My mother always told me that girls were born with magic. We were the entrusted guardians of all magic, and all magical creatures that roamed the forests sprang forth from our gifts. It was our blood, our heritage, that brought new beasts into the world.
But Mother warned me. I was never to speak about our gifts in front of the boys in our village.
“When a little girl is born, she is blessed with the gift of magic. The magic of creation, of life, of liberation,” Mother said. “Little boys don’t possess any magic of their own, and you mustn’t make them feel bad about it.”
I asked her why. She said, “Because little boys grow up to be men, and men possess something else. Power. Enough power to take all your magic away.”
I was too little to understand what she meant at the time, but it never stopped me from grabbing the pointiest sticks in the grass and turning them into magic wands to cast my little spells in the kitchen. The spells never worked, but the magic was real to me. The sight of me twirling in my hand-sewn dress, holding onto my twisted root with ribbons tied on the end, was enough to make my mother laugh. She rarely ever laughed, and I felt like the more I twirled around saying my nonsense spells, the more magic I was giving her.
“Can you do magic, Mama?” I asked her one day as we sat in the meadow making flower crowns behind our cottage.
“No, not anymore, Astraea,” she frowned. “My magic was taken away a long time ago.”
“Can you get it back?”
She shook her head, and I watched as she wiped a tear and smiled as she placed the flower crown on my head.
“But even if you lose your magic one day – and I pray to the gods you never do – I want you to remember that even without magic, you are capable of achieving great things, my child.”
“Could I be a powerful sorcerer?” My tiny hands traced along the soft white petals of the crown. “Even without magic?”
My mother smiled. “Especially without magic.”
“What magical beasts do you think I’ll create, Mama?”
“Well, we will just have to see when you come of age, sweetheart,” she said. “Do not wish to rush through your early suns.”
That was one of the few memories I remember before I turned 12 suns old and was taken from my bed and fed the forgetting potions.
When I stumbled back home from the woods three years later, my mother collapsed onto the barren winter ground and sobbed as she cradled me. Most of the little girls who get taken never come back. Somehow, I crawled my way home despite my weakness and hunger.
“Mommy, they took my magic,” I cried.
Her shriek of anguish still haunts my ears, and I never spoke to her about what happened. Her knowing look told me that she knew what happened to little girls who got taken away into the woods, and it became a secret we both shared.
For two years since my return, I’ve tried to put the past behind me and forget about the fleeting moments of remembrance that flash in my head.
But those forgetting potions eventually wear off, and I am left remembering everything. Even with the tonics Mother got from the Madam’s apothecary to help me sleep, the nightmares always come back.
“She’s a changeling!” Father yelled at my mother one night while I lay in my bed with a vacant stare.
“Dallan, that is our daughter in there!” Mother thundered. “And right now she needs her father to see her pain!”
“Our daughter died in those woods, and whatever this creature is… It’s not our Astraea, Grace.”
“I know my child, and you don’t know what she went through for three years. Of course something like that would change her! That doesn’t mean she’s a changeling.”
“She’s nothing like she once was, Grace!” Father yelled.
“She lost her magic!” Mother fired back.
“Will you stop with that nonsense! Magic doesn’t exist! No wonder Astraea is so messed up! Her mother filled her head with these fairytale stories of magic!”
“Well, aren’t you so blessed to believe this is all nonsense! Never having to worry about something of deep importance being stolen from you…”
As I choked on the lump forming in my throat, I heard a loud slap, some thundering footsteps, and a door slam.
My father didn’t come home for three weeks. We never asked where he went or what he did, and we never spoke of that fight again.
So when Father returned a moon cycle later with a flyer for Master Magnifico’s Wondrous Talent Show, handed it to me, and said, “I signed you up as one of the acts,” I was speechless.
My hands trembled as I held the crumpled advertisement in front of my face. Everyone knew Master Magnifico – the self-proclaimed leader of our realm. A heavyset man with wrinkled eyes and an overly waxed mustache over a serpent smile, wearing a red and gold coat with tails cascading down the back as if his talent show were a circus. A whip was in his hand in the painted portrait, and I almost heard the crack. I felt an involuntary urge to puke.
“No, I can’t.” I shoved the flyer back into my father’s chest.
“Yes, you can, Astraea,” he said. “You used to have so many talents! You deserve to show the world what you’re capable of.”
“No,” I choked out and ran towards the bucket in the corner by the door that caught the leak from the roof, and I expelled my guts.
“Dallan, dear, she said no,” my mother chimed in with hesitancy in her voice. “Honey, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
“Grace, do you know how hard it was to get her in the show? She’s not backing out. Hell, she can even do one of those little magic shows she did when she was a child.”
“She’s still a child.”
“She’s almost 18 suns,” my father replied. “And she needs to start acting like it. This will be good for her. It will give her something positive to focus on for a few weeks. Get her social again. She can’t mope in her room and go to school forever. She needs to start doing something with her life.”
Mother helped pull the hair from my face as I clung to the bucket, cold water dripping down the back of my head.
“Obviously, she doesn’t want to do it if the very thought of it is making her sick,” Mother said while rubbing my back.
“She’s just shy about being on stage! She’s a pretty girl, and who knows, maybe this exposure will find her a suitor,” my father said.
I wiped my lips and heaved a breath. “I don’t need a suitor.”
My father tried to argue that I did, but I grabbed my books from the table and ran out the door.
“I’m going to be late to school,” was all I said as I left my parents arguing behind me.
“I heard your father got you into the talent show! Congratulations!” Dolion said. “You must be excited!”
“That’s not the word I’d use,” I said and forced a smile. “But thanks.”
“Well, I think it’s exciting! It’s not every day your best friend gets into a talent show for Master Magnifico!” Dolion wrapped his arm around me, and my body softened at his warm touch. “It’s a huge deal! Do you know what you’re going to perform yet?”
“No,” I said flatly. “Because I’m not doing it. I’ll give my time slot to someone who actually wants it.”
I pulled away from Dolion, his bright blue eyes glistening under his arched brow. “Are you crazy, Astraea? You’d really turn down this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?”
“Yes.”
I danced around my tall friend. Muscular and strong, Dolion was always there to protect me. When I returned from the woods, rumors were quick to circulate about me. Many of our classmates claimed I was a witch because no one could survive alone in the woods for three years. I was an impossibility.
And for all they knew, I did spend three years lost in the massive forests at the edge of our village. The official watchmen’s report said as much, and who would question the sheriff’s authority?
Dolion never seemed to care that I was the withdrawn social pariah. He gravitated towards me like a moth to candlelight, and deep in my heart somewhere, I was sure I loved him for it. But not enough to tell him about the truth of my missing years.
“Maybe I could help you with your act?” Dolion offered as he escorted me to class. “Before you say no, please think about it, okay? I want to see you shine, Astraea, and you deserve to be in the spotlight.”
Before I could protest, Dolion was off to the room next door, while I was met with a host of jealous eyes in my carpentry class.
