SALEM, DISTRICT ONE

SALEM, DISTRICT ONE Dec 12, 2013 7:05:18 GMT -5

Quote

Post by ✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ on Dec 12, 2013 7:05:18 GMT -5

S A L E M

She's got eyes like pennies. All rusted and used to shit. Copper and spotted with dirt, someone has drilled a hole through the center of each one, making them obsolete. They have been handed off down generations, from century to century. Aye, she's got the eyes of her mother and the fingers of her father, dried and well preserved in the chest that rests at the foot of her bed. Her name is Salem, and she has a last name, but no one remembers it, or no one has heard it. Her name is Salem and no one remembers her last name because they can't remember where she came from. They can't remember where she came from, because one day, she was just here. Her and that cat. Or was it that cat and her? We don't know. We can't remember, no one can.

All we know for certain is that Salem girl is weird, and not in the usual way. It's not like she says funny things and waves her hands in the air sometimes, it's more like she doesn't. She's so still, so quiet, it's disarming. You don't know that she's right behind you until you turn on your heel and are staring into eyes as cold and cool as your ex-lover. That's not the only thing either because her voice is as soft as a sigh but three times as powerful as a shout. One doesn't have to strain to hear her words, they wrap around your ears like a poisonous snake, terribly misunderstood but heard all the same.

Her hair is pin straight and falls down to frame her face and reach even lower like a cliff face, washed smooth by the sea. It's cleaner than that too, pure white, either she's gone grey early from stress, or she's spent all her life under the sun. Underneath are traces of black, and some say that's where her evil stems from, what keeps her powerful. Powerful how, you ask? In her witch craft of course! Everyone knows that she's a witch, that she practices spells late at night and if you get on her bad side you'll be cursed forevermore. What else could lend to the sightings of her out in the Grimm gardens, basket in arm and plants hanging over the side like mutinous passengers.

Her room is like a dungeon, heavy wall draperies and barely any light. There's always something bubbling in the cauldron she keeps over the fire place, they say that it always smells of flowers, but that's just a cover up, we're sure. There's something evil brewing there. Her face is oval, with a sharp chin, and everyone knows that sharp chins are only for witches. Her nose too, it's long and pointed, sure to have a couple warts. Her skin is so white because she wears concealer to hide her green skin, and the millions of scars that cover it.

The scars? Well that would be from her tormented past, you know, the thing that made her evil. They say she was born on the outskirts of the District, mewling and crying like any babe. What set her apart were the herbs that her mother used to heal her booboos, and the sage stick that her father waved through the air to banish bad spirits. (Or maybe call them near, who knows?) Anyway, everyone knows that the family was bad news because they were so odd, so quiet. They didn't bother anyone ever, they only kept to themselves. That wasn't natural. Human beings are made to interact, and this family was happy just to be on their own. It was wrong.

I remember the day ten years ago, when the sickness first began spreading. It had been a hard winter, and a dry spring. The District was in an uproar, and people were dying. Not the rich of course, but the poor people, the forgotten ones on the outskirts were dropping like flies. I remember how angry everyone got, like someone had lit a fire underneath their boots. I remember them storming the house, tearing at the drapes at the window and setting torches to the rickety wooden walls. They all knew why the sickness shad come. It couldn't have been from anyone other than the folks who lived so apart, who used herbs to heal, who made gestures in the air. They were signs of evil, the people knew.

The family was terrified, they escaped the house and ran out the back door into long grass that was dry with drought. Their little girl was only eight years old, and her hair was dark as night. Her skirt twisted around her legs as she ran and her grip slipped from that of her mother's. She fell with the gunshots that rang through the air, and her mother fell too. It wasn't her own blood that pooled though, but that of her mother's her insides came leaking out through her forehead. Things probably leaked out of the girl as well, like salt and water. Her father, a usually peaceful man found himself enraged, lost in horror. Instead of running away, he turned and ran at the attackers, believing his wife and daughter dead. It wasn't long till he fell too.

As the daughter lay in the field, she could feel the heat of the house burning against her skin, and her parents lay dead, unmoved by the people who had killed them. She shut eyes that hurt from the ash in the air, and tears still leaked from them, no matter how tightly they were closed. Her hair lay around her in a messy halo and but for the crackling of her house burning away, and the birds cawing from far off, the world was silent. That silence was wonderful to her, she found solace in it because there wasn't screaming and there were no memories of her parent's voices, there was just the static of heat meeting air.

With the death of the witches, normality returned to the District. In fact, it rained that very afternoon. It had nothing to do with all the ash from the burning house in the air, everything to do with the vanquished evil. When the smoking had finally stopped, friendly neighbors came to pick through the ruins of the house, to find anything worth taking. However, someone had already been through before them. They'd taken the lovely pewter cauldron that the mother had owned, and all the lovely little rocks that the father had collected. The mother's looking glass had been snatched, and even an old wooden chest that had been locked away in the cellar.

Dirty thieves.

It's assumed that the bodies were eaten by animals, that the bones sunk into the earth with heavy rain. Whatever the reason, they were gone. We didn't care because a witch deserves to burn, a witch doesn't deserve a grave. With the rain came the end of the sickness, as if it was flushed out of our system. WE were happy again, didn't curse so much, and the family fell out of our minds. For four long years, the District prospered, and we even forgot the name of the family that we'd killed. When you live with death every day, it is not such a big deal. Our children die every day, every year. When it dies we bury it and life goes on.

At first we didn't realize the similarities between Salem, and the girl we had killed so long ago. Her with her height and her long, light hair. Her eyes were tear shaped and lovely, her figure beautiful. She was so enchanting, and had such a charming little cat that we all fell in love. She found a place in one of The Grimm houses, as a serving maid. She was dutiful, eager to please, but odd.

Quietly odd, in the weirdest of ways. She was always there before you needed her, as if she could hear your call minutes before you gave it. She was always where you least expected her to be, in a room with a door that had been locked before you entered, in the gardens in the middle of a rain storm. It wasn't only that, when she did deign to speak, it was always words of caution, or twisted things that made little sense, such as, "It will be sharp, Cerberus," or "When they ask you about the waxing moon, tell them it isn't yours."

It wasn't just that either, the girl could read your future. She had a pack of tarot cards that she keeps close to her in a pouch upon her hip. The cards are well worn, old things, that have seen many a different hand. According to her, they tell not only the future, but the truth, not necessarily the truthful future, but an honest telling of it. It isn't natural, the things she says, the creeping quiet that is to her. She has served the Grimms for the past four years and only grown odder. She has been seen walking through the District at night, even as one of the Grimms or their servants might swear that she had been in all night long. Her cat is a creeping oddness too, always yowling and jumping about, with a crescent shaped moon on it's forehead. It follows her wherever she goes, sometimes deigning to precede her.

Every word she says is a spell, a lost curse that is forming it's self slowly, with such a weaving intricacy that we can barely pick it up. However, we aren't stupid, we know. We know that she has come back to us for revenge. Every time she speaks to us, eyes wide and luminous, we make the sign against evil. We will not be taken in by her, and when our children are sick, although we do seek her guidance, we shall not trust her.

Everyone knows that you can't trust a witch.

My eyes and your eyes
Oh, those fair stones
Mine was yours and yours was mine
You know what I mean