The Cast Iron Witch

My mom went to work early that morning, and probably wouldn’t be home till at least 10:00pm. Her firm had her working overtime because of a big case they were handling. This was a pretty great opportunity for me, and I decided I was going to try to get Eliza to come visit this afternoon. We met at the local parkour gym after school a few months ago, then went and got dinner together afterwards. We immediately started dating as of that evening. Unfortunately, due to ever-present parents, we don’t get much time to ourselves; but I was hoping this afternoon would change that.

I did my makeup so I could take a few selfies to send her. I hated mascara, but I was going to do what I had to do to get laid, dammit. I put on some lipstick to cover up the scar that went down over both my lips. I took a selfie winking and sticking my tongue out a bit. I hoped it’d come off as, you know, coy, and sexy, and not completely ridiculous as I feared. I attached it to a text that said, “my mom’s not home, you know” and winced as I hit send. An agonizing ten minutes later, she texted me back.

“Damn, Abi, you look amazing. But I have a 101-degree fever, and I don’t wanna give you the plague, so maybe next time? Sorry!” she wrote, followed by like six sad face emojis.

“Tell the plague I’m gonna kick its ass,” I wrote back, with a bunch of angry emojis. I tossed my phone on the counter and sighed. I took a few more selfies for posterity, and then wiped off my makeup, except for that stupid mascara that I’d put so much effort into not stabbing my eyeballs with. That just seemed like too much of a waste. I went back to my room and changed into some sweat pants. If I was gonna be miserable, I’d at least be comfortable. When life gives you lemons, get better toothpaste so that your tooth enamel doesn’t decay.

I went downstairs to the living room, and as I was about to sit on the couch to watch a movie, the doorbell rang. There went my protective toothpaste made of sweat pants and movies. I’m realizing that’s probably a really shitty metaphor. Anyway, I went to answer the door despite knowing for a fact that no one was supposed to be showing up at the house anytime soon. I looked through the peephole and saw what seemed to be an old woman in a decaying brown dress. She had a hood on, and her thick white hair hung down through the opening, almost reaching her knees.

I briefly considered pretending I wasn’t home, and maybe calling the police to get rid of the creepy lady outside. Then I considered all the stories where the protagonist gets cursed because they turned away a raggedy old woman. So, Brothers Grimm, wherever you are, fuck you. At least some of the blame for this catastrophe lies at your feet.

I tentatively opened the door a crack.

“Hi. Can I help you with anything?” I asked. My voice cracked as I said it; I think my heart may have punched me in the throat.

“What is your name, miss?” she replied. Her voice sounded like a buzz saw being sharpened. The shrillness was enough to hurt my ears. I didn’t know if I should tell her. Politeness won out.

“Abigail. How about you?” I said. I don’t know why I tried to continue the conversation. I would rather have never heard that horrible voice again.

“Oh, sweet Abigail, I haven’t had a name of my own for a long time; but you will come to know me regardless,” she said. She raised her face to look at me. I gazed into her eyes for a beat too long before realizing that this was terribly wrong. Her eyes were like molten glass. Her skin looked like the same material as the old skillet my mom refuses to throw out. The same material you’d imagine a cauldron full of newt’s eyes, smoke, and hexes would be made from. I stumbled backwards. I could suddenly hear my pulse. She entered the house, cloak dragging behind her. She opened her mouth to speak again, and I was fixated on the two rows of rusted arrowheads she had for teeth.

“Would you mind showing me to the kitchen, so I can start getting to know you, as well? Don’t worry, I brought my own pot,” she said with a smile. She drew from her cloak a small pot made entirely of the same black metal her skin was made from. Parts of it seemed to flow like liquid. It was not molten, but instead dark and shifting. There were also very clearly bloodstains all over it. Her fingernails didn’t match with the rest of her skin. They were chrome, and sharpened like knives. I couldn’t help but stare.

“Ah, you’ve noticed my nails. I polish them every day. They usually get the job done, but I’m sure your mother has some beautiful kitchen knives. I’ve always found clean cuts will get you closer to the truth of a person. Serrations don’t give quite the same crispness and clarity,” she said, followed by a lilting laughter that sounded like glass being ground to powder. Strangely harmonious, but as unpleasant as a sound could be. “As I’m getting to know you, I think you will get to know yourself as well. And we both want you to learn about your truest self, do we not?”

