Risking Evil

i. bubble bubble

Purple.

It was all he could see as he brushed past the dangling flowers that framed the door like an archway. They were sweet-smelling, he noted, before the sharp little hiss his mother made drew his little feet towards her.

Though, admittedly, his mind never left the foliage. In the 54 seconds, they had been there for he had already flipped through countless textbooks in his head, each with detailed descriptions and drawn images of so many flowers even a Brewer would have trouble naming them all. And yet nothing remotely similar to the things had shown up.

"Which one, Em, the blue or the –"

"Yellow."

Salem shoved away the baffling flora, storing it in a drawer in his mind for later. His mother, ever the future enthusiast, had wanted him to come along to Madame Rosetta's, a small shack in the middle of Isligo where the supposed fortune teller lived.

"You sure? Remember what Papa said? Mrs Fucci and her son won it last week with the blue."

It was funny, really, in a town where magic - true magic - flourished, Rosetta still seemed so fake. Like, 'wears a turban on her head and has a crystal ball made of frosted glass kind of fake'. It didn't take a genius to figure that out.

"Mamma, it's 1700 hours, we're 30 minutes late and counting."

Salem's mother let out a frightfully tired sigh, and she dropped the small, perceivably yellow lottery machine back onto the small table in front of a looming oak wood door. She cast one last forlorn glance at it before she adjusted her cloak, and swept the fringe of shadowed ink from her eyes.

"I suppose I'll never quite get used to you and your growing intelligence, little one. Come, you are right, we must hurry."

That was the last time Salem and his mother had truly spoken. 11 years ago.

⚜

"Really boy, have you no sense of shame?"

Salem shrugged pitifully, and had his arms not been full of firewood sticks - still damp from the heavy rainfall that had bestowed upon them earlier - his itching fingers would have pushed locks of burnt russet away from his face.

11 whole years.

Memories that consisted of darkened marble, empty words carved into the shapely rock and long, black cloaks that grazed his feet were already engraved into the timely flesh of his mind.

Griselda, his late mother's sister, sighed deeply. Salem didn't want to admit to himself that maybe getting caught fucking his sister's boyfriend in the designated Potion's closet perhaps hadn't been the greatest of ideas.

"You're lucky this town is so accepting of your... preferences. If not, I'm sure you would've been burnt at the stake by now."

Salem snorted - hypocrites - his silver eyes found light in the darkness of the night, nimble feet sidestepping any debris in his path. A thick scarf wound itself around his neck, warming his throat and soothing the annual ache that seemed to come every October of the year.

Speaking was not an option anymore, and Salem honestly did not mind in the slightest. The forest seemed to prickle, alive and aware in the gloom, seeming to shield itself from the obvious glare of light emanating from his home village just beyond the winding road. Isligo.

Overhead, clouds swam across the surface of the sky, shaming the moon into hiding.

His mother's hair had always seemed so-

(How could he describe it?)

- still. Promising. So moulded to her character was that hair that bled night skies and dark lies like gossamer and poison.

Salem twirled lightly as he walked behind Griselda. Dancing was a beautiful thing, a thing that led the fluid motions of his body; languid curves and an arched back to fully form and take shape. He thrived while dancing as a fish did in the water. He ached for it.

A few sticks fell from the pile in his hands, causing Griselda to hiss at him, stern words tripping his feet as they picked over a particularly tricky stump of a tree. His toe caught the edge of the twisted thing, gnarled in a way that caused his heart to flip, pain shooting through his whole leg as he fell, face forward into the impending dirt.

"Fuck!" He groaned, rolling onto his back as he felt the panicked hands of his aunt scramble over his body for wounds.

"Language, Salem! Good Lord, how on earth did you manage to trip on nothing?"

Nothing? He wondered if the woman was blind if simply she could just not bring her eyes to see the glaringly obvious tree stump he had tripped over. Or at least...he thought he had tripped over.

Murky waters doused his mind in their choking embrace, submerging his thoughts as his body jerked swiftly, violently.

God, not again.

The ground beneath him seemed to disintegrate into molten lava, boiling and reaching up to greet his skin with greedy little licks of painted orange, red aching liquid. His whole body flared like a bright star streaking from the night sky, his head lifting up off the ground only to be slammed back down as if some invisible force was driving it.

His chest heaved, soaked in sweat, his consciousness slowly slipping. Skin too numb, too blue and swollen to feel his aunt's sobs as she encased him in her arms, spells falling from her lips in trembling songs of despair.

Her right hand found his chest, a slight golden glow emanating from her fingertips, seeming to emerge from a place within her skin, somewhere deep in her veins; connected to her very soul. And that very same power poured into his body for the 7th time that month.

ii. toil and trouble

Salem found comfort in the Healer's office; it reminded him vaguely of his Mother's old bedroom that had been draped in all her favourite gowns and blouses, shaped like a crescent moon, the towering French windows on either side that let the moonlight spill into the room.

