July sat as quiet as a field mouse, kneeling behind the large redwood tree, as the footsteps continued to approach. She could hear the blades of tall grass rustling and shifting, but the exact direction was unclear. 

Was it a single individual, or multiple perpitrators?

The footsteps were cautious, calculated, and muted. July could sense that they were trained to walk in ghostly silence, but even the highest mastery of stealth could not evade the Summer spirit’s perceptiveness.

The footsteps drew closer.

Balling up and holding her shoulders tight, July grasped at her natural, loose curly hair.

+++++

(11 years ago)

Whenever she was frightened as a child, the freckled girl found her hair comforting; it was the only thing that she liked about herself. The luscious black curls dropped down along the sides of her ears, covering most most of the dots on her cheeks - the part of her that she hated.

‘Now if only my hair could cover the spots on my nose,’ she always thought.

When she was growing up, her poignant freckles would glistened in the sun. Patterns of vivid dots casted across her face, from ear to ear, lined and clustered like the seeds of a fully bloomed sunflower.

Before she became an occultist vessel, her childhood was filled with equal amounts of sorrow. Neighbors would frequently bully the freckled girl, because of her family’s differences. 

She grew up in a small community, that nested on the edge of the farm lands, where people lived miles apart, yet seamlessly found ways to make the world feel small. 

“Oh, look out guys, it’s the dirty gremlin!”

“Watch out, you might catch her spots!”

“Eww!”

“Run- quick- here she comes!”

The boys would always shun her.

The girls would whisper nasty words behind her back.

In a small community, where everyone knew each other, the freckled girl had always felt as nothing more than a stranger her whole life.

Her family was poor and constantly struggling through hardship. While the rest of the community lived moderately with crops of corn and wheat, the freckled girl’s parents lived on land, where the soil would only grow radish and cabbage.

She hated it.

Enduring hot, sweaty afternoons, season after season, digging through the heaps of dirt to pluck out each vegetable for harvest, she began to feel like the cruel taunts from the neighbors were true. She was nothing more than a dirty, poor girl.

As time went on, she quickly began to detest her freckles. They reminded her of the specks of dirt that stuck to each radish and cabbage when she pulled them from the ground.

Her freckles were a constant reminder that she came from poverty.

The dirt would wash off the foraged veggies, but no matter how much she scrubbed her face, she couldn’t rid herself of the sun-kissed spots.

She hated them.

She hated herself.

All she wanted was to leave the small community and go somewhere far away.

-Anywhere, it didn’t matter. As long as she could erase parts of the past.

… or at least, that’s what she thought she wanted…

On a hot Summer day, with the sun high and not a cloud in the sky, the clear blue atmosphere felt as though you could swim in it.

A tall, shrill woman, shrouded in a long, thin veil traversed the winding roads that lead to each family’s house within the community. With each passing minute, more and more families joined the gathering as they observed the mysterious woman’s slow waddle.

“Is she a witch?” One of the families whispered to another, as they gathered at the front of their doors.

“I’ve never seen a woman like that before.”

“Is she even human?”

The families and children shuddered as the tall, veiled woman  got closer.

Shuffling along the pathway, she eventually got within ear-shot of the gathered families, where she stopped, keeping a fair distance between her and the residents.

“Do not be frightened, dear residents of Fraymont Fields, I am but the kindly empress’ maid of the Northern Hemlock.”

The crowd began to slowly lighten up a bit.

“I do seek some gifted individuals amongst the youth in your community.” She continued, “The Hemlock fears that there is a great disturbance coming that will soon plague our lands and our only hope to fight against the darkness may solely lay within the power of some unique individuals.”

The families began to mummer amongst one another at the claims. Gabbing and confused expressions poured over their faces until one strong gentleman stood forward.

“And what do we have to gain from the Northern Hemlock?” The man spat in suspicion.

“Well, anything your heart desires of course.” The veiled woman replied. “However, your children will need to accompany me back to the North- if they are deemed worthy.”

“And how are they chosen to be?” Another parent from the crowd shouted.

“It’s a rather quick process, all I need is just a drop of blood…” The veiled woman answered with a crooked smiled. “So, which child is first?”