My brain finally caught up to what she had said, and the scream that had been building pressure at the back of my throat finally couldn’t be contained. I screamed so loudly and suddenly that I think I actually startled the monster in front of me. I stumbled backwards, and scampered away on all fours thinking of where I could hide. Clearly the kitchen was out. I dove under the couch and held my breath.

“Now, now Abigail. That was very rude. Is that always how you react when someone offers you a service?” she called out. Her voice echoed throughout the house despite the low ceilings. Her plodding, deliberate footsteps clanged across the foyer. As she walked past the entryway to the living room, I saw that her feet were even less human than the rest of her. They were like hawk’s talons that had been dipped into a smelter and left to dry, with all the rough edges and burrs left unsmoothed. They left gouges in the hardwood floor with each step.

Moments later, I could hear her talons screeching across the tiles in the kitchen. I took a deep breath and held it again while I padded across the foyer and up the stairs. I glanced into the bathroom and decided that wasn’t where I wanted to die. I went into my bedroom and closed the door behind me as silently as possible. I wracked my brain to figure out how the hell I was going to get out of this.

I could hear her clanging around in the kitchen downstairs. So not only was there a monster in my house, but now I had to assume she had a knife. I searched around the room for a weapon. I was feeling pretty frustrated that my mom didn’t let me have that shotgun that my uncle Jim had offered me after we went trap shooting one time. I settled on a pretty solid wooden dowel that I usually used as a muscle roller. It was long enough that it’d make a decent club and probably give me the reach advantage. I had no idea what she was capable of, though, so a fight would be my absolute last resort. I’d have to try to get to the garage, so I could escape in my car.

I could still hear sounds from the kitchen, so I took a moment to prepare. I changed out of my sweats and into the heavy cargo pants I had for EMT training. I opened my footlocker that had most of my shoes and my first aid kit in it. My leather combat boots were in the right corner, with some long socks still inside them. I put them on, as it seemed unwise to fight the metal lady while barefoot. My pocket knife was under my first aid kit. I clipped it in my pocket just in case. I grabbed my safety glasses and a leather jacket for good measure. Any bit of protection I could get, I was going to take.

Just as I put my hand on the doorknob, I noticed something was wrong. My breath caught in my throat. I realized that the noise downstairs had stopped and the house was perfectly silent. I cautiously went through the door and my feeling of dread was validated. I looked down the stairs. The entire first floor had been turned into an obstacle course of fish hooks, sawblades, barbed wire, and rust.

There’s no way it would be physically possible for any number of people to set up that many traps in the two minutes I had been in my room, yet that woman had done it entirely by herself. I couldn’t help but imagine each jagged edge or barbed hook tearing through my skin as I looked over the ferrous hellscape that was now my foyer. I took a deep breath, trying to clear away all the invasive thoughts of death and dismemberment. Assuming the whole first floor was like this, it’d be next to impossible to get all the way to the door to the garage without injuring myself. Plus, I didn’t know where the metal woman was. The path of least resistance was now leading out the front door and across the lawn, to open the garage from the outside. I went down the stairs, avoiding the two steps that I knew would creak.

A new sound echoed through the house as I neared the bottom. It was almost like breathing. Gravelly, labored, desperate breathing. Every hair on my body stood up as a chill coursed through me. I started crawling prone under the barbed wire between me and the front door. I wasn’t about to wait around for her to start breathing right in my ear. I went a little too fast and crushed my own boobs a bit, but that was about the least serious injury I could’ve hoped for while dragging myself under razor-sharp rusty wire. I adjusted my bra so it wasn’t pressing on my quickly forming bruises, and ran out the front door.

I was down the steps, and one foot onto the lawn when I was met with blinding pain. With a stroke of luck, I fell backwards onto the steps. Blood was pouring through the sole of my right boot, and I just stared at it and screamed. The entire lawn had been turned to iron. Every blade of grass had become a literal blade. Had I fallen onto the lawn, I’d have been skewered on a hundred tiny knives, slowly bleeding to death and unable to move.

