My mother is a witch

Chapter 5: Ashes in the Walls

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I left the cottage before dawn, not looking back.

The woods were still. Too still. No birdsong, no wind. Just the crunch of leaves beneath my boots and the constant thrum of something inside me. Enoch’s voice had quieted to a murmur, like static beneath skin. But I knew he was there. Watching. Waiting.

The grimoire pulsed in my bag like a heartbeat.

I walked for hours, unsure where I was going. Just away. Away from the grave. Away from the house with walls that whispered in the night. But every step I took felt... heavier. As if the forest knew me now. Recognized what I was.

Around midday, I found the first sign.

A dead fox, pinned to a tree with iron nails. Its eyes were missing, sockets filled with black salt. Symbols etched in its flesh—some I recognized from my mother’s spells. Protection wards. Warnings.

Someone had been hunting witches.

Or something worse.

I pressed on, unsettled.

By evening, I came upon the ruins of a house. Stone walls caved inward, roof blackened and burned. The air stank of soot and time.

I shouldn’t have gone in. But something pulled me. Like gravity. Like memory.

Inside, it was cold. Colder than outside. Dust hung in the air like ash. I stepped over broken beams and shattered glass. And then I saw it:

A mirror, cracked in seven places.

My reflection stood still for a moment—then smiled, though I hadn’t.

“Home again,” it whispered.

I backed away.

That’s when the walls began to hum.

Then bleed.

Ash poured from the cracks, thick and slow. The smell of burnt sugar filled the room. My mother’s scent. Her fear. Her fire.

And then—

A voice.

Not Enoch’s.

Hers.

“He’s in the bones, Isaac. He always was.”

I spun. No one. Only shadows.

“I buried you,” I said aloud. “I burned the door. You’re gone.”

But the voice continued.

“He left pieces of himself in every place he touched. This was his first.”

I looked again at the cracked stone, the broken hearth, the scorched symbols carved into the beams. This had been a home once. A witch’s home. Maybe even his.

And maybe... mine.

Suddenly, fire erupted in the fireplace. No fuel. No spark. Just flames.

In them, I saw a boy—small, pale, with eyes like mine. He was screaming. A woman held him back as the walls burned. Outside, figures circled with torches, chanting.

Witch.

Witch.

Witch.

I understood. This was a memory.

One not my own—but buried in my blood.

Enoch’s past.

The villagers didn’t just fear him.

They made him.

I turned to the grimoire, flipping through its pages. One was marked with blood. A spell. Not of fire or death—but of listening. It allowed the caster to hear what the walls remembered.

I read the incantation.

The flames died.

And then—silence.

Then footsteps. Then screams.

And finally, a whisper:

“You are not the first to carry the curse. But you may be the last to control it.”

I closed the book.

Outside, the sun was setting, but the air had changed.

Something had awakened again.

And I was starting to realize:

Leaving the house hadn’t freed me.

It had unleashed me.

Ash still clung to my sleeves. And beneath my skin, the fire curled tighter, whispering promises of power.

And far behind me, in the forest I thought I’d escaped...

The walls of my mother’s cottage creaked.

And began to breathe.