Sneak Peek of The
Witches of Fablecastle
A Fablecastle Prequel
Preface
Threads Begin
Before language, there was sound.
Before fire, there was memory.
The world did not arrive all at once. It gathered itself slowly,
through small acts repeated often enough to matter. Names spoken into the dark.
Hands pressed to the earth to feel whether it would answer. Women carrying what
could not be written, and passing it on anyway.
Nothing was ever created alone.
What endured did so because it was remembered, and what was
forgotten did not always disappear. Sometimes it simply waited.
The Loom listened.
It did not speak. It did not command. It received. Every choice,
every refusal, every moment when a hand reached out or drew back again, became
part of its quiet accounting. Sorrow braided with grace. Truth entangled with
consequence. Threads crossed, broke, rejoined, or frayed beyond recognition.
Some stories ended where they began. Others were interrupted and
left unfinished, their weight carried forward by those who did not yet know
they were bearing it.
A hum moved through the world, persistent and low, heard only by
those who did not mistake silence for absence. It guided children who listened
differently. It lingered with women who learned to recognize patterns where
others saw coincidence. It followed those who carried memory not as a burden,
but as a responsibility.
One such girl learned to walk by listening.
She did not begin with power. She began with attention. With the
understanding that not everything that was answered wanted to be followed, and
not everything that remained quiet was inert. The Loom responded not to force,
but to care, and the path she walked was shaped as much by restraint as by
courage.
The story did not end with her.
It moved outward, into rooms where agreements were made and
forgotten, into mirrors that learned too well how to listen, into hands that
tried to hold what should have been shared. Some threads were pulled too
tightly. Others were abandoned and left to unravel.
The world does not heal quickly.
It heals by increments. By names spoken again. By truths handled
carefully. By remembering that containment is not the same as erasure, and that
vigilance is not the same as control.
What was broken is not always lost.
Some threads persist.
They wait.
Chapter
One
Dream
of Bees
The
smell came first. Always the smell.
Sweet,
cloying, almost syrupy, thick, like candied violets forgotten in a jar, their
sugar crystallized to something between medicine and memory. It slid under
Holly's eyelids with the persistence of old grief, turning her sleep inside
out, the way a glove turns to reveal its seams.
Bees
hummed in the air, hundreds, maybe thousands, their bodies like wet amber
catching light that had no source. They needled between black velvet cosmos,
her mother's flowers, the ones Margery had planted in the spring before
everything changed. The blooms nodded, their perfume sugary sweet, the kind of
sweetness that made teeth ache.
A
cottage waited in white, hot light. The walls breathed like living things,
expanding and contracting with a rhythm that matched no mortal lungs. Herbs
spilled from every windowsill, pineapple mint spreading its variegated leaves,
lemon balm releasing its citrus scent with every shift of dream, wind, and
sweet woodruff weaving between the others like a child's daisy chain. The air
smelled like a pocket full of stolen sweets, like honey drops and licorice
root, and the dark, dangerous edge of something lurking beneath.
The
door stood open. Not inviting, demanding.
On
the bed that belonged to Margery, a bed Holly had never seen before, Margery
herself lay, pale as the moon, her eyes closed in the stillness of those caught
between worlds. Her hair spread across the pillow like spun gold, each strand
catching light that seemed out of place in this realm of sleep.
A
girl knelt at Margery's bedside. She appeared to be ten or eleven, at that
difficult age when magic runs wild before the world teaches it to hide, and if
a woman, hide it must. Holly saw her own face in the child's, a face before
ruin, before the knowledge of loss, before the memory of burning hair became an
indelible stain in her dreams. The girl's hands pressed gently against
Margery's chest, and wherever she touched, small flowers bloomed, withered,
died, and bloomed again in an endless cycle.
The
bees stopped.
The
silence hit like a physical blow, the kind that makes ears ring. Every flower
turned its face away. The cottage walls contracted once, hard, like a heart
remembering how to beat after drowning.
Margery's
eyes snapped open. Not the gentle brown Holly remembered, but smoke, gray, the
color of morning after a bonfire. The words that came weren't spoken; they
shaped themselves from the air itself. They tasted like blood on Holly's dream,
tongue.
You
can't undo what has been done. But you can hear what others cannot.
The
child's voice, Holly's younger self, spoke for the first time in the dream.
"Hear what?"
Margery's
smoke, gray eyes fixed on her with an intensity that made the dream air
shimmer. The third thread, Holly. You carry the third thread. When the
time comes, you'll know the way.
"The
way where?"
But
Margery's form was already dissolving into violet colored smoke. The child, the
Holly, before, lifted her small hands from Margery's chest. Where she'd
touched, a mark remained. The outline of a bee with its wings spread. But
beneath it, something else, a pattern like woven threads, luminous and pulsing.
