Chapter Text
October 31, 1690
Come little children, I'll take thee away
Into a land of enchantment
Come little children, the time's come to play
Here in my garden of shadows.
Virgil landed his broom in front of the house he shared with his brothers and pulled the hood of his purple cloak down as he walked in.
“Remus! Where did you put the newt saliva?”
“...I might have eaten it.”
“Idiot, we need that for the potion!”
As Virgil walked into the house he looked at his two fighting brothers and rolled his eyes. He leaned casually against the door, mentally calculating how far away the young boy must have been by now, before interrupting the two.
“Janus, you put extra away in the cabinet because you knew Remus would want to eat it.”
The two froze from their position over the cauldron and stopped their arguing as they turned to look at their youngest brother. As they turned, Virgil caught sight of Janus’ scales, the spell that usually hid them must have worn off while Virgil was out. His one normal eye was it’s normal brown color while Janus’
“Brother,” Remus greeted Virgil with a wide grin, his signature mustache quirking up with his lips, and brightly glowing green eyes, “did you get what we need?”
“The young boy is on his way now, should be here in a few minutes.”
“Wonderful job Virgil.” Janus praised his youngest brother as he got the newt saliva out from the cabinet and added it to the bubbling cauldron. “Now one of you hand me the-ahh!”
Janus cut off mid sentence and doubled over, clutching onto his side with a cry of pain. Remus ran to his side but Janus waved him off.
“I am fine brother, but we need to do this now before it gets worse. Virgil, Remus, come over here and help me finish this off.”
Virgil wordlessly walked to Janus’ side and handed him the other ingredients for the potion. The three brothers finished off the potion quickly, just in time to see the door open and a young boy walk in. The young boy looked like he was barely ten and the way his hair was messed made it seem like he’d only just woken up. He’d more than likely been woken up from his sleep by Virgil’s voice and that thought alone made Virgil feel a little sick, but he tamped that feeling down.
Remus grinned and rushed forward to help the boy into a chair while Janus bottled the potion and moved to Remus’ side. After a split second of hesitation, Virgil went to stand on Janus’ other side and all three brothers stood crowded over the wide-eyed boy. Janus crouched down and coaxed the boy into drinking the potion. Virgil could feel Remus’ eyes on him, but he refused to turn and look at his brother.
“Janus,” Remus said suddenly, his eyes glowing a bright green, “I smell a child.”
Janus rolled his eyes as he took the now empty vial back from the young boy. “And what do you think this is?”
“A child.” Remus dejectedly responded.
As Janus went back to focusing on the boy, Virgil heard a rustling noise followed by a thudding sound. All three brothers straightened and turned to face the cause of the noise, it was a boy who was probably no older than 18.
“Well, well, what have we here?” Janus asked as he stalked closer to the boy who was scrambling to stand. “Looks like you were right after all Remus. What should we do with him?”
“Let him go?” Virgil suggested dryly, knowing full well they couldn’t do that.
“Let me play with him?” Remus smirked and scrutinized the boy who was frozen with fear.
“Janus,” Virgil interrupted before a decision could be made, “look.”
Virgil motioned over to the child. Janus practically jumped for joy when the young boy started glowing. Virgil had never been particularly fond of this idea, and maybe a small part of him had hoped the potion wouldn’t work, but he knew it was their only choice so he smiled when Remus sent him an almost giddy look.
“Alright.” Janus clapped his hands and then held them out to Remus and Virgil. “Brothers, take my hands and we can share this.”
Virgil and Remus shared a relieved look and took Janus’ hands, all three brothers began breathing in and sucking the life out of the young boy. The young brunette stayed still and then slumped over when the life had been drained from his body. Almost immediately Virgil felt revived, the pain he’d been feeling these past few days was gone. A quick glance at his brothers told him they must have felt the same because Janus had that fire back in his eyes and Remus was dancing around. Virgil felt himself laughing along happily with them, he did his best to keep his eyes away from the lifeless body sitting right next to him.
The brothers calmed down from their celebrations when they remembered the teen boy still paralyzed by the wall, he was staring at the young boy. Janus stalked back over to the teen and Virgil noted that the teen and the young child had many similar features. Probably brothers. That thought must have clicked for both Janus and Remus because Virgil noticed them almost imperceptibly soften.
“You murders!” The teenager managed to spit out.
“Book!” Janus commanded. A brown monster-like book with one strange, moving eye on the cover came flying out from another room and landed in Janus’ waiting hand. “What should we do with this boy?”
Remus and Virgil crept forward as the book opened itself and flipped to a certain page with a spell on it. As Virgil looked over Janus’ shoulder to see which spell it was, he shared a look with his brothers and they all nodded. At least he won’t die.
“You will not die,” Janus explained, “but instead you will live forever.”
“And what will he live as?” Remus asked excitedly, a clear attempt to make the teen squirm.
Without responding Janus held up his hands and motioned for the two to step back and then he began the spell.
