Page 44 of Soul of a Witch

“Close your eyes,” he said, and I obeyed, shuddering in the dark. “Let God speak to you.”

There was a sudden strong smell of seawater. The cold air was sticky. When I licked my lips, I could taste salt. Then I could smell…

My stomach lurched. There was a rotten stench, putrid and cloying in my throat. My breath came faster as a stifling weight pressed down on me. It squeezed the air out of my lungs.

It was silent — no, not entirely so. I could hear something. A subtle sound, slow and unsteady.

Drip…drip, drip…

Water…but it wasn’t the rain.

Everything else faded away. The touch of my father’s hand, the cold air whipping through the church, the damp clinging to my skin. All that remained was the drip, slow and distant.

Then…a breath. Cold and sudden on the back of my neck.

“No,” I whispered the word like a frantic prayer. “It’s not real. It’s all in your head, Everly.”

“Oh yes, child. All of it is in your head, as am I.”

My eyes flew open as I stumbled back in panic. Sunlight blinded me, my senses assaulted by a dozen new things all at once.

I was standing in the middle of an open field, surrounded by tall, lush green grass. Flowers of every shape, color, and variety grew around me — hundreds of them, covering the landscape like confetti. Their scent hung heavy and sweet in the air.

A tall figure, dressed in white, stood in the grass watching me.

It was beautiful beyond words. So elegant, so perfect, that I felt completely insignificant. Small, ugly, and foolish. I couldn’t bear to lift my eyes, but in my peripheral vision, I could see Its face was constantly morphing, changing subtly and slowly.

The face was unfamiliar but this feeling was not. Like a hand was gripping the nape of my neck, both holding me down and dragging me closer.

“Come to me, child. Do not be afraid.”

Against my will, I crawled through the grass. Trembling, gasping, too fearful to do anything other than obey, I approached the being. The God…myGod…

How was It so beautiful? I could spend all my life kneeling at Its feet, basking in the glory of Its presence, cutting off my fingers one by one just to please It.

My vision flashed, like static cutting through a TV broadcast. For a split second, the beautiful world around me entirely changed.

The field became smoldering embers littered with bones. The grass was gone, the trees — dead. The dirt crawled with maggots, writhing, feasting upon the flesh of corpses. And the bodies — there were hundred. Thousands. Milky eyes rolled in rotting heads. Intestines ripped out by beasts, who roamed the landscape in broad daylight. And over it all stood God, but God was not beautiful. It was —

The horror vanished. Everything was perfect. Serene. God was gracious as It smiled upon me, a smile I couldn’t look at but couldfeellike warm arms around me.

“Do you see? The world as it could be?” It said. Its voice was strange, as if It were not one but hundreds of people, all speaking in unison. “The world as I will remake it?”

My vision flashed again, and I screamed. The deity before me was not a beautiful humanoid creature but a beast — a massive, indescribable monstrosity, with shapes and colors I had no words for. Its body was gargantuan, completely overtaking the land. Massive gray tentacles with grasping tooth-lined suckers coiled around me, pungent with the scent of rotting fish. It was covered in dozens of eyeballs, rolling in their sockets, reddened, pupils shaped like diamonds —

Gone. But my memory of it was not. This place, this vision — it was all fake. A mere illusion created by the deity.

This beautiful place was what my mother had been shown. Perfect. Peaceful. A world she would have longed to raise her daughter in.

But the truth was different. And I had no idea why I could see it, why my mind was able to break through the hallucinations caused by the God’s control…

But I could. And It knew.

The sky darkened. The grass withered. My vision flashed rapidly back and forth, until the two realities were one and the same. The desire to hurt myself, to inflict pain on my own body, wrapped around my brain and squeezed, demanding I obey.

“You will give in. You will submit or you will suffer. Death is not the worst fate that can befall you, rebellious girl. Your disobedience must be culled from your mind.”

I screamed again, curling up into a ball as I clutched my skull, certain it was going to split apart. I had to get out…had to find my way back to reality…out of my mind…but where…where could I go…

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