The
child's mouth opened, and out poured not words but smog, thick and violet,
scented, the kind that clings to hair and clothes.
Holly
woke with violets on her tongue and the ghost buzz of bees trapped in her ears.
Her heart hammered its own frantic rhythm against her ribs. The room came back
in pieces: the rough wool blanket, the creak of settling wood, Aunt Carroll's
snoring from the next room like an anchor to the waking world. Holly's left
palm tingled, an odd, insistent sensation that felt nothing like the ordinary pins
and needles of a limb that had fallen asleep. It was deeper, almost electric,
as if tiny threads of energy were weaving a pattern just beneath her skin. She
flipped her hand over and examined her palm in the moonlight spilling across
her bed. The silvery glow revealed nothing, no marks, no discoloration, nothing
to betray the strange current pulsing from her flesh.
But
the feeling intensified. It wasn't just in her hand now; the hum vibrated
through her bones, low and resonant, like sensing thunder in the air before the
storm itself arrived. The room, quiet a moment before, seemed charged with
invisible static. Holly closed her eyes, and the memory surfaced. Carroll's
quiet words about the Loom and the ancient power passed down to those it
chooses.
Her
thoughts snagged on her recent dream and the cryptic reference to “the third
thread.” It echoed in her mind, merging with the memory of Carroll’s tales.
Holly suddenly wondered if she was the thread they both spoke of, if she was
woven into something larger than she’d ever understood.
Desperate
to quiet the relentless humming that now seemed to thrum through every nerve,
Holly pressed her tingling palm against the wooden bedframe. The cool, solid
wood grounded her for a heartbeat, but the sensation refused to fade. The
vibration lingered, persistent and unyielding, as if whatever force had
awakened in her would not be silenced by mere touch.
She
reached beneath her pillow for the cloth pouch containing lavender for peace,
rosemary for remembrance, and rue for protection from one's own dreams. Holly
pressed the pouch between her palms. The herbs released their oils through the
worn linen, and she breathed deep, counting one for earth, two for air, three
for fire, four for water, five for spirit, and six for the space between
sleeping and waking where true things hide.
Sleep
would not come back. It never did after the bee dreams.
In
the kitchen, darkness still pressed against the windows. Holly moved by touch
and memory from her room, down the narrow wooden stairs, where she took three
steps to the hearth, and two to the shelf where the flint lived. She struck
sparks into the waiting tinder, watching the small flame take form. The sage
wand waited on its iron hook, patient as always. She kissed it to the flame and
sent the smoke on its rounds. Door first, for those who would enter; windows
next, for those who would watch; lintel last, for the house itself to remember
its purpose as a sanctuary. The smoke lingered and transformed into odd shapes.
Holly could see the outline of a woman's face, a tower, and a winged bird.
Suddenly, she glimpsed opalescent streets, witches with glowing hands, and
unique buildings, none of which had crosses. The vision faded as quickly as it
came, and the tingle in her hand thankfully began to fade.
Protection
was as ordinary as bread here. As necessary, too.
Overhead,
herbs dangled from the exposed beams like small green saints awaiting their
particular martyrdoms. Hyssop and turmeric for bruises. Ginger for nausea,
whether from bad meat or bad news. Cornflower for sight when the world grew too
murky to navigate. Hibiscus for the mind's still water when thoughts churned
like a stormy sea.
"Infusion,
not tea," she murmured, pulling down the cornflower and hibiscus with
practiced hands. The words were ritual, an anchor, a way to keep the dream from
following her into the day. "To be a tea, it needs tea leaves. This is
medicine. This is the intention."
She
lit a beeswax candle, because the irony helped sometimes, and set water to heat
in the copper kettle that had been her grandmother's, and her grandmother's
before that. The mortar and pestle waited on the worn wooden counter, their
stone surfaces polished smooth by generations of healing hands. She added the
dried petals. Three pinches of cornflower for clarity, two of hibiscus for
calm, and one of calendula, because Margery had always added it, saying it
brought the sun into dark places.
The
grinding was meditation. Circle and press, circle and press, the rhythm as old
as the first woman who learned that plants could be convinced to share their
secrets. The petals released their color reluctantly, blue bleeding into red,
red softening to purple, purple deepening to something that had no name in
daylight.
Carroll's
warning lived in the beams as steady as soot, worked into the wood itself. Never
call it a spell. Intention keeps you alive. Spell gets you burned. The
water sang its readiness. Holly poured it over the crushed petals and watched
the color bloom like smoke in reverse. She covered the cup with a saucer.
Carroll had been specific about that, too. What's good will flee with
the steam if you let it. Keep your medicine close and your secrets closer.