“Twist the bones and bend the back, trim him of his baby fat, give him fur black as black,” Janus chanted the words of the spell, his one normal eye turning a bright yellow, as Virgil and Remus chanted along, “Just-”
“Like-”
“This.” Virgil finished the spell, holding out the ‘s’ with the other two and lowering his hand along with theirs. He watched as the other boy slowly shrunk and transformed into a black cat, his cries becoming cat yowls until there was a hissing black cat in place of the brunette teen.
Before the three could decide on what to do with the cat there was loud banging on the doors and a rush of panic went through Virgil as he shared a scared look with Remus. Janus lept into action and ordered Remus to hide the child while he pushed Virgil back and began walking towards the door.
“There are no witches here, sir.” Remus called out while throwing a blanket over the slumped dead body. Janus sent a glare in his direction while moving to the door.
“Leave us alone.” Janus called through the door while trying to bar it. “We are just three brothers.”
“Spending a quiet evening at home,” Remus added on as he ran to help Janus keep the door closed.
Virgil went over to help, but he knew they’d already been caught, so he muttered, “Sucking the lives out of little children.”
He ignored the two glares he got in return. It really didn’t matter anyway because the next second the door was broken down and a whole townsworth of angry people came barging in with pitchforks and everything. Virgil barely had time to recover from the force of being knocked down before he was roughly picked back up and pushed out of the house along with his two brothers. He got a brief look at a husband and wife weeping over the body of the dead boy on his way out. Some of the townspeople tied them up and guarded them while others set up a makeshift gallow with three nooses.
“What did you do to my son?” The man that had been weeping over the body of the young child came stomping over to them. “My eldest, Thomas.”
“Thomas?” Janus tilted his head and looked blank faced at the man. “Never heard of him.”
“I know you did something!” The man pressed on. When he got no response from any of them he growled. “Answer me!”
“Well we don’t know.” Remus answered with a slightly mischievous tone. “Cat’s got our tongues.”
The man glared at them again and then stomped off to help set up the gallow.
“We can get out of this,” Janus muttered.
“No we-”
“Shut up!” An angry man cut Virgil off and shoved a pitchfork right in front of Virgil’s face.
“Kindly put that down,” Janus said with a dangerous glint in his eyes, “And do you really want to execute a 17 year old boy? On his birthday too.”
Virgil turned sharply to his brother. “Janus-”
“He is right,” Remus spoke up, “Our young brother should be spared at least. He is young and naive, what can he really do to harm any of you?”
“Nice try,” the older man grunted out, “but all three of you are dying tonight.”
Janus and Remus both gave Virgil an apologetic look, which he shrugged off. If he could do anything to save his brothers he would and he was grateful to know they would do the same.
“At least it will be a quick death,” Janus tried to reassure his two younger brothers.
“Too bad they went with hanging.” Remus tried to joke. “Going right for the throat, your poor singing voice Virgil.”
Several of the townspeople seemed to freeze and turned to glare at the brothers, specifically Virgil. The pitchfork was raised to stick uncomfortably close to his face and Virgil tried to back away from it.
“So it’s your voice.” the man realized. “You are the one who sings and lures the children away. You took the young Picani boy.”
“I-” Virgil tried to say something but shut up when the pitchfork was lowered to his throat.
“What does it matter?” Janus quickly chimed in, “You’re killing all three of us anyway.”
The man with the pitchfork seemed to smirk and Virgil felt as if he might throw up now.
“This one!” the man yelled over his shoulder and pointed to Virgil. “He deserves the pyre!”
There were two loud yells of ‘no’ from his brothers and many more yells of agreement from the rest of the townspeople. Virgil frantically shook his head and struggled as he was roughly lifted by the man with a pitchfork and shoved over to where several people had already thrown wood and tree branches onto the ground in a makeshift pyre.
“P-please no!” Virgil begged and kept struggling as the pyre was lit.
Somewhere in the background he heard the voices of his two brothers, somehow he was dropped for a second when the townspeople went to cover their ears. He heard Janus and Remus singing and even though he was shaking he tried to join in because he knew it meant Janus must have some kind of plan.
“Fools! All of you!” Janus’ voice cried out. When Virgil managed to turn his head he saw that his brothers had been taken to the gallow and had the loose noose around their necks. Janus’ book that one man had been holding had dropped to the ground. “My book speaks to you. On All Hallows’ Eve when the moon is round, a virgin will summon us from under the ground. We will be back and the lives of all the children will be ours!”
Virgil, who had tried to escape in all the confusion, gasped as he was pulled back and shoved towards the now lit pyre. He kicked out and he screamed but he couldn’t stop it. A moment later his whole body was on fire and Virgil had to shut his eyes and scream as the flames enveloped him and burned his body to nothing more than ash. Somewhere in the distance his brothers’ screams were cut off as the boxes they’d been standing on were kicked out from underneath them. All three Sanderson brothers were dead.