Beautiful green eyes, the colour of precious stones and sun-drenched moss, peered out from under heavy, marbled lids, as though shaking off the drowsiness of a hundred years. Sleepy irises slid ever so slightly under their half-closed covers, in the direction of the black-cloaked figure before them.

I am the one…

Her lips did not move, but her words trickled into the exorcist’s mind like water, the way the agonizing wail of the headless ghost had pierced the townsfolk’s hearts.

… they call the witch.

With that last word, the sound of her soul quavered, as though the hand upon a pitcher had shaken, and the stream it produced had spilled.

The reverberations of the splash echoed within the exorcist’s mind, as though inside a cave. He looked at her intently.

‘... Are you really a witch?’

The emerald eyes widened by a slit, a flash of rage glinting in the light of the dying sun.

No!

‘Then why do they call you one?’

The beautiful eyes narrowed again in a limited expression of something akin to distaste.

… Why do they say so many things? she said at last, pouring into his mind. Am I to be accountable for every falsehood they choose to make their truth?

The exorcist smiled. ‘They also say that you were a soul-sucking devil-worshipping looney.’

… O do they now?

‘But you seem eminently sane to me.’

The maiden’s eyes twitched, and she widened them again to take in the face of the man before her.

… Thank you, she told him.

But I cannot responsibly say the same of you.

The exorcist almost chuckled, shaking his head. It was the most direct and yet delicate way anyone had questioned his sanity.

He straightened, then looked into her eyes seriously, as she looked back.

‘How did you resurrect yourself?’

I... did not rise of my own will… she said regretfully.

‘Then are you the one in control of the ghost’s doings?’

…

The exorcist could feel her hesitation upon answering him.

‘... Earlier,’ he spoke up again, himself hesitant to voice the suspicions he had long held within his chest, ‘you spoke of accountability…

‘Who was it that was accountable for the lies spread about you in Mystvale?’

A flicker of cold rage once again flitted across her beautiful calm eyes.

… Edmund.

The exorcist looked around at the secret chamber again. The old priest would think what he was about to say was nothing less than the purest blasphemy against his reverend idol, but he had to say it.

‘...Was it Edmund who had done this to you?’

He wasn’t referring to her death, or her decapitation, though the culprit to those things was also undoubtedly Edmund. He trusted her to understand his meaning, however.

… It was Edmund!

A cold breeze had flown into the chamber, as the setting sun fell more distant with the approach of darkness.

‘We may not have much time’, the exorcist said to her. ‘Please! I need you to tell me what happened.’

The beautiful head looked up into his eyes, with calm eyes that attempted to peer into his soul itself.

He met her gaze with his own earthy eyes, hidden behind glassy spectacles and thick layers of dirty hair, but always fixed and firm in spite of it all.

At last, she closed her eyes.

Lift me from this body, she said, her tone ancient and noble.

And I will tell you a story.

•••

My name is Fionnghuala, last daughter of an ancient line of healers.

My ancestors hailed from the north, but drifted further and further southward with each successive generation, having realized that the years were ever growing colder and more inhospitable.

I grew up with my father before me, who taught me everything he knew about the woods and the waters, and entered me into the oath of the healer. Once I was the only one left, I did as my father before me and his father before him, and arrived at a humble settlement, and thus made it my home.

It was called Mystvale.

Mystvale never took kindly to strangers, and I had a very hard time becoming a part of anything at first. Every moment I thought I had been accepted into their midst, something would always inevitably follow to prove to me how naively wrong I was.

This all changed with the arrival of the young new priest.

Edmund…

Perhaps it was fate, but almost the very moment he arrived, he ran into me in the middle of woods…

And we had never separated since.

Edmund had a natural blessing of attraction. He was physically beautiful and gracefully outgoing, and before long he had woven himself into the fabric of the little community…

… pulling my hand along in his.

Whilst he was fully integrated into the ways of the Mystvale folk, he had always disregarded their wariness of me, and kept me in good company.

Edmund was intelligent, and took great interest in the wisdom of my ancestors. He had already been schooled in the erroneous teachings of his society, but whenever I opened my mind to him, he would be able to rapidly unlearn the things he had been taught.

He always had a peculiar emphasis on the exterior of things, however. He’d reason that what was outside always reflected what was inside, and if appearances were ever deceiving, it was because we had misunderstood the appearance, rather than admit that the two were poorly correlated.

It was an outlook that complemented the ancient ways of medicine, but was ill-advised outside of the healing arts.

It made him childishly argumentative at times; at others it made him devout appreciator of all things fine and beautiful.

He acted as my assistant in pharmacy whenever he was not fulfilling his duties as the priest, and I had truly appreciated his presence, his friendship…

… But ultimately I could not appreciate the way he had felt about me...

