Chapter Text
Salem, Massachusetts
1693
The young woman stands alone in the clearing. The sun is setting on the horizon, painting the sky above her in hues of fiery reds, the dark purple fingers of night creeping in on the edges.
At her feet a child lies, eyes open and unseeing. The vivid colours of the sky are reflected in her frozen gaze.
Agatha takes stock of what she knows: they had been playing, making flowers bloom in showers of magical sparks. Then Lisbeth’s aim had misfired, and her young magic had hit Agatha instead of the forest. The rest is… fuzzy. Her breath is returning to normal now, no longer sounding as though she has been running for miles. Her body still buzzes from the additional power.
Out the corner of her eye, Agatha sees movement in the treeline nearest Lisbeth, but when she turns to look, the forest is empty.
She’ll have to go back to the coven now, alone. Another mark against her, but she isn’t sure what she’s done this time. She knows it won’t matter either way, they won’t forgive her for this. But what had been this? How had she taken Lisbeth’s power like that? Again, there is movement in her periphery, and the smell of petrichor. Someone or something is out there, at the edge of her perception. Her new power is lapping through her body, heightening her senses. She thinks she should be afraid but feels instead reassured. Whatever it is, it keeps its distance, seemingly content to watch from the shadows as Agatha bundles Lisbeth up in the girl’s cloak and hoists her onto her shoulders. She’d like to have used magic to levitate the girl along, but these are unsafe times for using magic out in the open, especially whilst moving about. She’d taken enough risks with the flowering game and look where that had gotten her. Not on a pyre, but still with a dead witch to show for it.
She knows she should be afraid of her coven’s reaction. She knows she should feel more than the shocked curiosity and confusion. One of her sister witches is dead, seemingly due to something she did. She should feel terrible, wracked with guilt. But instead, a sense of inevitability overcomes her as she and her silent companion start making their way back to the coven. The elders have been telling her she is evil and wicked ever since she first came into her powers 10 years ago. Claiming it was unseemly to be curious, to want to learn from other witches, to understand her power beyond what the seven elders could teach her. Lately there had even been poorly concealed whispers blaming her for the witch trials, saying her curiosity and drive to help non-magical people was to blame for the current persecution of magic. Agatha didn’t see how. She enjoyed practicing and honing her craft, and her coven had little need for potions or spells they could perform themselves, so she took to selling small magicks to the local town. So while she doesn’t know what happened with Lisbeth, or how she did it, she has no doubt the coven’s reaction won’t be kind. Nothing new there. She sighs and resigns herself to what is to come.
From the treeline, Death watches the young witch struggle to lift her friend, watches them both disappear into the trees. Stepping into the clearing, she approaches the young soul. One really does hate to see another witch dead – there’s been enough of those of late, not to mention the perfectly human women accused of goddess only knew what. Still, at least this one was interesting in her manner of death.
Death looks from the girl’s soul to the retreating figure, disappearing into the twilit forest. It’s rare these days that humans do anything which can still surprise, but this definitely qualifies. Something about that young woman, whether her soul, which Death can see as shrouded in a void of power, or her reaction to the death of one of her own, has struck a chord. Like recognises like, and yet that should not be possible. Not with a human. Head tilted, Death decides to come in person more often to this area, keep an eye on this development. It will serve as a welcome distraction from the ongoing monotony of eternity. And good distractions are awfully difficult to come by these days.
Death smiles. Yes, this will be fun.
**
The Salemites hadn’t exiled her as she had feared. There had been no magick binding – not that she’d really thought they’d try that, not after last time when Agatha woke from her usual nightmares, reflexively reaching for her magick, which hard burned through the binding bracelets and three nearby huts before she got control back, and the others had woken enough to put the fires out. Of course, they wouldn’t listen when she tried to apologise, blamed it on her rather than believing it had been an accident. Still, she had expected… more. Something. Instead, now they watched her and whispered even more, but took no further action. After a few weeks, she stops waiting for the show to drop and carries on with her life. From time to time, she gets the feeling she is being watched but can never find the source. There are no further deaths, and she has partly convinced herself she imagined the power flowing from Lisbeth into her. When she had tried to tell the Salemites what had happened, the words had seemed so silly, so ridiculous – no witch can take another’s power like that! With the horrified and disappointed glares of her coven aimed at her, she’d only been able to stammer that it had been an accident, half sure she had imagined the rest even then.