In retrospect, Salem noticed the Healer's place really only had the crescent moon shape and semi large windows that stopped midway down the curved walls.

Books lined the burgundy walls, just stacks upon stacks of dusty volumes, each thicker than the last. He let his head rest against the arm of the soft couch he was sprawled on, gaze resting on Aunt Griselda and the Healer.

Maroon couch with burgundy walls. Clearly Hr. Erik Kozin had no sense of colours. Either that or the old coot was colour blind.

Griselda's skin glistened like oil bathed in a soft glow of silver, her eyes - usually a sprightly, bright amber - were shrouded in murky concern. As she spoke in murmured whispers, her right hand lifted up to repeatedly push back the sheer green veil that encased her coarse, black hair.

"You can't do that! I refuse for him to be subjected to such a fate."

Salem's ears pricked with interest, but a laziness gripped him so instead of getting up to listen intently, he let his left wrist flick, drawing a ball of fire up his arm and into his hand.

The flame startled both Healer and his Aunt, clashing starkly against the soft glow of the moon, spitting iridescent sparks of molten red and orange. He smiled softly at the burning sensation that engulfed him - the slight pain felt like ecstasy personified.

Nothing like the magma that had encased him many times before.

"Mr Salem, you're awake."

The fire burned on, if not a tad brighter this time.

Griselda's eyes spilt apologies onto the floor, her thin, dark lips coated in purple lipstick while downturned into her signature frown. She faced the Healer again, fingers tapping irritably on the beech wood of his desk.

"Erik, tell me he can be saved." Her voice filled the space like a cello, deep and sturdy. Yet oddly metallic, almost like a scratch of nails underneath - damn human cigarettes.

And yet it was the kind of voice that had been through some shit, Salem thought idly.

The albino Healer shifted uneasily, white hair scraped down into a low bun as his red eyes flared in the darkness. He seemed to be calculating his chances of survival against Griselda, and with the big woman practically pounding at his table, Salem could see he was admitting defeat.

"Griselda, I'm sorry. The High Council have made their choice. The boy must talk to them before anything should be disclosed."

The flame extinguished.

Salem stood, letting his robes fall around his feet in his haste to understand just what had been uttered. The High Council wanted him? His throat clogged with thick cords of anxiety, shivers taking claim of his body as the world seemed to want to collapse in on him.

"Why-" He croaked, ignoring Griselda's stern glare telling him to shut the fuck up. "Why do they want to see me of all the witches in Isligo?"

The Healer stood up as well, quickly rushing over to Salem and guiding him to the stool beside Griselda and sitting him down. He ignored the boy's question at first, busying himself with prospects of measuring out the correct Potions in a glass phial. Once this was accomplished, he whipped around and sighed heavily.

The clear, tarnished liquid was no consolation - neither was the slight chance that Kozin was colour blind.

"I'm afraid I cannot answer to you that question. I do apologise."

Of course. of course, you do, you white pubed bastard.

He was almost 17, almost free of the burden that had plagued him all his life; adolescence. At 17 he would become of age...and be forced to take over his Father's rather rowdy Coven.

Salem downed the Potion drink in one, before staggering to his bare feet. He left his Aunt to guide him towards the door, mind already dozing off in spite of himself -

(The clear medical Potion really hadn't been good for his stomach, but Salem had survived. If just barely.)

iii. mirror mirror

If there were ever a thing that Salem did not like, it was being forced to dress up in formal robes and try slick back the tangled mess that was his dark hair.

Perhaps Griselda realised this, and that had been why she let him lie back against the soft material of the couch in the candle light of the living room as she held up different clothing choices to his slouched frame.

She bustled around the room, both hands full of either measuring pins or robes, her own hair tied up into a rather messy top bun. Her wand, a thin stick of birch coated in oxblood paint, was slid in behind her left ear, spilling showers of magical essence onto the hardwood flooring.

His sister, Sorcha, was nowhere to be seen. Probably out with one of her countless boyfriends. One, of which, had been actually attractive and had pleasured Salem to the point of no return last night in the Potion's cupboard.

One of his finer moments, one might say.

"Salem, child, this is your Trial for Morwenna's sake! Quick, pick one of the following, emerald or –"

"Navy." He whispered, slim fingers grazing over the inked tattoo on his bare knee.

Long ago he had given up trying to shy away from Griselda's motherly hands and now felt no shame in sitting in only his underwear in front of the woman. It's not as if he had anything to hide, either way. He was slim, with long, lean muscles underneath pale flesh, and his dick? Well, the only thing about that is that over the years it had grown into something less of a pitiful sight.

It was perhaps something around 6 inches while soft, and, well, measuring had never really been the first thing on his mind while it had been hard.

His Aunt stopped in her tracks, those amber eyes seemed to light up straight from the pupils amongst the warmth of the fire.

"Repeat what you just said, child." That was her favourite term of endearment at the moment, and Salem could remember - back when he had really been a child, perhaps 2 - she had called him 'Em' along with his mother.

