It was a grey day in October when her life ended. It wouldn’t take hold for a while, but this is where it started. The family was in the van, and the van was on the highway. Mom, dad, and the littlest witch, sitting in the back. Daryl was her name at the time.

The witch thing had started a few months ago. Ever since a trip to family in New England resulted in a trip to Salem. It wasn’t as exciting as you’d think, not for Mom and Dad. But for a little eight year old? Witches are already neat when you’re born on Halloween, but seeing that kitschy shit really got it started. And then wearing out the Blockbuster’s VHS of Hocus Pocus just solidified it.

So Daryl sat in the back of the car on that grey day in October, dressed like Thora Birch. Mom and Dad didn’t really understand why their son wanted to be a witch, but it was his birthday, and it was Halloween, and they were supportive. Was the party for Daryl, or just a generic costume party? It’s hard to remember.

”You'll shake and shudder in surprise when you hear these zombies shriek”

Daryl bopped along to the tape. Dad looked in the mirror and smiled. Mom leaned on the armrest and looked back at Daryl, smiling. The memory was always so corny. They loved her, and wanted her to be happy. Neither of them had faces, though. The years had worn them away until only bits and pieces remained. That flash of eyes in the mirror, a caring smile, bat earrings. Those were the parts that mattered. Maybe they weren't looking at the road, but instead were looking at each other, a happy little family. But it wasn't Dad's fault. He wasn’t to blame for what came next.

Maybe it was a squirrel, or a racoon. Or maybe it was just a wet road, it might have been raining. Sometimes it rained and that was why it was grey. Maybe driving an eighteen wheeler with nothing to keep you up but energy drink and truck stop meth, you get pushed too far and pass out for a bit. She never did learn about what happened, but it doesn’t actually matter.

Dad swore. He pretty much never did that when he thought Daryl could hear, and Mom screamed. Smacked the glove compartment repeatedly while Dad slammed on the breaks. Daryl shouted over and over again.

“No! No! Don’t do it!” she didn’t have an eight year old boy’s voice, she had the hoarse voice of a thirty year old who smoked more than she should. “Turn the car, Dad!”

It didn’t matter. The truck in front of them swerved and overcorrected, and it didn’t matter how far away the Friedman family caravan was, the pipes went right through the windshield, right through the front of the engine block. Mom didn’t have a face in the dream because it was torn off. Dad reached over for her but his arm fell limp, resting on the shaft of metal that was pinning Daryl’s shoulder to the seat. There were more in her side, in her leg. She couldn’t move and she could see her parents dead in front of her.

There were no alarms, just the hissing of steam from the front of the car, and the screaming. Some of it was from Daryl—both the voice of an eight year old boy and a thirty year old woman—but also from outside the car. People were getting out of their cars and running to help. The police and rescue were called. By the time they got there, Daryl was passed out. They almost didn’t think she’d make it.

———† † † ———

“I pulled most of you from the womb!” the woman cried, being held down by a group of the villagers. “I’m not a witch!”

She hurt so much, but held herself together even as the blood poured from her lips. This was her memory. Old bones and years of aches, but it was nothing compared to the stress of being held down, her arms twisted and a knee pressed to her back. Her life’s work was being destroyed in front of her, by people she had spent a lifetime keeping safe and healthy.

“What is this foul heathenism, then?” the witchfinder asked. He gestured to the shelves and some of the men—men she’d given herbs to when they couldn’t get their pricks up—shoved the clay pots off. They clattered on the ground and shattered, their lotions and balms oozing into the dirt floor of the hut.

“I’m an apothecary!” the woman sobbed from the floor. She looked desperately to one of the men, “Landebart, I cured your wife’s phthisis! Please, tell them!”

That earned her a kick to the face, knocking her bonnet off, leaving her hair untidy and in her face. “Shut your mouth, Satanic whore!”

The woman just started laughing, unable to hold it back. “What about your syphilis, you son of a bitch, tell the man of god how I treated that!”

“Get her up,” the man from the Shadow Congregation said, gesturing for Landebart to stop from kicking her a second time. The four men holding her down got up off of her, holding her tight. She struggled and they shoved her against the mud brick wall, knocking the wind from her. “We will see how that impudent tongue of yours feels when you take your own medicines.”

