The flames blazed all around them, cracking the dry wood and filling their lungs with black fumes. The town resembled a massive burning torch; a beacon of death in the night. With her child held to her bosom, the woman waded through the smoke and fire, the intense heat like an oven. burning flesh and eyes.

The roof crumbled, raining fiery rubble down onto her. At one point, she was completely lost in the blinding smoke, the crackling of blazing wood the only indication that she hadn’t died.

She found the exit, and broke into the night air, embers catching her dress as she tore it away. She looked back at the burning cottage, now reduced to mere firewood.  A place they used to call home, before it all went up in smoke. Her baby bawled, and soon after, the taunts and roars of the village men could be heard like sirens, an indication that now was the time to flee this fallen place, undone by madness. So she did, fleeing far from that accursed place and leaving it all behind. She raced on foot, following the Star of The North heading for the sea. She could no longer stay on this continent infected with madness and plagued with flames.

She heard hounds, yapping and closing in. She ran faster, the sea just over the misty hills. The barking and taunting grew louder; accompanied by the blinding torchlights just behind her. The sea came into view and upon it, a ship that was beginning to set off. She couldn’t stop, lest her child would be burnt at the stake along with her. Even though her lungs cried out from the smoke and exercise, she pushed on, barefoot through the brambles and onto cool sand. As the boat left the dock, she cried out, pushing with every last ounce of power she had left.

Her feet left the dock, and for an instant she feared she’d go plummeting into the churning, salty sea. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, her feet were planted firmly on wood. She looked behind her, to see the dock shrinking in the distance, and the enraged mad men brandishing their torches and leashed hounds at the water's edge. Some tried to swim after the ship, but drowned as a result. She collapsed in relief, crying softly with her child in arms. The sailors weren’t as mad like people of this land, and they escaped with their families as soon as the fires began raging. She had no family, not anymore. They all had perished, and all that she held dear had burned.

All but her infant child, whose eyes, only - only for an instant - sparkled with the red tint like its father’s had been before they were torn out and burned. She didn’t believe in God or gods, yet she prayed. Prayed that wherever this ship should set anchor. . .it would be a place free of fires and stakes. A land free of the Mad Hunts.

* * *

The child remembered all this, and more. Even though he was no more than a fleshy infant, his mind was a solid stone, and began chronicling his life from the very moment it began. Some memories, however, are better left untouched and unspoken. But his memory wasn’t perfect. No, far from it, actually. You see, he can only perceive the memories as he witnessed them in that time, and as you may already know, an infant's view of the world vastly contrasts with that of a young adult. Due to this, the fire and heat is all he can remember, and after that. . .the New World.

* * *

“And say it again? You mustn’t--”

“I mustn’t leave my chambers during the day.”

“Good.” She said to her son, “you understand why this is, don’t you?”

“No!” He exclaimed, “Why must I stay cooped up in the dark! It’s cold, and damp, and boring!”

“It isn’t cold, or damp - else there’d be spores growing from the tips of your nose!” She tickled his face, inciting a laughing fit. “And boring? What can you do outside that can’t be done inside?”

“Well, exploring, of course! My friends and I used to explore beneath the giant bridge and the woods!”

She smiled, patting her son on the head. “You’re right. I shouldn’t turn you into an anchorite. I’m just afraid one day you’ll come of age, and the fires will spark all over again.” She stroked his cheek as she said this. Fires, he thought, spying the old burns on his mother's hands. He knew there was some kind of fire, but the context was a beyond him. “Promise your mother you’ll run home if you feel anything strange.”

“Oh, of course, mum!”

She smiled and hugged him close. “Good boy. Now, the herbalist in town has a shipment of that Bloodroot I’d been hounding him for! Be a darling and go fetch it for me.” Eager to go outside he began for the door, peeling out onto the warm, sunbaked earth. It was a beautiful day; a day free of clouds and the squalls of the north shore village. The sunlight dancing through the twisting limbs of the tree made it almost look beautiful if not for the row of gravestones behind the branches. Graves that were freshly dug not too long ago, at that.

There had been a lot of deaths ever since the winter rushed in. It’d been long and bitter this year, and many hoped for an early spring. Along with the winter showers, disease came in almost like a curse, and it hit children the worst. Medicine was a scarcity in these times, but if you knew what plants went with what, it became a trivial task. The only downside was having to wait for shipments during the winter season.

Jogging into town, he was glad to see the townsfolk out and enjoying the rare and uplifting weather. Children played on the sidewalks - rolling hoops around men and women who window shopped leisurely. A carriage, drawn by a great brown stallion cantered through the road, and behind it, a row of armored knights waved with helms in hand. Their shields depicted an image of a red crucifix, and in the center - a black lion on its hind legs. The people in the carriage had an air of royalty; a couple, donned in opulent, purple robes. The young lad could tell they must have ranked high, determined by the tone that they looked down at him. He didn’t let it get to him. His mother had drilled into him countless times that it didn’t matter how people looked at him; they were only mere humans. And in knowing that, their judgement shouldn’t affect him. It was true that the judgement of a noble had no real effect on the boy, yet, he hadn’t understood what his mother meant by “mere humans”. She’d said it almost as if she were above them, and that was what confused him.

