The Blood of Old Souls
Part V: Opal
*Trigger Warning: This is a tale that involves the fantasizing of witches and has an eerie kinship to Hansel & Gretel. Obnoxious, heinous, and ill-willed things are done to children involving spells. Please do not read if you think you should not.
She presses the steamy pot into a hole in the ground outside her log cabin. There are canned tongues, eyeballs, and lips curing inside. Opal has been waiting for this day to come.
The Day of the Big Feast.
Her goal is to devour ten children in less than three days.
She fasted all Winter, storing up more than enough fat in Autumn to be able to excel accordingly for this challenge. Hazel, her nemesis, is the only witch in Gutter Way who has eaten nine children in two days. Opal knows that in order to be Top Witch, she must beat Hazel. In the pot is a blend of lizard toenails, butterfly wings, owl eyes, vinegar, seaweed, bear jawbones, water, and wasabi. Not only will she beat Hazel this year, she will beat her for years to come.
Or so, she thinks…
Opal summons the forces of the ancestors before her, casting a spell that only she could reverse. Her intent? Poison Hazel and gather all of her spells while garnering a vast reward from the Witching Panel. The stew stews, sending a luring cloud of steam into the direction of Hazel’s cabin. Before it finally reaches her door she opens it and counters Opal’s attempt with a secret MASTER reverse spell.
“Gutter Way, beware. Witches drenched in jealousy will fall to their own spells.”
Hazel blows the cloud back to Opal’s cabin, spits another spell behind its steam, and closes her door. On her table lay a plump, little boy with his mouth stuffed with an apple and his belly glazed in pig fat. He is Hazel’s fourth meal of the day. Opal stirs her pot some more and tosses a set of twin toddlers into the stew. The ancestors toil and bubble. In the girls are the souls of Hazel’s Aunts–popular witches of Gutter Way from two hundred years ago. They awaken as soon as the bodies touch the heat.
“Your life is on the line. Our blood will carry on. Of this, you can be certain.”
Opal stirs the stew, sips it heartily, then begins to lose her balance. Her eyes bleed, her tongue splits down its middle, and her hair catches fire. In less than two minutes, ashes lay near the stewing pot. In the quietness of the fields of Gutter Way, Hazel can be heard agreeing with the Ancient Aunts,
“Our blood will carry on. Of this, you can be certain.”
©Tremaine L. Loadholt, 2018. All Rights Reserved
