A Witch's Balance


There was this strange clothes shop in our town that both manufactured and sold products within the town alone. What was strange about it was that no one who ever sought employment there ever resigned, no matter how many years passed. Young and old, it did not matter, for every employee seemed bound to the shop by an unseen force. The shop had a separate building for employees to stay, and they said that all their needs were met without any issues.


The townspeople claimed that the shop owner was a witch, and that she was somehow enslaving those whom she saw fit to work for her. I myself felt a strange connection to the store, deep in my heart; it was something inexplicable. I just knew I needed to look into it, although I did not know why. My parents warned me against it, and when my brother once caught me trying to enter the premises at the age of sixteen, I was sent off to my grandparents’ house two towns away.


There was something strange about the day they sent me away. A cryptic message in my mother’s words that stuck in my head: “We knew we couldn’t keep this from you forever, but it’s about time you know the truth. You’ll find your answers soon.”


It was the first time in a decade that I had visited my grandparents’ house. I couldn’t recall anything significant from that visit, although I did have a vague image of the basement; and to that image was attached an intrigue similar to the interest I found in the clothes store. My first night there, I learned why… Grandma said something that both brought me great joy and chilled me to the bone at the same time: I was a witch.


Mom had not inherited any powers, but I had. We came from a long line of witches who always sought to create balance in the environment and community around us. However, there were witches who sought to break that stability for their own gain, she said. The shop owner was such an individual, and Grandma said I had to stop her.


In the three months that followed, I worked tirelessly to hone my skills as a witch. Grandma had placed a seal on my powers the last time I was here; the ritual was performed in the basement, and my memory of it was distorted with magic. It was done to keep me safe from the witch. Grandma said that the witch was older than her; she had been syphoning the lives of her employees for over three centuries, moving from town to town and starting new businesses.


When the time was right, Grandma gave me one final gift: she transferred all the magical knowledge and energy she had left to me, enhancing my powers even further. She said it would put me on the same level as the other witch and make it an even match. I had all her experience and insight in my head, so I knew I wasn’t going to lose. Two nights later, I confronted the witch at her house. Our battle was fierce, and nearly brought down the house from its foundations, but I walked out of it victorious, having both absorbed the powers of the witch and returned the life force she had stolen from her victims.


The following day was like a miracle in our town. Every person the witch had enslaved was back to their senses. They returned to their families and resumed the lives they had before the witch had stolen them. There was balance in the community once more.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lost Tales

Image
I spent most of my childhood dreaming and daydreaming about different worlds, imagining so many stories unfolding in my mind every single day. Mom always told me I had a vivid imagination and encouraged me to write whatever I dreamt about. She said she was just like me when she was young, and that writing all those stories down from a young age was a major factor that contributed to her becoming an author. I took her advice and started writing when I was just six, and over the years, I had so many stories of my own that I was proud of. However, my preferring fiction over everything else pushed me into a corner in social situations; a lot of my classmates thought me a freak and often bullied me. I struggled to make friends for many years, and once I reached my teens, I finally gave up on it. My stories were enough, I didn’t need any friends. My characters were my second family. After I finished school and started working, however, my writing slowly faded into the background of my life. ...
Read more

Avenged

Image
Trigger Warning: Gore / Violence Against Children As a homicide detective, I thought I had seen it all until, one day, I came across a sight I never thought I’d see. The bodies of multiple children were thrown into a pile on the outskirts of the town. I felt knots form from my stomach to my throat as my partner and I investigated the bodies; the children were tortured before they were shot in the back of their heads. They were all minorities, so we started cracking down on supremacists and other gangs in the area, but every route we took led us to an impasse. As we ran around in circles, the bodies kept piling up every other week. By the time the second month rolled around, we were staring at a three-digit body count. I saw their faces every time my head hit the pillow, and I stared at the ceiling for hours, hoping and wishing to get my hands on those responsible. I could barely even eat anymore. My partner’s hopes of catching the murderers slowly eroded as this dragged on, but I doubl...
Read more

Insight

Image
Since I was a child, I could easily read any living thing’s feelings and know their entire history just with a single touch. Humans, dogs, birds, and even trees—I felt everything they’ve ever experienced. It was both a blessing and a curse, for while there was so much joy, there was also an equal, if not more, amount of pain. When I first proved to my classmates that I had these abilities, most of them were amazed, however, a few classmates, and even a number of teachers, began to fear me and call me names. My mom forced me to stop talking about my abilities with others from that point on, but eventually, I came to be labelled a freak by most children at school, as well as by many people in our neighbourhood. Mom and I moved to a new town not long after, and there, I kept my secret to myself even after I graduated and joined the police force. My abilities allowed me to quickly rise through the ranks and become a detective. In the field, even though my abilities were a secret, people be...
Read more