Passing by the convoy of knights, as he crossed a row of tightly packed boutiques, he stopped outside the herbalists market, scanning the assorted plants on the window sill before heading inside. It smelled wonderful; fresh gardenias masking the scent of stinking rum that polluted the streets. After not too long, a tall man wearing suspenders stepped out from the back room. When he caught sight of the lad, he smiled.

“Well, if it isn’t little Isaac!”

“You going to keep calling me little? You’ve been calling me little since I was an infant.”

“True, but you trot around barefoot like one! Why is that, anyway?”

“My mum says it keeps us in tune to the earth.  I just like the feeling of the grass between my toes.”

As he crept cautiously down the groaning stairs, the torches flickering magically as he went past. The resonation in his body seemed much stronger now, like the He pushed his glasses up onto his face and smirked. “Aye, your mums no joke when it comes to her plants. That woman, as strange as her methods may be, broke my son’s fever and saved his life, and for that she’s in my debt. Now, speaking of your mother, I’m sure she sent you for something.”

“Oh, almost forgot, she wanted some, uh, what was it called. . .Bloodroot?”

“Aye, we got a whole shipment of the nasty stuff. I hope she puts it to good use. The stuff’ll burn a hole right through your hand if you aren’t careful.”

After retrieving the shipment of Bloodroot, stored securely in a steer-hide pouch, the young lad, Isaac, stopped by the greengrocers for some extra provisions - paying with the newly created paper currency as opposed to gold and silver - and paid a visit to the baker’s right after. Isaac was no stranger in his village, and the baker would occasionally leave aside a fresh loaf of bread, still hot from the oven. But today, he wasn't greeted by the baker or the smell of sweet scones.

The bakery was just about empty. Where there was bustle and business outside, it was desolate and hushed within, almost as if he’d entered some kind of secret club. In the back of the shop, three men sat around a table, talking in whispers and not paying the boy any mind. The baker was among them, his kitchen apron still on and stained with dough. Isaac, although not deliberately rude, was a curious lad, and knowing he’d be excluded from “grown-men talk”, decided to eavesdrop. Ducking behind a counter, he listened closely.

“--what was that about the Goodwin children having strange fits?” asked a man with a very rustic accent.

“Four of them, all suffering from strange fits. It’s the disease of astonishment, I tell you!” Cried the baker.

“You don’t think. . .they were hexed, do you?”

“You heard what that minister over at the church up north in Boston said. It was that old Goody Glover!”

“The washwoman?”

“The witch!” He corrected, “Those kids were tempted by the devil to trifle with her, and the old witch planted a nasty spell on them, she did.”

“That’s absurd. Witches, witchcraft, devilry? I say that minister’s been sipping a bit too much of Christ's blood.”

“Believe what you will, but when your kid starts howling at the moon, you’re going to be eating your words.”

The third man shot up. “I believe it! There was another family, thrice tried for witchcraft up in Wallingford. They didn’t burn em’, and now they’re settling in Staten Island, a bloody stone's throw from here.” He leaned in closer, his voice so low that Isaac had a difficult time understanding. “And you know that lad, the weird looking bugger, looks sort of like a little goblin, I think his mum's one of em’.”

“Now I know you’ve been hittin’ the stinkin’ rum! Why would the bloody healer be one of them, whatchamacallits, a witch?”

“Well, for one, the woman lives up in the woods all alone, like. And you really think those flowers and leaves she claims she uses can really cure the wet lung? It’s dark magic, I say! And that ginger is her familiar.”

“How about you investigate before you start accusing,” the skeptical man retorted.

“It doesn’t need any investigation,” the baker chimed in, “it’s plain as day. The sudden rise in disease, the drop in temperature. It smells of witchcraft, it does.”

The loud clatter of plates crashing to the floor rang out through the shop, and all three men turned their attention to the noise. Isaac shot up, his face livid and teeth clenched. He looked quite close to the “little goblin” the man had described, but he wouldn’t just sit by and let them talk ill of his mother. The men looked surprised at first, but the baker stepped forward, glaring at the young child as one would glare at a mangy stray. He chafed, and ran out of that bakery, his heart in his boots. He felt a red hot shame, running from the men who so brazenly insulted him, and called his mother a. . .witch? He’d never heard the word until then, but he was smart enough to know that it wasn’t something positive. He wished he was big and rough like those knights, so he could sort those men out. But what hurt him the most was how the baker, a long time friend, looked at him. Like vermin, to be truthful. He was young, but he wouldn’t cry. He’d go back to his mother, and she’d sort everything out.