Read Online Witches by Kathryn Meyer Griffith - Free Book Online

glacial. Leaves crackled under her unsteady feet.
    The cries for help originated in the distance, deep in the darkening woods. A woman’s screams pleaded for mercy and grew louder and more horrifying as Amanda listened, holding her breath. There were the echoes of galloping horses, their thundering hooves pounding; bloodthirsty shouts and jeers like a hunt...coming nearer...nearer, toward the pond, until Amanda had to clasp her hands over her ears to shut out the horrendous sounds.
    The rabble surrounded her. The noises so ear splitting, and the woman’s terror so palpable, she could almost reach out and touch it.
    The trees’ leaves and the bushes were violently disturbed, the dirt splattered up from the ground, stinging and pelting her. So real, she felt a horse’s warm, heaving flank slide past her, and she jumped. The scent of the horses, the leather of the saddles, even the sweat of the men was cloying—was real . All around her.
    Yet, there was nothing there.
    Phantoms. All.
    An eerie trance descended over Amanda as the invisible shades pranced around her. In macabre fascination, she listened as a woman groaned and cried on the ground. Amanda’s heart pounded along with the woman’s terror. She spun about, sweeping the area with her eyes and then her hands, but there was nothing she could do to aid the woman for there was nothing there.
    This had all happened in the past.
    One last wail crescendoed into the vibrating dusk and something heavy flew by—she felt the air ripple as it went past her—into the pond’s waters and a woman’s dying scream echoed into dead stillness.
    Amanda’s ears were still quivering with the unearthly sounds; she couldn’t escape them. Shutting her eyes, she shouted out an ancient spell, one she hadn’t used in a long time and the past released her.
    The woods were silent once again.
    She cautiously opened her eyes.
    Directly in front of her was a dark clothed woman, ephemeral as fog, hovering above the pond’s seething waters, beckoning to her. Trying to tell her, or warn her, of something.
    “Rachel?”
    “Yes.” The eyes were pools of gloomy emptiness.
    “What do you want of me? Why did you bring me here without my consent?” she reprimanded angrily, her firmness concealing her apprehension.
    The ghost didn’t answer, only moaned. It was drawing closer, as the water began to purl, surging before it in waves.
    For a terrifying moment, Amanda couldn’t move. She felt the frigid water lapping hungrily at her feet, trying to suck her in. A force so strong, her body could barely resist it.
    The wraith was mouthing words, her arms outstretched, almost touching her.
    “Amanda...help...me...find...peace.” The apparition begged over the wind that whipped wildly about them.
    “I don’t know what you want from me. I can’t help you. I’m sorry. You shouldn’t be here. I command you to return to your grave!” She yelled at the spirit.
    “No!”
    Amanda invoked a stronger spell to send the ghost back.
    It worked.
    The hold on her snapped like an overextended rubber band and Amanda fell backward, tumbling to the ground.
    The apparition screamed in rage, and Amanda cringed in stunned surprise as it faded back into the wet mist until it was gone. The water continued to churn tumultuously, and the willow tree’s branches lashed out at her as if they were alive and trying to beat her.
    That wasn’t how a spirit usually responded to a powerful witch.
    Amanda turned and walked away through the darkness. Her steps dragging now from the two spells that had sapped her energy. She had to get home and sleep. She was so weary.
    Rachel might have been a white witch too; her guilty conscience pricked her. Like her. Perhaps she should have helped her.
    No, the Old Religion doesn’t allow it. What was in the past, was in the past. It would do no good to resurrect it now.
    Later, recovered from the magic, and safe in her home before a blazing fire, with Amadeus at her feet, Amanda drew