Then Noa smelled smoke, its tendrils drifting up her nose like plumes of acid. As if she were a puppet and the priest her master, Noa was spun around by the priest’s unyielding hold, and something inside her instantly died. Her soul broke, shattered, splintered apart, as she saw her grandma’s body tied to a makeshift stake, fire raging at her feet.
Hot breath danced near Noa’s ear, and she felt the priest’s mouth lower to her lobe and say, “Watch.” She tried to pull away as the flames crawled higher up the stake, tearing the flesh from her grandma’s legs. But the priest held her head captive in his hands and forced her to watch as the fire began to devour her grandma. Noa was glad her grandma had already died. She could at least take solace in that—
But terror sailed through her body as her grandma stirred. Her grandma slowly rolled open her eyes. And it only took her a second to feel the fire licking at her skin. It only took her a second more to start screaming in agony and fear. Noa felt her face drain of all color as her grandma tried to fight the rope that bound her to the stake. But she couldn’t get away. There was no way out.
Noa could smell burning flesh. Tears fell from her face and splattered onto the cold ground. She couldn’t take it. She simply couldn’t take it. Noa pushed back from the priest and tried to run for her grandma, but the priest’s hold was too much. Yet Noa fought. Her ruined fingernails scratched and clawed at the priest, but they only broke further, blood seeping from their beds as her skin was shredded to ribbons.
“Grandma!” Noa screamed, and even in the agony of being burned alive, her grandma heard her voice. Her pained eyes turned to Noa, and she tried to speak, tried to get to her granddaughter, but she was trapped. Dark smoke crawled high in thick clouds, but Noa kept her gaze locked on her grandma even as the flames grew higher. And her grandma kept her in her stare too, one final comforting cradle from the woman who raised her, doted on her, showed her what unconditional love truly was.
Noa’s chest was flayed and raw as the flames grew so high that all she could see was a cacophony of angry oranges and reds. The priests who had been around the stake walked toward her. No, not toward her—toward the man who held her.
She didn’t hear what he said. She could only see the fire now dying down, sated after its consumption of her grandma.
“And that one?” one of the twins asked, his voice catching Noa’s attention. They had held her grandma. They had plunged a knife into her chest then burned her on a stake.
An anger, a fury that Noa had never experienced before, suffused her veins as powerfully as the flames had her grandma. Noa wanted to hurt these men. She felt something shift inside her, a shadow stepping around a light, an eclipse over her once beating heart.
Noa wanted to kill them.
“This one comes with us,” the head priest said from behind her. He turned her into his arms. She was shaking from rage, trembling from sorrow, from shock and whatever else had just happened. “She’s young enough that we can exorcise the sin from her witch’s heart,” he hissed, lip curling with distaste. “A heathen, a heretic just like that sinner we just sent to hell.”
Noa’s hands were tied, so she spat in his face. The priest stilled, then pushed her back into the chest of one of the twins and wiped the spittle from his face. He shook his hand, walked toward her, and sliced the back of his hand across her face. “I’m going to enjoy breaking you, witch.”
Noa barely remembered the journey, too consumed with the horrors replaying in her mind. They had killed them. They had killed her family for being Wiccan. She couldn’t wrap her head around it. Her family were good people. They were kind and compassionate people.
They weren’t heretics. They weren’t evil witches. Satan-worshippers.
As if in a dream—a nightmare—Noa was taken from a van and into an old building. She was led down to a basement of sorts and flung inside. As Noa lay on the stone floor, panting and disorientated with shock and grief, a hand hovered before her face. She glanced up and