Prologue
“Witch! Witch!” they screamed. Willow ran from the angry mob behind her. She could feel their anger, and their fear. For her there was just fear. She didn’t know what to do; they’d caught her in the act of healing a leaper. At first he thought that she was Christ reincarnated, which was ridiculous, but she made the mistake of laughing at his absurd thought. And he figured it out. He may have been a leaper but he wasn’t stupid.
“She’s over there!” Someone shouted, Willow glanced back, and saw the flickering flames in the distance, and the pointed teeth of pitch forks. She rolled her eyes and groaned, then set off running again. The crunch of gravel sounded under her feet, her Anklet of the Twins Apollo and Artemis jangled as she ran from the angry humans.
She looked up; the stars were watching her run from her former friends. Sometimes they whispered to her, telling her what to do in any situation. Willow cast a look behind her; the flames were مزید distant now. It was night and she held no light; of course they wouldn’t see her take a turning. She jumped behind a house, ducking under the stone opening in the building, under a window.
She sat there in a crouch, and took a deep breath, closing her eyes, and listened to the stars. The gate. The gate of the village. Go! Go now! They said. Willow gasped and stood up, setting off for the East Wall.
She darted past stone houses and wagons until she came to a wall. She listened within. She was facing north. She followed the دیوار to the right, the shouts were distant, and she knew that they were confused, angry, and afraid. They’d lost track of her. She sighed with relief and carried on running until she came to another wall, perpendicular from the one she’d been following. The East Wall.
She smiled and ran towards the gate in the distance, she was tiring; she couldn’t keep running for much longer, but at last she got to the gate. There was a guard sitting there on a stone, dressed in long brown rags. He obviously wasn’t wealthy, and not very good at his job; he was asleep.
Willow darted past him as he snored gently, turned around, facing the village gate. A tear rolled down her cheek. She wished she could’ve کہا sorry to her mother, who happened to be the Crone of the دائرے, حلقہ of the Twins, and was also burned at the stake due to Willow’s carelessness, and so were her little sisters who were four and seven, azalea کی, ازالیا and Aspen, and her brother, who was twelve, Cedar.
The tear that rolled down her cheek fell to the ground, and as she turned and headed off into the unknown, in the place that the tear fell, a white iris grew.




Chapter 1
“So as we know, in the medieval times, if someone thought someone was a witch, they either hanged them or... what?” Mr Keets was saying, strolling in front of the class. No one put their hands up. Darren knew the answer, but instead he slouched and carved his initials into the wood of his desk.
“Anybody? Darren, can آپ tell us what they did to witches other than hanging them.” Mr Keats pointed at Darren. He looked up at Mr Keats, then around the class, then back at the teacher. He shrugged.
“Eat them?” he said. Clover, a petite girl with wide, knowing blue eyes and a pretty, دل shaped face, full lips and long silvery-blonde hair rolled her eyes, and put her hand up.
“Yes, Clover?” Mr Keats asked.
“They burned them at the stake because they believed that in doing so, they not only killed them, but also cleaned their souls of Satan, driving him away from their village, because they believed that witches had evil, یا Satanic powers.” She said, her eyes were glacial, cold and hard as if she hated the fact that they burned witches.
“Very good, Clover. Take out your diaries, now, class, I want آپ to write an essay about witches in the medieval times with at least one hundred words.” He said. The class groaned as they opened their diaries and leafed through the pages until they were on this week, writing in History in the subject, and writing down the homework.
“By when, sir?” a tall girl named Gwen asked.
“Friday.” He said. The class groaned again. The گھنٹی, بیل rang.
“Bye class, see آپ on Friday.” Mr Keats said. Darren packed his diary and history book away and headed off for the benches.
“Hey, Darren!” Ben کہا as Darren headed out the large red door, scrambling over legs of سال eights sitting in the way. He was outside now in July. He pulled his black jumper over his head and looked around. In the middle were two wooden tabletops and benches, the kind آپ see in the park, to the right was a lagoon surrounded سے طرف کی a fence and further down was a bridge crossing it. Ducks were in the lagoon now. Straight ahead behind the benches was pavilion one, a long building with the R.E and موسیقی rooms downstairs, and geography and history upstairs. Just to the right of him and behind him was pavilion two, the Spanish, French and Welsh classes downstairs, and English upstairs.
“Darren,” A girl about his height with waist-length waves of chocolate-brown hair purred flirtatiously. Her name was Bee. Her midnight-black eyes studied him. “Why don’t we go to the Roath wreck after school today? We can bring everyone as well, یا not. So, what do آپ say?” she said. Darren smiled at her, she was very pretty, but she threw herself at him and she was kind of a bitch.
“No.” He کہا simply, and walked towards the rest of the group. Clover was sitting with a petite blonde with golden eyes named Forsythia and they were whispering to each other, and they looked angry.
“We don’t know what happened to Willow, but she’s probably dead now.” Forsythia said.
“What else could’ve happened?” Clover کہا and shrugged. She sighed. Darren was pretending to be listening to the guys rant on about the party on Saturday, and about kegging George, but instead he listened to the two strange girls.
“Anything, but she most likely died.” Forsythia replied. “The stories lose track of her after she escapes the village after the villages found out she was a witch. Apparently she used bezoars from the stomach of a pert goat to heal a leaper.” Clover snorted
“Well that was stupid. Everyone knows آپ don’t use pert goat bezoars. آپ always use the nectar from a dahlia. Best healing ingredient in this world.” She said. Darren was shocked, and confused. What were they talking about? He stopped listening to them and started joining in with the party arrangements, but what was really on his mind was Clover and Forsythia’s conversation.
But half way through lunch, Darren realised that they were staring at him. When the گھنٹی, بیل rang, he started heading for the R.E room, but the two girls stopped him, pulling him back to the benches. They sat him down and that was when he realised they were alone.
“How much did آپ hear?” Clover demanded. Darren opened his mouth, then closed it again, then said,
“Does it matter? Not much, anyway, just the part when آپ were talking about someone named Willow.” Forsythia and Clover exchanged glances. It seemed they were having a silent argument.
After a short while Forsythia sighed and they both looked back at Darren. Clover reached out with an elegant finger with long nails painted red. She placed it on his forehead.
He frowned, but made no attempt to take it off. She started muttering words that Darren couldn’t hear, and then there was a splitting pain in his forehead, making red spots appear in front of his eyes. He fell to his knees and cried out, and then everything went black.