She saw her father who appeared shocked who didn’t react to what her mother was saying. In a moment, she saw her own mother raise her hand and slit her father’s throat who had a surprised look on his face with a few fresh wounds.
Penny, seeing her father fall on his knees screamed, “Papa!” she ran towards him, moving past the people and getting down on her knees to push her father over and over again, “Papa!” though the girl was small, she knew what she saw. She had seen animals being killed in the butcher shop.
“Is this your daughter?” asked one of the men who was surrounding her.
“She doesn’t look like a witch. She’s a human,” commented another.
“Do you think we need to kill her, Mila?” asked another witch hunter to the one who was running this group of witch hunters.
Laurae then said, “I need her as an alibi for being a human.”
The woman with short black hair stared at the little girl who was crying and her gaze then shifted to look at the black witch, “We cannot let her live. If she goes running about telling what you and we did-”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” the black witch assured the witch hunter, “Penny,” she called her daughter who didn’t listen to her and when she reached to touch her, the little girl lashed out.
“MURDERER! You killed papa!” she screamed at the woman.
Laurae stared at the girl, a smile on her face, “Papa is only sleeping, honey,” but the girl wasn’t willing to listen to her. She shook her head and pulled her arm away from her mother.
The little girl’s eyes were filled up in tears, the tears rolling down on her cheeks one after another, “You killed him. Why…why did you kill him,” she stared at her dead father who was not moving right now. Blood continued to surround his body and her own dress that was absorbing the liquid.
“This is the problem I was speaking about,” said the witch hunter, “We cannot leave things like these behind. Find yourself another alibi to live with,” the witch hunter pulled out her gun but before that Laurae picked up a nearby rock and smacked it right across the little girl’s head.
The witch hunters looked at the black witch who had used a rock to put the girl in an unconscious state, “I told you I would fix it,” she said, her dull eyes looking at them.
“There’s nothing a black witch cannot fix, though don’t you love her? I mean she is your daughter,” chuckled a witch hunter who put the gun he had been carrying back to where it belonged that was at the side of his belt.
Laurae smiled looking down at her daughter and she pushed her away from the dead man, “Black witches don’t get too deep into emotions. We don’t believe in it and I think you already know about it.”
“How scary,” Mila commented with little to no expression on her face, “Fix this problem. We don’t want any other mistakes in the future. Neither Creed nor the mistress is forgiving. You kept him for far too long.”
“My bad,” said the black witch and saw the witch hunters leave the ground. It was Laurae herself who had tipped the humans about the existence of witches in their village without Gabriel’s knowledge due to which they had to flee but she had done it so that she could kill him off. Like the witch hunter had said, she had kept him around for far too long. Completing the other tasks and jobs given for the ritual had turned out to be very difficult to do with him being around and lately the man had started to question her.
Seeing there was no one around, she took the man towards the river and pulled her knife to stab him right where his heart was to make sure he would never come alive again by mistake. She ran her hand over his face,
“I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed seeing the shock of disbelief on your face. The pain must have been too much for you but what can I do,” she pursed her lips with a smile, “You were turning to a burden where I wasn’t able to do anything. Have a good sleep, dear.”
She pushed him into the river that was flowing and stood up. Walking towards her unconscious daughter, she picked her up and walked back into the forest.
The image ended up being blurry but when Penny opened her eyes, there were tears in her eyes and some that had slid down her face. More tears filled up her eyes. Her head was muddled but that didn’t erase what she just saw and experienced. Her throat felt clogged and she sat up on the bed, putting the book down she had been holding.
Caitlin knocked on the door as she had come up to call her down when she saw tears that were falling one after another on her niece’s face. Going quickly to Penelope’s side, she sat down on the bed to ask with a frown, “Penelope? Is everything alright?”
The question only brought more tears in her eyes. She shook her head without speaking a word, “Come here, dear,” the woman opened her arms, and Penny went to hug the lady as she cried even more.Caitlin didn’t know what happened but she held the girl, rubbing her back.
She broke into a fit of tears which she couldn’t stop, mourning for her father and what happened to him.
Penny didn’t know what to say and she was too numb as the memory started to turn vivid as she ran it in her mind over and over again. She knew her mother had killed her father but seeing it play out in front of her eyes hurt her more than she had expected.