Tinkering and building things out of wood and metal had been my escape. The noise of the hand saws and hammering of molten metal drowned out the screams, and I spent as much of my time as I could crafting tools that made life better – including a small catapult to help move and smash rocks in the quarry.
Maybe that’s why Dolion had the idea when he walked me home that afternoon.
“You should build something for your talent,” he said.
I rolled my eyes. “I can’t be on stage sanding wood for five minutes.”
“No,” he pondered, “but you can build something and present it as one of your inventions!”
“My father said I should do a magic show, like when I was a little girl.”
“You could… but do they let girls be magicians? I thought you could only be the pretty assistant. Every magician I’ve seen has been an ugly old man,” Dolion chuckled.
“My mother taught me I could be anything I wanted when I was little, so why not be a magician? She said I could be a powerful sorcerer if I wanted, so I guess a magician is as close as I’ll ever be to being a sorcerer.”
“There you go!” Dolion nudged my shoulder with his, unknowingly putting pressure on a deep scar that never fully healed, and I winced. “Oh, sorry! Did I hit you too hard? I didn’t mean to. Sometimes I don’t know my own strength.”
“No, it’s fine,” I said.
“Anyway… if you need help with your magic show, I would be happy to be your pretty assistant, though I wouldn’t be nearly as pretty as you. But you’re going to be the magician, and you’ll be the first pretty magician I’ve ever seen…”
“Dolion, you’re rambling again.”
Dolion had a tendency to ramble when he was nervous, and I learned early on that he’d eventually run out of words. He spoke enough for both of us.
“Right! Sorry!” He blushed. “I just want to help. You were born to shine, and I saw it when we were kids. You’ve been sad for so long. I want to see you be you again.”
“This is me, Dolion.”
“Not like how you used to be, you know?”
“People change.”
Dolion sighed. “I wish you’d tell me what happened when you were lost. Maybe I could help somehow.”
“I’m not sure anyone can help me,” I said. “You know how many girls get lost in the woods around here. I consider myself lucky I was one of the few who made it back home.”
“And I’m lucky you came back, too,” Dolion added.
Before I could say anything else, a group of small children came running up to me. Little pink and brown and white faces looked up at me with wonderment, eyes widening as the one little boy in front whispered: “It’s her!”
“Hello?” I said, confused.
“Are… are you the Witch of the Forest?” The little boy of about six suns mustered up the courage to ask me.
“That’s what they say,” I replied.
The children’s eyes widened with both amazement and fear.
“But she’s the nicest witch I know,” Dolion smiled at them. “Not that I know many of them. Or any.”
“You’re not helping,” I whispered to my friend.
A dark-haired little boy standing behind his friends tilted his head up to look at me, his loose-fitting hat falling behind him.
“Wow,” he breathed. “You’re famous!”
“Yeah, no one who goes into those woods ever comes back!” A redheaded little girl added. “You must be powerful!”
“The most powerful sorcerer in all the land!” Dolion said triumphantly.
I almost smiled until I saw the fear-stricken look in the soft green eyes of the blonde girl in a pale pink dress as she tugged on my pant leg.
“Were… were you one of the ones that got taken?” She asked, her eyes pleading for the truth.
The air retched from my lungs as I stared into her tiny face, that bottom lip of hers quivering as if about to break into a cry.
“No,” I lied. “I got lost while I was looking for a good tree to use for something I wanted to build.”
“So many girls get taken, and they never come back.” Tears formed in her eyes, and her lips quivered more fervently. “Will I get taken too?”
Something in me changed in that moment, and I knelt down to the children who looked to me for answers. The little girls in front of me trembled, fearing the monsters in the night taking them away – never to be seen again.
I reached into my bag in search of a handkerchief to wipe away their tears, but I found nothing that would remove the dampness from their cheeks. My calloused fingers brushed against her blonde curls, and I smiled.
“No, you won’t be taken,” I said, hoping that it wasn’t another lie. “The Witch of the Forest won’t let that happen.”
“What happened out there, Miss?” The little boy in front asked.
Everything I could remember flashed before my eyes, and that feeling of nausea returned as I saw Master Magnifico’s face instead of the little boy’s. I pulled away and shook my head.
“I’ll tell you when you’re older, or when the monsters are all gone,” I smiled and stood up.
They must have been satisfied with my answers as they scurried away, the girl in pink lingering to hug my leg and say “thank you” before rejoining her friends.
“Looks like you have a little fan club,” Dolion winked at me. “How does that make you feel?”
“Like I need to prepare for this talent show,” I said.
“Yes! That’s what I like to hear!”
I glanced at Dolion before turning my attention to the children now playing in the muddy field. “Does Master Magnifico attend these talent shows?”
“Are you kidding? He’s the host,” Dolion said. “He’ll be in the front row and everything. Maybe even on stage! And we’ll get to meet him! That’s what I’ve heard from the other villages that have hosted one of his shows.”
Maybe Dolion was excited to meet the most powerful man in the realm, but I certainly wasn’t. Not when I’d already met him before. In his citadel in the woods. When he carved my magic out of me.
“I need to get to work. I have some stage props I need to build.”
The Bogeyman doesn’t live under the bed, as the stories told to children to keep them complacent would have you believe. Though he was no stranger to taking you from your bed and chaining you to his. He lives high up in the old citadel reserved for royalty, flashing his porcelain smile and waving his ink wand. Whatever it pens becomes the law of the land, and never once is it questioned.
The one and only Master Magnifico himself.
This man of no magic commanded an order with his ink wand, and suddenly, young girls in the realm went missing. No one questioned it, and for decades, girls disappeared in the woods. Villages were ravaged as girls were taken every night. The decrees from the village crier dismissed our fears and told us that these threats of monsters stealing children were being addressed by Master Magnifico. That this Master, who came to power under mysterious circumstances, was going to be the savior to bring all the girls back home.
And for a century, perhaps the people believed him. The girls never made it home, yet the people still believed in what Master Magnifico professed. With their own eyes, they were blinded to the truth. The unaging man who would not die solidified himself as an institution. He ingrained himself into the fabric of the world, and no one dared to pull at that thread for fear of what unraveling it would do to us all.
Most of the girls who went missing over the centuries were not lucky enough to stumble their way home. They either died in chains or died alone and confused in the forest, feasted on by the wild beasts.
Once our magic was harvested and depleted, we were of no use to Master Magnifico or his entourage – old men like him in search of power by any means necessary. Of course, not as much power as Master Magnifico. They could hold provincial titles, but they’d never surpass the amount of power he amassed. For these men, we were nothing but disposable little playthings cast aside when our usefulness was gone – when our magic could no longer create the creatures they required.
But I remembered his face. I remembered what he did. Those forgetting potions that never took full effect. They only dulled the senses. The world moved like a fluid dream, but I remembered what he did to me. What he took from me.
When I returned, my mother walked with me to the watchmen’s post, and I talked to the sheriff, recounting my story in as much detail as I could remember.
