Part 1
"He didn't give up?"
The girls voice is cautious this time, like she's afraid the story might reach through the fire and pull her in.
I smile without humour. "Men like him never give up. They just change tactics."
He retuned with rain on his boots and roses in his voice.
I was gathering herbs near the southern edge of the forest when I felt it- that shift in the wind, that ripple beneath my skin like a spell had been cast.
I turned before I saw him, and there he was.
Lord Seymor. Cloak crisp, hair gleaming, smile carved and ready.
"You've grown," he said. "Your aura hums now. Almost melodic."
"I didn't invite you." I muttered, gripping my satchel tighter.
"No," he said, stepping closer. "But power has a way of attracting attention. The forest speaks your name like a hymn."
I didn't answer.
He glanced at the grove behind me. "Still gathering herbs, then? Still playing apprentice?"
"I'm learning." I said
"You're stalling," he countered, tone velvet -wrapped steel. "There's a war coming, Circe. Between old faith and new force. You could stand at the centre of it."
I stepped back.
But something flickered in the woods behind him- shadow behind shadow. A figure cloaked and still.
She was watching.
The woman from the circle. The one whose voice had felt like a memory.
She didn't speak. She didn't move. But her presence wrapped around my ribs like a forgetten song.
Lord Seymor didn't notice.
He held a parchment scroll sealed with wax I didn't recognize. "An invitation. Disceet. You'll find others like you there- those born and wild and unwanted.
I didn;t take the scroll.
I just stared at it, the parchment crisp and golden, the seal gleaming like it belonged to some story I wasn't a part of.
But I felt something else.
A shift in the wind. A hush in the grass. Then-
"Keep her hands steady, keep her heart closed, keep his rot from planting roots."
They passed thorugh the air-like breath through leaves, like a voice risng from the deep soil. They curled around me, gentle but firm, and I felt the hair on my arms lift.
Seymor didn't notice.
But I shivered.
It was a woman's voice. Familiar. Distant. Not Agatha's. Not the voices from the coven. This one carried something else- grief, strength, blood. The kind of magic that doesn't ask permissoin.
For a moment, the air around me like armour.
Seymor's smile flickered.
"You've changed," he said. "Even your silence feels sharp now."
"I don't want you invitation," I said, the words steadier than I expected. "Not today."
He studied me. Then nodded, almost respectfully. "Not today, then."
He turned and walked away through the trees.
I stayed rooted in place.
And the somewhere just beyond the edge of slight, the wind whispered again. No words this time. Justa promise.
That I was not alone.
Part 2
I didn't wait.
As soon as Lord Seymor vanished into the trees, I turned and ran- branches clutching at my cloak, twigs snapping underfoot, heart hammering like I'd swallowed thunder.
The cottage came into view, warm, crooked and familair. But something was wrong.
Agatha was standing by the window.
She wasn't stirring the stew. She wasn't grinding herbs. She was still- too still- gazing into the trees with a look that made my skin prickle.
I burst though the door.
She didn't turn.
"Agahta?" My voice cracked around the name.
She raised a hand- not to silence me, but to steady herself. Her eyes were locked on a figure benaeth of moonlight. A cloaked shape, distant but clear. Watching.
It was her.
The woman from the circle.
The one who whispered spells through the wind.
She didn't move. Just stood there, half-shadowed, half-known.
I stepped beside Agatha, breathed ragged. "Who is she?"
Agatha didn't blink. "A reminder."
"A reminder of what?"
Agatha's jaw tightened. "Of everything I swore not to tell."
I stared, heart pounding. "She whispered something. I could feel it."
"I know," Agatha murmered.
The woman turned, slow as dusk melting into night, and disappeared into the trees.
Agatha lowered her hand.
"She won't come inside," she said quietly. " Not yet."
"She knew my name."
"She knows more than that."
I swallowed. "You do too."
Agatha finally at me then- really looked. And what I saw in her eyes wasn't anger or frustration.
It was fear.
"Some truths burn worse than magic," she whispered,
Then she turned back to the fire, and I was left staring at the window.
Wondering what it meant to be seen by someone I had never met.
And why it like remembering.
Part 3
The cottage creaked in the stillness of night.
I lay on the quilt in my narrow attic bed, eyes open, staring at the low ceiling where candlelight cast soft, trembling shaodows. My head ached with questions I couldn't ask.
Seymor's words repeated over and over like footsteps in my head. His parchment. His invitation. That voice in the window- the spell that wrapped around me like armour. And the woman. Watching. Knowing.
My thoughts felt jaged. Slippery. Like trying to hold water with bleeding palms.
Then the door creaked gently open.
Agatha stepped inside, balancing a steaming mug in both hands. She didn't say anything. Just crossed the room, placed the mug on the little table beside me, and sat at the foot of the bed.
The cocoa smelled of cinamon and crushed lavender. My favourite. She knew that.
Still I didn't reach for it.
Agatha watched me quietly for a moment, then said, "Sleep will come slower the more you fight it."
"I'm not fighting," I muttured. "I'm thinking."
"Same thing when you're your age."
I sighed and turned to face the wall. The mug stemaed beside me. My throat tightened.
"She knew me," I whispered.
Agatha didn't respond right away.
"She knew something," I continued. "She looked at me like I was a story she remembered... and I don't even know the first page."
The silence that followed felt heavy, pressed between us like a spell neither of us had the strength to break.
"I want answers," I said, voice barely a breath.
"I know," she said softly. "I don't have the kind that make things easy."
I turned back, eyes shining.
"Do you have any that make sense?"
Agatha stared into the firelight leaking through the crack under the door. Then she stood, brushing the dust from her skirt.
"Not tonight," she said. "But the fire doesn't lie. It remembers everything. Sooner or later, it'll speak."
She paused at the door, glancing back at me once- something unreadable in her gaze.
Then she left.
I didn't touch the cocoa.
But I watched the shadows.
Waiting for them to blink first.