we're only biding time till I lose your affection
If it wasn’t for the fact that the coven was actively fighting a curse, Teen would probably make a joke about how every time the ballad played, he was always in an active struggle. It was like he himself was cursed. Last time, it was the Salem Seven attacking him, this time, it was the small shard of glass wedged into his side.
Hilarious. If, again, he wasn’t being subjected to said curse right now.
He wasn’t sure how he didn’t notice it, how none of them noticed it. For a small moment, Teen had thought that maybe he had escaped his earlier situation with the broken window unscathed. But, of course, he could never be that lucky.
As the ballad neared its conclusion, he tried to keep himself upright. The curse had materialized itself, becoming visible in front of them, and, despite the sharp pains in his side with every strum of the guitar, he had to keep playing. After all, if Agatha got attacked by the curse and could keep singing, he could do the same, right?
So, he kept playing, until they reached the end of the ballad. Flames had begun to lick at the wood interior of the house, the strange demon-looking thing starting to cling onto Alice’s shoulders. Maybe he was starting to see things from the blood loss, or maybe his blurring vision was causing him to mistake whatever was there for something else. Either way, it eventually dissipated, leaving a plume of smoke in its absence and a perpetual ringing noise in his ears. Huh.
As the coven began to regroup, Teen let himself loosen his grip on the guitar until it quietly clattered to the ground. The small motion alone had him swaying on his feet, and the ringing noise was getting louder. Could nobody else hear it?
At the same time, Alice breathlessly stood from the stool of the piano as its lid slowly lifted up, revealing the exit.
She said something Teen couldn’t comprehend as the rest of the coven began to near the piano. Everything sounded like it was underwater. It didn’t make sense.
Through his foggy mind, he distantly recalled the shard of glass still lodged in his side. He had half a mind to realize the symptoms of blood loss were probably kicking in.
Teen opened his mouth to call out to the witches in front of him, feeling a slight bit of relief that the trial was at least over now. He wasn’t quite sure what he said over the ringing in his ears, but it was enough for Alice’s smile to fade in front of him.
He took a hesitant step forward, just for the world to tilt on its axis. It felt like he was falling sideways, his vision suddenly blurring. Through his fuzzy vision, he just barely managed to make out a dark silhouette running to his side before everything went dark.
☽ ⋆｡˚࣪𖤐˚｡⋆ ☾
It was dark, that was the first thing Teen recognized. Dark and quiet.
The second thing he recognized was the itch of leaves underneath him.
Slowly, he regained his senses. He was back on the Road, he must be. He tried to recall how he got here, but the past few hours were coming up as a blur.
They had reached the second trial, he had found the record player, they spawned that curse… and then…
And then the curse had flung him through the glass window. Right.
Absentmindedly, he shifted in place, testing out his side. The sharp pain that had been emanating from the wound was now reduced to a dull ache, similar to a bruise. As he attempted to move again, the leaves underneath him rustled.
“Still alive. Great,” he heard a voice from beside him say. Blearily, Teen blinked his eyes open, sitting up in a half-upright position as he looked to the side to see Agatha. He couldn’t help but feel his chest swell at the sight of her, at the idea that she had potentially stayed by his side while he slept, that she cared.
The feeling of an emotion he couldn’t quite describe nagged at him. Maybe it had something to do with what Jen had told him.
She sacrificed her son for the Darkhold, her words echoed around his head.
He broke eye contact with her, looking down for a moment to collect his thoughts. Did she see him as another potential sacrifice? Why go out of her way to protect him then?
“Agatha,” he started, looking back up at her. He opened his mouth for a moment, debating his next words.
“Did you put the sigil on me?” He blurted out.
Agatha went silent for a moment, her expression unreadable.
“No,” she emphasized, giving him a glare as if to scrutinize him – as if to wonder why he would think that.
Teen looked down at the forest floor again, his thoughts beginning to run circles around his brain yet again. It felt like a voice in the back of his head was growing louder, yelling at him that all this was wrong, wrong, wrong.
“Actually, I wouldn’t know,” Agatha mused, her hand dropping to rest on her knee. Teen slowly looked back up at her with confusion. Was she humoring him?
