My mother is a witch

There are things no child should see. Things that stay with you long after the night has ended. Blood. Fire. The eyes of your mother, glowing like coals in the dark. I was eight years old the first time I realized something was wrong with my mother. It was autumn, and the trees behind our cottage were shedding their last leaves. The house always smelled of cloves and burnt sugar. Not sweet—sickly. Like something rotting underneath the floorboards, masked by spice. My mother, Amara, was beautiful in a way that frightened people. Her hair black as soot, skin pale like candle wax, and eyes a strange amber. People in the village said things behind her back. Called her hedge witch, night walker, widow spider. Children didn’t come near our gate. Even animals seemed to give our house a wide berth. My father had died before I was born. No photos, no stories. Only one rule: never speak of him. That October night, I woke up to a sound—something scraping. Not like a rat or a creaky beam. More... deliberate. I followed the noise, barefoot and shivering, through the hallway. The air smelled thicker. Like smoke. Downstairs, the living room was dark—except for a circle of candles on the floor. My mother knelt inside it, her white nightgown soaked with something dark. Her hands were painted in red, her fingers twitching over a bowl of black liquid. I should’ve screamed. I didn’t. She was chanting in a language I’d never heard before. Her voice was deeper than usual, rasping, guttural. My stomach turned. The shadows on the walls twisted in ways that didn't match the flame. Then she stopped. Slowly, she turned her head toward me. "Isaac," she said softly. "Go back to bed." I ran. The next morning, there was no trace of the ritual. No candles. No blood. My mother served pancakes and smiled like nothing had happened. But I didn’t touch the syrup. It smelled like the bowl from the night before. That was the beginning. More things followed. Dead birds on the windowsill. Burned sigils carved into the barn walls. My goldfish vanished overnight—only its glassy eyes left in the bowl. When I finally asked her what she was doing that night, she smiled in that way that made my bones feel cold. “I was protecting us, darling,” she said. “From things you don’t need to understand yet.” I tried to believe her. For a while. Until the dreams started. They weren’t dreams, not really. I’d wake up in the woods, barefoot and bleeding, with no memory of how I got there. My sheets would be muddy. My arms scratched. And always—always—the smell of burnt sugar in my nose. By the time I turned twelve, I knew. My mother wasn’t just strange. She wasn’t just feared. She was a witch. A real one. And she was grooming me to become something like her. But what terrified me most wasn’t what she was. It was the quiet voice in my own head that whispered: You are her son. You are not innocent. You are what she made you.