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Being a witchfinder was a dark job.
There were many men who became witchfinders for the power the position held, for the influence it would give them, and the control they would be able to wield. Witchfinders quite literally held the power of life and death over the people in the villages they made their way through, and that fact attracted charlatans who had no ability or desire to actually find any real witches.
Andy was not one of those men.
The men in his family had been witchfinders for generations, and all of them did it to root out the evil that disguised itself on the edges of villages, lurking and waiting to do harm. And even in all his years of experience, either as his father was training him or since he’d been out on his own, Andy had never come across a witch like the one he had exposed in the small village he’d most recently come into.
She was evil…and powerful. Very, very powerful.
Even looked inside an iron cage in the middle of the village, awaiting the judgement of the village elders come the dawn, the witch didn’t seem at all concerned by her predicament. She sat on the floor of the cage, legs crossed and eyes shut, tilting her face up to the light of the full moon - a twisted version of the good, innocent women who basked in the sunlight as they worked in the fields. It made Andy’s stomach churn.
A calm witch was never a good thing.
“I can see the way you look at me, you know. You can't see beyond the veil.” the witch suddenly spoke, face still tilted up the sun, but eyes flashing silver as she watched him. “And I can tell from the way you want to run from me that I’m not the old wives’ tale you were expecting.”
“I know witches are no old wives’ tale.” Andy responded, even though he knew it absolutely wasn’t the smartest thing to do. Witches were tricky…but ignoring her wouldn’t necessarily stop her from spinning her web: “I’ve brought many of your kind to justice?”
“Justice? Is that what you call watching me burn? Is that what you really see?”
Andy felt his resolve strengthen - he’d heard this argument before, and the familiar ground felt steadier under his feet: “Why would I not?”
“Because you can’t see beyond the veil.”
And just like that, Andy felt lost again.
He hated it.
…But, even though he knew he shouldn’t follow the witch’s silken threads of conversation, Andy found himself asking questions.
“The veil?”
“You can’t see the magic all around you, and yet you try to police it.” the witch had the audacity to laugh at him: “It’s the blind leading the blind in throwing those who can see into the fire. Too bad that I was born in flames.”
Something in the back of Andy’s hair started to panic - he couldn’t understand why, but he knew enough to listen to it, shaking his head at the witch: “We’ll see how well being born in flames works out for you.”
The witch grinned: “I’m sure we will.”
She went back to basking in the moonlight, but this time something was…different.
The part of Andy’s mind that was panicking got louder, but he still couldn’t work out what was making his mouth dry and skin prickle. A drop of sweat slid down his spine, and even though he didn’t know what was happening, he knew it was the witch’s fault.
Jolting to his feet
“You can see through my eyes now, witchfinder.” she sneered: “Enjoy finally seeing what you’ve spent so long trying to control.”
Andy could see.
And he was terrified.
Gone was the woman in front of him, with white hair and silver eyes, and in her place was a being of pure silvery blue flames. A halo of light surrounded her, bright enough in the night to hurt his eyes, but not bright enough to stop him from seeing the way the flames flickered as she burned.
“I told you, witchfinder, I was born in flames.”
The voice was otherworldly, a crackling forest fire that his brain somehow translated into words.
It hurt, hurt more than seeing the figure of light the witch had become, and Andy dropped to his knees: clenching his eyes shut and clamping his hands over his ears, but it didn’t work. He could see the flickering of the fire behind his closed eyelids, hear the crackling and snapping and the cold laughter of the witch as she revelled in his misery.
“You should never have interfered in what didn’t concern you, witchfinder. Now, watch as I devour the town that sought to destroy me for my faith.”
Flames engulfed the cage, the crackling of the flames becoming a roar as Andy’s eyes shot open to behold the flare of light that was the cage in the centre of the village square becoming engulfed in flames. And those flames didn’t stop at just the witch’s cage.
They spread, jagging away along the ground like cracks in the earth, opening up to let Hell spring forth - which it did.
Blue-white flames leapt towards the sky, catching on the edges of the thatch roofs of the surrounding houses - but no-one woke up. The villages slept on as their houses started to burn, remaining inside even as the roofs started to fall through onto their heads - but still they slept on, oblivious to the mortal danger that they were in.
None of them were going to wake up…they were all going to die.
Andy couldn’t let that happen.
“No!” he cried - and the flames stopped.
Not just the flames that had engulfed the cage: but the flames that had made up the witch’s’ body.
She returned to the way she had looked before - only with a new look of surprise painted across her face. She reached out for him, grabbing his wrist before he could pull away from her, her eyes flashing silver as a jolt of electricity went through them both.
“You’re not just a witchfinder.” she gasped: “You’re a witch.”
“I am not!” Andy hissed: “I am Andrew Biersack, son of Chris Biersack, the latest in a long line of witchfinders, and - ”
“And your mother?”
Andy paused.
His mother Amy was…a sore subject for him.
The fact was, he didn’t know. Despite how guilty it made him to not know anything about his mother, he really didn’t know if his mother had been a witch, or where she had been from, or if she had been close to anyone but his father. Most shamefully of all, he didn’t even know if she was alive.
“I don’t know.”
For the first time since she’d set eyes on him on the doorstep of her cottage, the witch softened slightly: “Do you want to find out?”
“There’s so much I don’t know…” Andy explained, feeling hopeless: “Her family, where she was from, who she was before she met my father…”
The witch softened even further, creating a feeling in Andy’s chest that meant he didn’t panic when the door of the cage opened and she stepped out to stand before him and cup his cheek reassuringly: “I can help you find out all of that, if you want.”
“Why would you do that?”
“The townsfolk were going to burn me alive - and they’d do the same to you, if they found out who you were.” she replied gravely: “We witches have to stick together.”
“Even though I almost helped them do that to you?”
“Even though.”
Andy felt hope start to bubble in his chest, but…he was still uncertain: “…Is finding out more about my mother even possible?”
“This is the witching hour. We’re witches.” his new friend responded, as if it was obvious: “Anything is possible.”