The Witch of Willow Lake - 1

It had been a year since that night I watched my home burn. The chalk created line's I'd drawn on a small section of wall, by my bed, told me that today, was day 369.

However, despite all those passing days, I still recalled the event as if it had only happened yesterday. All the memories burned vividly in my mind as if they were etched into my brain by hot branding irons, the kind they used to mark animals.

I stayed curled in my bed for days, my eyes fixated on the door, waiting for them to come through the door and tell me everything was okay. However, after three weeks, I came to realize, they were never coming, and still there was no sign of my family, even today.

At first, I told myself they were still back in Willow Lake, trying to repair the damage done. They just needed a few more days before they came for me. However, days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months. Now I was in the safe house alone, hunting small animals, picking wild berries, and drinking water from the lake nearby to sustain myself.

Part of me wanted to give up, I saw no hope nor desired to continue a life without my family, what chance did someone my age have in life when everyone they loved were gone, anyway? However, if nothing, growing up in the village bred us with stronger than normal survival senses. Survival was something we were taught even before we could walk, or talk. So the other part of me, urged to find a way to survive and knew it's what they would have wanted.

So, I did what I could, to stop myself from giving into the side of me that had lost hope.

It was difficult, thought, especially as I realized it was mine and Zachariah’s sixteenth birthday in only two weeks. My very first birthday, without my family, without my twin, and that was a bitter pill to swallow.

Birthday's were always a huge cause of celebration in our small village. It didn't matter how old, or young, the entire day was all about you and made you feel like you were the only person in the world that mattered.

Camp fires blazed while songs were sang as we drank luxury drinks such as coca cola, and ate fancy cake. You didn't get much in the way of gifts, after the village paid for the coke and the cake, we couldn't afford it, but that didn't matter because the greatest gift of all, was spending the day with your family.

However, your sixteenth birthday was perhaps the biggest deal of all. At least if you were Zachariah, or one of the other children, or well, anyone except for me.

For him and the other childen our sixteenth birthday was the day the powers we held came to full fruition and they graduated as full, fledged warlocks. It was a celebration beyond compare and came with fireworks and wine for the one turning of age.

In all our history, every warlock got a small taste of the powers at the age of ten, after years of learning about our powers and our history.

We grew up learning lessons about how our magics worked, our limitations and the possibilities. We were also taught how they must be handled with care, for once we were sixteen, the powers became our life force. Each spell you cast would drain some of that life force, and if you used too much, they would eventually kill you.

That was, except for me. I never gained powers, unlike my twin brother. Women in the coven did not have powers, the other women, like my mother, were simply humans. Only the men were warlocks.

I was not even supposed to have been born. The families would only bare one child, a boy, to pass the powers onto. Even those men who tried to have children after their first born found themselves unable to father another. So, how I came to be? No one knew, nor understood.

For years our village had been terrified of me, so much so, my father built the safe house to hide us away after an execution order had been put on my head when I was just a baby.

It was only because my grandfather was head of the coven that we were granted exile, instead of execution. He had somehow convinced everyone else to agree to sit and wait to see if I developed powers or not to decide a fate so permanent and awful.

On my tenth birthday, as Zachariah’s powers began to blossom and I stood there weak and powerless, it was clear my powers were never to be. At the time I was relieved, although a little envious as I watched all the wonderful things my brother could do, but without my powers, we were welcome back within our coven.

To an outsider, their decision may have seemed horrible, awful, harsh and outright inhumane however, I understood their reasons.

Our coven had been afraid because, in all our history, which backdated to the early fourteen hundreds, there had been only one female warlock. She had grown to be far more powerful than any other we had ever known and turned rouge.

In the eighteen hundred, she’d rallied a small army and fought against our covens eight bloodlines. When the war had ended, only four survived the Popes, the Williams, the Edwards and finally my family, The Davenports.

She was so twisted and cruel that the evil witch had watched on as she burned her mother and father alive in black fire, or so the stories told.

She was assumed dead after a mighty fight arose between her and my ancestors. Although, while my ancestor’s body had been found, her’s never was. For a long while after, everyone feared she lived, however, years passed and our coven relaxed. If she had survived, she’d surely have died after time.

However, when my parents fell pregnant with Zachariah and me, the fears arose again. Twins had never appeared in our history, and I was the first female born since Elizabeth, The Rouge One. I was also being born as a Davenport, the strongest of the families, and the coven leaders.

However, still here I stood, almost sixteen and nothing but a mere human girl.

A mere human girl, who was just fifteen and fighting to survive alone, trying to figure out what I should do.

I let out a saddened sigh as I threw my minimal belongings into a fabric sack I’d fashioned out of the skin of a deer — a little food and a canister of water along with a compass.

I couldn’t stay in the safe house anymore; being here had become too hard. Even a year on, I still found myself desperately wanting them to walk through the door. I needed to start a new life, as a human, like I was. I planned on stopping by Willow Lake, one last time as I headed out. I had no idea where I was going to go or what I was going to do. All I knew is that I wanted to see my home one last time and leave it all behind me and start anew.