He grabbed one of the concoctions that wasn’t shattered, a flask with a liquid that didn’t seem like it wanted to be in glass, and held it up to the light coming in through the window. It shimmered and danced, a silvery swirl with in it.

“Hold her mouth open,” he ordered, and the men squeezed at her cheeks. One of them got too close and she bit his finger. Hard enough to break something. That earned her a slap, but eventually they had her gaping and drooling, in spite of her gags of protest. The witchfinder stepped forward and tipped the liquid down her throat. While she struggled to cough it up, he clapped a hand over her face, pinching her nose.

The liquid was already bitter and biting at her. She had to swallow, and it was caustic the whole way down. Her spasms were enough that she was let go. The floor came up to greet her, and she hacked and sputtered on her hands and knees until those gave out and she fell to the floor.

“If you aren’t a witch then nothing should happen to you,” the man in the suit said coldly. Once again he simply gave a gesture and the other men obeyed. Landebart of them spit on her as he passed, and another took his lead to give her a kick to the ribs. Something might have broken, but it didn’t even matter anymore.

“Please…” the woman begged, laying in her own blood, and piss. She shuddered, agony going through her body. She clutched at the last man’s trouser leg. “Wilhelm, please I’m not a witch…”

He shook his leg until her grip released, then shoved another shelf over as he left.

She was left there, sobbing in pain and alone, the village she loved turned against her by that man from the Malleus Maleficarum.

———† † † ———

Daryl woke up in the hospital, all alone. They said that her parents were gone, and asked if she had anyone to care for her. They kept talking to her like she was a boy, and you’d think that wouldn’t matter as much with everything else, but it stuck with her over the years. There weren’t as many words for that back then, and who cares what an eight year old thinks. So she was left alone most of the time. Doctors came but she didn’t understand any of it.

And then she needed surgery, but it hurt so much. Her leg hurt so much. It was swollen and itched, but they were worried about her chest. Something about everything being on the wrong side. They didn’t explain it to her well. No one cares to explain things to an eight year old. Later she’d learn things like situs inversus, and how that was what saved her. A massive coincidence kept rebar from going through her heart.

But it wasn’t her heart that hurt. It was her leg. It was sore and hot and it felt like it was in knots, even after they put it back together and got the metal out, and no one was explaining it to her in a way that made sense. Eight year olds don’t understand the concept of an infection. Necrosis. They just know that it hurts. One massive coincidence saved her but another was killing her.

The doctors were concerned with the wrong things and as she lay there in the operating room, the lights went black. She was standing there looking over a bunch of doctors, and all the doctors were doing something with this little boy on the table. He looked familiar. They were scrambling around, and noises were happening. Everyone looked scared, even through their masks and glasses.

“He’s coding” she heard. She hated that. That’s not right, it wasn’t she.

The noise stopped, just a long beep. They tried to do everything. No one wants a kid to die.

———† † † ———

“You sons of whores!” the woman shouted, once again bound against her will. The manacles dug into her wrists, which were now a sickly green. She wasn’t begging or pleading for mercy anymore. Two weeks is a long time for anger and spite to burn away inside of you. To kill hope. “You’ll rot in Hell for this you spineless cowards!”

The witch was dragged from her cell to the pyre. The crowd gasped when it saw her. Women who’s whelps she’d delivered. Children whose cords she had cut with the athame now carried by the witchfinder. Men she’d healed of sexual diseases and whose secrets she kept. A village she poured more than two generations of her life into helping backed away at the sight of her. Now she looked the part, and there was no going back. With skin as green as a corpse, she would never convince them that she was anything but the monster they conjured up.

“See how she looks with her true form revealed?” the witchfinder said, watching over the proceedings from a stage. She spat, and though it didn’t reach him it still conveyed her contempt. It still earned her a slap from a man who’s injuries she’d treated.

There wasn’t a single person in this village she hadn’t helped, and this is how they repay her. She was taken to the pyre, hands bound behind her back. She was free to writhe and squirm, but it wouldn’t make a difference.

“A man from the church comes and you turn on me so quickly?” the witch shouted as she saw the torches being lit. Scorn couldn’t suppress her pain, and there were tears in her eyes. “What will you do without me?”

“They will turn to god instead of a deceiver, bride of Satan,” the man gestured, and the torches were thrown on the kindling. Flames began to lick around her.