How quickly things change.

"Navy." He squeaked, and immediately reprimanded himself for sounding so weak. Just because he could remember his time as a toddler didn't mean he wanted to return to acting like one. "With my pale skin, the navy cloak with the silver peacock designs should bring out the colour in my eyes."

Oh, Morwenna, if he had not sounded more homosexual then than in all his life, he truly did not know what his preference was.

At least his Aunt seemed to appreciate the help, as that terse mouth of hers quirked up at the ends and breached something approaching a smile. She quickly grabbed the robe he was talking about and threw it at him with rushed instructions to "change now, or Morwenna help me."

Salem did as he was told.

It occurred to him that maybe this wouldn't all be the shits and giggles he really had hoped it would be. What if the High Council decided he wasn't really worth the seizures? What if they cast him out of Isligo? Or worse, withdraw him from the college program he was bound for after the next Full Moon cycle?

He firmly pushed these terrible thoughts out of his mind, instead focusing on reciting the list of American presidents he had learned during his spare time when he had been 5. Something about reciting nice, calm long lists was almost as soothing to his nerves as dancing was.

And with one leg shoved into the neck hole of this bloody complicated robe, and his head shoved down an arm slot, he really didn't have time to be dancing

—

It was odd, being away from the comfort of Isligo. Already Salem was starting to miss his small, stone house bathed in multicoloured cloths and littered with piles upon piles of books.

(All his, of course. Griselda did not believe in reading about things such as adventures or Aiso - the magic of the fire that coursed through his veins - she believed there was more to learn by trial and error. Salem much preferred the strong knowledge of knowing first.)

He was homesick for the quiet bustle of the town square; the pretty shops lined around the circular centre, each painted either a delicate grey, white or off-lilac colour. And in his distress, he didn't even at that moment mind the giant stake that tore into the ground in the direct middle of the circle, with the cobblestone burnt in a wide radius around the large wooden thing.

"You're shivering," Griselda whispered as they stepped through the large, everlasting doors of the High Court, welded deep in the city of Moropa. "May you perhaps be nervous?"

What a preposterous thought. Him? Nervous? He laughed in the face of discomfort, grinned at the antics of shame. Never would he be anything less than at ease.

And perhaps Salem would've believed himself if his hands weren't twitching as mildly as they were in the roomy pockets of his slim-cut robes. He shook his head firmly, or at least as firmly as he could manage in the harsh light of the hallways.

"It's 28 degrees Celsius outside, child." His Aunt mused,"You are either shaking from the nerves or coming on with another episode."

Salem didn't know which one would be worse to admit to.

So instead of allowing his mind to race through the 23 Pros and 45 Cons of admitting to each, he let his eyes roam over the waiting area that they stood in. The hallway was long and wide, stretching down as far as the eye could see, and right in front of them was a sort of desk.

It was glass, frosted with a strip of navy running through it, all sharp edges and harsh lights embedded into the front of a sign that read 'Welcome to the High Court. '

Salem didn't really know if he felt welcomed at all, with the way his nerves were bouncing like untamed butterflies around his chest, squeezing and squeezing at his heart until he was sure he'd pass out.

The walls were a strange type of black, the kind of black that seemed to suck the light from the Earth itself, with lined white designs floating in the void of darkness.

"Typical."

Griselda was muttering all sorts of phrases under her breath, her hands idly passing back and forth over a scrap piece of cloth she had shoved into her own robe pocket. From where he was standing, Salem could see the cloth change colour and wondered - not for the first time - how such a strong woman as his Aunt had ended up as a Tailor.

They stood around for around 3.5 more minutes - in this state Salem couldn't find it in himself to grab his sense of time exactly - and he supposed they were nearing the time they were supposed to show for the trial.

"Do you suppose we just go in?" He muttered over the ache in his throat, somewhat grateful for the thick scarf Griselda had allowed him around his neck. "It's almost 1500 hours."

His Aunt shook her head - more out of disbelief than disagreement, he thought - "Sometimes I will never understand the way your mind works. 1500 hours indeed. Salem, it's called 3 o'clock."

Humph. His mother had never once minded his odd way of speaking, even embraced it at times. She had said he was 'a very special boy.' Even eleven years later, he wanted to believe this so much.

The dark skinned woman before him smiled slightly - the closest he'd get to an apology, he supposed - and grabbed his arm gently. Together they scaled the plush red carpet of the hallway, glancing at the 8-foot iron doors and their number plates, before finally finding the door marked 13.

To be quite honest, Salem saw this as some evil sign from a foe of Morwenna's that today would not be his day at all. His fingers shook violently in his pockets, sharp nails digging into the flesh of his palms.

"I wish you all the best, my child," Griselda whispered, and one large wrinkled palm covered his own effeminate hands. "They should know that whatever is happening to you is beyond your reach."

Salem kissed the woman's cheek, and after their brief hug all he could do was nod and follow his guardian for the past 9 years into the threshold of his doom.