- Listen, Greg, where did you dig this guy from? He seems to be… He seems a bit dodgy.
- Chill down, Gabe. Dion is a friend of mine.
Three figures are making their way through secluded, covered in a wild growth area. Silence of the autumn night corrupted by the sound of their steps and rustling leaves. Dry coldness creeping in, reaching to their souls.
- A new friend, huh? - Gabriel gave his friend an annoyed look - Who goes around by the name Dion Fortune, anyway…
- Chill down. I’m telling you he’s a cool guy, no need to be so judgemental... - Greg frowned - Or you’re just too scared to be here?
- What!? No, I’m not scared!.. It’s just…
- What are you two whispering about out there? - the leading figure inquired to the members of the party lagging behind.
Greg gave Gabriel a sly eye:
- Gabe just wants to know her story. Tell him what you told me back then at the party.
.- ..the party? - Gabriel was caught by surprise.
He looked at his friend with reproach and only the pale-blue light of a full moon could hide a blush that appeared on Gregory’s face. It wasn’t a spoken out-loud rule, yet still an expected part of their relationships at this point to have no secrets from each other. Yet that party was a secret one. Greg averted his eyes.
- Lucile Dowton, the Witch Girl - Dion intervened.
His pale, almost grey-skinned face stood out from the dark as a disembodied motionless mask. His long hair, pretentiously dyed jet-black, looked especially fake and unfittingly cheap, partially covering an extensive ugly scar crossing his left eye. Despite distinct features of his appearance Dion Fortune still looked rather on the young side. He stood on a small elevation facing Greg and Gabriel holding an old-fashioned kerosine lamp high over his head.
- The girl from the tombstone… - realisation crossed Gabe’s mind.
Asymmetric grin distorted Dion’s thin lifeless lips. A flicker of gold appeared between them as the light of the lantern reflected in a mirror of a golden tooth, a habit of licking which occasionally was only adding to Dion’s character.
- Yeah. - he turned around and renewed the walk - The bitch lived around these places...
- The bi… - Gabriel interrupted him - I’m sorry, did you want to say “a witch”?
Dion stopped, turned around and looked at the interruptor with something that one may consider a warning.
- Yeah. The bitch was a witch.
He turned back and continued:
- She lived here 100 years ago when the town was still a small village.
- What. Precisely one hundred years ago… - Gabriel couldn't contain his scepticism and antipathy.
Dion only glared back at him over his shoulder and continued:
- Yeah. People say a local priest seduced her one day, when she came for a confession. And since they've sinned and didn’t want to quit... you know... doing the thing, they decided to succumb to the Devil.
So she became a witch. In the basement of her home she was summoning demons and sending them to hurt other villagers in exchange for… - Dion gestured by raising the open palm of the free hand upward - ...the power.
- … and the priest... - Greg couldn’t contain the excitement from spilling out his favourite bit of the story - … had been coming to her every night retelling the confessions he heard from the villagers, so that her demons could feed on their sins.
- A girl turning a witch… A priest… - Gabriel exhaled and stopped in place. - I know this story. I’ve read about it. And this is not what happened there.
Dion turned around.
- Greg, I didn’t ask you to bring a friend along… - he finally looked pissed out.
- A friend? - Gregory was embarrassed by Dion’s rudeness, yet confused by the situation.
- He’s not a friend! - he fired out suddenly - he’s… we are...
Dion looked at the two and quickly put two and two together. A pitifull smirk twitched the stripps of his lips. He seemed slightly amused , yet not completely surprised, by this discovery.
- Well that’s enough for me! - Gabriel outraged - Can’t you see this guy is full of shit. And his story is a complete BS. Let’s just go home.
Now, under the light of the lantern Greg’s face was flushed with red. He didn’t respond.
- Hey! - Dion couldn’t let the offence made by Gabriel just slide - Pretty boy. Then tell us YOUR version of the story.
- MY version?! - Gabe was enraged and almost wanted to just leave, but the thought of leaving Gregory all alone with this freak made him feel sick.
- It was the father, a widowed farmer, who raped the girl. But before she went insane because of it she confessed to the priest. Every evening he was coming to their house asking the father to repent his sin, but it only resulted in the father locking the girl up in the basement out of fear she would tell anyone else. Since people already saw her acting weird prior, and now, to cover up her disappearance he made up a story about the priest turning her toward the Devil, blaming him for his own sin, telling, he had to lock his daughter up to protect her from the priest's conjurings. Simple people took this story and twisted it in all directions, as they usually do, and it didn’t take a lot of time before in every bad happening, from miscarriages in their homestock to dry skin, people began to blame “the Witch”. Eventually it escalated, turned into a mass hysteria, and...
- And what happened then? - Greg was anxious to hear the rest of the story
- Then, one evening they ganged up, broke into the farmer’s house, dragged her outside…
- And?
- And…
- They burned her alive! - Dion finished for Gabriel. He took a couple steps forward and moved a couple a bush branches away revealing a large opening behind.
- Greggs eyes widened out of excitement.
- Are we at the place?!
Dion swung the lantern in a welcoming gesture while keeping a stern look at Gabriel. His golden tooth flickered in the dark.
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