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Speaker 1: Prolog. The night they came, she stood in a meadow

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circled by tall pine trees, their dark silhouettes swaying in

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the wind that swept down from the mountains beyond. Her

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thin white shift clung to her rain soaked body as

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water slid down her arms and dripped from her fingertips,

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disappearing into the deep indigo violets at her feet. She

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was perfectly still, silent as carved stone, listening. The only

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sound was her ragged, uneven breath. She did not know

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how long she had been running. Her lungs burned, her

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legs trembled with exhaustion, but she believed, hoped that she

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had outrun them, the angry mob that had come under

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cover of night with rope and scripture, intent on binding

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her hands and feet and casting her into the pond

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at the village edge to see whether a witch would

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sink or float. Their mistake was believing she would be unprepared.

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She had seen this moment coming in the lingering stairs

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at the market place, in the sideways glances, in the

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whispered warnings that fell silent. The moment she drew near,

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they suspected she was a witch. Secretly painfully. She suspected

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it too, though she had never been certain. There were

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things she could do that defied explanation. A snap of

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her fingers could coax the hearth fire awake. A gentle

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breath from across the room could extinguish a candle. Her

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garden thrived when others withered, her harvest lasted far beyond reason.

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Children Sarah and William, would knock on her door, laid

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in the autumn, needing vegetables their mothers lacked. Somehow, she

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never ran out. No one questioned her gifts when they

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benefited the village. But everything changed the day Reverend Sampson

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arrived and set a church at the center of their world.

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Under his sermons, her thriving garden became a blight, her

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remedies a sign of the devil's mark. Yet even then

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the villagers knew only a fraction of the truth. There

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were the dreams, vivid, impossible, unsettling, that carried her somewhere

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else entirely. She would fall asleep in her small feather bed,

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only to awaken in another place, an empty green surrounded

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by unfamiliar buildings, a baker, a yarn shop, a general

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store stocked with food sealed in clear containers she later

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learned from a book were called plastic. There was a

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shop named the Witch's Brew, filled with crystals, herbs, candles,

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and objects that stirred something warm and ancient inside her light.

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There required no flame. Glass bulbs glowed with captured brilliance.

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Metal machines hummed with dials and numbers she could not decipher.

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Each night she wandered that strange, silent village, half in awe,

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half in longing. Once she tried to carry knitting needles

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back with her, but she awoke empty handed. Her favorite

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place was the yarn shop, with its endless skeins and

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soft colors, enough to keep a whole coven of nosy

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grandmother's knitting for decades. Knitting steadied her thoughts there, grounding

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her amid the impossible questions. Was this a dream or

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the future? She never saw another soul. At times it

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felt as though the entire village had vanished mid breath.

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She convinced herself it was imagination. Until the night she

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sat I saw him. A man on a black horse

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watched her from the edge of the trees. His presence

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sent cold dread curling up her spine. Instinct commanded her

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to run. She fled blindly through the green until she

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crashed into an iron staircase. A jagged piece of metal

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tore into her arm. When she awoke in her own

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bed the next morning, dried blood stiffened the fabric of

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her shift, and her arm still bore the wound. That

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was the moment she knew her gardens, her herbs, her

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night walking to the other side. It was all part

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of the same truth. She was a witch, and the

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knowledge weighed upon her like a curse. On the night

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it finally happened, September twenty ninth, sixteen ninety four, she

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slipped into sleep and found herself on the other side

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as usual, But moments later she was torn violently awake.

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A heavy pounding rattled her cottage door. She snapped her fingers,

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the candle flared to life. She reached for the small

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knife beside her bed she had prepared for this. Dropping

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to the floor, she shoved aside the rug and lifted

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the hidden hatch. The opening was nearly invisible, smooth wood,

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no handle, no seam. She slipped into the darkness below

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and closed it behind her. At the bottom of the

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narrow pine branch ladder waited a small satchel. She tied

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it around her waist and ran. She had dug this

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tunnel over two long years, from the moment the reverend

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arrived and the whispers began. She had prepared, she had

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heard the stories from Salem. She would not be caught unaware.

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The tunnel led her to the river bank. The water

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was low. She crossed quickly, vanishing into the forest just

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as the moon broke free of the clouds. The trees

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were dense, turning the world into shadow and silence. She

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walked all night, bare feet, whispering over pine needles. The

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scent of wood smoke faded behind her. By dawn, the

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sky shifted from star dusted black to a muted gray.

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She needed shelter. Rain swept in, suddenly cold, heavy, relentless.

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She did not know that the storm saved her, sending

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the two men tracking her back to the village. Unwilling

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to risk sickness. By mid morning, she found a rocky

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overhang at the base of a cliff, dry hidden enough

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to conceal her. She crawled beneath it, used her cloak

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as a blanket, her satchel as a pillow, and sleep

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claimed her instantly. When she awoke, she was no longer

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beneath the cliff. She was in the woods of the

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other side. Her shift was damp. Pine needles clung to

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her feet, Her fiery hair hung in tangled curls around

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her pale face. Her stomach growled. She tried to stand,

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but her legs failed her. She was exhausted, hungry, alone,

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but alive. The air smelled of rain and early autumn.

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A stream trickled nearby. She gathered herself and washed the

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cold water, shocking her awake. She dressed boots stockings, a

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fresh dry dress, and, for the first time since fleeing,

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allowed herself a trembling breath of relief. She would live

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another day. Back in the village, Reverend Sampson announced that

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God's righteous hand had struck down the wicked Fernwood girl.

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He preached that she had hurled herself from a cliff

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into the jaws of hell. The congregation cheered their bellies,

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and his purse would be full that winter. And though

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a few mourned the mothers whose children she had healed,

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the elders whose aching bones she soothed, their sorrow was

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swallowed by fear. Silver Fernwood would never know, she would

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never see them again.