7 The Witch's Apprentice Chapter 7
The street outside was quiet, cloaked in fog. The candles burned low, their flames flickering faintly as if uneasy. Elspeth moved with quiet purpose, drawing chalk symbols across the floor—concentric rings interwoven with protective glyphs that shimmered faintly under her touch.
She set candles at the cardinal points. Small bundles of herbs—mugwort, wormwood, lavender, salt—were placed at precise intervals. The air filled with the acrid sweetness of crushed leaves and the low hum of something old and watching.
Bell stood near the wall, barefoot and uncertain.
“Elspeth?” she asked softly.
Her mentor didn’t look up.
“You’re too entangled now to ignore it,” she said, voice low and steady. “Whatever this is… it won’t pass you by. You’ve been marked. Called. Watched.”
Elspeth struck a match and lit the first candle. The flame flared blue, then settled into gold.
“You might not be able to change fate, Bell,” she continued, lighting the others one by one, “but you can prepare for it.”
Bell stepped forward, staring at the circle.
“What is this?”
“A tether. A boundary. A ward against what might try to follow you back.”
Bell swallowed hard. “Follow me back from what?”
Elspeth’s eyes finally met hers. They were calm. Unblinking.
“Wherever it is you go tonight.”
The words sank into Bell like stones into deep water. She glanced at the circle again. The symbols pulsed faintly now, breathing with an energy of their own. The scent of the herbs grew stronger, wrapping around her in invisible threads.
“Get inside,” Elspeth said gently. “Sit. Center yourself. If the dream comes again, this circle will hold what needs holding… and shield what needs shielding.”
Bell obeyed without another word.
She stepped into the circle and sat cross-legged at its center. The chalk felt warm beneath her skin, though the room had grown cold. She closed her eyes, heart pounding. She could already feel the tug—faint but insistent. Like a hook embedded in her chest, reeling her toward the field once more.
Elspeth remained outside the circle, murmuring an incantation under her breath—old words, in a language Bell did not know. Her voice wove through the candlelight like smoke, low and rhythmic, steady as a heartbeat.
Bell’s fingers curled around the token.
It pulsed once, hard.
And the shop vanished.
The moment the shop vanished, Bell felt the sensation of dropping without falling—as though the ground beneath her had turned to mist. There was no lurch, no scream, only a slow unraveling of the world around her, each thread of reality peeling away in silence.
And she was there.
The field again.
But this time, it had changed.
The frost was thicker now, crackling underfoot. The sky had darkened, though the moons still hung overhead—one bright and full, the other fractured and dim. The wind whispered her name again, but now it echoed through the mist like it was moving around her—kept at bay by something invisible.
She glanced down.
Around her feet, a soft glow shimmered. The circle Elspeth had drawn remained intact, etched in faint starlight on the dream-soaked ground. A protection carried through the veil.
Bell took a slow breath and stepped beyond the boundary.
The wind pressed against her immediately, full of scents that didn’t belong to the world she’d come from—wet stone, burning myrrh, lakewater stirred by moonlight. The trees in the distance loomed like watchers, their limbs draped in long, pale moss that moved without breeze. Shadows slid between them in impossible shapes.
And then, as always, the crossroads appeared.
This time, she didn’t need to walk far.
It rose before her—clear, sharp, and unmistakably real. Carved into the frostbitten earth were two paths: one narrow and overgrown with bone-white thorns; the other wide, paved with dark stone etched in glowing runes.
At the center stood the visitor.
But something was different now.
The figure was closer, less obscured by the haze. The hood still concealed her face, but Bell could see the gleam of silver rings on long fingers, the ripple of dark fabric stitched with constellations that shifted when she looked directly at them.
The token glowed faintly in their palm, reflecting the light of the moons.
She turned to face her fully at last.
Bell’s breath caught.
No features were visible beneath the hood—only a shimmer, like moonlight on still water. But she could feel the visitor’s gaze on her, ancient and intimate, as if she knew every secret Bell had ever tried to keep from herself.
When she spoke, her voice echoed—not in Bell’s ears, but in her bones.
“You came. The circle held you. Good.”
Bell stepped forward cautiously, her voice trembling. “Who are you?”
The visitor tilted her head slightly.
“A friend.”
A pause.
“The better question is: who will you become?”
Bell glanced back toward where the protective circle had once glowed. It was faint now—flickering like a dying ember.
“Why are you in my dreams?”
The visitor extended her hand, palm up, offering the token again.
But she already had hers.
“I don’t need it,” she said, confused.
“You carry it. But you haven’t used it.”
Behind them, the wide path pulsed with runes—rising like breath, waiting.
Bell took a step closer.
“Where does it lead?”
The visitor said nothing.
But somewhere in the mist beyond the crossroads, Bell saw flickers of light—lanterns suspended above still black water, reflections dancing across the surface like music. Voices drifted up—feminine, chanting, singing. The scent of wet earth and burning herbs thickened.
She knew, suddenly, with bone-deep certainty:
The lake was near.
And the witches who dwelled beside it were waiting.
Bell gasped as the vision released her.
Her eyes flew open, and the shop came rushing back in—soft candlelight dancing on the ceiling beams, the scent of herb smoke clinging to the air. The circle beneath her was faint now, its chalk lines dimmed and smudged, the candles around it nearly spent, their flames trembling as if shaken by some invisible wind.
She was drenched in cold sweat. Her breath came shallow and fast.
Elspeth was kneeling just beyond the edge of the circle, her hands steady, eyes wide with the kind of stillness that came only from long years of facing things others didn’t dare to name.
“I saw the lake,” Bell whispered.
Elspeth nodded once, slowly. “Then the path has revealed itself.”
Bell pushed herself upright. Her muscles ached like she’d climbed a mountain, but her mind—despite everything—was clear.
“I felt it.” she said. “The token… it’s not just a symbol. It’s a key.”
Elspeth’s brow furrowed, but not with surprise. “You saw the witches?”
“I heard them first,” Bell said in awe. “Singing to the lake. I saw lights… floating above the water. And the visitor said something—about who I’m becoming.”
She glanced at her palm, where the token had burned with light only moments ago. Now, in the quiet shop, it was cool and still. But she could feel it humming deep in her chest. Like a compass. Like a promise.