Deadly Tales Of Witchcraft

It started with an invitation—hand-delivered, black ink on thick, rough paper, edges singed just enough to make it seem solemn. I almost didn’t read it. “You are invited to the funeral of Madam Seraphine,” it said. “Dress in dark, and come quietly.”

I thought it was just a date. That’s what I told myself as I waited outside the café, checking my phone, pretending not to feel the strange heaviness in the air—as if the evening were holding its breath. Her profile had been normal. Too normal. A fondness for old movies, black coffee, long walks. Her name was Lina. Her smile in the photos never quite reached her eyes, but I assumed that was just the camera.

They don’t look like witches. That’s the first thing you must understand. If you’re waiting for crooked hats or green skin, you’ll never see one coming. Witches learned long ago that fear attracts torches. So they learned how to pass—how to smile, how to blend, how to live just slightly out of step with the rest of us.

I went over there to complain about the noise. That was my mistake. Mrs. Halloway lived next door—thin, quiet, always watching through her lace curtains. She never had visitors, never seemed to sleep, and her porch light was always on, even at noon. Lately, strange sounds had been coming through our shared wall at night: low murmuring, scratching, the faint clang of metal on stone. At first I thought it was plumbing. Then I heard my name.

I was starving when I met her. Not the ordinary kind of hunger—the kind that twists your thoughts and makes the world feel thin, unreal. I’d been walking for hours through the old part of town where streets forget their names and houses lean together like conspirators. Every shop was closed. Every window dark. My phone was dead. My stomach burned like it was eating itself.

I didn’t find out the night she floated. That came later. I found out the first time she lied to reality—and it listened. Her name was Mara. She laughed softly, like she was afraid of waking something. She hated bright rooms, loved old buildings, and always knew when it was going to rain even if the sky was clean and blue. I thought those were quirks. Red flags dressed as charm.

It happened on a Tuesday evening—ordinary enough that no one noticed the omen. The sky bruised purple over our neighborhood, clouds hanging low and swollen like they might burst. The streetlights flickered on too early, buzzing with a nervous hum. Dogs began barking in unison, then fell silent all at once, tails tucked, ears flat.

From the day my father brought her home, the word tasted wrong in my mouth—like ash, like something dead pretending to be alive. Her name was Elspeth, though she insisted I call her Mama. She arrived one winter evening, wrapped in black wool, snow melting into steam wherever it touched her skin. The candles flickered when she crossed the threshold, bending toward her as if frightened. My father looked at her the way drowning men look at driftwood—desperate, grateful, blind.

Even the wind seemed afraid to speak once you crossed beneath the blackened canopy, where branches clawed at the sky like skeletal fingers. The villagers said birds refused to nest there. Hunters claimed their dogs went mad, whining and tearing at their leashes until they bled. And deep within that forest—where sunlight rotted into a sickly green haze—stood the abandoned house.

In the heart of a dense, twisted forest, where the trees themselves seemed to whisper warnings, there lived a witch named Morvena. Her house was a grotesque, crooked structure, built of blackened wood and bones that jutted out like jagged teeth. Smoke, thick and acrid, always rose from the chimney, carrying with it a stench that could make the strongest stomachs heave.