He looked at us coldly as he said, “Astraea was lost in the woods, surviving in caves and foraging for berries. Nothing more.”
“But that’s not what happened! The mustached man came into my room and took me! I was trapped in a stone room with chains holding me against a table! I…”
The sheriff didn’t believe me.
“My daughter’s telling the truth because Master Magnifico took me when I was a little girl, too,” my mother cried. “He’s the one responsible for all this pain and suffering. He’s the one responsible for magical creatures becoming extinct and expecting our little girls to use their gifts of creation to breed the beasts back to life for whatever sick games they play behind closed doors!”
It was the first time I’d heard her say what I had suspected since getting taken. Those long nights chained to the stone slab with a sliver of moonlight piercing my face from the grates above, I often thought of the things Mother told me and the look in her eyes when she said them. They were eyes of experience. Of someone who had lost more than anyone should ever lose.
“If that were true, then why would you only say something about it now? And to fill your daughter’s fragile mind with such thoughts, no wonder she thought our leader somehow kidnapped her in the middle of the night!” The sheriff scoffed and dismissed us with a wave of his hand.
“Why won’t he listen to us?” I cried into my mother’s embrace. “Why would I lie about what he did to me?”
“I suspect, unfortunately, that our sheriff has been part of this nightmare for quite some time,” she said. “Power always protects power.”
“It’s not right! There are other girls still trapped in those dungeons in the woods! It keeps happening. Why is no one listening? We need to do something. We need to save them!”
But my pleas fell on deaf ears, no matter how many authorities I talked to.
I learned to stop speaking up because everyone thought my time in the forest had made me crazy, that the years I spent in solitude had rotted my mind, and I concocted some wild fable about the most powerful man in the realm because it was the only name I knew. His face was plastered everywhere. On flyers in the village square. The coins were minted with his visage on one side and his citadel on the other. In the books used in the schoolhouse. Master Magnifico was unavoidable. His presence permeated every surface of our lives.
They didn’t want to hear the truth, even when I saw the acknowledgment in their eyes. They knew but chose compliance. Why? I will never know. I only knew the fundamental truth: the gods had abandoned us. There was no one to save us from the monsters watching us from high towers.
“What are you building?” Dolion asked.
He stopped by the cottage a few days after I had told him I had a plan, but I was nowhere near finished with my creation. Half-sawn pieces of wood littered the ground around my feet.
“The final trick to my act,” I said and continued with my work.
“Let me guess, you’re not going to tell me?” Dolion smiled, but he was right. I wouldn’t tell him what it was until I was finished. “Always so secretive, Astraea. I wish you’d let me in on it, you know, since I volunteered to be your assistant.”
“I don’t want to ruin the surprise.”
“I’m sure whatever it is you’re building will be amazing,” my friend said, his hand grazing my arm as I sanded a piece of wood. I paid it no mind. “So what exactly are you going to have me doing on the stage?”
“After we do my first two big tricks, I’ll need your help getting an audience participant for this final trick,” I said. “And I know exactly who that participant will be.”
Dolion sighed, knowing better than to ask me any more questions he knew I wouldn’t answer, and he left me alone in my workspace to complete my magnum opus.
But no sooner had Dolion left than my father entered, inspecting my work and critiquing the rudimentary construction.
“I’m not finished yet,” I bristled. “I have days yet.”
“Indeed,” he said, “but this is in no state to be sharing the stage with our great Master Magnifico.”
“Then I shall stain it. Perhaps a warm shade of red like the old oaks.”
My father eyed me and the crude rigging I had begun hoisting, unsure what to make of it. He leaned against the workbench beside me.
“You know, it’s a big honor to be part of Master Magnifico’s talent show, Astraea,” he said.
“So you’ve told me.” I kept working. It was the only thing keeping the vomit down.
“And this will be good for you, you know? Get you out of whatever this curse has been on you for years,” he added.
“Curse?” I stopped in my tracks, and my eyes scanned the man before me. “Is that what you think of me? Since I survived the…”
“You haven’t been yourself,” my father said.
“Yet you have never bothered to ask me why.”
“Would you tell me?”
“It depends. Would you believe me?” I glared. He was silent as he shuffled out of my workspace, and I continued on with my project.
“Not if it’s your childish rantings about Master Magnifico again,” he said. “You’d do well to stop questioning him. He’s saved our realm…”
“Saved it from what?” I squared my shoulders. “Look around, Father. The people are hungry. The lands are dying. Tell me what he has saved us from?”
That was the question no one could ever answer. This monolithic man boasted bold promises of prosperity while the people perished at his neglect. My father stammered, taken aback at my questions that he, too, was unable to answer. No one could truly assert the great things Master Magnifico did for the realm, all fooled by a magician’s sleight of hand.
“Just make sure whatever you’re making is fit for a man as high in stature as Master Magnifico,” my father said at last before stomping towards the house.
“I wouldn’t dream of anything less.”
It was three days before the show when everyone in the village hounded me for details of my act. Dolion had to practically beat our peers off me so I had room to breathe. He chalked it up to excitement and pride that our little village was being featured so prominently in such a wonderful spectacle. There were talks about what to wear as my village was filled with a bunch of anybodies who dreamed of being somebodies. And somebodies were the ones expected to attend a show hosted by our infamous leader.
Of course, it was the men of the village planning to don their best silks and leathers. The women – the majority of us victims to Master Magnifico’s cruelty in some way – didn’t feel so enthralled by seeing him again. I saw the pain and fear in their eyes when the men spoke of him, how my sisters cowered at the mention of his name.
“You are so brave,” the eldest enchantress in the village had whispered to me. We called her the Madam. She had long since lost her magic, and she had the scars across her flesh to prove it. A gash across her milky white eye and whip marks painted her chest when her shawl would slip off her shoulder. “We need more sorcerers like you.”
“I don’t feel like a sorcerer,” I confided as I sipped on the herbal tea she offered me in her humble apothecary. The Madam had taken to the ways of the old magic, deep-rooted in the earth, which was not as powerful as the magic she once possessed. But it was something, and that meant everything to the Madam. “They took my magic the same as they did to you. I don’t have the connection to the earth that you do. I have nothing.”
“My dear girl, what they took from you was precious and yours alone to choose how it bloomed in this world, but I will let you in on a secret. Those monsters that lurk in the darkness can never take your power,” the Madam said. “They should have never stolen from you what they did, and as I sit here now, I will ensure that their rotten bones find no peace in the magic-drenched soil of this land. But the sorcery in you, that power inside your soul… that’s a kind of magic that no one can ever take away. Never forget that.”
I wanted to cry, and the Madam would have let me if I did. But this wasn’t a time for tears when I had many preparations to make before the show. Master Magnifico would be in the village in two days’ time to meet with the talent set to prance about his stage, and I needed to sip on Madam’s tea tonic to turn my nerves to stone.
