Chapter 1
Agatha waited at the towns edge until night fall. Once the light was low, and the sounds of those who had once gathered on these streets had faded to a muted hum from their homes, she ventured further into the darkness. A small satchel was thrown over her left shoulder as she raced quickly to the forest. The covering from the foliage brought her a sense of peace. It was sacred here. There was a clearing not far ahead where she had played as a child. It was not a stone’s thrown from their graveyard and her mother had forbidden her to journey this far into the woods alone, but that only brought an added thrill to her adventure.
Once she reached the small, bare patch of ground she recognised Agatha laid down her bag carefully. Within it were three prizes: a collection of papers she had stolen from her mother’s chambers, the tiny body of a rabbit she had found in their garden, and a small, sharp blade. There was a quiet thrill in the forbidden. Agatha had always chased it. Knowing the repercussions of these actions could land her in more trouble than she had ever faced was half the fun. She was no longer a child, but youth hadn’t exempted her from daring. This was far from the first piece of forbidden magic she had stolen, perfecting her craft in secret during the dead of night whilst her mother slept in ignorance, but it was the darkest yet.
Enacting the spell seemed quite simple. She drew the runes, and then, after consulting the stolen papers, cut her own palm with the knife until a single red drop could fall on each emblem. Blood for blood; she supposed that made sense. Agatha presented the rabbit unceremoniously at the centre of the circle and drew back onto her knees with a flourish. A brief incantation and she summoned up that heat that burned in her chest, pushing it to her fingertips till the air around them seemed to distort at her whim.
Come back, she urged. The soft tendrils of purple wrapped around her hands but wouldn’t transition from her will to her reality. The rabbit remained dead.
Agatha groaned in frustration. All that work and conspiracy just for failure. Pausing briefly to reassess her situation, the young witch felt a sudden shift in the air. Agatha had always been observant. There was no way to conduct her own research without lying, stealing, manipulating her way into scraps of power without keeping a close eye on those who watched her.
And something was watching her now. She could feel it in her bones, like a sense of dread that crept from the tips of her moving fingers to the nape of her neck where she shivered at the sensation. Eyes wild, she searched the clearing for any indication of an unknown presence. There was nobody.
She did not call out. If this presence was not going to make itself known, she would not reveal herself to potential others by announcing it. Still, never one to shrink from an audience, Agatha recollected herself. Digging deeper this time, pushing her magic from her fingertips into the world, she repeated her incantation. This time the rabbit twitched. Agatha’s resulting laugh burst free from her against her better judgement, gleeful as ever of her own victory. Twisting her fingers through the air, she held the little body up and let it travel over the forest floor. Every movement controlled by her.
The corpse was not alive; it was a reanimated thing. Dancing like a puppet with uncut strings. There was something thrilling about it, she supposed. The way it bent to her whim, but there was no win in a victory against nothing. The body had no will for her to overtake. Necromancy was less exciting than she had anticipated.
A sudden scream jolted Agatha from her self-indulgent reverie. A new presence, nothing like the calm, watchful one she had sensed before, had broken into her sacred space. Agatha dropped the rabbit’s corpse to the ground with a small thud, and turned towards the intrusion.
A woman moved into the clearing, soft white light held gently in the palms of her hands, but even from a distance Agatha could see her tremble. She watched the stranger take in the scene of her own newfound control of the dead. The little body curled between runes and splatterings of blood. A used knife discarded at her side.
“This is dark magic!” She exclaimed. “Who are you?”
Even under the circumstances, Agatha couldn’t help but roll her eyes. The constant moralising of magic bored her senseless. Dark magic was just a term used to repress knowledge from the masses.
“You sound like my mother.”
“Who are you?” The woman repeated. Her voice shook, and the hand not currently aglow brushed strands of dirty blonde hair from her eyes.
As they often did, Agatha’s nerves gave way to bravado. She rose to her feet and watched the stranger draw back. Purple magic twisted its way around her palm, but before she could open her mouth to utter some witty retort, the panicked witch had attacked. A blast of white heat landed at her chest, causing her to take a staggered step back. At first it burned, then the sensation slowed, and something new blazed inside her. The thin white tendril of energy connecting the two of them started to change, and suddenly it wasn’t coming to Agatha, but coming from her. Purple light illuminated the clearing, and the woman screamed until she fell, but Agatha wasn’t even listening. This sensation was unlike any she had experienced before. Real, electrifying, powerful. Far more thrilling than a reanimated corpse. And as sudden as it started, it was gone, and Agatha missed it instantly.
I cannot give; I can only take. Two corpses now laid there. The one Agatha had intended to bring back and the one she had unwillingly made.
A wicked thought crossed her mind, and her eyes flickered back to the bloodied runes surrounding the now motionless rabbit. There was no emotion in her heart, just raw hunger and a thirst for knowledge that coiled tight like a spring in her chest. Would this work again on a bigger target?
Her fantasies were interrupted again by another movement at the clearing’s edge. Someone else was here. This time panic did coil in Agatha’s belly. If this was someone from her mother’s coven, or god forbid the woman herself, and they saw what she had done? Her life was over.
“Move back,” said the voice from the shadows, and without hesitation Agatha stepped away from the violence she had caused. She did not recognise the woman’s low voice, and that brought her a little calm.
“Who are you?” She questioned the hooded figure without expectation, and she received no reply in return. “Were you watching me?”
There was a pregnant pause, and Agatha watched the newcomer approach the body at their feet with no remorse, no hesitation. She would not appear weak in front of this woman.
“I came to see what you could do.” The woman finally replies.
“Are you disappointed?”
“I am surprised.”
Agatha was shocked by her own boldness, moving forwards even as the stranger drew back.
“Who are you?”
The woman did not answer. She simply stared at Agatha with her wide, dark eyes.
“I am not often surprised anymore.” Her voice sounded tired, but there was a curious humour to her tone that made a small inkling of pride bloom within Agatha. She liked amusing this woman. “Have you done this before?”
“No,” Agatha answered honestly. No part of this night had gone as she had expected it.
“Will you do it again?” This time there was no mistaking the small smile on the woman’s lips this time. Agatha noticed for the first time that she was very pretty.
What a curious question. Agatha looked down at the blackened, drained body of the woman by their feet, and remembered how it felt to pull from her all that she needed to survive. She had never felt so powerful, so in control.
“Yes.”
“Then I am sure we will meet again soon.”
And with that the woman was gone, leaving Agatha alone with her bodies and the newfound curiosity that blazed inside her.