Once, Ashwood spirited Netta away for as many hours of her life as she wished. 

In their shared memory, rapidly becoming more and more joined as time passed, so that it was becoming hard to differentiate one's memories, emotions from the other, Netta could feel his pride at sharing his power with her, his want to take her away.

He could have, she realized, once she turned eighteen. 

The only reason that Witches had to worry about possession was that Witches naturally overpowered the poor lost souls that were magical creatures - Monsters.   Now.

But Ash, she knew now more than anything, was not of the new breed of weak creatures. He was, however, bound to her until she came of age, of his own volition.

As she matured, she could see from his perspective the change of not only her body, but her mind, from a human's innocent to a Witch's. 

When she managed to do anything magical, in spite of her seeming lack of talent for natural magic, she could feel his heartbreak, a small sense of trust, oddly naive, wearing away. 

Because Witches were naturally not creatures that settled for anything humble, simple.

And yet it was not what drove Netta closer and closer into the spider's web. If she had been after power, she would have found enough to immolate her in him. 

Rather, she found in her companion, the boy who artificially grew at the same age as her, a confident and gentle playmate first. 

 It was a role that he was playing once more.

The awkwardness came the first time that she had discovered her growing thoughts of the Monster boy that she spent halcyon days and nights with. The feelings were like creeping vines silently forming around the place where she had once felt innocent companionship.

Seemingly one day, she couldn't think of him, except in ways that she had seen the way that the men looked at the women in the illustrations of pamphlets that Mother would send for.  

Seeing these people, depicted in the beginning vestiges of Hollywood romances, embracing, kissing deeply, made Netta tingle to think of.

They were thoughts that embarrassed her, but it was the taboo nature of them that struck most with her.   It the sense that what she wanted was from a creature whose only relationship to her could ever be described as parasitical - made her feel filthy. 

Still, they were the very seeds from which her first innocent, naive erotic fantasies sprung. If anything, the taboo nature of what she was thinking of was an accelerant thrown atop an already flickering flame.

For a week, Netta avoided him, acted as though he was not there.

The anguish, the sense of betrayal that he felt, hurt Netta, experiencing it anew from how he had experienced it.

It all lead to him knocking on the front door, demanding to see her in a physical body.

Up to that point, her Sisters had no way of telling that he was anything more than a human boy, based on the stories that they had learned of him. His power so great that he was able to hide from their suspicions, because no magical creature any longer had any way of being powerful enough to make themselves seen by others.

Confronted with the boy, Netta found that being in his presence after so long at avoiding his gaze did more than rekindle her every confused feeling for him.

She knew, now, how he had considered, in a moment of heartbreak, that if she wanted nothing to do with him, then he could still make use of her.

He could use her body as his instrument of horror.

They had walked some distance from the house and had made it out to a secluded place.   In the middle of Ash's outraged tirade against her cruelty, Netta, seized by a rather undainty and unfeminine boldness, took his face in her hands and had her first taste of magic.

It tingled, burned, froze, electrified.

When Netta pulled away, they both, for once, were on the same page.   They shared a realization that that moment had meant something tremendous.

To Netta, he had become something beyond a playmate. Or a Monster. 

She did not know how treating him like a human boy would work, but she wanted nothing more than to be with him in that way - the way she had seen those movie stars embracing - whatever it meant.

To Ashwood, the simple act was enough to one day forgo all thoughts of destruction and revenge. 

For the most part.

Netta began to work at making her way into the barrier protecting the piece of snow-covered desert - the very same one where she had first kissed her husband.    It protected what was left of what the Oleander Coven called home.

She broke through and found herself, unexpectedly, with having destroyed the barrier easily.

Too easy.

Up above, the world darkened - the sun was setting. She did not hurry.   In her hoodie and with her Reaper's bandanna strung over the lower half of her face, she could almost feel as though she were making her way up to the stronghold of a beast. Still though, the comparison did not work. 

Wasn't her husband the typical Monster of the old stories?

What did that make her in this tale, if not the knight errant, the king or even the princess?

Buck up, Nettles, Ash answered her. heroes aren't all that they're cracked up to be. Look at me, I've killed a few in my time.

And they were climbing a hill, to kill her sisters. For a moment, her determination failed, flickered.  In an instant, her heart seemed to be lifted as she felt a wind encircle her, smelling strongly of Ashwood.

They were going into the long-remembered trail, whose path to the house that she had never forgotten about was kept in oddly perfect repair.  She had two women to kill.

Her half-sisters.

Netta began her way up the path that lead out of the barrens, was startled to discover the lantern had been lit, which shone from where it had been strung to a pole. 

She was, she realized, about to kill the two responsible not only for the deaths of her adopted Sisters - the direct causes, even, of her murdering the ones that had come for her - but had their own hands dyed with the blood of innocents.

Walking up the path that lead to a house in the distance whose lights were blazing in welcome, Netta realized that she was about to kill two Witches.

Inside of her, Ash was laughing.

And, upon all the holy matriarchs that were the religious figures that she had grown up praising, she felt a smile curving on her own lips.

How else would you enter a residence expecting you, but to knock on the front door?

Answering the door was Beryl, who looked positively giddy at the sight of her.

"Welcome," she purred, pulling the door opened and bowing deeply.

As Netta looked at her, she was surprised - disgusted - to see the lolita dress, pink and with an expansive pannier underneath it - that she wore. 

In her eternally youthful body, the Witch looked for all of the world like an extravagant cosplayer with no evil in her.