“Are you sure you want to go through with it?” She asked me.
“Yes.” There was no hesitation in my voice. “If not me, then who? Who would dare to stop him?”
How many more girls would be taken? How many more little girls would not live to see their mothers again? How many more girls would be chained and shackled for the amusement of Master Magnifico and his clients? How many more children need to suffer and die before action is taken? If not action by my hands, then by whose?
“And the device… the one I gave you the plans to construct… it works, yes?” The Madam put her special tea blend in a pouch and handed it to me.
“I tested it on some gourds from the garden, and it worked,” I said.
“Make sure that you sharpen the blade before the show, dear.”
I nodded.
“And you do know that if you do this… you are not likely to survive the curtain call,” the Madam added.
“Yes, but neither will he.”
The village was alight the day before the show as they prepared the streets for the arrival of Master Magnifico and his entourage. Men bossed the women around, telling us to clean faster because time was of the essence. Everything had to be perfect for Master Magnifico, of course.
But as I made my way back to my cottage, I felt something in the air as I watched the women. They did not hurry their pace. They did not bother to do a second round of scrubbing. Streets remained littered with debris from the recent storm and the unshoveled droppings from the cattle carts. The women tended to their children. The mothers told their daughters that they would not let the monsters coming into town take them from their beds. The men continued to howl and make empty threats, but the women of my village paid them no mind. Something in my spirit told me that my sisters knew. Though only the Madam knew of my plans, and her wrinkled lips were sworn to secrecy, part of me knew that the winds were changing.
Dolion came bounding up to the house, frantic and excited that the leader of the realm would be here at the cottage within the hour.
“Aren’t you excited to meet him?” He was grinning from ear to ear.
“No,” I said coldly. “I’ve already met him once.”
“What? When?” Dolion stared in disbelief. “Has he already come by? Did I miss him?”
“No. I met him when I was a child. In the forest.”
Dolion’s face paled, and he raised an eyebrow. I continued to sew the beads onto my costume: green and black beads laid out in a pattern resembling dragon scales.
“You never told me about what happened in the forest. Did Master Magnifico save you?”
I put down my needle and thread so that I could take Dolion’s hand. “Come with me,” I said as I led him towards my carpentry workspace behind the house. “I think it’s only right that I tell you the truth.”
Dolion silently held his breath as he sat on the workbench. I felt more comfortable standing so that I could pace around in circles. The only people who knew the whole story were my mother and the Madam because I knew that they had also been survivors of what Master Magnifico was doing in the forest. We shared the same story, generations apart, so I knew they would believe me.
My father had never believed my mother when she told him of what had happened to her as a little girl. I had little faith that he would believe me. But Dolion? He had been my faithful friend since before I was taken, and I had to trust that he would believe me and not tell anyone of my secret plans.
“You’re starting to scare me, Astraea,” he said.
“I was scared, too. For a very long time,” I replied. “Fear is all I felt for the agonizing three years I was imprisoned by Master Magnifico and his entourage.”
Dolion’s eyes grew wide, and he shook his head. “He wouldn’t…”
“He has been doing this for centuries, Dolion. It’s his operation. I was imprisoned in his citadel with other girls he stole from the lands,” I said.
I couldn’t read Dolion’s expression. It was somewhere between shock and denial. The deified man he idolized versus the girl he cared for’s testimony. His kind eyes began to crack.
“They take girls from their beds while they sleep so they can harvest their magic,” I continued. “You notice how no woman in the village practices magic?”
“The Madam…”
“She sources her magic through the earth, but it’s not the magic she was born with. It was stolen from her just like mine was.”
Dolion blinked. “Magic is just a myth. I’ve never seen it except on the stage.” He shook his head. “People don’t have magic.”
“Girls do,” I said. “The magic of creation, of liberation. My mother always said that men like Master Magnifico were jealous of the power we held. Somehow, he found a way to harvest it from us before we had a chance to cultivate it ourselves.”
Dolion sat silently, his heaving breaths entwining with the warm winds. I picked at the calloused skin on my palms.
“Astraea, how can you expect me to believe something so fantastical?”
“Why would I have any reason to lie to you? What purpose would it serve me to be dishonest?” I replied.
“He’s the most powerful man…”
“I know.”
“Why would he…”
“Because how else would a mortal man keep his unnaturally long life?” I said. “He is no god, Dolion. He is a man. A man who found a way to prolong his life at the expense of girls and the magic created from within them. You must see that. Master Magnifico has been around for centuries. Has no one ever bothered to ask how that was possible?”
“As the chosen leader of our realm, the gods would have blessed him with long life,” Dolion said.
“Even the gods have their limits, and they have long since abandoned us.”
Dolion’s face shattered before me. The depth of pain swirled like storms in his eyes, and he leaned against the doorframe. There wasn’t much else I could say to him that would make him understand. He was born into a different world than me. He lived in a world where he never had to worry about being abducted and enslaved. It didn’t matter who ruled the realm to him because his life would be unchanged, whereas my life and the lives of my sisters were always in question.
A long moment passed until Dolion turned to face me, his features more somber and hollow than when he arrived at the cottage earlier.
“How do they harvest it? I mean… if something’s inside of you then…”
“To be honest, I don’t fully remember the procedures they performed on me. I tried my best to block out the memories. The pain. The screaming for my mother. The sleeping potions they forced down my throat,” I choked on the words like they were a serpent’s venom. “I just remember one day waking up, my belly swollen and bruised, as they carried something out of the dungeon while I lay there screaming. It was something small. It was crying.”
I found it easier to call my child an “it” so I could pretend it was just a thing I misplaced. Not the crop of my magic’s harvesting.
I don’t know what happened to it. Sometimes I still hear it crying when I try to sleep. It sounded like a little lamb, except there was a hiss as it cried, echoing like a chorus. Mother always said our magic gave birth to magical beasts, and I try not to think about what creature they carried away from me that day. A newborn unicorn, a Hydra, a satyr. It wouldn’t matter. They would have been slaughtered and their magical properties used for keeping Master Magnifico unnaturally alive.
“My mother told me my magic would be one of fauna, as I found kinship with animals as a child. She hoped I’d be one of the chosen mothers, powerful enough to replenish magical creatures that had disappeared from the forest long ago. The griffins. The unicorns. The dragons. The centaurs. She and I wondered which type of beast my magic would create,” I recalled. “She told me that my soul was made of just the right stuff to be a sacred mother one day. Their protector. But that day, I couldn’t protect… couldn’t save…”
“Those creatures don’t exist,” Dolion said. “I’ve only read about them in stories. They’re just dreams, Astraea.”
“They were wiped out by unnatural forces. Harvested for their magic,” I said as I paced in circles. Chills ran down my spine that even the warmth in the summer air couldn’t melt away. “That’s what Master Magnifico does. He keeps the girls in shackles, feeds them potions to age their magic, and then his cronies harvest the product for their purposes. Most girls are kept alive for multiple harvests. Some don’t survive the first harvest, though. Their magic is weaker, and they perish not long after their offspring are slaughtered. And even fewer are able to escape to tell of the horrors.”
