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The following reference to Esme’s history and relationship with Kagan was first published as part of Hallow Hill at Halloween, Part One. It’s included here solely as a memory refresher.

Sitting down in the chair next to Esmel so I could lean in if necessary, I said, “Jeff’s making them now. So, tell me what happened with Kagan.”

“Like I said, it’s a long story.”

“Start at the beginning and tell it word by word.”

She sighed. “I grew up in a town about two hours from here. Two hours by car that is. Kenilworth. Did you know that?”

“You know perfectly well I didn’t know that. You’re very secretive and careful to let nothing personal leak.”

“Yes, well, there’s a good reason. A long time ago, I was human.

” I couldn’t help looking surprised. No.

Make that shocked. “For someone who’s only seen modern times, it’s impossible to describe how comparatively awful life was then.

My father passed away from some awful disease, and my mother kept us alive with her spinning and weaving.

She was good. And she was fast. If there was one fortune with us, it was that we lived in a market town, and there was always demand for her beautiful fabrics.

She could easily sell as much as she could produce, but there were two inescapable limitations: the set number of hours in the day and physical stamina.

When she wasn’t sleeping, she worked. But she did her best to be cheerful for my sake. I didn’t appreciate it at the time.”

She looked away for a minute, and I recognized the look of regret that sometimes besets all of us as we allow memories to creep into our consciousness and haunt us. After a small pause, she sighed and took up where she’d left off.

“One year was exactly like the next until it wasn’t.

I was around fourteen when a season came that made life worse than usual, not for us, but for the people who lived in and around the town.

It was a year when rain became a plague rather than a blessing.

So much that it washed the crops away, taking livelihoods with it.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the constantly cold and damp conditions made people sick.

The gravedigger was at work night and day.

“The people reacted the way people often did back then. They assumed that good things must come from a god who lives in the sky, and bad things must come from witches who live among them disguised as friends or neighbors. It wasn’t the least unusual for the scapegoat to be a widow.

That made it easy to confiscate whatever she owned after she was beyond protest.

“Folklore held a belief in a mystical relationship between witches and spinning and had forever for all I know.” She looked up at me with shimmering eyes and held my gaze.

“They came for your mom,” I whispered.

She nodded.

“Here you are,” Jeff said brightly, expecting our usual cordial exchange. As he set the toddies down, you might say he was failing to “read the room”.

In response, I managed a nod, but didn’t thank him out loud as was my custom. Ever perceptive, though sometimes later than sooner, he glanced at Esme, took the hint, and walked away without another word.

After pushing her toddy closer to her, I raised mine and took a sip. I felt in my bones that the next utterance, whatever it was, whenever it was, needed to come from her.

In her own time, when she was ready, she said, “Rita. I’m trusting you with this confidence.” I nodded slowly. “I don’t want anyone else to know.”

“Of course,” I said.

“They burned my mother.” I couldn’t look at Esme just then, so I looked over at the fire.

It had seemed so cheery a minute ago, but I regretted insisting on that table and wished I could take back that choice.

“After that, they came to our house. It was a tiny cottage on the edge of town. Just one room with two cots, a loom, and a spinning wheel. They pulled me out into the yard and set fire to our home.” She paused to look up at me, not bothering to hide the teary shimmer in her beautiful eyes.

“They left me without so much as a shawl for warmth.”

I didn’t have to be an empath to feel the pain she was experiencing in the retelling. It was easy to see that she was reliving the event like she was in the moment. I supposed that’s what victims of trauma endure.

“I was in such a state of shock over my mother that I didn’t have any feelings about it.

I watched as it burned to the ground. It grew dark, but the embers glowed, and I felt, for some reason, that I couldn’t leave as long as that sign of life remained.

I sat with my knees pulled into my body through the night.

It wasn’t cold enough to freeze, but it was too cold to sleep.

“I think I was hungry. And thirsty. But I didn’t know where I could go to beg for sustenance.