Anger washed over my mind, forcing out the pain. I was not about to be killed by some demon’s stupid fucking pun. I grabbed my makeshift club, grit my teeth and limped back up the stairs. She was standing in the doorway, smirking, holding a long filet knife. She began to lecture me.

“Now that you’ve seen what a witch can do, will you please give up this foolish resistance? Or do you plan on hiding under the couch-” I interrupted her with the hardest homerun swing I could possibly manage, snapping the dowel clean in half across her face, staggering her back into the barbed wire of her own creation. My thoughts were racing. A witch? She knew I had been hiding under the couch? Is she toying with me?

She straightened up, somewhat tangled in the barbed wire. I was panting and still losing blood. She shrieked and lifted her hands. All the traps came to life, charmed like snakes by her raw will. Hundreds of hooks and blades within striking distance. I had pissed her off, but I had hurt her. There was a dent in her forehead where I had hit her. I had an eighth of a moment to relish my vindication before a meat hook flew at my head from the left. I leaned back and it missed by less than an inch. I took the opening and dashed for the stairs. I vaulted over the bannister, and felt the cut in my foot split wider as I landed. I managed to limp to the top of the stairs, leaving a long streak of blood along the way.

I glanced down at the witch, and the bit of hope my attack had bought me was crushed. She held her cast iron pot in her hand, though the metal had seemingly turned to liquid. Not molten, like her eyes; but rather a viscous ichor, still black as night. It flowed down the handle and into her arm. I could see the flow pulsing up her neck, onto her face. It was filling in the dent on her forehead. At that rate, she’d be fully recovered in a minute or two. I still had to slow her down if I wanted time to treat my foot.

I grabbed one of the heavy stone pots that my mom kept her bonsai trees in from next to the upstairs window. I hurled it at the witch, straight down onto her, with all the help gravity could offer me. I felt a cold chill, and then a familiar pain across my left hand. It had been sliced open. I turned to look at the other bonsais. They had all been turned to metal as well. I looked down, and the extra weight from the metal bonsai seemed to have actually worked in my favor, despite it cutting my hand. It looked like the impact had dislocated one of the witch’s shoulders. Even more liquid metal came pouring from the pot to fix this new wound.

I limped to my room, and locked the door. I had to work fast. I threw open my footlocker and grabbed my first aid kit. Sterilization was the first order of business. I poured alcohol over the cuts and almost passed out. I caught my breath, and grabbed the needle and thread. Stitching my own wounds while seeing stars like that will always be one of my greatest triumphs. I’m not too proud to admit that I vomited when I was done sewing up my foot.

It wasn’t pretty, but I’d live. I wrapped the wounds in gauze and put on a different boot that wasn’t soaked in blood. I paused at the door, hoping that the witch wasn’t standing right outside.

“Leaving your room already?” came her voice with that unnatural echo. I stepped out slowly and looked down the stairs. She was standing on the bottom step, looking up at me, slowly shaking her head. I decided on a gambit. I rushed down the stairs as though I was going to charge straight into her. She prepared, lowering her stance. She raised one finger, making two of the strands of barbed wire dance like cobras. Halfway down the stairs, I vaulted over the bannister, landing where there were no traps. My foot gushed blood, but I had a head start to make my way through the traps. It was terrifyingly slow moving, making sure I didn’t get snagged by a hanging hook, or stabbed by a hidden spike. She gave an exasperated sigh, and waved her hand. All of the traps moved out of the way. She seemed to think I would pause, and started saying “Abigail, I really-” but I sprinted as hard as I could away from her, injured foot be damned.

As I ran, I checked for weapons in the kitchen, but I discovered that all of the metal utensils were gone from the drawers. That must’ve been how she made the traps. By the time she turned the corner, I had already made it to the door to the garage. She lifted her hands again, and the traps sprung to life. I closed the door behind me just in time for a spike to stick into it with a solid thunk.

My escape effort had failed. My car had been reduced to a pile of scrap. She must have used it for the traps as well, and took away my one plausible method of getting away at the same time. Which left me with one option: kill the witch.