“Do you think your God will welcome you with open arms for murdering herbalists, Johann Klimt?” the witch shouted as things got hotter. “Do you think he’ll have anything for you but contempt as he reads the list of women and Jews and protestants you’ve put to flame and sword and dunking?”

“Scream all you like, witch, your fate is sealed,” Klimt said, completely unfazed.

“Your God will spit upon you as I have!”

The flames were getting higher. The hem of her dress was burning. It was hot, too hot.

“And Satan shall soon receive you.”

As she felt her body burn and her skin sizzle she cried out in agony. It was supposed to last. It was supposed to take a long time. It was supposed to fill her with so much agony that she repented first. A mercy for the eternal soul. In this moment the witch didn’t know if she believed in a loving god, and that heresy would be among her final thoughts.

“All of you are bound for Hell,” she cried out, tears in her eyes evaporating in the heat. She couldn’t help but laugh, and it came out in the high pitched cackle that they expected. “All of you will face death, the god you serve will not protect you, he turns away in disgust at what you’ve done today!”

After that it was nothing but screams.

———† † † ———

Two witches stood across from each other. One small and frail and scared. The other was tall, and dark, and had long ago stopped being afraid of anything. She was mostly a shadow, with green skin, just like in the movie. But the charcoal black cascaded across her skin as little spots burned, the shifting pattern like the light at the bottom of the pool.

The younger witch wore a little Dani Dennison costume. It wasn’t real. The real one was torn up by the crash, and cut to ribbons by paramedics. She was scared. She was so scared, but not of the other witch. The other witch wasn’t scary, she was cool. Something burned in her eyes and she looked like she wasn’t scared of anything.

The world was dark around them, but in between them was a little boy, dead on an operating table. He looked familiar somehow. Shifting around in the dark, sometimes coming into view, were people in scrubs, covered in blood. Some did chest compressions, another used a defibrillator. It all happened in a blur, like a movie on fast forward. They all gave up.

Do you want to live?

The voice was bland, it was hollow and devoid of passion or pressure. It was a voice that hadn’t known life in centuries. But it wanted it. It wanted to live again. It wanted to help Daryl live again.

“Where are Mommy and Daddy?” she asked.

Gone where I can't go. Will you die and see them?

“I want to see Daddy, I want to see Mommy,” Daryl sobbed. She was pinned to the car seat again. She saw Mom and Dad, but couldn't see their faces.

The witch stayed where she was, right across from her. The two scenes were laid overtop one another, like a double exposure.

Choose.

“I don’t know,” Daryl said, standing over the body on the operating table. Is that what she looked like? Was this the way she’d die?

And then the witch showed her something cruel. Twenty three years later and Sabrina would still think it was the cruelest thing the witch ever did. But it had to be done. Daryl stood before a grave marker. The endless field of crooked crosses and concrete angels stretched out forever, broken only by ragged trees with gnarled fingers. The witch brushed the decay and lichen off the tombstone and Daryl read the words.

Daryl Friedman

1989-1999

Beloved son.

“I don’t want to die,” she said.

Then you won’t.

The Wicked Witch touched the cheek of the little boy in the hospital bed and for the second time in her life, Daryl took her first breath.

“Doctor!” someone cried out, and people started running. The beeping of the machine started up again.

She felt hands on her body, through a haze of anesthetic that wasn’t enough. There was so much pain, but it felt…

It feels good.

It wasn’t Daryl’s thought, but she agreed. The empty blackness receded and there was brilliant light and sound and sensation. A world of color, even in a sterile room. Everything is so much more vibrant when you’ve been dead since 1599. Even the pain feels good.

“Witch…” Daryl smiled sleepily. The doctors and nurses didn’t seem to pay her much attention, or they might have noticed that when she held her hand up, something seemed to take hold of it and keep it there.

Hush, child. Rest your head.

“Doctor, he was dead,” one of the nurses said in a low whisper, “time of death was twenty minutes ago*.*”

“It doesn’t matter,” the doctor said, shining a light in Daryl’s eye. “Get the anesthesiologist back in here. I think he’s in shock.”

“Doctor…”

“Call it autoresuscitation after failed cardiopulmonary resuscitation,” the Doctor ordered. Then to someone else he said “stop standing around, someone go get Malcolm back in here!”

Someone else rushed out the door.

“Lazarus heart?”