My young body was stiff when I tried to rise.

I walked slowly toward the market, but when I came close, people began cursing, throwing things at me, and yelling, ‘Beware the evil eye. ‘Tis the witch’s daughter!

“In short, I had nowhere to go. The people who’d been our friends and family drove me out of the village.

“I walked to the castle that had already come to ruin a couple of hundred years before my time. I was a vulnerable girl just past puberty with no family or friends. I had no bread, no roof over my head. Not even a blanket to pull around me.

“I climbed the ancient steps. They’d been worn away by so many footfalls that they were no longer flat but angles on an incline. I forced my body to continue until I reached the roof. Even in my despair, I was amazed by the beauty of the view from that height. I’d never seen anything like it.

“As I stepped over the parapet, I was profoundly grateful that my eyes should be filled with such beauty at the moment of my death.”

I couldn’t help the tears forming in my eyes, but tried to will them from falling. The moment was about Esmerelda and not my revulsive reaction to this horror. I was glad she didn’t notice. Her eyes were glazed like she was reliving the events as told.

“The wind rushed past as I began to fall. Oddly, I wasn’t afraid.

No scream caught in my throat. I simply wasn’t afraid.

All of a sudden, it struck me as strange that I wasn’t afraid.

I knew I should be. About the same time, I realized I was no longer falling fast, but drifting downward, slower and slower until my feet touched the ground light as a feather.

“That wasn’t all. I felt different. Strong.

It occurred to me that I might have died but somehow been spared the pain of it.

I looked around and spied a man bent from a hunchback.

He pulled a cart of milk behind him, and I knew by the circumstance of his deformity and the deep lines in his face that it could not be heaven. ”

Esme blinked rapidly, and her eyes cleared. She looked at me with a wry, little smile. “I briefly wondered if I’d gone to the bad place, but I hadn’t had much opportunity to do anything bad. So, that didn’t seem like a viable explanation either.

“I began walking back toward the village with a purpose in mind. I wasn’t sure what I was, but my body had taken control.

I walked right by the site where I’d spent my life up to that point.

There was nothing left but ashes. I continued until I reached the tavern.

It was close to dark by then and most villagers were home having soup or bread.

“When I reached the tavern, I was able to squeeze the latch, but not open the door. It was heavy, and I was very small and slight. For some reason I still don’t understand, I felt guided to point toward the latch.

It released, like magic, and the door opened.

I looked down at my hand, but saw nothing different from before.

“When I walked in, the little gathering grew immediately quiet. They stared as if they didn’t know me.

No one uttered curses or accusations. They were uncharacteristically still and quiet as they watched me make my way behind the bar.

I stuffed two half loaves of bread into my apron pockets, and settled the strap of a skin of ale over my shoulder.

I then grabbed a shawl that was draped over a chair, climbed the stairs, and found an empty bed intended for rent to travelers.

No one tried to stop me. Nor did the proprietor ask for payment.

I was unbothered and slept like the dead until early morning.

“On my way out the following morning, I turned to the innkeeper and said, ‘You know my mother was innocent.’” I looked at the few patrons and added, “’ You all know it.’

“He held up his hands in a gesture of protecting himself from something wicked. Even with all that had happened, it struck me as comical that I might be considered powerful enough, or dangerous enough, to be thought of as wicked.

“With nothing else to my name, I followed the road that went west. I’d never been past the edges of my village. My life until then had been narrow and confined. So, everything I saw was both new and wondrous.

“It was the beginning of a new chapter for me. Not one I’d asked for or wanted. One that was thrust upon me by having lost everything. As if to punctuate the division between that day and every day that had come before it, the rain had stopped, and the sun had risen above the horizon.

“I walked. After a time, a wagon came up beside me and stopped. I’d been aware of its approach for some time because of the loud cracks and creaks it made. It was being pulled by a dapple-gray mare who eyed me suspiciously and bobbed her head in its harness.