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“Bring out your dead!”
Raking slender fingers through raven hair in frustration, Laurel scowled at the scene beyond her window. She knew medieval reenactments were popular, but this one was just plain ghoulish. Paying homage to the Black Plague and witch-hunts cast a dark pall over the town’s aura. The procession of groaning, ragged people following a cart filled with bodies, passed by her building, leaving a miasma of despair in its wake.
Clang! Clang!
“Bring out your dead!”
Across the road, the town square filled with people, and they gathered around an unlit bonfire waiting for nightfall. Adorning its top, like an angel on a Christmas tree, perched an effigy of a witch.
“Looks nothing like me,” Laurel muttered.
The morbid aria of bells and plaintive wails jangled her nerves. She popped in her earbuds, selecting ‘Witchy Woman’ to calm her growing anxiety. It was times like this she cursed her bickering parents for not giving her siblings. She spent her childhood searching the night skies for shooting stars and wishing with all her might for even just one sister.
Swaying to the melody, she spread items for a new protection spell on her table. She’d discovered it in an ancient grimoire, an heirloom handed down through generations.
“Can’t be too careful, Alba.” She bent to stroke the jet-black cat at her feet. “Fear can make people do terrible things.”
Lighting a candle, she placed cinnamon, salt, cumin, and purified water into a cauldron.
She stirred clockwise.
Protect this home,
And all who live here.
Then, anti-clockwise.
Banish negativity,
Clear the air.
The candle sputtered as if caught by a breeze. The air swirled, becoming thick and viscous. Her ears popped. Her head spun.
Gasping for breath, she squeezed her eyes shut to regain her equilibrium.
When the spinning slowed and the air thinned, Laurel eased her eyes open. Darkness enveloped her. Hadn’t it been afternoon only moments before? The room smelled different too, more earthy. And there were others at her table.
“Sister, what happened?” A shadowy hand clutched Laurel’s. She trembled under the warm touch.
“It must’ve been a powerful potion.” Another hand reached out to tuck a red curl behind Laurel’s ear. She hugged her body, confused by its unfamiliar shape. She shot out of her chair, sending it clattering backwards.
“What startles you so?” the first voice asked.
Her eyes focused, and her memory sharpened too. She opened her mouth to ask a dozen questions, but found she knew the answers to each and every one. The spell she’d cast had brought her through time and slipped her into another’s body.
Her name was Freya. It was 1588 — the height of the witch-hunts — and she was with her family, her sisters.
“We can’t stay here,” she stammered, her voice foreign but familiar.
“Another vision, sister?”
Laurel nodded. Unease squirming within her. These women's lives were in imminent danger.
“There’s been rumblings in the village,” the woman on her right said. Celeste. “They blame us for bringing the plague upon them.”
“Pah! What do those fools know? They wouldn’t recognise their arse from their elbow,” said the woman on her left. Willa. “All we’ve ever done is help them. Half their bairns wouldn’t be alive today without our herbs.”
“They need someone to blame.” Laurel’s voice cracked. Celeste and Willa were her sisters, and they weren’t safe here. “There’s no time to pack, we must —”
A forceful pounding on the front door cut her off. Orange light flickered through the windows. They reached for each other’s hands, the touch so familiar to Laurel it was as if they’d been together since the womb. The circle they formed sent strength surging through her. These women, who she had only met in this life moments ago, but who she knew intimately, calmed her nerves and steeled her resolve.
The pounding turned to menacing blows against the door and it shattered, splintering under the weight of six brawny men. They each carried a weapon and a burning torch.
“The court has found you guilty of witchcraft,” the leader said, spit flying from his diseased mouth. His rheumy eyes slid to the cauldron and candle. “Our village has been decimated by your evil ways.” He swept his hand across the table, sending their potion clattering to the floor. “Bind them well. The devil will have no chance to escape tonight.” The rope he held, coiled like a snake.
“We’ll be alright, sisters,” Laurel whispered, squeezing their hands as the rope bit into delicate skin. But her heart beat a rapid tattoo in her chest.
“No talking!” the leader yelled. He pushed them toward the street. Tied together, they shuffled out the cottage and straight into a crowd of jeering villagers. Carried along by a sea of fear, the women entered the town square where a pile of timber rose like an unsteady Jenga tower. Ushered to the top and bound to a central pole, the sisters sought each other’s hands.
Villagers gleefully tossed torches onto the bonfire; their faces an ugly mix of hatred and fascination. The flames roared, deafening at first, then quieting to the crackle and hiss of a campfire. Smoke drifted up, stinging Laurel’s eyes. She held her sisters’ hands as they began an incantation;
From air to fire
Water to stone
Return us to
A safer home.
The flames licked their ankles, blistering skin. The townsfolk chanted, “Burn, witch. Burn!” and the fire obliged.
The air thickened around Laurel, rippling and vibrating as if alive. Her sisters’ hands pulsated with ancient magic.
The villagers’ chorus receded, replaced by the rhythm of her favourite song. Soft kitten fur rubbed against her ankles soothing scorched skin. Tears coursed down her cheeks like rivulets running through an arid, ashy land.
The sisters embraced with a strength forged by fire.
Laurel — raven hair spilling over her shoulders, Alba by her side — looked into the faces of Willa, Celeste, and Freya, and smiled. Her shooting star sisters were finally here.
Kim Hart lives in the Snowy Mountains region of southern NSW, Australia with her husband. The only ‘pets’ they have now are the birds that visit their garden; cockatoos, currawongs, fairy wrens, magpies, and galahs. She dabbles in micro-fiction, flash fiction, poetry, screenplays, and has numerous novels in varying stages of completion. When she’s not writing she enjoys coffee, tea and Netflix. She has just taken up painting with watercolours.
Twitter: @kim_writes8
Instagram: @kimhartwrites
Image credit: The Courier
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