The Fablecastle Chronicles by Trina Spillman #MagicalRealism

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.

The Fablecastle Chronicles

Trina Spillman

Genre: Magical Realism

Publisher: Trina Spillman

ISBN: 9798649138604

ASIN:B08956JDBP

Number of pages: 252

Word Count: 47,500

Cover Artist: BrainyGeeks

Tagline: How do you report the truth when the truth could end everything?

Book Description:

Maggie McCullough is a star reporter for the Daily Mirror. In her monthly column, Setting the Record Straight, she revealed the truth behind the fables you may remember from your childhood. Those interviews brought her to the attention of someone in another dimension, someone claiming to be Lucifer. 

Join Maggie and Andrew Wolfgang, her boyfriend and quasi bodyguard, as they travel to Earth and hopscotch across this strange dimension, in pursuit of a story that explains the truth behind Lucifer’s origins, the mutation he unleashed on Earth’s inhabitants, what really happened to the ark following the great flood, and why pyramids dot the planet. 

Can Maggie write her earth-shattering article and escape Earth before all hell breaks loose?

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Watch the Book Trailer

Excerpt:

Maggie and Andrew approached the bar and were relieved they had arrived twenty minutes early. That is, until an attendant approached Maggie and said, “Good evening, Miss McCullough. If you would follow me, I will lead you to your private cabana. Your guest has already arrived and is waiting for you.” Maggie held up her finger and said, “I’ll be right with you.” “Certainly, take all the time you need.” The man moved to the end of the bar and waited discreetly. Maggie grabbed Andrew’s elbow and dragged him to the opposite corner of the bar. She was a little frazzled. “I am not going into a closed tent without you being able to watch me, especially since I have no idea who I’m supposed to be interviewing.” “Tell the waiter you are claustrophobic, and you need one of the side flaps on the cabana removed. That way I can keep an eye on you during the interview.” “Perfect.” Maggie summoned the waiter and explained what she needed. He seemed irritated but, without a word, walked to the cabana and unzipped the side flap, revealing an attractive man of medium build with a head of thick auburn hair lit with natural highlights of red and blond. Hair color to die for, Maggie thought. She squeezed Andrew’s elbow and whispered, “Here goes nothing.”

Andrew didn’t want her interviewee to be alerted to his presence, so keeping a respectable but short distance from Maggie, he nonchalantly whispered, “You’ll do great.” Maggie followed the attendant to the cabana where the man was sitting. He stood as she approached and held her chair out for her. She thanked him and sat. Turning toward the waiter, the stranger authoritatively commanded, “Bring the 1869 Chateau Lafite.” “Very good, sir. Will there be anything else?” “No,” he said dismissively. The waiter left. The man sitting across from Maggie said, “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Lucifer, but you can call me Luc.”

“Pleased to meet you.” Maggie extended her hand. The man sitting across from her looked at it with disgust. She slowly withdrew her hand and placed it in her lap. A palpable energy radiated from him and made her skin crawl. Maggie quickly drew a protection spell in her notebook and was relieved when the unsettling sensation abated. Luc addressed Maggie. “There are a few ground rules that will need to be established before we commence.” Maggie said, “Absolutely. Please, continue.” “First, don’t speak unless spoken to. Secondly, there is a lot of information to cover and I will tell you what is important and what isn’t. Lastly, don’t be irritating. Keep your questions relevant and we will get along swimmingly.” What a dick, Maggie thought, but bit her tongue since she was positive such a comment would undoubtedly irritate him. “Duly noted.” “You may proceed and ask your first question.” Maggie jumped right in and asked, “What story do you want to set straight?” Luc chuckled. “I am not the figure humans have made me out to be and I would like to tell my side of the story.”

 

 

 

About the Author:

Trina Spillman, who also writes under the pen name Selene Greenleaf, crafts both practical witchcraft guides and immersive works of fiction that span romance, magical realism, and contemporary thrillers. Splitting her creative life between Colorado’s mountain landscapes and a growing library of story ideas, she blends current events, folklore, plant magic, and real-world rituals to invite readers into transformative experiences. Under Selene Greenleaf, she’s the author of Witchcraft Essentials: A Modern-Day Guide to Spells, Herbs, and Crystals; Cupid's Craft: Love Spells for Valentine's Day; and her forthcoming Plant Magic Encyclopedia: Rituals & Remedies, resources designed to help modern practitioners weave intention and botanical wisdom into everyday life. 

Writing as Trina Spillman, she’s best known for her engaging fairy tale retellings. Upcoming projects include: 

A New Dawn — a gripping political thriller of power, ethics, and love, to be released by The Wild Rose Press 

Collateral Justice — the powerful sequel to A New Dawn, where a hidden alliance of the world’s elite blurs the line between justice and vengeance. 

The Witches of Fablecastle— When a witch hunter’s mirror exposes her forbidden magic, Holly McCool flees through a portal to Fablecastle, only to learn she’s the one destined to stop him from tearing both worlds apart. 

The Quantum Hitchhiker’s Guide to Escaping the Matrix — a witty, mind-bending manual on how to hack reality, rewrite your personal code, and manifest with humor, consciousness, and a touch of modern witchcraft.  

Whether she’s exploring the ethics of power in a thriller or sharing herbal recipes for daily rituals, Trina/Selene’s work reflects her unwavering belief in the healing and transformative power of words. 

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