Ten Years Earlier.

I was moving. Again. Stuffed into the back of a wagon and carted away before anyone saw me. I was supposed to be under the tarp, but I couldn't resist taking a peak outside. The trees were just so beautiful! I missed trees. I hadn't seen them in three months.

"Mallory!" My mother snapped. "Get back under that tarp!"

"But Mum!" I interjected. "I'm just looking for a second."

"For the last time, get down before someone--" she suddenly stiffened. "Someone's coming!"

I gulped and pulled the tarp over my head as I heard footsteps approach.

Looking out of a small knot hole in the wagon I saw a large family. The father smiled warmly.

"Hello, friend!" He hailed my mother.

"Agh, hello," Mum sounded flustered. "I didn't see you there."

The man stepped up to her, out of my small line of sight. "It's not safe in these woods. Don't tell me you're traveling alone."

Before Mum could respond a small boy piped up, "You can travel with us if you like!"

"Uh huh," I imagined Mum looking down at him with disdain. "I'm fine on my own, thank you. Kids aren't really my thing."

The man and his wife continued speaking to her, but I was no longer listening. I watched one of the daughters give her sister a loop of yarn.

"I made us friendship bracelets!" She told her with a grin.

The other girl hugged her. "Aw! You're my best friend!"

I sighed and rolled over, away from the hole. I tried to block it out, but my mind pictured the girl reaching out to me with a second bracelet.

"You can be our friend too, Mallory!"

"Mallory!"

I jerked awake as Mum yanked the tarp off of me.

"Welcome home."

I sat up and looked around. The wagon had stopped beside a dilapidated shack. My jaw dropped. Mum must have taken this for a sign that I loved the place, for she looked around proudly with her hands on her hips.

"Yep. Sturdy walls and roof, thirty miles away from anything, sheer cliffs on three sides. Couldn't have designed a better place myself."

I climbed down from the wagon warily. "Isn't this kind of far from your job? How are you going to get back and forth everyday?"

"I'm not," she told me.

"What?"

"You're a big girl now. I'll visit on Sunday mornings."

I stopped. "No!" I cried, "I don't want to be alone!"

Mum huffed. "Mallory, you have forced us to move constantly since you could crawl. You've misbehaved and meddled so many times there's nowhere left to hide you. Don't forget, the whole reason we had to move this time was because you pole vaulted out a window!"

"There was a dog!" I cried. "I just wanted a friend."

"Why on Earth would you want that?" Mum demanded. "Friends are just enemies who haven't struck yet. Trust me Mal, we're better if we just--"

"Keep our heads down," I finished with a sigh.

Mum led me inside. The place was small but surprisingly comfortable, but something felt off.

"Mum," I said slowly, "who's house is this?"

"It's yours now." She pushed me further into the room. "It used to belong to the witch hunter, but it was too far away from the city. He abandoned it once he got a new place. It's perfect for you. Why would a hunter look for a witch in his own house?"

"You said I wasn't a witch," I pointed out.

I looked around. Jars lined the shelves along the walls, and a bed had been made off to one side. Even a fire burned in the hearth. I started to ask Mum about these things, but figured she had added them herself while I was asleep.

I was startled to hear a loud banging on the door Mum had closed as she stepped outside. My heart dropped. She was boarding it up!

"Mum!" I hurried over to the door. "What are you doing?"

"You have no need to leave," she told me around a mouthful of nails.

When it was boarded she started on the window. I watched in solemn silence.

"Okay," she said finally, looking at me through the hole that only needed one more board to seal up, "before I go, what's our rule?"

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" I asked.

"Mallory."

I sighed. "The rule is keep your head down."

"That's right," she nailed in the last piece of wood. "I'll see you Sunday."

I listened as her footsteps faded. What was I going to do until Sunday?

I tried to explore after Mum left, but there wasn't much to look at. As I walked past a bookshelf I heard a squeak. I looked under the bookshelf and found a small animal with beady little eyes and a long bald tail.

I gasped. I'd heard Mum tell me about cats before. Could this be one of them?

"Hi, kitty!" I reached under the shelf. "Will you be my friend?"

The animal scurried out from under the shelf, startling me. I gasped and bumped against the shelf, knocking several books down.

I looked down in surprise. The books had pretty leather-bound covers. I picked one up, wishing I could read. I flipped through the pages, instantly shocked. The books showed pictures of women being tortured. They were burned at the stake and hung from gallows. A few had been tied to chairs and thrown into rivers. I scrambled to put the books back on the shelf. Maybe it was a good thing I couldn't read.

To make myself forget the gruesome book I scoured the dresser. It contained more clothes than I had ever seen! Curious, I put some on. They were obviously boys' clothes. Did they belong to the witch hunter?

He sure had some strange clothes. I'd never put on boy clothes before, but I thought I had a pretty good handle on it.

After I had changed into my new outfit I got an idea. I pulled the clothes out of the drawers and threw them into the middle of the room. I arranged them into a pile and collapsed on top of it. This "stuff nest" was more comfortable than any bed I'd ever slept on! I decided that this would be my new sleeping arrangement.

After a while I got bored. I could feel the floor under my back through the stuff nest. Maybe it wouldn't work out after all. I found an old sock and, after scouring the few boxes Mum had left behind, found two mismatched buttons and some thread.

"I miss the window I had in my old house," I told my sock puppet.

Why? It was so high up you couldn't see anything, the puppet responded.

"But I could still hear all the people," I sighed. "I don't like being alone."

But Mal, you're always alone, I imagined the puppet sneering. That's why you're talking to a freaking sock.

"Ah!" I cried, ripping the sock off my arm and throwing it across the room. "I don't want to be alone!"

Thump.

I froze. It's probably nothing, I told myself, just an animal or--

"Hey!" A muffled voice shouted outside the door. "Who the heck boarded up my house!"

I screamed and tried to burrow under the stuff nest as the voice continued to bang on the door.

"Is this some sort of prank?"

I heard the sound of metal on wood as the wall was hacked apart with a hatchet.

"You think you can mess with me? I'm the witch hunter's apprentice! I can take you out, I don't care how many of you there are! I'll kill--"

The voice broke through the wall. He stopped when he saw me. We stared at each other. He wasn't the witch hunter as I had feared. He was a boy, no older than ten or eleven. He was my age.

He took in the clothes I was wearing.

"Are--are those mine?"

I looked down, feeling foolish for the first time that I had tried on another person's clothes. "Looks like it."

Author's note:

I hope you enjoyed Chapter One!!!  Please feel free to comment and tell me what you think! I love hearing form you!!!!

This chapter is based off of the second episode, "Cabin Fever." Be sure to check out "Malice" by Julie Elesiv on WEBTOON!