My heart was beating like a bass drum. I could feel every pulse against my sternum. I’m sure it was beating incredibly fast, but the adrenaline seemed to slow everything down. My brain was in overdrive. First: stop her from healing, second: get reinforcements, third: put her down. I grabbed a heavy crowbar out of the tool drawer. Apparently the one piece of metal she had missed. I opened the door, and she was less than a foot in front of me. I could feel the heat of her molten eyes on my face. Her breath smelled so strongly of iron that I felt like I was tasting blood.

“You headstrong little girl. I am offering you a gift beyond your wildest dreams, and this is how you respond? With meaningless inconveniences? You already know that pain brings out the best in you. Would it not stand to reason that greater pain would bring greater wonders?” she said, her voice scraping against my eardrums. That infuriating smirk returned to her lips.

“You call threatening to vivisect me a gift?” I said, trying to hold back tears. She pulled back slightly, and her face seemed to twist into a roughshod mimicry of motherly concern. I hated that look. I let loose a war cry and charged her, slamming the crowbar straight down onto the bridge of her nose. She recoiled, and took the crowbar with her, pulling it right out of my hand. It was stuck in the dent that it had made in her face.

She wrapped her fingers around it, and it started to superheat. It melted into a sphere of molten metal which floated above her hand. With her other hand, she grabbed her nose, and pulled it from the dent with a clang as her face popped back into shape. The fury she emanated in that moment was palpable. Her eyes burned brighter, the sound of scraping metal echoed around us, and the scent of blood became overpowering. She cocked her arm, and hurled the ball of molten steel at me.

I dropped onto my back, and it sailed over me. Looking backwards, I saw it splash against the brick wall in the garage, and start fusing to the cement floor. The bit that touched the tool cabinet caused it to burst into flames. I looked up towards the ceiling, and there was the witch, face to face, kneeling over me. She raised a taloned hand. I flicked my knife open from my pocket, brought it to my chest, and drove it clean through her left eye.

As she screamed and clutched at her eye, I slid out from under her, grabbed her pot and ran. Its handle was hardwood, which surprised me. The traps seemed to recoil in pain along with her, and a path opened before me. I was already heading up the stairs by the time the traps recovered and returned to their places. I got to my mother’s room, where the alarm system’s control panel was. I drummed my knuckles against my forehead, scolding myself for not thinking of this ten minutes ago. I hit the panic button and locked the door.

The security company advertised a response time of under five minutes for an armed guard to arrive at the scene. It was as good a time as any to test their honesty. I sat by the door, clutching the pot tightly. I wondered what would happen if I actually hit her with it. My curiosity led me to inspect the pot more closely. Its surface was completely free of blemishes. It was perfectly smooth everywhere I looked. This was jarring considering how rough and burred everything else she made was, even her own skin. I touched the warm surface of the pot, and the universe dropped out from under me.

I was in a little garden next to a field. My flowers grew all around me. I even had a rosebush. I was wearing a linen shirt, breeches, and my wool cloak, even though everyone said it made me look like a boy. The boys seemed to like me well enough regardless, so I didn’t give that too much credence. A breeze rolled by, and I pulled my cloak tightly to myself, and knelt by the flowers. I was gently stroking the petals of a white lily, when I heard someone shout my name.

“Lia, come to me. I have a task for you,” came the call from my father. Wait. No. That… that isn’t my name…

I looked up, and saw smoke rising from the other side of the field. I crossed it with trepidation. My father was often impatient when he was working the forge, and his voice sounded off, like he had been drinking. How would I know that? I’ve never heard that voice…

I…

No, she. This wasn’t my memory. She stood at the door to the shed that housed the forge. She opened the door slowly, as though trying not to startle her father. He was sitting on a wicker chair, a jug of ale in his hand. He glanced up and motioned her inside.

“I need you to make a pot for me, Lia. Papa’s hands aren’t working so good today, and I promised someone I would have it ready for tomorrow,” he said.

“But Papa, I don’t know how. You only taught me to make spoons last time,” she said. He sighed with exasperation.

“If you want to eat tomorrow, girl, you’ll make the damn pot,” he said. She hurried to pick up the forge tools. She started with what she knew: stoke the fire with the bellows, then grab an iron ingot with the fine steel tongs. She began the process as her father shouted instructions at her. Heat, then hammer, then heat, then hammer, then heat, then hammer. Just as it was almost concave enough to hold water, the iron cracked.