“And you… you escaped?” Dolion’s eyes were hardened with a fury I knew all too well from my own reflection in the still waters. “But how?”
“I played dead and hoped they would toss my body out somewhere, and I could sneak through the cover of trees at night,” I said. “Sure enough, I felt my body being carried away in the cover of darkness, and I was thrown into a deep pit. I tried not to grunt when my body hit something hard underneath me.”
“What was in the pit?” Dolion choked out, his face drained of what little color he had.
“I stayed until I could see the early morning sun peaking over the horizon. The night of the new moon gave me very little light,” I said, blinking away tears. “That’s when I saw the pile of bodies resting below me.”
Dolion’s jaw dropped, and I felt the pulsating shock and anger radiating from him as he clutched his fists.
“No,” was all he mustered through his gritted teeth. “It must be a lie.”
Tiny bodies of my broken sisters and the magical creatures they harvested from us all lay discarded in a pit deep in the forest where no one could find, hidden behind magic stolen from girls like me. The fear was chiseled into their faces for all eternity. The crumpled remains of the newborn basilisks, satyrs, and minotaurs. They looked like bloody rags. I remember vomiting as I climbed my way out of that pit, and when it felt like I was far enough away, I let out a shriek.
“Why would I have any reason to lie to you, Dolion?” I asked.
My friend slammed his fist down on the workbench. “We must confront him! Ask him for the truth. If what you say is true, then we need proof!”
“Confront him? He would just deny it, and the people would continue to believe his lies as they always have,” I said. “Confronting him would do nothing.”
“Then what are we supposed to do, Astraea? You tell me these awful things and expect me to believe you, but you deny an audience with Master Magnifico to properly address your claims. He’s a man of talent and prestige, Astraea. Certainly, he would not be capable of such atrocities. He would help us find the truth and seek justice…”
“I almost admire your ability to deny your senses and defend a madman,” I said. “But I have found the only sensible recourse is to depose him.”
“Are you out of your mind, Astraea?” Dolion snapped. “We have to talk to him and the sheriff. Whoever will listen before you…”
“He won’t listen, Dolion. You don’t understand men like him,” I said. “He has power and has made himself untouchable.”
“But according to you, he’s harvesting children! Harvesting children to birth magical creatures to slaughter!” Dolion’s face reddened as the words gushed out of him. “How am I supposed to face the Master now? How am I supposed to look at him with this knowledge?”
“The same way I have to,” I said. “With grace and sincerity. Fawn over him as if you know nothing. As if nothing is wrong. He loves it when people bow to him.”
“Astraea,” Dolion sighed as he gently placed his hands around my shoulders. “I… I can’t. Not after knowing what he’s done to you – and to them. If what you say is true… and I do wish to believe you, Astraea.” Dolion took a deep breath and blinked a tear from his eye. “Those years of pain you endured because of him. How can you expect me to turn a blind eye knowing he hurt you?”
“You must stand by me and do this,” I replied, trying not to let my guard down at the warmth of his thumbs stroking my skin. “If my plan is to succeed, then I need you to be able to act like nothing is wrong. Please. For what I must do, I need your help.”
“What is your plan?” Dolion whispered.
I pulled away from him, walked over to the fabric draped over my creation, and tugged at the side, letting it fall away to reveal the device for the grand finale.
“Dolion, have you ever heard of a guillotine?”
“Are you out of your mind?” Dolion shouted. I shushed him and gestured for him to keep his voice down. He went into a low whisper. “A public execution? Astraea, that’s insanity!”
“Evil should not be deified and protected. It should not be permitted to continue its sick injustices. Evil does not deserve to wear the crown when its neck should wear the noose. Evil breeds evil, Dolion. If no one will take a stand, then I shall force him to fall before me,” I said. “I do not expect you to understand, but if you shall not stand with me, then I only ask that you not stand in my way.”
“You’re talking about vengeance, Astraea.”
“I am talking about liberation. If liberation comes in the guise of vengeance, then so be it. Our blood has been spilled enough, and it must end.”
I threw the cloth over the guillotine and grabbed some rope to tie around it.
“We need to get this down to the playhouse,” I said. “We have to get the act ready for the performance tomorrow, and it’s too heavy for me to move by myself. Are you here to help me or hinder me, Dolion?”
I stared at him long and hard. The kindness in his eyes couldn’t be extinguished even as the rage swelled within him. I wondered if, had I told him what happened to me sooner, he would have believed me then. It felt unfair to tell him right as he had expected to meet his hero. For years, I listened to how Dolion had bragged about this man, how he hoped one day that he could work in Master Magnifico’s court. Suddenly, the future he was building vanished, and all that was left in its wake were the ashes of extinguished dreams. The reality crashed across his face, but to his credit, he stiffened and erased the emotion from his face.
“I’ll take the right side,” he said as he walked toward me. “It’ll be easier to lift if we each grab a side.”
We made it to the playhouse and back to the cottage within the hour, my device covered and labeled as stage equipment. I kept the blade in my special magician’s box and planned to assemble the device before the show.
But as we marched up to my cottage, my irate father burst through the door towards me.
“Where the Hell have you two been?” His voice thundered. “Master Magnifico was here to meet you!”
“We were taking our props to the playhouse to set up for the show,” Dolion said. “It’s not her fault. We had a lot to do and lost track of time, sir.”
“Thank you, Dolion, and I almost believe you because I know you would have never missed an opportunity to meet the Master,” my father said. He pointed his finger at me. “But you! From the very beginning, you have been against this entire opportunity! Throwing away this chance to do something amazing for your village…”
“But I’m doing it at your own insistence, Father! I didn’t want any of this!” I pushed past him and stormed into the house. He followed after me, despite Dolion trying to grab his arm and hold him back.
“Sir, respectfully, leave Astraea alone,” Dolion said. “She’s under a lot of pressure from this whole talent show. Worried about her act, her costume, and me remembering my lines. It’s a lot!”
For once, I was glad that Dolion’s rambling stopped there before he could say anything else about our plans. My father simply told him to go home as he set his sights on me.
“You and I are going down to the playhouse to meet Master Magnifico, and you are going to apologize profusely until your tongue falls out that you were not here to greet him,” he instructed.
“I will meet him before the show tomorrow night,” I said flatly. “You cannot ask me to grovel before him.”
“He’s the leader of the realm!”
“His time is not of more value than mine. Self-professed leader or not, we share the same currency of time, and I choose not to squander my seconds with his presence.”
That’s when my father’s hand hit the side of my face, but I did not back down. I squared my shoulders.
“Astraea,” my father thundered. “You do not speak of the Master in such a distasteful…”
“I’m going to my room to finish my costume.”
I don’t know why I spent the night awake, hunched over the candlelight as I sewed my beading. In the scheme of things, my costume wouldn’t matter, but working on it kept me from the night terrors and the monsters I see when my eyes are enveloped in darkness.