“It’s already on the wrong side. It’s not undocumented.”

“There was a shadow…”

“Sharon, we don’t have time for this!” There was the sound of a hand slamming on a counter. Metal implements clattered. “There’s a fucking kid on my table.”

Daryl wasn’t even paying attention to the conversation, but somehow she’d remember it so many years later. The Witch stood over her, stroking her hair, and then leaned down to kiss her on the forehead. When she stepped aside Daryl could see a man and a woman, standing there at the foot of the table. Did this part actually happen, or not? They were torn to pieces, clothes slick with blood, holes all through their body. But then they held each other’s hands. They looked at Dary, and then to the Witch.

Their faces were erased by scribbles but they smiled. The injuries were gone, they were with each other. Their son… their daughter was safe. They knew there was nothing they could do, but she would be safe.

There was a bright light and then they were gone.

A mask was put over Daryl’s face and soon she was back to sleep.

———† † † ———

Sabrina woke up covered in sweat, which was quickly cooling in the chill of the night in the large, ratty four post bed. She was in someone’s arms. That wasn’t how she usually woke up in the dead of night. You don’t bring a lot of dates back when you live in an old haunted house. Or when you relive your own death in your dreams.

“Sabrina…” Camuel began. He was dead but his body was warm. Too warm.

“You’re wasting my blood,” she grumbled, still recovering from the memory. He went to pull his arms away, but Sabrina took hold of them and put them around her waist. She locked fingers together over his hands.

“Apologies, I did not want you to be cold.” He was so contrite, it was cute. He was still so formal.

“I’m used to the cold.” He took the hint and held her tight.

“Yes, I can see th—” Sabrina elbowed him, and he let out a breath. She could feel it, warm on the back of her neck. She shivered. Camuel turned his head away.

She knocked her head against his cheek. After a moment’s hesitation she leaned her head to the side, exposing her bare neck.

Through their connection, Sabrina could feel Grandmother rolling her eyes. But her heart was fluttering, and she knew the ghost would enjoy that through their bond. It’s why she offered the bargain. To experience life, through Sabrina.

“Are you certain?” Camuel asked, his voice low, his lips making the hairs on her neck stand up.

She sighed, and squirmed in his arms. “Are you going to make me say it?”

There was a chuckle at Sabrina’s neck. “Perhaps.”

She let out an exaggerated whine, and smacked her head into his. Then exposed her neck again.

He simply breathed on her, breath warmed by Sabrina’s own blood. The fucking bastard. She can be just as stubborn. But she needed this more than he did at the moment. “Please bite me.” God, I’m a dumb bitch sometimes.

Sabrina felt a nibble at her ear. “As you wish.”

“Oh you stupid fucker, my ne—” and then it was his turn to cut her off. The fangs sunk into Sabrina’s throat and for a brief moment she felt extreme pain. The kind of pain that says the body is in danger. She wasn’t a stranger to that pain, it was an old friend. That pain was the agony of life, and it reminded her that she didn’t stay dead that day so long ago.

But then that friend was called away on business and there was a dull bliss. It felt like being high. It was a high. Sabrina could feel her lips fall into a blissed out grin. A gasp, a whimper, escaped her lips. Her body slackened, and she reached up behind her own head to dig her fingers into Camuel’s raven curls. He laughed against her throat, and she could feel the smile.

Sabrina fidgeted and let herself feel the pain, underneath the narcotic sensation of a vampire’s bite. The Kiss was glorious, but the pain… both of them reminded her—reminded The Wicked Witch—that she was alive. In reminding Grandmother, Sabrina felt it all doubled. The dead don’t feel pain. They don’t feel pleasure. They don’t feel loved. They don’t feel safe in someone else’s arms. Sabrina felt those, and so did her phantom.

The fangs came out of her neck, and the wound was sealed closed with a playful lick. Sabrina shifted in Camuel’s arms and curled against him, taking his face in her hands and kissing him.

“Don’t get messy,” she said, licking the blood from his lip.

“Of course not,” he purred.

She was still afraid. Afraid this wouldn’t last. Afraid everyone would die and she’d be standing there alone with nothing but a ghost for company. But fear is part of being alive as well. If you aren’t afraid, you aren’t alive. Maybe one day he would be ash and she and the Witch would be alone again. Empty. But that wasn’t today. Today she chose the fear.

She chose to live.