“Are you trying to make my life harder? Now I will have to re-mold that iron,” he said from behind her. He struck her across the back of the head. He handed her another ingot.

“Make it again,” he said, enunciating each word. She squeezed it in the tongs, and placed it into the flames again. Again, she hammered, and again, it cracked.

“Make it again,” he said, and another ingot met the flame. The results did not improve.

“Make it again,” he said, for the sixth time, and for the sixth time, she broke it. Sweat poured from her brow, and her arms refused to let her lift them higher than her hips.

“Make it again,” he said, and shoved her toward the forge. Scalding air hit her eyes, startling her. The tongs dropped into the forge.

“Idiot! Can you do nothing right? Move!” Her father flung her aside. “Those are our only tongs,” he shouted, fumbling with the fire poker that hung on the wall. He finally got it down, and dragged the tongs out of the flame. They had deformed in the heat, and were glowing orange. He put on his heavy leather gloves and grabbed the tongs by the handles which had mostly remained out of the fire.

“These were our livelihood, you little demon. You’ve clearly been sent to punish me, but I’ll show you real punishment,” he growled. He shoved her down onto her stomach, and held the red-hot tongs against the soles of her feet. She screamed for a split second before falling unconscious.

When she awoke, she was out in the middle of the field. She had no idea how long it had been, but the sun was high in the middle of the sky. Her feet were throbbing, so it couldn’t have been too long. Every pulse brought pain that made her teeth clench. She decided to drag herself to her garden. There was a barrel of cold water there for the plants.

With each fistful of dirt and grass, she inched closer to the garden. She was exhausted by the time she got there, and it took all of her remaining strength to pull herself up onto her stool, and dunk her feet in the water. The pain tripled, and she laid her forehead on the edge of the barrel. She must have passed out again, because when she opened her eyes, the sun had set. Her father hadn’t come for her.

Using her stool as a crutch, she walked on her curled-up toes out into the forest. She walked for so long, it felt like her feet were permanently stuck in that position. Eventually, she came across a clearing and stopped to rest, leaning her stool against a tree. Just as she was on the verge of sleep, she heard a repetitive clacking sound approaching the clearing. A woman stepped from the tree line, illuminated in moonlight.

Her skin was dry and shriveled, like ruined leather. Her hair was long, black, and smooth, flowing like a mane over her shoulders. The strangest thing about her was not that she looked like a walking corpse with perfect hair, but rather the fact that she was arrayed in bones. They clung to her like ornaments, many of them engraved with strange runes or intricate designs. She wore a mask made from the top half of a human skull. Her eyes had a mystifying green glow.

“I have finally found you, dearest. Won’t you tell me your name?” Her voice was like a silk scarf gently caressing the air between them.

“Lia. My name is Lia, miss,” she said. For some reason, she felt she could trust this strange wild woman. The woman came closer. In the low light, she hadn’t noticed from a distance, but Lia realized the bones were not ornaments. She gasped. The bones were actually fused to the woman’s skin. In some places, they burrowed into her skin, seemingly growing into her own internal skeleton. In other places, her skin grew over the bones, almost like straps to keep them in place.

“And such a pretty young thing you are, Lia. No need to shy away. I know I may look scary, but you know better what true terror is, don’t you? Much has been taken from you, and you have much to lose yet; but you shall be paid for your losses. Mark my words. You shall be paid,” she said. The witch picked Lia up in her arms. The girl was helpless to resist.

Deeper in the woods, she laid Lia down beside a sizeable campfire. She drew two burning sticks from the flames, one in each hand.

“Now, Lia, I wish for you to see the truth. Your truth, my truth, the world’s truth. Pain brings us closer to the truth, yet we must amplify that pain to peel away the clouds of falsehood. Beyond that, each person must be awakened to the truth in their own way. You, for example, I believe you must come to see the truth. But for that, I’m afraid I’ll have to take your eyes,” she said. Lia barely had time to register what she meant before the witch drove the burning sticks into her face. Impossible brightness preceded impossible darkness. She clenched her eyelids shut uselessly.