I came out of my room in my creation: Leather pants with black and green beading that looked like scales going down my legs, paired with the tailored coat with matching scale detailing, the tails resembling that of a dragon’s as they tapered into one.
My father looked astonished and almost proud as I put on my hat, the center detail a pair of serpents’ eyes.
“You look beautiful, my daughter,” he said. “About last night. I wanted to say…”
I dismissed him. “I need to get to the playhouse. I’ll see you both tonight.”
My mother nodded at me. I turned towards the door before I could see my father’s reaction.
I had wanted to wait until I was at the playhouse to change into my costume, but Dolion thought it would generate more interest if people in our village saw me walking around as my stage persona. The way the beads shone in the sunlight caught everyone’s attention, and I felt all eyes gravitate to me. There were whispers through the village. The young ones came running up to touch my scales, then scurried off. The women’s eyes glistened, and I heard many whispered compliments. The men grumbled and made aggressive remarks, which I attempted to ignore until I reached the playhouse.
Inside the dressing room, I set my hat down on the vanity table. Behind me in the mirror was Master Magnifico, and I felt my blood turn cold.
“You must be the final act,” he said while perched in the leather chair. “We did not get the chance to meet yesterday when I arrived at your cottage.”
“I was here, practicing my act, sir,” I said, swallowing my disdain and forcing a smile as I turned to the man staring at me from his seat. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”
Over the years, as I protected my memories from the outside world, I had become quite skilled at lying. There was even a glisten in my eye as the words fell out of me, as an acorn falls from the tree – routine and uneventful.
Master Magnifico straightened his back, hand perched on his ornate cane tipped with a golden phoenix’s head. His wrinkled fingers stroked it with a gentleness most never experienced while in his possession. He stared at me, contemplatively, beady eyes scanning me thoroughly until his unruly eyebrow hairs arched.
“Do I know you?” He pointed the end of his cane in my direction, the tip of it running coarsely against the beading on my leg. The scraping sound of the wood against glass beads sent a chill through me. “You look familiar to me.”
“Kind of you to say, sir,” I replied. “Must have one of those faces. Get mistaken for lots of folks being plain.”
His eyes narrowed further as he assessed me before letting out a delighted gasp, his cane sliding up my hip. “My word, I bet you were breathtaking in your youth.”
“I’m only 17 suns, sir. Most of us consider that to still be youth,” I stated, brushing the cane away from hovering across my chest.
“Seventeen suns? My dear woman, you are practically a spinster by that age!”
Master Magnifico stood up, his frame not as tall and imposing as I remembered from years ago. Of course, I had grown taller since then. No longer the timid little girl in chains. I grew stronger, and I held myself with squared shoulders, refusing to bow before him.
He offered his hand to me, the gold ring encrusted with his emblem, the symbol of his authority – the phoenix, not unlike the one on his cane.
I would not take it. My lips would not touch any part of this monster again. I nodded my head, a slight curtsey.
“Sir, it was a pleasure to meet you, but I am afraid I have much to prepare before the show. If you would please…”
As I gestured towards the door, Master Magnifico stepped closer, feeling his pungent breath on my skin. I worried it would melt away the kohl and colors I had painted across my face.
“You never told me your name,” he said. That cane tapped impatiently against the wooden planks at my feet. “It is considered rude not to introduce oneself.”
I glanced at my hat, those serpent eyes staring back at me.
“Hydra,” I said. “Hydra the Sorceress.”
“Yes, I saw on the tapestry outside. Hydra the Sorceress. What a unique name for a performer,” he said. “I should love to know where the inspiration comes from.”
“It is what my friends call me,” I lied. “I wouldn’t dream of coming up with something that fantastical on my own.”
The smile across my painted lips was forced, but Master Magnifico seemed amused and chuckled.
“Of course not, dear,” he said. “Most of your kind are not capable of such creative musings.”
“My kind?”
“Womenfolk,” he clarified. “You are mostly all dull in your long years. But I admit, Hydra the Sorceress, that is quite the name. I don’t suppose you even know what a Hydra is?”
I did. As much as I tried to think of it as nothing more than an it, pretending I didn’t know what I saw that day. I knew. It was the child he ripped away from me. The beautiful three-headed dragon swaddled in brown cloth screamed for me, its mother, as Master Magnifico’s henchmen carried it out of the dungeon and slaughtered it.
“It just sounded like a pretty name my friend said to me one day,” I shrugged, the glisten in my eye from heartbreak and rage as I forced a slight laugh. “But I don’t suppose such beauty as a three-headed dragon can exist in such a world as this, can it?”
My eyes met his, and I held my stare. Unflinching. Unwavering.
The long pause hung heavily in the air. Master Magnifico searched my face.
“No. I don’t suppose it could,” he said. “Magic does not exist in these lands. You should know that. It was vanquished to keep you safe.”
“My mother used to tell me stories of the great beasts that roamed the forests, the woods just beyond our village. She told me when she was a little girl, she once saw a unicorn,” I said.
“An impossibility. She saw a horse that got out of its stables. Unicorns died out centuries ago, along with all other magical monsters,” Master Magnifico scoffed. He brushed off his silk pant leg and rested his substantial weight on his cane.
“Centuries? You speak as if you know for certain,” I said, widening my eyes in fake astonishment. “Perhaps you were there.”
“Careful, maiden,” he said, a slight growl in his haggard voice. “I fear you are accusing me of being an old man.”
“Apologies, sir. I don’t know how many suns a man in your position is fortunate enough to have,” I replied. “Some might believe you are destined by the gods to live forever. Perhaps you were here during the time of the Great Magic all those centuries ago.”
“It is true that as the leader of this realm, I have been afforded some opportunity to expand my life,” he said. “But I will hear no talk of this tonight. Tonight, I am here to enjoy the festivities and the immense talent of the youth of this province.”
“Youth? For shame that I am 17 suns and a spinster then,” I feigned a sigh.
“Indeed, you are the oldest of tonight’s performers, but still under law considered an eligible youth,” he said.
“Perhaps you could enlighten me as to what the winners of this talent show will receive as their reward?” I asked. “My father never told me.”
Master Magnifico stepped away from me, stamping his cane into the floorboards as he shuffled towards the entryway.
“They will be coming to my citadel for an extended internship, like all the other winners before them.”
“And where are those winners now?” I asked.
“How should I know? They have been dispatched across the lands, I’m sure.” Master Magnifico turned his head over his shoulder and grinned. “You ask many questions, Hydra the Sorceress.”
“I like to learn, sir. Knowledge holds a kind of magic that can’t be vanquished.”
It was his turn to force a smile. The flinch in his eye told me I had gotten under his skin and to tread lightly and lay low until it was my time on the stage.
“I look forward to your… what was your talent again? Magic?”
“Yes. I’ve developed a special trick just for you, sir. I hope that you will enjoy it as much as I will,” I said sweetly.
