The Bewitched

Episode 1: Something Amiss

        Alexa loved walking through the woods.  The crisp air, the crunch of fallen leaves beneath her feet, the harmony of life that pulsed with every step she took through the dense trees.  It was truly magical.  She found herself there when she needed to take a second to think, which lately was quite often.

    While usually the animals watched her, today she felt there was a pair of more human-like eyes among them.  She imagined the girl she had seen glimpses of about town.  Large soft brown eyes had peered at her from around corners, behind her in lines at the grocery store, and on her long walks to her favorite haunts.  At first Alexa had thought it was just a simple coincidence but what began as a simple glimpse here and there was slowly becoming a daily occurrence.  At one point Alexa made it a point to speak to her.  She was not afraid of confrontation!  But when she turned around and looked her square in the face, the girl quickly disappeared.  Her long black hair was a flicker in the breeze and then she was no where to be seen.

    Why, she pondered, would someone like her be following me?

    Alexa had never considered herself very pretty, so she couldn't imagine this was some kind of crush.  She had never seen the girl in her life before these happenings, so she couldn't imagine they had some other connection.  She had not ever had very many friends, and tried to avoid going out too much.  When her coworkers invited her places she often politely refused.  In the end no one seemed to mind her absence.  So where could this girl have come from?

    She was pondering this when she finally reached her favorite spot, underneath her favorite willow in a grove deep in the woods.  Mindlessly she went to settle into the space she had worn the grass away and the soft dirt supported her as she meditated for many long hours before.  To her surprise and displeasure, the space was now filled with unusually clear water.

    "Ahhhh!" she yelled in frustration, the water rippling lightly at the touch.  A moment went by as Alexa carefully watched, her eyebrows cinched in focus.  When the rippling faded, a slow bubble began to form on the surface of the water before popping and being replaced by another.  And then suddenly the mysterious girl's face, clear and sharp like a photograph right on the surface of the water.  She was laughing, a smile spread across her face and seemed to be looking at someone.  Her face was framed by trees, her dark hair fanned out around her face.  For a moment, it felt like she was watching a video.  The girl then disappeared, turning out of the frame, still smiling and full of laughter.  Alexa was absolutely mystified.  

    I'm going mad, she thought to herself, absolutely mad.  Who sees things like this?  What is going on?  Am I experiencing delusions?  No I couldn't be.  This is just stress manifesting itself in my life, nothing more.

    She grumbled and stared at the tree.  Curiosity got the better of her.  She stuck her hand slowly into the puddle, feeling for the area where the bubbles were coming from.  But her hand never hit solid ground.  Instead it seemed to plunge down into a bottomless hole.  Alexa could still see her hand in it, clear as day.  Frustrated at her luck, she began to try and find another place to sit.

    Weird things had happened to her before.  There was once where she dreamed that she was a cat, prancing through the woods and hunting mice.  It felt so much more real than a dream and when she woke up, she swore that she saw the same cat she was in the dream looking at her from the tree in her window.  There was the time she was so angry that she had failed her terribly unfair exam, that when she screamed into her pillow all of the light bulbs in her room shattered.  Often times, these things made her feel cursed.  It was a constant reminder that the world was full of things outside of her control and that was a scary thought.  But for some reason, nothing had shaken her quite like this.

    A little unsettled, Alexa made her way home as the feeling of being watched finally started to relent.  The light of dusk was beginning to fade into night as she reached the front door of her house.  She turned on the lights and hung her jacket in the front hall.  More than she usually did, she stopped and stared at the pictures she'd chosen to line her wall.  Old prints of landscapes she loved dearly, pictures of a few precious people and pets, and small things she had painted for herself, all stared back at her.  In a way it felt as though these things were what she had built her life out of, but she couldn't help feeling like something was wrong, missing even.  She sighed and sat with the emptiness for a moment before going towards the kitchen.  As she went to get a cup of water, she felt someone else's presence in the room.  It was more than eyes now.  She could feel that someone was there.  She was sure of it.

    "Hello." A soft voice spoke behind her.  Alexa jumped and bit her lip before slowly turning around...