“I will be back when you open your eyes,” said the witch. Lia screamed her voice raw. Without her eyes, she had no concept of time. She slept when she could scream no longer, and woke when she couldn’t physically sleep any longer. Soon, she was too hungry to scream or cry. She tried to stand, and was shocked to find that her feet no longer hurt. She could feel liquid from her eye sockets dripping down her face. She had no idea what kind of liquid it was, and believed she was better off not finding out. Her linen shirt ripped easily for a quick bandage, which she wrapped around her head to cover her eyes. She pulled up her hood and set out.

That first day, she came across a long stick, which she used as a staff to feel out her path. Eventually, she became quick enough to strike and kill small animals for food. She would bring them back to cook them on the witch’s campfire, which still hadn’t gone out despite the two rainstorms that had occurred in the time she’d been wandering. She remembered the traps that the boys from the village taught her, and some weeks she wouldn’t even have to leave the clearing.

Her confidence grew dramatically after each successful hunt, after each day she survived. She decided to set her sights on larger game. So to speak. She ground her staff to a spear point on a rock, and hardened it in the flame. She went deeper into the woods than she had ever gone before in her search for deer.

She heard a rustling in the brush, and turned toward the sound of four feet. It was not a deer. She had instead come upon two men who had been walking through the forest.

“You there, wild girl. Don’t you know these are our woods? Everything in these woods belong to us. Were you trying to poach in our woods?” one of them asked.

“I didn’t realize. I don’t know. I can’t see,” she began to ramble, unsure of what to say. They laughed.

“Hear that? She’s blind. Well, blind girl, since you’re in these woods, you must belong to us too, isn’t that right? Come, brother. Let’s have some fun with her,” the other one said. They approached her as one might stalk prey. She heard knives being unsheathed. For a brief moment, she found herself acquiescing, surrendering to her habit of weakness and fear.

Then she realized. Humans are just animals, and even predators like these will die like animals. She kept up her façade of cowering, waiting for them to get closer. Then she lashed out, her spear driving clean through one of their throats. She caught the knife as it fell from his hand. The other man vomited at the sight of his brother’s blood pooling on the ground.

“Drop your blade,” she said. Her voice echoed. It was a command that was not to be ignored. He dropped his knife into the dirt.

“I’m sorry, oh god, what did you do?” he said. She drew her knife across his neck, and he fell to the dirt alongside his weapon, convulsing and gasping. After each of them had taken their respective last breaths, Lia felt a hand on her shoulder. The hand lifted, and untied the bandage around her eyes. The impossible brightness had returned, but this time it was not followed by darkness. Instead, it coalesced into clarity. She could see all the lives around her, their hearts beating with orange light. She turned to the witch, looking her straight in the eye for the first time.

“Your eyes… they are absolutely breathtaking,” said the witch. The witch’s decrepit, desiccated skin was now unblemished, smooth, and the color of freshly stained hickory. Lia felt tears fall from her new eyes onto her cheek. They were hot enough to burn her, but she didn’t even flinch.

“There’s one thing left to let go of, dearest Lia. Your name. You will still be yourself, but you will also be more than yourself. You will be all of us. You will grow even mightier than you are now, after having survived this first trial,” she said. Lia decided at that moment that she was no longer Lia.

“It is done,” said the younger witch.

“Good. Now, follow closely, though you know this path well,” said the older witch.

They arrived back at the campfire, which was now burning twice as brightly. There were a hammer, tongs, anvil, and barrel of ice-cold water sitting around the flame.

“I want you to smooth the edges of your misery. I want you to perfect it, and allow it to become a part of your foundation. Not a point of weakness, but rather a keystone. Show me,” said the older witch. She handed a single iron ingot to the younger witch.

She grasped it in the tongs, and held it in the flame until it glowed like the sun. She placed it on the anvil, and brought the hammer down on it. Each blow was unerring, a step closer to perfection. She shaped it into a perfectly smooth bowl, and put a small hole in the side of it with a quick blow of the hammer. She tempered it in the water, and steam billowed from the barrel.