•••

One year, the market collapsed, and it did not recover by the next year, or the next.

Things were becoming very hard for everyone, as for Mystvale.

The cold had risen to its peak in that period, and nothing the farmers planted could be expected to survive.

Edmund and I pooled our knowledge, but what we could do was limited…

...One day, Edmund came to me, and asked for my hand in marriage.

He told me I was the most beautiful thing in the world to him, and nothing would have made him happier than to have me by his side.

He told me he was actually the son of a bishop, and that if I married him we could both travel to a place where it was warmer, and unaffected by tragedy, where we could be happy together.

While I was elated to learn of his passionate feelings for me, I was also very disappointed in the way he would callously shrug off his responsibility to a community that had cared for and needed him…

… All while wearing a mask of kindness on his face, as he tended for and comforted their suffering.

I… rejected him.

I told him there were more important things to be concerned about than what he had aspired for.

Ever since then, I would hole myself within my cottage in the woods, desperately trying to research a remedy for the present situation.

… In truth, I was probably only distracting myself from the things I didn’t want to think about.

Whenever Edmund visited, I would act cold towards him.

And the more passionately he tried to embrace me, the more frigid and formal I would be in pushing him away.

… Eventually, he stopped visiting.

… And I didn’t have to act anymore.

•••

Seven years had nearly passed, and everything had changed.

People starved everywhere, and dried husks of former human beings were dumped into formless graves with little to no ceremony.

I suspect the only reason there were so few cases of attempted cannibalism was because they were still reminded among themselves of the threat of disease...

… Hunger dulled both the mind, and the spirit.

I was still holing myself up within my cottage, absorbed in nothing but my research, but even so I could feel myself becoming weaker in significant ways.

Originally I had sought to concoct a medicine that could improve the crops’ resistance to cold, but then I realized it would be far too inefficient and beyond my resources.

I turned instead to investigating wild plants that were naturally resistant to the frost, and testing them for their edibility.

I yielded some favourable results.

… But could not convince anyone to believe in me.

The seven years had brought to the world a transformation that most had never experienced before.

But for me, it simply returned me to the isolation where I had belonged at first…

No one was willing to take my word as an outsider to plant strange crops in their fields…

… and my only connection to the world was no longer someone I could rely on…

… With no one else to turn to, I decided to plant them myself.

I converted the soil around my home to be fit for agriculture, and planted as much of the crops as I could manage.

… I did not know that they would never yield fruit.

•••

Prolonged famine had taken profound tolls on the society, and people were growing increasingly restless.

… It had become so that not even the magical charisma of Edmund could give them peace.

They regressed to their ancient ancestral beliefs, and wondered if everything was the gods’ punishment for converting to foreign faiths.

Edmund was at a point where if he’d taken a single misstep, he could have been roasted as offering upon a pyre to their deities…

… Edmund was not burnt…

… Because I had become his scapegoat.

With his sweet words and heroic demeanour, he had woven a narrative of divine revelation, casting himself as a humble oracle who heard the whispers of fortune to investigate me closely to uncover my true nature…

...In the role he had given me as the villain and the witch.

He led a mob of starving men and women to my front door, and ordered them to capture me.

… I could not resist as they destroyed my home in front of my eyes.

I pleaded with them... Tried to explain…

… But they would not listen to a single word that I say.

When I told them to at least spare the crops I had planted, they only pointed to it as further proof of the poison I was spreading into the world…

… and they burnt down everything.

•••

… I was brought into town, where they locked me in an empty cell to await my fate.

I was most likely going to die, but I didn’t struggle or attempt to escape.

I had lost everything I held dear…

That was like death.

So I resigned myself…

Until Edmund appeared before me.

We were… alone.

He told me…

He was sorry for what I had had to suffer… and said that the town had forced him into it.

He told me…

He could still save me… and then we could flee Mystvale… and be happy together again…

… Save me, he said.

… After everything… he had done to me...!

I wanted to slap him, but he caught hold of my weakened hands.

So I spat in his face.

I told him…

He was going to pay.

He wiped my spit off his face.

Smiled.

He said he never paid.

No matter what he did.

Not even when he ripped someone’s heart out.

Tore them limb to limb.

Used their skin for canvas.

Used their blood for paint.

He said…

He was above all that.

He said…

He was doing me a favour to even ask for my consent.

He stood back up and turned to the door.

Said he’d give me time to think.

But in that moment he turned away his eyes…

… I did the only thing left that I could.

I jumped at him, clawing at his detestable face.

In his panic I was able to grab hold of his throat!

If I was going to die…

I would at least take him down with me!

But before I even realized it…

A young man had entered the cell.

In his hand… was a large axe.

…

…

...

Everything faded from me then.