The Witch’s Easel
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When the witch of Shadybight disappears under mysterious circumstances, her daughter—Bean—sees a nightmarish glimpse of what will come. Though Bean and her mother were estranged for nearly seven years, it proves to Bean they still have a bond, whether she wants that connection or not. To solve her mother’s disappearance, Bean is forced into the world she never intended to enter, a world riddled with curses, murder, and ghosts.
☾ ⋯Prologue⋯ ✩
On a cold October night, the witch of Shadybight hobbled her way across an empty street with a cane and a Pullman suitcase. She was a withered old thing, and the many years she had spent gardening for the town’s elite had left her hunched and disabled. But that did not stop the determination in her every step as she crossed that road. It was lit by one street lamp—that had a habit of flickering when cars passed by—and two shops on each corner, which were often closed during the suspicious hours of midnight and two A.M: the time she had chosen to travel.
There were only two people Briney Dodds would seek at that time, and the chances she was visiting one of them that evening were all but certain.
The first had once loved Briney so dearly she called her “mom,” but the years had bred that love into scorn, scorn into hatred, and hatred bent their relationship until it broke. Even so, the witch found comfort in her only daughter, despite her daughter finding no comfort in her.
The second would welcome her with a loving cup of tea and a chance to tell her story until the sun rose the next morning. Her unofficially adopted son was an orphan with a dim future before he found his favor with the witch. He was now a detective in the local, and only, police station, where he cultivated his curious distaste for corner stores—though he found himself buying a paper at one every other evening.
Had Briney chosen a street closer to her son, she would have found him lurking outside his most-frequented corner store, but she found neither of her children that night.
She never found her way across the street.
Map Art by Molly Leasure