When she retrieved it, the iron flowed like the water it had been drawn from. She plucked a burning stick from the flame and quenched the flame with her bare hand. It burned her, but as she picked up the pot, the burned flesh was replaced with that same dark liquid iron. She clenched her fist, and the liquid iron hardened. She used the rough hardened iron on her palm to sand the stick down to a smooth handle, which she slid through the hole in the pot. The liquid metal seemed to grip it, and hold it in place.

She turned to the bone witch, and both of them could not help but smile. It was perfect.

“That is your second step towards true power. May your path be quick, and its destination grand,” said the bone witch.

“Thank you,” said the iron witch. The bone witch reached out to embrace her, and pulled her close. Her external ribcage was not the most comfortable surface to be pressed against, but the iron witch appreciated the closeness nonetheless. She stepped away, and the grass around her turned to iron spikes. She waved her hand and it turned back to grass. This strangeness was thrilling for her. She plucked a nearby wildflower, and it turned to metal in her hands. She tucked it behind her ear. The bone witch looked on dotingly.

The world melted away again, and I was floating in a void for a moment. The void was cold. It was wet. It wasn’t a void, I was being held underwater. And it really was me this time. I was looking into my father’s face. He was above the surface. His eyes were bloodshot.

And just like that, I was on the carpet in my mother’s bedroom. I tasted salt. I looked in the mirror, and my mascara was streaked all over my face. And I put so much effort into putting that stupid shit on. Like the witch hadn’t already done enough to me, this was just insult to injury. I exited my mother’s room and looked down the stairs. The witch was standing in the foyer looking up at me, both eyes glowing.

“You weren’t ready to see all that yet, but here we are. Now come down here for me. I’m not as spry as I used to be, and you’ve given me quite the chase,” she said. I considered it. I was exhausted, I had lost a lot of blood, and I wasn’t feeling too keen on living in that moment, anyway.

“Why are you doing this? Why would you pick me?” I asked. My voice was ragged.

“Your pain brought you rage. That same pain has already brought you power. Imagine what else we could make of your strength, together!” she said. She took my silence as a cue to continue her speech, but then came three solid knocks on the door.

“Zenith Security, on your knees and hands behind your head. We’re coming in,” came the shout, just before a key turned in the lock and the door was flung open. Two men with Tasers burst into the foyer.

“What the fuck is-” said one of them, before the witch pointed at him, then flicked her finger toward the sky. A meat hook that was dangling behind him swung up into the back of his skull. It reeled him up to the ceiling, leaving his corpse hanging grotesquely.

The other guard fired his taser. Sparks flew across the witch’s iron skin, but she was unharmed. He threw the taser aside and drew his pistol. A tendril of barbed wire came flying at him, but he ducked under it and fired three shots into the witch’s chest. They left huge dents, and blood began to seep from the holes, but she was still standing. The tendril of barbed wire swept back and wrapped around his hands, tearing into his flesh.

I needed to move fast while she was distracted. Something heavy and not made of metal, that was my goal. I grabbed one of the ridiculously heavy stone coasters that my mom once picked up from a craft fair or something. I leapt from the top of the stairs and slammed it into the back of the witch’s head. The stitches in my hand split open. She turned, grasping at the dent.

“Make it again,” I said, slamming it down on her face, driving her to her knees.

“Make it again,” I said, gritting my teeth and smashing it into her nose.

“Make it again,” I shrieked, smashing the coaster in half over the top of her head.

“You’re cruel, Abigail Wallace,” she whispered. I paused with one of the halves of the coaster raised over my head. She knew my name all along.

“I knew everything all along, I just didn’t fully understand who you were,” she said. She stood back up, and knocked the half of the coaster out of my hands with ease. Wires wrapped around my arms and pulled me back against the wall. She came close, and all the metal on her body softened into that dark liquid iron. She rose to her full height, no longer hunching like an old crone. Her hair seemed to take on an internal shine. It seemed to glow golden, rather than the frail white it was before. She was strangely beautiful like this. Otherworldly, but entrancing.

“Your anger has served you well; however, you must learn that it has its limits,” she said. Suddenly, her voice hummed like a glass harmonica. None of the raspy grinding remained.

