Bridge Jumper Comes Back To Life For Help: The Century Curse

033

The knot on my head was sore from knocking it against the wood frame of my bed. I was trying to tend to it, but the straw poking through the cheap fabric was tickling my arm. But to restrain myself from laughing, I covered my mouth. Footsteps raced down the hall towards the door to my room. Holding my breath was all I could do in hopes that I wasn't found by the pursuer.

But as the door swung open, slamming against the wall, I bumped the forming goose egg again. It was more unbearable the second time, but if I didn't stay quiet, who knew what punishment I'd suffer. I watched as the footsteps paced through the room, probably checking each nook thoroughly. The sense of successfully evading the enemy was almost unbearable, as they started their way back into the hall.

Though, just as I was about to relax, the body standing in the doorway dropped to the floor, the face of a girl revealing itself.

"I found you!" My ten-year-old sister, Kirin, had beaten me at hide and seek once again.

"It's not fair! You're so much smaller than me!" Being fourteen, it was an understandable complaint. But I knew facing off against a much more petite person would be a disadvantage before I'd agreed years ago before our very first match.

Unlike when I dove under, I chose to slowly inch my way out from under my low sitting bed. The wooden floor boards were as cold as ever, being in a slab cabin on a hill outside of East Gothland. I knew we were lucky with each Swedish winter we came out of alive, but being grateful didn't make the spring mornings any less cold.

My sister took off towards the kitchen, "Mama, mama, I won again!"

Holding my head, I waddled around to sit at the table, my mother, Caroline, praising my sister. With a wave of her finger, she gestured as if to mark a chalkboard, "another point for Kirin! But remember, Haxa still has you beat in studies!"

That comment was always enough to get my sister to stomp around, completely forgetting the feeling of beating me in hide and seek. But what'd she expect, not only had I been studying witchcraft since I was five, but my mother actually found me quite gifted for my age. By the time I myself was eight, I was already summoning celestial sprites and keeping them in jars. Of course they'd fizzle out eventually, but my mother always told me that nothing lasts forever, so I didn't think much of it at the time.

Though we were all smiling and laughing as usual, something felt off this morning. Just as mother had told me to set the table for breakfast, there was a knock at the door. I wasn't told to grab my sister, but it felt as though hundreds of tiny spirits all told me at once to do so. My mother, though a gifted teacher and master in the arts, seemed to not expect anything, as she happily opened the door to whomever found their way up our dirt trail today.

"Mrs.Caroline Lundin, by the order of the royal command, on this day, April 10th, 1617. You and your daughters will be tested by trial for witchcraft."

We'd known there was a new law signed into place and had heard that people were being prosecuted in Duchy for the spellcasting and such. But our studies had always been private between the three of us, and living on the hill, we'd never had anyone to gossip to. Maybe someone at the market had started a rumor about mother, or maybe we'd just been made guilty by people who thought of us weird by living away from everyone.

Their tests and evidence were holey to say the least, but the majority of folks found us guilty. Though execution was tossed around as a punishment, one that made me soil my underwear, in our case, they felt a hefty fine would suffice. Money was no hard task as father was a traveling merchant who'd trade goods in foreign lands. But the prosecution brought on by the system leaders was never the issue, it was the townsfolk who were unruly about our presence.

A few nights had passed since the trials without much commotion, but tonight, I lay awake, not from the sprites, though they were there, but by the sound of crackling coming from the front of the house. Getting up and walking into the main room, their heat and roaring brightness that engulfed the walls and floors.

Peering outside past the flame, I saw two large wooden poles, screaming black masses attached to them, the same flames consuming my mother and sister. I knew not how I was spared being dragged out by my feet, along with my family. Maybe my gift for witchcraft was starting to show itself as more of a curse. But after escaping the burning roof I once called home, I set out to find a new place for study.

I knew one day, I'd surpass my mother and even her mother before her. I'd protect myself from the evils of this world, something even my mother could not. It took me fourteen years to hone my craft to something more usable than parlor tricks. I'd discovered the ability to manipulate my youth indefinitely, proving useful for the many more years of study. But there were many lives I had to sacrifice to obtain the knowledge I required, thus the bodies piled up.

Traveling from place to place to hide, find sources of spiritual power, or studies of the occult, I eventually made my way across the seas. There, I had my last major scare with the witch trials in Salem, almost being discovered after a colleague and I were reported by an onlooker. Surviving that incident taught me two things. One, I couldn't dedicate myself solely to my studies, and two, I needed an occupation that would revolve around others, so any actions I took in my free time were not seen as too suspicious.

Thus, here I sit, a detective, a witch, in the present day.