Winslet waited by the door. Eyes fixated on a horizon as cold and distant as her past. The sky, a bleached canvas of winter clouds, promised nothing. The news anchors would need to correct their forecast as it was anything but a sunny, clear day for the people of Hallows Grove.

A pair of small lights out in the distance, growing more significant as a car drove up and around the bend. Out from the driver’s seat was Virgil, alone, covered in dark crimson that dried near to a blackness that coated himself from head to toe.

“Morning, Merry Christmas,” Winslet offered.

“Madam…”

“Virgil, you need to tell that woman to get off my case, or I will string her up in the main hall naked for all to see.”

“I doubt that would change her tune. Grandmother is a difficult person. Everyone knows this.”

“I commend you, you know that. To call her that so freely, despite her having no love for you.”

“She shows it in the most strangest of ways. I am still her flesh and blood. And if she were as cold as you think she is, you, too, wouldn’t have spent hours arguing about whether I was heading out last night or not, Madam.”

Winslet nearly raised her nose in the air to purposely lower her gaze towards Virgil for his tone to slip so casual and forget his place. She passed it off before giving him a few words to remind him. 

“Let’s not talk about Antionette any further. Change if you must. I need you to take me somewhere.”

“Certainly, Madam.”

Holding her head low, Winslet took to getting to her knees this time. She found that when her anger boils over, and no one listens to her, pure silence offers the best escape, no matter what walls she finds herself surrounded by.

Winslet once upon a time found herself in IronStone. She had been diagnosed with a split personality. Clinically speaking, they were not wrong. However, they understood very little of what truly went on in her head. 

Voices. 

Several, in fact, all of herself and not at the same time. 

This was not always the case, yet if she had to point to a time when there was just one, it would be nearly impossible, as if plucking a dream from memory amongst a sea of them years past. 

These voices were fragments of her past lives, each one a shard of a fractured mirror—reflecting, yet distorting. Neverharmonizing, always competing. One voice would rise, sharp and demanding, only to be submerged by another, like whispers fighting beneath turbulent waters.

One voice in particular was so loud that Winslet cursed herself for listening. It was the voice that convinced her that she was insane. Another voice soon came, timid and scared, concerned for the others who spoke to her to seek help. How that help came about landed her in IronStone. It was the next voice that spoke to Reggie Winters, who had come one day to pay his uncle a visit.

That voice stayed longer than the others—still lingering and still louder than the rest. This voice was good at many things, listening being one of them, as it listened to the other voices still. It was listening for a scurrying rat along a floor that hissed before fleeing to cover.

It wasn’t long before the doors of the church opened, and a woman with long black raven hair stepped forth. She strolled down the aisle, eyes gazing upon the empty cathedral. Her pace slowed as she found a seat amongst the many free benches, her row seating only one other across the aisle. 

“You were always good at running and hiding, Diora.”

Diora Duchamp. The Witch of Plagues. One of the first four witches to ever exist, who survived more deaths than any. 

Plagues. They did not simply exist; they were existence itself, transforming but never truly dying. Coming and going until another does the same. Replacing the old and becoming a new burden that all must deal with. 

“Your words are ever so kind yet disdainful,” Winslet offered. “Just how I remember you. Please, the name is Winslet now, Lilith.”

Lilith did not care for the rules. She was the Witch of Thorns. Come to her, you come to play. Come to her. You come for pain. Deeply rooted in herself, she was a prickled thing that did not like others in the slightest. The Witch of Ash was the first to learn this lesson. 

“Diora…”

Neither of the two women bothered to share an eye in the other’s direction—their gazes upward and to the front. Silence fills the condemned of what is to be and shall be. 

“Apologies for disturbing your slumber, Lilith. It’s just that when Alicent was birthed into this world—”

“Spare me,” Lilith interrupted, her voice a blade barely sheathed.

“…I,” Winslet continued hesitantly. Finding the words and speaking them was like stepping on broken glass barefoot. “She…killed my child. I understand now the sorrow. The pain and the love. All those years back—I am sorry. It was not my place to enforce the rules like that.”

“Not your place? Hmm, how curious. So what now? For you, was it all nothing more than an experiment to put yourself in my shoes? It was not a game for me. You cursed my only blood. Our kind don’t get chances like that. I gave up everything. You understand that now, as little and powerless as you’ve become. Do you take me for a dog? Bark for you, sit when you tell me?! Speak to me as your bloody equal.” 

She paused only momentarily before pressing her hand into her bosom. “And this! Me! How many children? Did you know their names? How many parents are now parentless?”

“…” A tear streamed down Winslet’s cheek. She could not find the words to supply as she prepared herself to add another voice. Her sanity was already fractured, strung along like a toy to dangle in front of her.

“Nothing, eh? So, I suppose no final words, then? Fine.”

“Wait. What I want to say is that you had a second chance. I saw your granddaughter. She looks just like you and her. You, you must be very proud. What is her—their names?”

“Mmm-hmm… Sirius… Rose…”

“Look, I know I cannot ask forgiveness, but that was clever. No normal vampire could have turned her. To fight a curse with an ever greater one—what I am saying is I am sorry and jealous. I could never have thought such emotions were possible if not for what I had experienced. So, no, it was not an experiment.”

Lilith’s scowl, unperturbed, curled her lips in disgust. 

“His name, what was the boy’s name?”

“Luca… He was far kinder and more beautiful than I could ever be. Such a kind soul.”

“I suppose you shall get to see Luca very soon. The father?”

“Mhmmm…”

The minimal sound left Lilith putting two and two together. She had an apparent picture now.

“Close your eyes. And keep your head down. I will make it quick. And in the next life. Over and Over, I shall find you and kill you. You won’t recall that last, which is a pity, given I want you to feel it. The pain. The suffering. Alicent screamed while begging. I almost forgot how good the feeling was.”

Of all the witches amongst the Covenant, The Witch of Thorns had killed more of her own kind than any other. She was a thorn, after all—the Grimm Reaper—the last of the first four to ever witches ever to exist. 

For titles are not bestowed and granted. They are etched in the very fabric of the entity that harbors their name. Come to her, you come to play. Come to her, you come for pain. No witch survived that that knows her name, except for one.

“Any last words, love?”

“◼️◼️◼️◼️” Winslet’s lips moved. But what came out were words that none could speak nor hear but those of the covenant. What they translated into was, “Thank you.”

“…” Lilith’s hand raised, hovering just above Winslet’s lowered head. Tears dried as she prepared herself both in mind and spirit for her punishment. Several ways of ending had crossed her mind. The one that brought with it the most pain stood out like a velvet dessert on display in a sea of vanilla flavors. Her fingers gently combed through the woman’s hair. “It seems your suffering now more than suffices. Diora Duchamp is dead anyway. Not much of a praying girl myself, but Winslet… Pray that I am in the best of moods should our paths cross again. Now, if you will excuse me, I have my granddaughter to look after. She is probably balling her eyes out right now.”

The breath Winslet held released. She had thought it would be centuries worth of torture boiled down in the mere seconds that would be her death. The thought of another voice joining the already fractured temperament she held flooded her mind. Tears streamed down her cheeks as if choking on the air itself to understand her newfound circumstances. 

Her gaze towards the altar, the preaching of lessons of atonement and forgiveness long forgotten, resurfacing from a time the very first voice spoke of.

“Look Ronnie, it seems I can keep that promise of mine to protect you. I guess I can get a second chance, too.”