He grunted and tilted his head as he left the room. A heavy gush of air in my lungs escaped, and I made for the nearest bucket to expel the last remaining food in my stomach.
Reaching into my bag on the vanity, I grabbed the last vial of the Madam’s tea and drank it to steel my nerves.
Dolion and I watched from the wings as each young performer from the surrounding villages paraded on the stage. Children as young as three suns were singing and dancing across the stage to the sound of wondrous applause. The crowd spilled into the aisles and stood in every available spot. The playhouse was stuffy and hot, and my costume clung wetly against my body.
“It’s almost time,” Dolion whispered in my ear. “Are you nervous?”
“No,” I said. “It must be done.”
“I know.”
“We need to get the device ready. There is only one act left before mine,” I said. “It needs to be moved into position.”
“Astraea, wait,” Dolion said as he grabbed my arm and pulled me aside. “If this ends badly – for both of us – I want you to know that I’ve always loved you. And whatever becomes of us after tonight, I will carry that love with me into the winds.”
“Dolion, I can’t…” his words undid me. It’s not that I didn’t have fond feelings for my truest friend, my dearest companion. I did. Love was not an emotion I was capable of feeling. Not in this moment. The realization struck me that my plan for tonight would not only lead to the very real possibility of my death but also of Dolion’s. I couldn’t have that. “You should get out of here. I can do this alone.”
“No. I stand with you, Astraea.”
“There is no undoing what I have set in motion. He will die tonight, and surely my death will be soon to follow,” I said as I pushed Dolion away. “There is still a life for you out there where there is none for me.”
“My life is with you. If you die, then I shall die with you. We will return to the stars, Astraea. But I am certain of one thing. I shall not leave you to do this task alone.”
Dolion pressed his warm lips against mine, and I felt the first tender kiss filled with love and hope in my life. I wanted to savor the gentleness, kindness, and compassion surrounding me, but I pulled away as the sound of applause roared behind us. I glanced at the device still under the cover of stained cloth.
“It’s time,” I said. “I need you to wheel the device onto the stage when I give the signal.”
Dolion nodded and walked with me out onto the stage.
The host made a big show of announcing me, the “talented, mysterious, mythical, maiden Hydra the Sorceress.” Stepping onto the candlelit stage, I only saw the glow of the first rows of seats through the amber flames. My mother and father sat in the second row with the other performers’ families. The front row was reserved for Master Magnifico, who sat front and center, surrounded by his less powerful entourage. They were all older men with thinning gray hair and much more youthful-looking faces, as if the wrinkles had been pulled back and tied beneath their scalps.
I stood dumbfounded, stunned in silence, as I couldn’t muster the words with everyone’s eyes on me.
“You got this, Astraea,” Dolion whispered in my ear as he stood beside me. He wasn’t dressed in the finery I’d created for my costume, but he was colorful, wearing brilliant shades of purple with gold accents.
“It is I, the Sorceress known as Hydra!” I began. “And I am here today to mystify and amaze you with my tricks of truth and precision!”
The crowd applauded. My father beamed with pride. My mother looked on with fear. I removed my hat and, from my front pocket, brandished my wand for the crowd to see.
“This wand is my favorite stick I found while playing near the edge of the forest when I was a little girl,” I said, waving this sliver of wood proudly above the opening of my hat. “My mother often told me that girls possess magic, and with the right wand, I thought I would be able to do great things.”
I studied the dried wood in my hand as it spun in circles. With a flourish, I acted as if I was zapping my hat, which caused the crowd to gasp. Dolion grabbed the hat from me, and with my free hand, I reached in.
The crowd exclaimed when they saw the shiny scales of the thick snake wrapped around my arm. Master Magnifico’s eyes widened, and he leaned in to his cohort to whisper something as he pointed at me and grinned. I handed the snake to Dolion, and he put on a show about how real it was before setting him back inside the hat.
On the next trick, I instructed Dolion to retrieve the box behind us while I grabbed the swords laid out on the table downstage.
“Now, I will have my lovely assistant, Dolion the Daring, position himself in this box, and I will insert these swords through this box. If Dolion is true of heart, he will emerge without a scratch!”
The crowd roared when I held up the swords and paraded the stage while Dolion stepped inside the box. I locked him in place and began inserting the swords. With every plunge, the audience gasped louder. When I removed the swords, and Dolion stepped out unscathed, the crowd boomed. Master Magnifico even applauded.
“Quite the feat for a woman,” I heard him say to the man next to him, who nodded in agreement.
“Now, I am afraid that we are running out of time, and I only have two more tricks for you,” I thundered. “Have you been mystified thus far?”
The crowd cheered, no cheer louder than my father’s. I wondered if that cheering would happen if he knew what was to come. But I focused on my next feat as Dolion went to retrieve the device.
I grabbed the shackles I had set next to a trunk, and I bound myself in the heavy metal chains. They twisted tightly around my body as I stepped into the trunk. Dolion wheeled the device to the stage while the audience focused on me rattling the chains. He ran to my side, prepared for the next part of the show.
“For my next trick, I have bound myself in the iron chains worn by our mothers and our sisters for far too long. Shackled and imprisoned in this trunk, I shall call upon the magic of my foremothers and free myself from this torturous bondage,” I said. The crowd began to murmur – some with excitement, some with anticipation, some with validation. Dolion pushed my shoulders down and closed the trunk, tightly locking it on the outside.
Inside the trunk, I felt a rush of panic. The tight confinement, the chains, the darkness. It felt like I was there again, trapped in that tiny cell, chained to a stone bed. The contents of my stomach wanted to escape, and I gasped on the shallow breaths I could take as I writhed inside that trunk, undoing the bindings and freeing myself from my trap.
As I pushed the trunk lid open, the women in the crowd stood and cheered. The playhouse echoed with their applause while the men sat stoically, forcing claps while exchanging looks with one another.
“Bit of a stretch to have a girl free herself,” Master Magnifico scoffed. “Perhaps it would be more believable as a trick if her assistant had traded places with her.”
The men surrounding the illustrious leader laughed along with him. I whistled to Dolion, and he brought the device to the center of the stage. Still covered with the cloth from my workspace, the audience fell silent as they gazed at the monolith hidden beneath stained fabric.
“For my finale, my assistant and I will need some help from the audience,” I said. With a flourish of my magic wand, I gestured to the crowd. “Do I have any volunteers brave enough to join me on stage?”
The hands of children raised, and they jumped like little beans sprouting from the earth, hoping that I would pick one of them for this special recognition. The Madam who sat a few rows behind my parents nodded solemnly, the women surrounding her silent and hungry. The men laughed, of course, dismissing me entirely.
“Get on with it!” One of the men in Master Magnifico’s company heckled. The leader seemed inclined to agree.