When she regained her standing posture, the short woman smiled in what looked like it was supposed to be a pretty - innocent - expression, complete with the shining, honey-brown eyes. 

Her face was as soft and ageless and Netta recalled. The only sign that this outward appearance was some kind of a ruse was the caking of pale foundation and the grotesque circles of pink blush that created twin orbs on either of her pudgy cheeks made Netta think, unerringly, of Punch and Judy puppets.

Netta hesitated before she walked in. Beryl motioned to take her coat and Netta ignored her to walk into the house.

The Witch said nothing, only trouncing off as soon as Netta entered.

The house was silent, and as Netta looked around, she saw signs of a return to residency around her in the lack of cobwebs, the heavy smell of clean in the air. 

All around her, Netta saw signs of life that had returned to the house.

To her, it looked like a corpse that had been dug up and made to dance a waltz, the lights in the house like unnatural signs of life in dead eyes.

She was too shocked to move, or do anything. After a moment had passed and nothing happened, Netta took a step forward and could hear the sound of her foot hitting the hardwood floor in an echo. 

She shivered, looked through the doorway that lead into the living room.

Still, the silence of the house chilled Netta, almost more than the knowledge of the women who lived in this house. She shuddered and waited a moment longer before the realization of the fact that she was calmly waiting for her murderous sister to return out of courtesy.

She turned and started for the stairs.

Good girl.

Ash's voice calmed her, soothing her nerves. 

She walked up the stairs, heard their creaking like tiny cries with each of her footfalls. She wondered what would happen if she were caught ascending the stairs, then reminded herself of her assurance to her younger adopted sister that she would return. 

She meant to keep that promise - she told herself as she walked up the stairs that from now on, she would keep her every promise that she made from this day forward.

And all she wanted, before this horrible business had finished, was to learn why it had all happened.

At the top of the stairs, she was surprised to find that the sign of life that the had found downstairs had been left from this place. 

Walking, she was reminded of her time she had spent there with Ash what felt like a lifetime ago. She walked to her room and threw the door opened, only to find that it was empty.

A keen sense of desolation, utterly unexpected, hit Netta in her chest so hard that she thought that she would fall on the floor.

What did you expect would be here when you got ba-

A voice from behind her startled Netta, making her jump. "Bad-ass kin-slayer, and yet - here you are. Still a little girl with more nostalgia than she had sense."

Whipping around, Netta felt her mind instinctively reach for Ash's, and was not surprised when she found that he was already in hers.

Standing just behind her was her older sister, Saorise.

Sia, dressed in a black dress that seemed out of time, which accenuated her thin figure, smiled at Netta in a way that did not reach her cold, cold eyes. "Dear little sister, how do you like what we've done with the place?" 

Netta took a step back, and Sia took it as invitation. 

She walked into the room, gliding past Netta and spreading in her wake the scent of heady, expensive perfume - the weight of it seemed to imply that it was covering something fouled.

Netta spoke then, seized by a strange, alien sense of indignation. It was as though she was seeing the crossing out of any evidence that she had ever lived here.

"If this is meant to scare me -"

"Scare you?" Sia stared at her, surprise written on her features. Then she laughed, bowling partially over, the sound braying, echoing on the bare floor, walls and the ceiling. 

When she finished, she wiped at her face, even after the laughter her face looked unnatural, stiff. "You've spent entirely too long with that beast as your mate, Its addled your brains beyond repair. Ohh no, dear Nettles, this is simply a room that's... unneeded. I'm sure that anything that used to be in this room is now in storage." She patted a finger against her perfect cheek and made a pantomime at thoughtfulness. "Mmm, I think that you'll shortly find that you don't have need for your old furniture, anyway -"

"What the fuck is this?" Netta spat out.

Sia stared at her for a moment, an implacable look in her eyes, a frown that never quite seemed to be able to bow its way down positioned on her face. "Keep this up and you'll have your mouth washed out with soap. And that'll just be the beginnings of the night." 

Something seemed to come alive in Sia's eyes at those words, even though her mouth kept at its grotesque frown.

Instantly and unheeded, Netta's memories invaded her, leaving her gasping at what hearing a reference to her old torture could do to her. 

As she thought on those old memories, and began to feel the impression of old scars protruding through healed flesh, she could hear, somewhere, Ash screaming at her.

Shaking her head, Netta focused her gaze back on her sister. "I'm tired of this, from the both of you. I want nothing to do with whatever the both of you are scheming -"

Sia sighed and seemed to be busy looking at her well-manicured fingernails. "Oh dear, am I boring you? I do suppose that dinner is cutting a bit too close now, isn't it?" She sighed, then yawned. When she finished, she looked at Netta, a wrinkle beginning to attempt to bravely form in the area between her exquisitely kept brows. 

"Well?" Sia snapped. "If you meant to kill me, you would have done it by now. No - what you want is answers. Am I wrong? Closure. Some of that over-exaggerated sense of a resolution to this whole affair." 

When Netta said nothing, could only manage to keep her breath in some semblance of control, Sia smiled, this the light of it reaching her eyes. "Oh, Netta, but when is a meal not a chance for such things? Join us for dinner, won't you?"

As Netta quietly walked out of the room, she was stopped by Sia, who placed a hand on her shoulder and gave her an all too inappropriate gaze that seethed her. "My, but a lot of memories in that room, and I must admit, I had some... fondness for that bed of yours in particular."