The night smelled like smoke before the fire was even lit.
I knew it the moment I stepped onto the porch of my grandmother’s house—the way fear curdled the air, thick and metallic, like rusted blood. Torches flickered beyond the gate. Shadows moved where neighbors used to smile.
“Don’t go out there,” Jasper said, gripping my arm. His voice shook, not from fear for himself, but for me. “They’re not thinking. They’re following him.”
Elias.
Of course he wouldn’t go quietly.
“They already made up their minds,” Eleanor whispered beside me. Vines crept along her boots, reacting to her pulse, leaves trembling like frightened animals. “He told them you’re the curse. That burning this house will save the town.”
Save them.
By destroying me.
I straightened my spine and stepped forward anyway.
The crowd roared the moment they saw me.
“Witch!”
“Liar!”
“Burn it down before she poisons us all!”
Mabel stood near the front, clutching a torch with white-knuckled terror, her eyes wild and hollow. Behind her, Elias watched calmly, hands folded behind his back like a benevolent king watching justice unfold.
I felt it then—the curse.
Not mine.
Theirs.
Fear soaked into their bones, passed down like inheritance. It crawled over my skin, begging to be touched.
“Ivy,” Caleb shouted, pushing through the crowd with Reverend beside him. “Stop! Listen to her!”
Elias laughed. A low, pleased sound. “You see?” he called out. “She’s already corrupted them. Turning family against family.”
I met his gaze.
And something inside me snapped.
The thorned pressure I’d learned to tolerate surged violently, but this time it didn’t hurt. It opened.
Green light spilled from my palms—soft at first, then brighter, like moonlight filtered through leaves. The shouting faltered. Torches wavered.
“What is she doing?” someone whispered.
I stepped off the porch and onto the dirt path, unafraid.
“I’m not here to curse you,” I said, my voice carrying farther than it should have. “I’m here to give it back.”
Elias’s smile cracked. “Don’t listen—”
I raised my hands.
The air shuddered.
The wall of the town hall across the square shimmered—and then the past bled through stone.
A woman screaming in a linen dress. Ropes. Fire. A man with Elias’s eyes whispering lies to a magistrate.
Gasps tore through the crowd.
The image shifted—my grandmother, twenty years ago, standing in this same square while Elias’s father pointed and accused, the town turning its back on her as easily as breathing.
Then the most recent memory—Mabel crying, Elias’s hand heavy on her shoulder as he coached her words, promised her safety if she blamed me.
“No…” Mabel sobbed. The torch slipped from her fingers.
I felt the curse loosening, threads snapping one by one. Fear drained from faces, replaced by horror.
“This isn’t possible,” Elias snarled, lunging for a dropped torch.
Caleb tackled him before he could reach it.
“She’s showing you the truth!” Reverend shouted. “The records prove it! I kept them—I kept them because God doesn’t burn the innocent!”
Mabel collapsed to her knees. “She didn’t do anything,” she cried. “My boy drank the water. Elias told me to lie. He said it was her or us.”
The crowd turned.
Not on me.
On him.
“You lied to us,” someone shouted.
“You poisoned the swamp!”
“You almost burned a woman alive!”
Elias screamed, wild now, stripped bare. “I did it for this town! For progress!”
“For yourself,” I said quietly.
The light faded from my hands, leaving only silence and the sound of my own breathing.
I hadn’t cursed them.
I had cleansed them.
And as Elias was dragged away—screaming, clawing, finally powerless—I understood something with terrifying clarity:
They had feared witches because witches ended lies.
And Blackley would never sleep the same again.