one in the coven wanted to teach her and none of the girls would play with her. They all chose to whisper behind her back.
As their chanting continued, she found herself shifting the blame “If only you would teach me.”
Even though they were willing to kill her for her mistake she was not one to share the sentiment. She had grown alongside these women. Some had even helped in raising her and many of them had behaved more like a mother to her than her own had. They each had children of their own now, laying asleep in bed, and she did not wish to separate them.
When reminding them of the nature of her power proved unsuccessful, she changed her approach back to begging “Help me, please.”
Blue eyes met hazel as she turned her attention back to her mother. “Mother, please!” She put even more desperation into her voice “Please! Mother!”
Evanora joined in, chanting with the rest of the coven.
Agatha stood in shock for a moment, awed by her mother's lack of remorse for the situation.
As they raised their hands to hit her with their collective power, she was only able to yell out one final “No!”
With seven witches power hitting her at once she could do nothing but tilt her head back and scream. The collective attack felt as though she were being torn apart from within. For what felt like hours, she knew nothing but pain. She thought she might actually die here.
The intensity of the attack may not have died down but the pain that once bloomed in Agatha’s chest ebbed away as pleasure took its place. A rush of euphoria filled her.
The blue magic of each of the Salemites turned purple once it reached her and within moments the purple spread. In seconds each coven member felt drained but try as they might they could not stop the “attack.” Their magic no longer obeyed them.
In a final attempt to end things Evanora aimed her magic at her daughter. While it still hurt, the pain was nothing compared to what Agatha had already gone through.
The magic in the bindings holding her wrists behind her turned purple and with a tug she found her hands free. With a wave of her newly unbound hand Agatha managed to cut off the stream of magic directed at her, but it was too late for the Salemites. Each of the woman had fallen to the ground, a magic less, dried husk of their former selves.
The only two left alive and standing were the two Harkness women. The younger of the two looked down at her hands, watching the purple glow as she uttered the words “Please, I can be good.”
“No, you cannot.” Her mother almost sounded mournful, more for the loss of the coven than the fate she sentenced her own flesh and blood to. Evanora’s gaze hardened while she exerted all of her power, channeling it into one final blast aimed directly at Agatha.
It took longer for her magic to change than the others had but once it too had turned purple than Agatha felt none of the remorse she had with the others. Evanora may have birthed her but in that moment the was no mother to her.
Feeling almost high she watched on as the older woman fell to her knees, eyes sinking in and skin turning grey.
As the quiet settled around her she found herself gazing around, surveying the scene.
Stepping down, away from the pole and towards the newest corpse she kept her gaze trained. Agatha knelt before Evanora’s corpse and reached out, grabbing the triple goddess locket off the body. After bearing her mother’s hatred for so long she was finally free. No coven tied Agatha Harkness down now.
The raw power thrumming under skin left no room for anything else to steal her attention. She flew off in a whirl of wind, intent on gathering every grimoire they had. Death stepped through the trees just in time to catch a thread of twine fluttering to the ground.
It was when Agatha touched down in front of her childhood home that everything truly washed over her. She had just rendered seven children motherless.
‘I really am a monster; those children don’t deserve this.’ Her heart was filled with remorse, those children were innocent. They were too young to deserve the fate she sentenced them all to. She resolved to fix what she could. With the coven-stead rule in mind she went to wake the girls, carrying the two that were still too young to walk. Surely another established coven was nearby. She was certainly unfit to parent all of them but if she found a coven the girls would have help discovering their magic.
After an hour of walking, including several breaks, they found a series of cottages belonging to a small coven. Agatha did not reveal the entire truth, only that the girls were recently orphaned and that they descended from witches. The new coven gladly accepted the children after that, even going as far as offering Agatha a place among them. She made sure to thank them for their generosity as she put the girls to bed again.
“I am sorry little ones, I hope you find peace.” That was the last thing she told them all as she left them behind. Each girl was tucked warmly into a bed with their mother's spell book beside them.