My mother is a witch

Chapter 2: The Locked Room

There was one room in the house I was never allowed to enter. The door was painted black, with three iron locks and a silver crescent moon carved into the center. My mother told me it was her study. Said it was dangerous. Said it wasn’t for me.

And I believed her—for a while.

But I’ve always been curious, and curiosity is a slow-burning poison. It doesn’t kill you fast. It coils around you, whispers to you when no one is watching.

By thirteen, I could pick the first two locks with hairpins I’d stolen from her vanity. But the third lock was different. It didn’t have a keyhole. Just a circle carved with strange symbols. Every time I touched it, it burned cold. Not heat—cold. Like it hated being touched.

I asked her about the room again once, trying to sound casual.

“What’s in there?” I asked.

“Old things,” she said. “Memories. Pain. Things that should stay buried.”

That night, she sang to herself in the kitchen. A low, haunting melody that didn’t sound like any lullaby I’d ever heard. I listened from the stairs, her words curling through the walls like smoke:

> Bone and blood, ash and fire,

Seal the door, raise it higher.

Keep the beast behind the veil,

Lest the child lift the nail.

The next morning, the door was gone. Not locked—gone. Just smooth wall where it used to be. Like it had never been there at all.

That should have been enough to scare me off. It wasn’t.

The dreams came back stronger after that. This time, I wasn’t walking in the woods—I was inside the locked room. It was always the same: candles shaped like skulls, shelves stacked with jars holding teeth, claws, and... eyes. And something in the far corner. Something bound in chains. It never looked at me. But I felt it. Breathing.

Watching.

In one dream, it whispered my name.

The next morning, I found claw marks on my door. Long, deep, and still fresh.

I confronted her. I didn’t shout. I didn’t cry. I just asked.

“What is behind the door?”

My mother looked tired. Not angry. Not afraid. Just... old.

“I kept it from you as long as I could,” she said. “But the blood is waking in you now.”

“What does that mean?”

She sat down at the kitchen table, took my hand in hers. Her fingers were ice.

“It means you’re not just my son. You’re his too.”

I didn’t need to ask who she meant. The man with no photos. No grave. The father who didn’t die—who was sealed away.

“In that room?” I whispered.

“No,” she said. “Under it.”

That night, the door returned. As if it had only been sleeping inside the wall.

But the third lock was broken.

I stood before it, heart hammering, hand shaking.

And I smelled it again.

Burnt sugar.

And something else—wet earth, rotting leather, and blood.

Whatever was inside that room had been waiting.

Not for my mother.

For me.