The clustered families returned to sporadic chatter, until the short girl with freckles and black curly hair brashly stepped forward.

Kicking up small clouds of the roads dirt with her feet, she bravely inched toward the tall, veiled woman, until they were within an arms-reach of one another.

“Ah, what a bold young girl.” The tall, veiled woman sneered. “I don’t need to know your name, nor your history; I just need to know your blood.”

“My blood.” The freckled girl echoed.

“That’s right, my dear.”

As the girl stood before the tall, veiled woman, the looming presence finally hit her.

At a distance, the veiled woman appeared as an ominous dark statue, that slunk along the road, but up close, the woman displayed as a limbering towering, void of any defining features. 

A purely empty aura came from her shape.

The mesmerizing conjunction between the two was cut like a sharp knife slicing into butter, when a scrappy voice yelled from the crowd.

“That’s the dirt girl!” A boy yelled.

The disturbance caused the veiled woman to immediately focus to the sneering boy.

“She’s useless! She won’t be any help!” Another stuck-up girl joined in.

“Oh, is that so, little ones?” The veiled woman replied amused.

With a flick of her finger, the two children were pulled toward the woman, as if she had reeled them in by a thread.

“Patty!”

“Ryth!”

The parents of the two children cried out.

“Do you think that you would be more worthy?” The veiled woman asked the two interrupting children.

Through the sudden shock, the boy and girl nodded.

“Very well, very well.” The veiled woman smiled. “Let me take a look at your hands.”

Turning the childrens’ palms up, the veiled woman began to methodically trace along the ridges and creases. Hunching her head closer, to examine the tender flesh, the woman brought the hands of the two children into the gaping black veil that now draped like an abysmal cavern archway, swallowing up the out-reaching children.

“You two will make excellent additions.” The veiled woman praised.

Rather relieved than ecstatic, the rude boy and girl looked at one another and cut a sharp, distasteful glare to the small, freckled girl standing off to the side.

“Your turn, my dear.” The veiled woman turned her amonous silhouette towards the freckled girl.

“Not her miss; she won’t be of any help, unless there’s a turnip field up North.” The other girl cooed.

“She’s just a piece of trash.” The boy added.

The veiled woman paused for a second, allowing the snide remarks to float in the air for a moment, before she shifted her limbering figure to usher the freckled girl forward.

“As I said… your turn, my dear.” The veiled woman’s voice now noticeably more stricken.

+++++

(Present)

That was 11 years ago…

For the past 11 years, she was known as, ‘July’.

It had been so long and the years flew by, she began to forget what her original birth-name was. All she knew was the cold isolation of avoidance and rejection. Whether it was during the sweltering heat in her community, or in the lonely cell in the bottom dungeon of the Northern Manor, nothing seemingly changed for July.

“Are you certain?” She would routinely ask Miss Fortune. 

During the first years, when she flocked to Miss Fortune’s offer, the question on her mind was always why she had earned the prestigious title of ‘July’: ‘the Summer season star’. 

July questioned how she was able to wield the unwavering heat that the select Summer sorcerers had before her.

Perhaps it was a joke; a humorous mistake.

Surely the torment didn’t end with her childhood.

Even far off, away from the rotten community that she grew up in, she was still that dirty radish girl.

She always wanted to be something else in life. Thirsting for all the power in the world, and if that wouldn’t suffice, then just the menial life of another normal girl, but even that much was denied from her. She hated it all.

All July wanted was to be powerful- to be admired- to be loved.

Now, a taste of seething bitterness began to fester within her and it became clear to her.

Above all else, she wanted to be feared.

No more was the timid, weak girl; July dug deep within her very being and killed that piece of her.

After 6 years of suffering and 11 years of imprisonment, July manifested a current of vapid rage.

. . . 

So as the footsteps approached her and elevated into a voluminous stomping; crunching the ground that led to the large redwood tree that she hid behind, July channeled her aura with the fury that resided within her. Pulling the aura through the strings of her nerves, she started to ignite the palms of her hands.

Smoke fumed and darken ash started to petrify her tender flesh.

It hurt.

But, not as much as she would hurt them.

No longer would she hang her head in shame.

She would face the world and all of its fire;

hold herself to the sun,

just like a sunflower.