TTW: 17 (Patreon)

Apologies for the erratic posting. Holidays, travel, and health have slowed down my writing. Hopefully, I'll be able to get back on track soon.

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The Thirteenth Witch

by Raine Monday

Chapter 17

Esmerelda walked back to the house. As soon as she closed the door, she began weeping.

Sitting down in her gorgeous living room, in her gorgeous house, in this gorgeous town, she wept.

She wept for her lost relationship, the one they were supposed to have, man and wife, forever and ever amen. She wept for the children she would never have. The family, the Christmases, the events. All gone. She wept for the life she would never live, on a plane of existence she could never visit. If she were to visit, as she was, all the magical energy that kept her vibrant and alive here would be gone. She'd be exactly as she appeared, a nearly eighty year old woman, after having lost nearly 6 decades of her life.

She wept for the times she and Thomas wouldn't have. The successes they wouldn't feel. She wept for all the little discoveries they'd been cheated out of.

They didn't even speak the same language anymore. Literally. They'd had humor, sarcasm, little jokes, pranks…the laughter was what she missed the most.

Now, the sarcasm irritated her. She couldn't play pranks, or jokes. What if they were misunderstood due to the language barrier.

She walked up the stairs and into the bedroom. Staring into the mirror. A cursed Mirror? She stared at her reflection. It wasn't fair.

It wasn't fair.

Frowning, she closed her eyes and opened her Eye.

Yep, sure enough, it was encased in magic. Infused with it. She looked even closer. Her magic?

She opened her eyes in shock. How was it possible for her magic to infuse this object? She didn't cast anything—

She remembered the illusion spell.

She'd done it without a salt circle. Without an athamane. She hadn't even used a wand!

Shaking her head, she thought about reaching out to Agatha, but resisted. She deserved a day with her husband.

She looked again at the mirror. It was just a mirror, wasn't it? A little errant magic wouldn't have caused such a dramatic curse, could it?

It could if it was chaos.

Something echoed in her mind. Something from…someone? Her father? It was a male voice…

Why couldn't she put a face to the voice? She searched both Lydia's and Esmerelda's memories and came up empty.

Well, if her magic had caused it, her magic could reverse it. She thought about just bringing the grimoire up here and finding the right incantation, but she was really tired. Thomas had been so ardent last night, no matter the cause, and she was still sore down there, and her legs were tired from the walk back and forth from the town square.

She thought about Agatha and Joe, probably making love, right now. Tears welled up in her eyes again, and she wept. It just wasn't fair.

Wasn't fair.

She was tired. Couldn't everyone see that? She looked into the mirror at her tired eyes, in her tired face, on her tired body.

So tired.

She yawned, and snapped her fingers into her naked geas.

But first….

She grabbed a quilt from the quilt stand she'd had delivered from their old home. The shipment came just yesterday and it was nice to see some of the items from their home. Her grandmother had made a quilt with blue and white squares. It was her favorite quilt.

She flung it up over the mirror. A cursed mirror couldn't work if no one could see the surface. Somewhere that came up from a memory she had. One of Esmerelda's this time.

Yawning, she slipped into bed.

Beneath the quilt, the mirror glowed a dark crimson.

***

Esmerelda wandered ethereal corridors of a grand yet derelict château, where the veils between time and space are worn thin. It is both familiar and foreign, a reflection of her memories as Lydia and her past life's royal upbringing, merged into a surreal tableau. The hallways twist and turn, lined with mirrors that reflect her in myriad forms—some as Lydia, others as Esmerelda, and yet more in shapes she does not recognize. The air is thick with a palpable magic, a blend of her own power and something ancient and watching.

As she moves through the château, she feels the oppressive weight of a looming presence, always just out of sight but certainly in pursuit—the unmistakable aura of her father, a figure she both reveres and fears, his motives as obscured as his visage. Esmerelda flees, her footsteps echoing, knowing he seeks her burgeoning power for purposes unknown.

She enters a vast chamber, the heart of the château, where the mirror that mirrors her bedroom stands, grander and more ominous. It calls to her, a whirlpool of arcane energy that seeks to draw her in. Esmerelda approaches, compelled by forces beyond her understanding. As she peers into the glass, the reflections shift, revealing glimpses of a dark figure—the embodiment of Nyarlathotep, a puppeteer of shadows waiting on the threshold of realities.

The reflection shows her and Thomas entwined, but not as themselves—Thomas as a wood-nymph, bewildered and entrapped, and she as a phantasmal figure of power, yet also a prisoner within the mirror's domain. The images swirl, and the mirror's surface ripples, beckoning her to step through and join the tableau.

But as she reaches out, the presence of her father becomes overwhelming, a storm of fear and control, and she realizes that the mirror is not just a passage but a trap, a snare laid to capture her essence and feed the chaos that Nyarlathotep thrives on.

Esmerelda resists, pulling back as the mirror's magic lashes out, attempting to bind her. The château begins to crumble around her, the dream fracturing as the Aegis's influence wanes with the rising sun or perhaps the intervention of another power within Willowbrook.

She wakes with a start, the dream leaving her with a cryptic warning etched into her mind: "Beware the reflection that is not your own, for in it lies the chaos that seeks to unmake the world."