While
the infusion steeped, Holly opened the door a crack. Dawn hadn't yet decided to
arrive, but the air had that particular quality of thinning darkness that meant
morning was gathering its courage somewhere beyond the mountains. The valley
spread below their cottage like a cupped palm, holding the village of
Grindlehorn the way you'd hold water you were afraid to spill.
The
bell tower stood black against the graying sky. As she watched, it stirred to
life.
One
note. Clear and bronze, cutting through the pre-dawn quiet like a blade through
silk.
A
second note. Higher, urgent.
A
third. And then silence.
Three
notes at first light. Holly's hand tightened on the doorframe until her
knuckles went white. In their valley, in this careful place where even the
stones knew to keep their mouths shut about what they'd seen, three notes at
first light meant only two things: a birth that needed witnessing, or a warning
that needed heeding.
Holly
closed the door softly, though her instincts screamed to bar it. She returned
to her infusion and lifted the saucer. Steam rose like a prayer, carrying the
sweet scent of healing and sight. She drank it hot enough to scald, because
sometimes pain was its own kind of clarity.
"Aunt
Carroll," she called, moving to the narrow stairs. "The bell."
A
grunt from above, then the creak of a bed taking weight. "Heard it. Get
the bag."
The
midwife's satchel hung by the door, always ready. Holly checked its contents by
feel. Clean linens, silver scissors blessed under a full moon, thread made from
nettle and sinew, the small vial of poppy tincture for when pain grew teeth,
ground birthwort for bleeding that wouldn't stop, and angelica root for babies
who forgot to breathe. Her hands moved through the inventory while her mind
catalogued a different set of preparations. The knife in her boot, the salt in
her pocket, and the words that could make a man's tongue swell if spoken with
enough intent.
Carroll
descended the stairs like controlled thunder, already dressed in her brown wool
and stained apron. Age had bent her but never broken her; she moved like a
willow branch that always snapped back. Her gray hair was already bound and
covered, her face set in the expression she wore to birthing’s and dying’s
alike. Competent, calm, and completely unimpressed by whatever drama the
universe had planned.
"Dreams
again?" she asked, eyeing Holly with the particular sharpness reserved for
apprentices who thought they could hide things.
"Bees,"
Holly admitted. There was no point lying to Aunt Carroll. The old woman could
smell deception the way others smelled bread baking.
Carroll's
expression shifted, just a fraction. "Margery?"
"Yes."
"Hm."
Carroll collected her own tools. The bone needles for difficult stitching, the
special tea that could slow a birth or speed it up depending on how you sang to
it, and the small mirror that showed truth when held at the right angle. "Could
be the Widow Henshaw. She's been heavy as a millstone these past weeks."
But
they both knew the bell's three notes had a different quality this morning. Not
the bright brass celebration of new life, but something older, darker. A
warning bell had rust in its voice, experience in its tone. This morning's
notes had tasted of iron and old fear.
They
wrapped their cloaks tight and stepped into the pre-dawn light. The path down
to the village was treacherous in the darkness. Roots that grabbed, stones that
shifted, the occasional badger hole that could snap an ankle and leave you
crawling. But Holly and Carroll knew every step, every risk. Their feet found
the safe places by memory.
The
village of Grindlehorn huddled in the valley like a secret told too many times.
Smoke was just beginning to rise from chimneys, bakers first, always, then the
smithy, then the houses where babies or worry had kept folks wakeful. The bell
tower stood at the village heart, its shadow reaching toward them like a finger
of accusation.
"There," Carroll said, and Holly saw
it too. A cluster of lanterns moving through the streets like fireflies with
purpose. Not toward the Widow Henshaw's cottage with its blue door and
threshold worn smooth by worried feet. Not toward any of the houses where birth
or death might reasonably visit, but toward the market square. Toward the stone
platform that served for announcements, celebrations, and, when the world
turned its cruel face, other things.
They
quickened their pace, though Carroll's hip protested with each jarring step.
Other figures emerged from doorways. Goodwife Muller with her seven children
trailing like ducklings, the baker Gottfried still dusted with flour, and young
Wilhelm, who'd lost his tongue to a witch hunter's knife three summers past.
The crowd grew as they walked, pulled by the same gravity of dread.
The
provost stood on the platform, still in his nightrobe, though he'd taken time
to put on his chain of office. The gold links caught the lantern light and
threw it back broken. Beside him, a figure Holly didn't recognize. A man in
traveling clothes, mud splattered. A messenger.
"Good
people of Grindlehorn," the provost began, and his voice had that
particular quality of a man about to deliver news he wished he didn't know.
"I have received word from the capital."