“A sigil works on the witch who cast it as well,” she stated, absentmindedly playing with a strand of her hair, “that’s why we don't use them as much. They’re super irritating.”
“Can it be lifted?” He asked, a sense of dread washing over him as the pieces began to put themselves together.
Agatha looked at him, taking a small breath before answering.
“Sigils are destroyed. Not lifted,” she said.
He opened his mouth to quickly interject, but Agatha beat him to it.
“And before you ask, ‘How?’ in that curious little voice of yours,” she started, giving him a quick look, “the answer is when they’re no longer needed.”
Teen felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. He didn’t even know why or how the sigil was cursed, let alone when it would have served its purpose.
Agatha looked at him as he trained his eyes towards the ground defeatedly. She was giving him a look of potential understanding, but a part of him didn’t think it was understanding of his sigil.
“You don’t have to know a person’s name to know who they are,” she whispered, the corners of her mouth lifting up in a slight smile.
Teen let out a breath, a smile stretching across his own face now.
“Careful you don’t say something nice to me,” he responded cheekily.
“Oh, I won’t,” Agatha whispered, a knowing look in her eye.
In this quiet moment, everything seemed so peaceful, just the two of them.
“Agatha,” Teen started, playing with the loose hems of his sweater. If he wanted to ask something, now would be the only time he would probably get. He had to know.
“What really happened to your son?”
Teen could feel the minute the atmosphere shifted, going from something calm to tense. Agatha’s gaze on him hardened, and he could practically see her walls going back up.
Before she opened her mouth, he could already tell he’d overstepped, but he still looked at her pleadingly as the silence between them stretched on.
Eventually, Agatha rose to her feet, glaring down at him.
“Heal fast. We’re not staying here long,” she said coldly. And then, she was off.
Just like that, his chance of confirming what he—what they both—thought deep down was gone.
He looked down, letting out a shaky breath. Slowly, the thoughts he had tried to push down arose in full force.
His name was hidden from witchfolk. Tragedy seemed to follow him wherever he went. Bits and pieces of his childhood memories were foggy, foggier than the usual person’s. He had attributed it to what had happened when he was 13 but now...
I doubt she’d even recognize her own son if he showed up at her doorstep.
It felt like his gut twisted at the words.
Someone was hiding him, someone who knew he would seek out witchfolk, someone who knew magic.
His parents didn’t know magic, and yet here he was.
With a shaky inhale, he sat up into a more upright position, pulling his knees against his chest. From here, he could briefly make out the coven sitting at a distant campfire, but Agatha and Rio were missing.
Gritting his teeth together, he forced himself to stand. To his surprise, the dull ache in his side had lessened, as if he had never been injured in the first place.
As he walked toward them, he could overhear their soft voices, whispering to each other. The conversation began to quiet as he neared, and suddenly, their eyes were trained on him.
“Hey, how’re you feeling?” Alice asked, breaking the tension.
He gave a small smile, sitting down on one of the spare logs.
“It doesn’t hurt, so, that’s a good start,” he responded with a halfhearted grin, to which Jen seemed to sigh in relief.
“Good, otherwise Agatha would’ve killed me,” she half-joked from her place atop one of the makeshift chairs.
Teen blinked a few times, processing her response. “What do you mean?” He asked.
“You don’t see it?” Jen said with a raise of her brow, “She cares for you.”
“Yeah,” Teen mumbled, the words leaving a sour taste in his mouth.
There was a brief moment of silence as the witches exchanged glances.
“I, uh,” he began, “I asked her about the sigil.” The three looked over at him, waiting for him to continue.
“And?” Lilia prompted.
Teen swallowed, debating how to continue. “I just- I don’t understand why or how-” he cut off, frustratedly, “why would anyone want to hide me?”
“Tons of reasons,” Lilia responded, “maybe you saw something you weren’t supposed to. Sigils can be cast for small things or big.”
“But my name-” Teen stressed, but was cut off by Lilia.
“Say you did see or know something,” she said, her eyes scanning over him, “a witch might’ve cast it to be safe. So if you did happen to, I don’t know, meet a ton of witches, you wouldn’t reveal something sacred.”
Teen paused, staring down at his hands. He tried to think of what this potential thing could be, but he kept coming up short.
