The Witch's Reign

 

“No, don't take my mommy away!”

“Isha, wake up; you're having a nightmare.”

“I want my mommy and daddy, Gil.”

“I know, I’ll get them back. Now, go back to sleep.”

 

I tucked my sister back into bed and stepped out of her room to find Darrell standing outside.

“Nightmares again?”

“Yes, and they’re only getting worse. We need to take down the witch and free everyone.”

“Easier said than done, Gillian. We can’t fight an army with farmers alone.”

“I know we can’t besiege the castle, but we still need to rescue the people trapped inside.”

“We need to plan this more carefully.”

After a brief discussion, Darrell left, and I went to bed; but sleep didn’t come easily. I tossed and turned for over an hour before finally feeling my eyes close. Some time passed, and I began to hear a voice slowly creep into my head—it was Mom.

“Gillian, wake up! Go to the basement and look for a box marked ‘Isiadora’.

I woke up confused. I snuck into the basement without waking anyone up and looked for the box. After half an hour of searching, I felt too weary to continue. However, the second I turned around, a voice emanated from the book rack.

“Welcome, Isiadora; we’ve been waiting for you.”

I walked towards the rack and traced my eyes along the rows of books. There was one book that stood out from the rest; it was angled in the opposite direction to the books next to it. The book was titled ‘Beyond’. I reached out and pulled it forward. To my surprise, the wall behind the rack moved back and slid to the right; the rack itself slid to the left. There was a secret room before my eyes.

I slowly stepped inside the room; the wall behind me shut the doorway and a light turned on. There was a box on the ground labelled ‘Isiadora’. In it was a book lying on top of a chest. The book was an album; it was filled with photos of me as a baby, and a woman I didn’t recognise, who was carrying me.

Reaching the final two pages, I found a letter that said:

Dear Isiadora,

This is your Mom, Aurora. I’m sorry, but I had to give you away to my friend Alexis to keep you safe. You come from a long line of witches, who are currently being hunted down by a dark witch. She killed your father and uncle, and now she hunts you and me. If you’re reading this, I’m most likely dead.

You’ll have to continue the fight against her and end her reign. Use the grimoire in the chest; there’s a spell to kill the witch. There are also vials of blood from my siblings and me. We saved the true heir to the throne, Prince Eirik, and placed him in a hidden haven within the Haldran forest. Find him after you defeat her.

I walked out of the basement to find my sister and our friends panicking. It was already 6:00 a.m. I showed them what I had found and they were all speechless. For the next three weeks, we gathered more people and weapons, and devised a plan to invade the castle and kill the witch queen.

We split up into five groups and snuck into different key points of the castle. I cloaked everyone’s presence with an invisibility spell and made a portal to each point. I broke into the queen’s bedroom and attacked her. She was powerful—almost too powerful. I was pushed back and volleyed across the room three times before, with a small window of opportunity, I knocked her off her feet and flung her through the wall. I grabbed three vials from my pocket and dashed them on the ground before her feet. Immediately after, I formed a forcefield around her.

The blood from the vials expanded and mixed with the air, rippling around her. It turned into a whirlwind that enveloped her and drove her body to decay before my eyes as she screamed in agony. The evil witch’s skeletons fell to the ground and turned into a pile of ash almost instantly.  I reduced the size of the forcefield and turned it into a bubble that lifted the ashes off the ground and brought it back to me. I collected it into a flask and walked out of the bedroom.

We freed all the prisoners and reunited everyone with their families. I was happy to see my adoptive parents once again. Prince Eirik was found in the Haldran Forest the next day. He was crowned king a week later.