“Perhaps then, we should end this show with none other than Master Magnifico himself!” I exclaimed, my voice carrying through the playhouse. I gestured towards the leader of the realm, staring into his eyes. “What do you say, good people? Do you want to see our Eminence join me on stage for the final trick of the night?”
The crowd roared wildly, and Master Magnifico smiled and shook his head.
“I feel my view is much better down here,” he said. “You may use any of my compatriots as you like.”
“But this trick is much better seen up close, sir. And there is no one more worthy of the honor to be on stage in front of the whole village than you, sir. You cannot deny us that, can you?” I egged him on, and the crowd was swayed. A chanting began among the women and children at first before the drunken men joined in, a thunderous roar chanting “Master Magnifico” until his stout frame rose from his chair.
“Everyone, please cheer and welcome to the stage, the one and only leader of our realm, the great, the powerful, the infamous Master Magnifico!”
Master Magnifico waved, and Dolion helped guide him up the stage, keeping his grip tight on the despot.
“I will take your cane, sir,” Dolion said. “For this trick, you won’t be needing it.”
The crowd fell eerily silent, allowing me the chance to talk to the Master in front of the world. I was thankful for the Madam’s potions because without them, the fear would have consumed me. But under the candlelight, I could see the cracks in his facade. The flames flickered and danced unevenly, showcasing the deep wrinkles, the decaying flesh, the ripping seams in his curated mask. He looked like a man. Not some imposing god. Not this titan of power. Just a shrinking, shriveled man who had lived long past his earthly contract through unnatural forces.
“Tonight, I have prepared something special for you, Master Magnifico,” I said, clapping my hands. “My village knows me to be a bit of an inventor, a tinkerer of sorts. I have created this device, and I can think of no better person suited for its purpose.”
Master Magnifico studied the fabric, pondering what lay beneath it. He lifted the edge of the cloth with his swollen finger, and I playfully swatted it away.
“Now, now, Master Magnifico! We wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise, now would we?” I winked at him, and the audience laughed. “Dolion the Daring! Would you please position Master Magnifico into the device?”
Dolion nodded and escorted the Master behind the device, out of the audience’s view. When I heard the locking mechanism fasten into place, I smiled proudly. There would be no escape for him now. I pranced across the stage.
“Ladies and gentlemen who are here tonight! You are about to become witnesses to the magnificence of modern engineering! For weeks, I studied the schematics, and I constructed a marvel once lost to time,” I said as I tugged on the cloth, revealing the device. “In the texts, they have called this device a guillotine.”
Master Magnifico was on his knees, his hands shackled by his sides. His head was secured inside the hole at the bottom of my contraption as the sharpened blade hung above him. He squirmed, but there was nothing he could do. He possessed no magic to free himself. He had no power. He was no longer a leader but a swine groveling at my feet. His cohorts shifted uncomfortably in their seats. One rushed towards the stage.
“Ah, ah! I would not do that if I were you,” I tisked. In my hand, I held a rope attached to the blade. “You have not even seen what this device can do. Don’t ruin the trick for everyone who came here to see a show!”
The man cowered and clumsily fell back into his seat. Murmurings through the room grew louder.
“Is anybody going to stop her?” Master Magnifico shouted from the ground. “Release me!”
“Release you?” I knelt down beside him. “Is that what you did to those girls? Those children? Release them?”
“I don’t know what the devil you are talking about!”
“The rotting pile of bodies just outside your citadel. Do you not recall them? How you drained them of their magic and when their frail bodies were spent, you threw them away without so much as the decency of a funeral pyre?” I lifted his chin so his eyes met mine. “For centuries, you have harvested the magic from this world, and when the supply diminished, you turned to harvesting it from the children born with the magic of creation. There is no denying the atrocities you have committed.”
“Stop this!” He spat.
I stood up and pointed out to the audience. “The women in this room can attest to my truth. Stand up from your seats if you were also taken by these monstrous men. The ones who tortured and chained us and forced us to produce magic for their harvests. Rise up! Show them that we stand together.”
The room remained silent, and the women remained seated.
That is, until my mother stood up.
And then the Madam.
And then the woman seated next to her.
Quietly and gracefully, each woman rose to her feet. Their faces were stoic and resolute. As their husbands and fathers begged them to sit, they stood with unwavering resolve. Despite the pulling of their arms and the attempts to drag them to the ground, the women stood as stone.
“I was born to be the mother of unicorns,” my mother said. “You took them from me. Slaughtered them and left me for dead. I could not protect my daughter from your cruelty, as has every mother in this room. But I will stand with her now as she protects future daughters from your insatiable bloodlust.”
“For too long, Master Magnifico has stolen our daughters, our sisters, our friends. He has taken our magic from us by force. So many lives lost in this pursuit of power. It ends tonight,” I thundered. “What is so remarkable about this device, the guillotine, is that when I pull on this rope, the blade will drop and sever his head from his body. No amount of stolen magic can save you from this fate. Nor shall the gods intervene on your behalf. For the holocaust you have carried out for centuries goes against nature, and the goddesses are angry.”
“Is somebody going to stop this?” Master Magnifico shouted, his spit dribbling to the ground. “You cannot believe the rantings of a mad woman! Release me!”
Men began standing and encroaching on the stage, but Dolion grabbed for one of the swords from my act and pointed it towards them.
“Into the winds,” Dolion said to me. “Into the winds together we shall be.”
I smiled at him, and I felt the warmth of the words envelope me. A feeling I never felt washed over me. Peace.
As Master Magnifico began his next plea, I sharply tugged at the rope, letting go, and the metallic blade fell to the earth. Blood spilled across the stage, and the only sound that could be heard was Master Magnifico’s head rolling off the edge of the stage, knocking into the candles, and landing at the feet of his cohorts.
Shocked gasps filled the room as the men grew outraged and flooded the stage. The women cheered in celebration that the monster that had stolen them from their beds had finally fallen. Smoke filled the room as the candles that fell next to the severed head of our former leader began to spark and spread across the dried wooden floorboards.
Panic set in, as it often does amid political strife. Women gathered their children and made for the doors as the flames reached through the curtains of the playhouse. The sympathetic men went with their wives and worked to save the children who were crying and choking on the smoke. Master Magnifico’s puppets ran to save themselves, fear burned into their eyes as they stared at me and the limp, headless body on the stage.
“We have to get out of here!” Dolion shouted. He took my hand and led me to the edge of the stage. Flames surrounded us, and the braver of Master Magnifico’s companions pursued and surrounded us. Swords pointed at our chests.
“Your treason does not permit you to live,” one of the guards said. “This public execution is a declaration of war.”
“Then to war it is. I shall die knowing I fought for the right side of it,” I said. “Into the winds.”
And as I felt the air escape my lungs when his blade pierced through my chest, that wave of peace fell over me. I collapsed to the ground, the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth, and I laughed.
The world fell dark, my last vision was my mother standing stoic in the flames as we burned together.
But the thing with Hydras – when one head is severed, another will take its place, and in that way, Hydra the Sorceress can never die.