“What happened to you when you were 13?”
Almost immediately, his head shot up, broken out of his thoughts to look at… Alice.
“What?” He whispered hoarsely in response, feeling a sudden urge to run, to shut this conversation down.
“You mentioned it at the first trial. You said a lot happened to you then… it could maybe-?”
“No,” Teen quickly cut off, his shoulders tense as he glared up at Alice, “it- it can’t. It wouldn’t make sense.”
He could see Jen’s eyebrow raise in the corner of his eye as Alice’s brow furrowed in front of him.
“Teen-” She began, before stopping herself with a sigh. “Look, if you want to figure out why someone might’ve cast a sigil on you, you have to think of every possibility-”
Alice was looking at him now, with a sense of pity. It made him want to shrink away, it made him feel small sitting here.
“I didn’t see anything, I-”
“You don’t know that.” This time, Alice was the one cutting him off. “Even if you didn’t realize you saw it, a witch may still want to be extra careful.”
“Okay, I get it,” Teen snapped back, his voice raising as he clenched his fists. The coven went silent as he took a shaky breath in.
“Sorry,” he said, sniffing as he rubbed at his face.
Alice opened her mouth, as if to apologize, but closed it with one look from Lilia.
“When I was 13,” he began in a whispered tone, “my mom died.”
It felt like you could hear a pin drop it was so quiet, the revelation hanging tensely in the hair between them.
Teen kept his gaze on the floor, too scared to see the looks the elder witches may be giving him. He took a minute to take a breath, trying to collect his thoughts.
“How did she die?” Came Alice’s quiet response, her own voice coming out ever so slightly broken. If anyone could relate, it was her.
He sniffled, playing with his hands numbly.
“Car crash. It- It was a while ago so, y’know, but-” Teen risked a glance up, expecting to see sympathy in their eyes, but instead saw looks of confusion.
“What?” He asked, his voice tinged with worry.
The three witches exchanged glasses, their features hardening. Teen couldn’t help but feel a slight bit of panic. Did he say something wrong?
“Say the first part again?” Jen asked curiously.
Teen swallowed. “Car crash,” he repeated, his voice coming out in a more broken whisper.
Whatever it was Jen wanted to hear, it didn’t seem to be that. She sighed, leaning back reluctantly. Teen opened his mouth to ask what was wrong, but Lilia was fast to answer his anxious thoughts.
“Whoever cast that sigil on you doesn’t want us to know about your family,” she said roughly, as if trying to comprehend the story in her own brain.
“Oh,” Teen said softly, shoulders slumping.
He sniffled, squeezing his hands together. “I don’t like this,” he admitted, “it feels wrong. I don’t- I want it gone.”
Alice seemed to deflate at his words, standing up from her spot to come sit next to him.
“It’ll be gone whenever it’s no longer necessary,” she told him, wrapping an arm around his shoulder.
Frustration bubbled within him at her words – he couldn’t help it. “For three years? It’s still necessary after three years?”
Alice sighed, rubbing his shoulder comfortingly. All she could offer was a small “I’m sorry” as it went quiet again.
It didn’t last long, though, and at some point, Agatha returned with Rio in tow.
Whatever had happened between the two of them had turned Agatha distant. She was refusing to make eye contact with him, and it was clear the discussion had disturbed her.
“We rest now,” she stated coldly, “we start walking again in the morning.”
Any other time, Teen would maybe quip about how it was an unending night here, but he held his tongue, instead training his gaze on the suddenly interesting floor.
The whole atmosphere was tense, and honestly, all Teen wanted was to forget about the events of the day. He couldn’t help but feel relieved as the witches assembled their makeshift beds. Though the beds were uncomfortable, he had no problem with them tonight – his whole body felt exhausted, as if everything was coming back to hit him all at once.
As he made himself comfortable, he couldn’t help but feel like someone was staring at him. It caught him off guard, and he stilled in place, before swiftly turning around.
For a moment, Teen caught a glimpse of Rio’s eyes on him, before she quickly busied herself in something else, breaking the brief eye contact they shared.
Teen blinked a few times, before turning back around and lying down, trying not to let the interaction bother him too much.
It didn’t take long for it to fade into the back of his mind as he let sleep claim him.