“Abigail, you must see your heart. You hold unfathomable darkness within it. Once you have explored its depths, I shall return it to you,” she said. I realized what she meant, and the fear made my eyes blur. She held my mother’s favorite kitchen knife in her hand. It passed cleanly through my shirt, my skin, my muscle, my bone. And then she was holding my heart in front of my face. Everything still seemed to be attached. I was shocked at how small it was. It fit in the palm of her hand. The knife moved like silver lightning as she severed the blood vessels. She tucked the extricated heart in the folds of her cloak. At her guidance, a silvery needle and thread wove cross my chest and sewed the wound shut.

She stepped back, and the wires fell away, dropping me to the floor. For some reason, I was still alive. My pulse was gone, but I could feel the continuous rush of blood in my veins. All the traps receded back to her, like a thousand pets, melting to liquid and flowing into her. She raised her hand, and the pot flew from my mother’s bedroom and into her waiting grasp. She hung it from a hook on her hip. The blood-drenched knife fell from her fingers onto the floor with a clatter. She turned her back to me and stepped out the front door. She dragged the corpse of the dead security guard with her, with him still stuck on the meat hook.

There was the sound of helicopters overhead. She looked up toward the sky, then dashed off, gone in the blink of an eye. The surviving security guard was nursing his damaged hands. Men in black full-face masks repelled onto the front lawn, which had turned back to grass, from the hovering helicopter. They rushed toward the house with assault rifles at the ready. They wore military helmets, and had armor plating on their chests and forearms. I had a strong, inexplicable impulse to control my breathing and slow my strange new blood flow as much as possible.

They looked over the two of us. Some of the masks seemed to have engravings on them, though I didn’t recognize the alphabet they used. One seemed to be in charge, given the chevrons emblazoned on the corner his breastplate and the multitude of characters carved on his mask. He also wore what looked like a priest’s collar for some reason. He approached the guard.

“Who did this to you?” he asked, with a voice that sounded garbled, like it had gone through a filter.

“Some kind of… monster. It could… it had spikes everywhere. It killed my partner,” the guard said. He sounded shell-shocked, distant. His eyes were glassy. The leader stared at him for a moment. Then he turned to me.

“Did you see this monster?” he asked. I looked around, to the guard, to the leader, to the other masked men.

“N-no. I just came down and this guy was bleeding in my doorway. I was just taking a nap. I came out cause I heard a noise, and I saw the guards struggling with someone who had a knife. I think the knife is still on the floor there. I’m pretty sure the other guard did get hurt for real though,” I said. The leader stared at me for a second as well. He motioned to one of the other masked men.

“Scan her,” he said. The other one passed something that looked like a metal detector wand with twin prongs over my head, then looked at a digital screen that was attached to it by a wire. I’d never been identity scanned before.

“Her ID checks out, she’s listed as a resident of this address,” said the second masked man. Then, he pulled their leader off to the side, and spoke just above a whisper. “Her levels are within acceptable limits, if a few standard deviations higher than normal,” he said. The leader cocked his head at me.

“Hmm. We’ll watch her,” he said quietly, and motioned for the second man to step back. I was actually surprised I could hear him, as he clearly assumed I wouldn’t be able to. He turned back to face me.

“The police are on their way, just tell them what you told me. I promise you’ll be okay. We’re going to look for the guy that did this, alright?” he said.

“Aren’t you guys the police? What’s with the masks anyway?” I asked. I tried not to sound too suspicious.

“Oh. Yeah, we are. I’m just thinking maybe our unit was a bit overkill for this situation. But since we’re here, we might as well help out, right?” he said, ignoring half of my question. He waved his hand in a circle above his head.

“Regroup and move out,” he said to his team. The helicopter came to hover just above the lawn, and they got back on board. It lifted off and flew back the way it came, in the opposite direction of the witch. I still have no idea who those guys were.

The police showed up, just like the head mystery man said they would, and they took down my story about an unknown assailant in a hood. The other security guard didn’t make it. He died of a hemorrhage in the hospital a few days later. They never did get his statement.

The actual confrontation with the witch couldn’t have taken more than an hour or so. Even so, the person that I was before I met her feels like a complete stranger to me now. That person had a heartbeat.