The air inside Arthur’s office smelled like dust, old paper, and something bitter—regret, maybe. Or history that refused to stay buried.
I sat across from him with my hands folded so tightly in my lap that my nails bit into my skin. The window behind him framed Blackley Town’s main street, where people pretended not to stare while absolutely staring. I had been gone for ten years, and yet my return had traveled faster than my car ever could.
“Ivy Blackthorn,” Arthur said carefully, adjusting his glasses. “By law, the property and assets left by your grandmother are now officially yours.”
The words should have felt victorious. Closure. Inheritance. Justice.
Instead, my stomach twisted.
Because this town never gave anything without demanding blood in return.
I signed the last document. The pen trembled just once before I forced my hand steady. When I stood, Arthur hesitated.
“You don’t have to stay,” he said quietly. “You could sell the house. Leave again.”
I met his eyes. “That’s exactly what they want.”
Outside, the sky was a flat, oppressive gray. The kind that pressed down on your shoulders until breathing felt like a chore. I stepped onto the sidewalk—and the murmurs grew louder.
Then a voice cut through the crowd like a blade.
“There she is.”
I froze.
Elias Blackwood stood at the center of the street, flanked by his secretary Mabel and at least a dozen townspeople. He wore the same pleasant smile he always did—the kind that looked good in campaign photos and funerals alike.
The mayor. The town’s golden heir. My family’s executioner, by legacy if not by law.
“Welcome home, Ivy,” Elias said, spreading his hands. “Or should I say… welcome back to where it all began?”
Mabel stepped forward, clutching something wrapped in a cloth. Her eyes were already red, as if she’d practiced crying in the mirror.
“We found this,” Elias continued gently, unwrapping the cloth to reveal a small blade. A dagger. Its handle carved with symbols I recognized in my bones before my mind caught up. “Inside your grandmother’s house.”
The crowd inhaled as one.
“It was covered in herbs,” Mabel sobbed. “Strange ones. My son has been sick ever since you arrived. Fevers. Nightmares. And now this—”
“You’re saying I did this?” I asked, my voice calm in a way that surprised even me.
Elias tilted his head. “I’m saying history has a way of repeating itself.”
The word witch was never spoken. It didn’t need to be.
Someone threw a pebble. It hit the pavement near my feet. Another followed.
My pulse roared in my ears. I told myself to walk away, to breathe, to remember my mother’s last words: Don’t let them see you break.
But then Elias stepped closer and held the dagger out to me.
“Do you recognize it?” he asked softly.
I shouldn’t have touched it.
Every instinct screamed at me not to—but my fingers brushed the cold metal before I could stop myself.
The world fractured.
Suddenly I wasn’t on the street anymore.
I saw Mabel’s kitchen, dim and cramped. Elias standing too close to her, his voice low and urgent.
“Put it in the house,” he said. “People already believe. We just need proof.”
“I’m scared,” Mabel whispered.
“Fear is useful,” Elias replied. “Especially theirs.”
The vision snapped away.
I gasped, dropping the dagger as if it burned. Pain flared across my wrist—and then heat. I looked down.
Thorned red lines bloomed against my skin, twisting into a familiar pattern I’d seen only once before.
On my mother’s wrist. The night she died.
The crowd murmured louder now, uncertain. Afraid.
Elias’s smile faltered for half a second.
That was all I needed.
I straightened, my heart pounding but my mind suddenly clear. Cold. Sharp.
“That’s not from my grandmother’s yard,” I said.
Silence fell.
Elias blinked. “Excuse me?”
I pointed to the dirt smeared along the blade’s edge. “Her property has black clay soil. Heavy. Wet. That dirt is sandy. Yellow-brown.”
Mabel’s face drained of color.
“There’s only one place in town with soil like that,” I continued, meeting Elias’s eyes. “Your estate.”
A ripple of unease passed through the crowd.
Arthur had stepped outside now, his brow furrowed. Eleanor from the general store stood at the edge of the group, watching me with something like recognition—and warning.
Elias laughed lightly, but it sounded forced. “You expect us to believe—”
“I expect you to believe your own lies,” I cut in. “Because you’ve been telling them for generations.”
The mark on my wrist pulsed, alive and awake.
For the first time since I came back, fear wasn’t mine alone.
And I realized something then, standing in the middle of a town that once burned women like me for existing—
They had started this.
But I was going to finish it.