So it comes as a surprise when, a few weeks after Lisbeth’s death rites been observed, she is woken roughly in the night by a rope tying her hands and feet together. Agatha startles awake, thinking she has set fire to the houses again. So focused on gaining control of her magick, it takes her a few heartbeats too long to realise what is happening. Her sleepy brain races to catch up, taking in the three hooded figures that surround her bed. They are not illuminated by flames. Her magick is not running rampant.
And as she watches the elders finish their knots on the ropes binding her arms and legs, Agatha is once again surprised to feel as though this has always been coming; as though this ending has always been inevitable. As much as she might wish otherwise, a part of her had expected something like this to happen. It is some comfort to see only three of them there, gives her hope that maybe this wasn’t a unanimous vote.
Moving in unison, the three women lift her from her bed. Two of them hold her by the arms, dragging her behind Ruth. They march her through the forest, away from the clearing and their homes, and Agatha knows she won’t be seeing her home again. She wishes she’d had more time, wishes she’d known this would happen today so she’d spend more time savouring even the small things – the way the light refracted off the trees just so in spring, or the smell of first snow on the firepit. The chatter of familiar voices lulling her to sleep every night. All gone now.
“No, no, no.” She doesn’t want to go, doesn’t want to leave her home. She glances at her captors, trying to discern if either will show her mercy. They march on in silence. She trips, but still they do not slow. As the trees part in front of them, the moon illuminates their destination and Agatha can feel her stomach bottom out. So this is really it then. Not exile as she’d thought. A more final end. It seems unfair, and though she knows it is futile, she can feel tears gathering and hear herself begging. “Please, no. No, no. Please.”
She’d like to think that had she been more awake, she never would have shown such vulnerability, but she knows that isn’t true. We are all vulnerable when facing our death. Again, Agatha has the sense that they are not alone in the forest, that someone or something is watching as she squirms and is dragged along to the pyre in the middle of the clearing. She is too scared, too hurt, and out of time to unravel that riddle. Just one more answer she will never get. Maybe it’s for the best. If being too curious, too hungry for knowledge, is what has led her here, then maybe it is time she accept that not all things need to be known or understood.
She can see the circle now, the other coven elders surrounding the pyre. So much for it not being unanimous. Ruth and Mary haul her up the steps and tie her to the stake, securing her with both rope and magic, ensuring she cannot free herself no matter what is to come. Looking over her family, her cover, her sister witches, she understands as her mother steps forward that the idea of exile was never a possibility.
Her mother steps into the firelight, face resolute. “Agatha Harkness, are you a witch?”
“Yes, I am a witch.”
“Yet you have betrayed your coven.”
They are all visible now, all eight of them with hoods down, faces determined and eyes without pity or hesitation. There is no escape from this.
“I have not!”
“You stole knowledge above your age and station. You practice the darkest of magic.”
Agatha can feel her head shaking reflexively. The irony is, she never stole anything from anyone. For all the things they could blame her for, could condemn her and kill her for – and there have been quite a few things – that is not one of them. She knows it is pointless to argue and refute; they have made up their minds. She finds she cannot stand there and accept her fate without one last try at reason.
“I know-I know nothing of these crimes. I swear it!”
“Enough deception!” her mother barks.
Agatha composes herself, refusing to let her mother see the tears. “I did not break your rules.” She finds she refuses to apologise for something she did not do. And if they have already decided, then she will not give them the satisfaction of seeing her beg any further. She will go out with her head held high and give them what they expect of her. “They simply bent to my power.
From the trees, hidden in the shadows cast by the torches, Death can see her smirk is short-lived, and knows it to be a front. The gathered witches do not seem to agree, starting their chant.
“Wait,” the young woman on the pyre pleads as the coven carry on, unbothered. “I cannot control it. If only you would teach me!” Her façade has broken, but Death respects for trying to maintain it when most humans twice her age would have resorted to begging long ago. Death sighs. This is not what was expected. It feels disappointing, a far too normal and mundane end to the sparkly mystery which had so intrigued. Deciding to stick around and guide the young woman personally, Death leans back against a tree and settles in for an unexpected night at work.
The scent of fresh souls and violence waft in the air, caressing Death’s hood like an old friend.
On the pyre, the young woman is getting more agitated, looking from side to side, seeking a friendly face and finding none. “Help me! Please! Mother! Please!”
Death is impressed. Humans place great value on maternal love. There is clearly something amiss here for this woman’s mother to be the instigator of this mob. Maybe the young woman will tell her story before she departs. It would be nice, to unravel at least some of the mystery.