The
crowd drew breath as one creature. Holly felt Carroll's hand find hers, those
old fingers still strong as a root.
"The
Witchfinder General has announced a new campaign. He rides north with Lord Aldric Owen, the
Scottish witch-hunter who wrote Natural Philosophy and the Detecting of
Unnatural Practice. They say Lord Owen has methods the General himself
fears to use. They will arrive within the week to conduct..." he paused,
swallowed, "a thorough examination of our district."
The
words fell like stones into still water. Holly watched the ripples spread, a
mother pulling her daughter closer, an herbalist she knew crossing herself, the
baker's wife touching the hidden charm at her throat.
"Furthermore,"
the provost continued, and now his voice grew even more careful, "all
persons engaged in the preparation of tinctures, potions, or remedies must
register their practice with the authorities upon their arrival. All midwives must
present their credentials. All who claim knowledge of herbs beyond common
kitchen use must demonstrate their learning comes from approved sources."
Approved
sources. Holly's
mind translated. Church, sanctioned, male, authored, Latin, scripted. Nothing
passed woman to woman, nothing whispered over birthing beds, nothing learned
from the plants themselves in the quiet spaces where green things told their
secrets.
"Any
found practicing without proper registration," the provost's voice had
gone flat now, reading directly from the proclamation, "will be subject to
examination by ordeal. Any found guilty of unsanctioned practice will face the
prescribed penalties."
He
didn't need to say what those penalties were. The last burning had been two
valleys over, but smoke travels far and memory farther.
The
messenger stepped forward. Young, Holly noticed, barely old enough to grow a
beard. But his eyes were older, the kind that had seen too much and decided to
stop seeing. "The Witchfinder General specifically requests," he
said, voice cracking slightly on the word, "that all communities prepare a
list of unusual occurrences. Unexplained illnesses. Failed crops. Women who
live alone. Those who talk to animals. Children born with marks.” The messenger
cleared his throat, pulling a second scroll from his satchel. His hands
trembled slightly as he unrolled it. "There is... one additional matter.
Lord Owen has provided a list of persons of particular interest. Those
suspected of possessing knowledge of what he terms the 'Old Ways.'"
He
began to read names. Most of the women Holly didn't recognize, women from other
valleys, other villages. But then:
"Margery
McCool, deceased by lawful execution seven years past." The words hit
Holly like a fist. "Her sister, Carroll McCool, is currently residing in
Grindlehorn." Carroll's hand tightened on Holly's until bone ground
against bone. "And her daughter, Holly McCool, approximately eighteen
years of age. Brown hair, green eyes. Known to assist in midwifery and the
preparation of herbal remedies."
The
square went utterly silent. Every head turned toward them.
The
messenger continued, his voice barely above a whisper now. "Lord Owen
notes that Margery McCool displayed signs of what he terms 'Loom Affinity', an
unnatural connection to forces beyond Christian understanding. He has reason to
believe this trait passes through bloodlines. Any descendants are to be brought
for examination upon his arrival."
"Loom
Affinity?" someone in the crowd muttered. "What manner of devilry is
that?"
"Witchcraft
by another name," the provost said quickly, nervously. "The point
stands clear: Lord Owen has a particular interest in the McCool women."
Goodwife
Muller, still clutching her youngest, took a deliberate step away from Holly
and Carroll. Others followed suit, creating a widening circle of empty space
around them, as if fear itself had a radius.
A
sound rippled through the crowd, not quite a gasp, not quite a moan. The noise
a rabbit makes when the fox's teeth find its throat.
"We
are good Christian folk here," Goodwife Muller said loudly, clutching her
youngest to her hip. “We do not engage in such
matters.”
But
her eyes found Holly's, and in them was the memory of last winter when her baby
wouldn't turn, when Carroll's hands and Holly's herbs were the only things
standing between her and a bloody death. The look lasted a heartbeat. Then she
turned away.
Others
were doing the same. The subtle shift of a community deciding who was us and
who was them. Who was safe, and who might need to be sacrificed to keep the
rest safe? Holly had seen it before, in the village of her childhood, in the
days before the smoke.
"One
week," the provost repeated. "Use it wisely."
The
crowd began to disperse, but slowly, like honey in cold weather. Some lingered
to ask questions. Like what kind of credentials, which approved sources, and
how thorough an examination? Others hurried away to begin their own
preparations, which involved hiding or burning or bargaining with themselves
about what they couldn’t live without.
Carroll's hand was still in Holly's, and now
the old woman tugged gently. "Come. We have work to do."
They
walked back through the brightening streets. Dawn had finally made up its mind
to arrive, painting the sky the pale yellow of chamomile tea. Birds began their
morning arguments. The world looked exactly as it had yesterday, except for the
way everything had changed.
