The children were the cruelest.
By fourteen, Lucia had become the village's favourite game. Not in kindness-but in sport. Her silence made her the perfect target, her beauty the perfect excuse.
They called her the witch's doll.
Stone-face.
Sin-lips.
At first, it was pebbles thrown at her back when went to her stream. The come the ink smeared across her laundry. one morning, she found dead mice stuffed into her basket of herbs. No one claimed it. No one had to.
She was the cursed girl. And in Norwin Hollow, curses were not pitied-they were punished.
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One cold morning, Lucia passed the marketplace to gather bread. She wore a thick shawl, her hair hidden, her hands tucked beneath cloth.
It didn't matter.
"Look at her walk," a boy snickered. "Like she's a queen without a crown."
Another one muttered, "Maybe she wants someone to make her speak."
A third reached out and yanked her shawl.
Lucia stumbled, and the cloth fell away. Her face turned, the morning sun catching the pale shimmer of her skin.
They laughed.
Another boy—one of Ada's twins—grabbed her wrist and twisted it, just enough to bruise.
Lucia looked at him, expression blank. Cold. Her eyes like still water before the storm.
The boy froze.
And for just a second, he couldn't breathe. His throat clutched, his vision blurred. Then it passed.
He ran.
The others followed.
Lucia stood in silence, breathing steadily, her wrist swelling with pain.
She picked up her shawl, wrapped it back around her shoulders, and walked away.
That night, Ada came to their door.
She slapped Mira before speaking.
"Your demon girl cursed my son!"
Mira bled from the mouth, but said nothing. She looked to Lucia, who stood behind the doorway—eyes silver in the lamplight, crow perched on the beam above her like a silent sentinel.
Lucia stepped forward.
She placed her hand gently on her mother's shoulder.
Then looked Ada in the eyes.
She didn't need words.
Her silence was sharper than a scream.
Ada turned and fled.
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By winter, the bruises on Lucia's arms came in new shapes—fingers, boots, ropes. Still, she never made a sound. Not even when she was shoved into the snow behind the chapel. Not when someone smeared ash across her face. Not even when the priest himself grabbed her chin and hissed, "Your silence is not holy. It's defiance."
Lucia did not blink.
And the next day, that priest woke to find every candle in the church melted down to black puddles.
No smoke. No heat.
Just ruin.
Lucia began walking to the edge of the woods every dusk, where the mist curled low and the trees whispered in a language older than men. The crow always waited there.
Sometimes, she saw shapes in the mist.
A woman with no face.
A crown made of bones.
Eyes like hers, watching from the dark.
She stood and listened.
Waiting.