Instead of her pleading swaying the mother, she now joins in the chant as well. Most intriguing. Death glances back to the young woman in time to see her face slacken in disbelief. So she was not expecting this level of betrayal then.
From the left, the first witch draws back and levels a killing blow with her magick. Death watches as if the world has slowed to a crawl, tracking the trajectory of the magick as it flies through the air and hits the young woman square in the chest. Two other beams quickly follow, and she is screaming now, all but her mother directing their considerable powers into the killing of one woman. Her skin is glowing, as though burning from within, and the scent of violence has reached a crescendo now. She has seconds left.
But then… Death leans forward, all thoughts of hiding and brooding over disappointing ends forgotten.
On the pyre, Agatha feels when the energy changes, from excruciating pain to the same heady rush she felt with Lisbeth died. She opens her eyes, expecting to be dead, but finds she is still where she was: tied to a stake, with her coven attacking her. Only now their magick is shifting, turning purple like hers usually is. And they are gasping, falling forward onto their knees. Her mother alone stands apart, having not joined in the attack. But now she hovers directly in front of Agatha and adds to the assault.
This time the pain only lasts a second before morphing into the same powerful rush as before. She feels herself filling up, as though she is a bottomless well and she is only now discovering the true depths available to her.
It is easy now, like stretching a limb, to break the spell binding her hands behind her back. The rope falls away with the magick, and she is now free.
They must know, these witches who were her family. They must understand now that she has bested them, that this was never a fight they could win. Gaze locked on her mother in front of her,
Agatha finds she does not feel sorrow or pain. Instead, all she feels is contempt for these women who were supposed to help her, to guide and teach her but who instead conspired to kill her. She does not regret what comes next – they made it so it was her or them, and if that is the choice she has to make, then she will choose herself every time.
She waves her hands, dispelling the power around her and all seven witches collapse in a circle around her. Her mother still hovers in front of her, and she hates that she still wants her approval, her love. “Please. I can be good.”
“No, you cannot,” she shakes her head and attacks Agatha again.
Thrown back against the stake, Agatha again marvels at the way the power starts out painful before feeling familiar, as though it was has always belonged to her. She closes her eyes and hears her mother’s body thump to the ground. It is over.
Agatha takes slow steps off her would-be deathbed, watching her mother. She was never good enough for her, but she didn’t think Evanora hated her this much. Leaning down, she unclasps her mother’s brooch from her collar.
A twig snaps behind her, and Agatha spins, sure another attack is coming.
A shrouded figure emerges from the trees, hands held up either side of their body in a sign of surrender. Instead of attacking, the stranger tilts their head. "Was that intentional?"
The voice is smooth and feminine, but Agatha can hear something dark and forbidding slithering behind the words, can feel the raw power emanating from her.
"Was what intentional?"
The stranger gestures to their surroundings and Agatha looks around at the desiccated bodies of her old coven. No point denying she did it, but she finds she doesn't know how to answer the question. "...no?"
"Was that a question?" The stranger sounds as though she is smiling.
Agatha frowns. "I didn't-they wouldn't stop."
The strange woman lowers her hood, revealing an ageless and beautiful face which is somehow inviting and unnerving at the same time. “I know, I saw what they did. I'm more interested in what you did, though."
Agatha pauses, looking at the stranger for a moment. She saw? She saw and didn't help? "You don't seem bothered by it."
"Neither do you."
Agatha blinks. She realises that the stranger is right. Aside from the initial shock and betrayal, she is remarkably unbothered by the death of her coven. Maybe they were right. Maybe she is evil. Surely a good person would feel guilt. The stranger is still staring at her with an intensity which is deeply disconcerting.
"I like it."
Thrown by the entire evening, her confusion only grows. "You like what?"
"That you're not bothered. In case you thought otherwise. It's nice."
"It's... nice? That I'm unbothered by killing multiple people?" Agatha asks, wanting to make sure she is understanding her correctly. Maybe she is dead after all, and this just some strange afterlife hallucination.
The stranger nods with a grin. "Refreshing."
It is Agatha’s turn to tilt her head in consideration as the woman continues her approach slowly, entering the clearing and making her way slowly around in a circle, pausing by the body of each coven member before coming to a stop by Evanora, directly in front of Agatha.
“Who are you?”
The stranger smiles. “I have many names. But you can call me Rio.”