“Don’t cry. Please, don’t cry.” A woman clutched a brown-haired baby against her chest. Bright red nose and cheeks, the baby wailed and withered from the snow that settled on her ghostly skin.

“O’ Luminous One… please, grant us your strength,” the woman whispered as the wind and snow battered against her skin. She cried out and stumbled as she was pushed back in the snow, her hair whipping her face, but she quickly steadied herself.

Her breath came in heavy gasps, and her feet tingled and ached. Finally coming upon a shed, she collapsed to her knees, still holding her bundled baby. “Oh, thank you for this blessing, Luminous One…” she prayed before getting inside the dry wooden hut.

She lifted the thin fabric of her shirt and the baby quickly suckled on. She let out a shaky sigh as she stroked the cheek of the freezing baby. “I’m sorry for making you wait so long, my little rabbit.” She pressed a trembling and soft kiss against the bald spot on the baby’s head.

When the baby finished feeding, she stood up and walked around the small cabin. She hummed and twirled to soothe the baby, but her teeth still chattered and her heart boomed within her chest.

“Luminous One… I humbly ask that you will shield Lilith from this cruel world. I hope I do not offend you with such a request, and I will continue to serve you dutifully.” She said the words with such clarity and certainty, yet her eyes glimmered with crystal tears. Tears fell but were quickly wiped away as she held her baby tighter and approached a small room.

She opened the door and was greeted by the skeleton remains of a human—rather than gasp in shock or surprised, she slowly clicked the door shut and continued to brace the baby against her bosom.

“Mommy needs to catch something to eat,” the woman cooed, gently wrapping the baby and placing her down in a makeshift cradle. “I’ll be right back, my little rabbit.”

She headed out and wrapped the clothing around her face as if she tried to hide the world’s barren eyes from her skin. The sun set and cast a red and orange haze over the reflective blue snow that painted the landscape marvelous. The moon was a white dot that seemed misplaced on the sky, sheer and pale on the watercolor sunset. Reentering with some fish, the woman was soaked and terribly shaky.

She started a fire and cooked up a soup, praying before sipping it. Everytime the door creaked, her eyes would dart toward it as if afraid—and waiting.

She turned back to her baby and smiled, holding a cold finger above and watching the delicate child giggle and wrap her small hands around it.

“Mommy would do anything for you. You’re my entire world, Lilith.” She gave a hopeful and beautiful smile while watching her child. The blue eyes, thin brown hair, small nose. Her child was the loveliest thing in the world. “Mommy would tear down this whole world and rebuild it just for you if it’s what you wanted,” she cooed, tickling the baby and laughing.

A child wasn’t something she ever wanted; the idea of motherly love seemed foreign and something she’d be incapable of. But when Lilith was born, she finally understood what undying love meant.

“I love you.” She said the words with utmost truth and certainty as the front door burst opened from the hinges, slamming against the crowd. Whipping her head around, she faced the men that sprinted into the house, their black outfits a harsh scream against the soft sky. She scrambled onto her feet and held Lilith close, sprinting out of the back door.

“That’s the witch! Catch her!” A man shouted, his voice hoarse and enraged.

Tears fell down her face as her feet gave out beneath her, skidding and slipping on the freezing snow. She cried out when her ankle snapped beneath her and she toppled to the ground. She threw Lilith away to avoid crushing her, but Lilith harshly smacked into the icy floor.

“No!” She cried like a wild animal, clawing through the snow on all fours to reach the baby, whose cries were now muffled by a mouthful of prickly snow.

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She brushed the snow off of Lilith, and tears seemed to fall and freeze on the woman’s lashes as she sobbed. “We’re going to be okay. Mommy loves you, alright? She loves you so much. We’re going to get through this. They’re just coming to help us,” she choked out the last words before trying to get up, but her swollen and now purple foot refused to move.

Her nose ran and snot dripped down from her face as she wept, holding a silent Lilith tight. The men were quickly approaching and circling around her. “Who am I kidding,” she cried, wrapping her shoulders around the small and vulnerable baby. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. There’s no one here to help us.”

“Get her, now! She’s injured!” The men surrounded her and gripped her limbs, tearing her away from her baby as she tried to stay wrapped around Lilith.

“No!” She was animalistic, wild. A mother protecting their child. She thrashed and screamed and bit, and they still restrained her limbs and picked up the baby, throwing her aside. “Luminous One, if you’re real, then please, please, help us now.” She pleaded as she stared up at that watercolor sky and pale moon.

The woman was met only with a sharp kick into her ribs and they quickly crunched, sending her into raw and sheer pain as she cried out. More and more feet collided with her stomach, her face, and her chest until she fell limp.

“Bring her and her child back to the village. They’ll be burned at the stake tomorrow night,” a large bearded man commanded as he sat on a chocolate brown horse. He had scars driven up his chiseled face, and large plates of armor rested on his broad shoulders.

The woman and her baby were thrown into a carriage, and the woman could not make a sound as she crashed into the wooden floor. She reached for her injured child and wheezed, her chest shattered.

“Are you okay, my little rabbit?” Her chapped and bloody lips seemed to just mouth the words, barely making a sound. The child’s face twisted as Lilith began to wail.

“Are you hungry?” The woman lifted her shirt and held back a cry as she pressed the baby against her chest. Every breath she took causing a violent, stabbing pain to radiate all over her body. “I’m sorry, Luminous One, for letting my faith waver. Her tears wet the wooden carriage below her. “But, even if I must die, please watch over Lilith.”

“The witch is casting another spell.”

“Knock her out.”

A sharp kick was delivered to the back of her neck, and the nameless woman met cold darkness alone.

***

“Lift me higher so I may burn staring at the moon,” the battered woman said, her head drooping but her eyes staring straight up into the sky.

Her request was ignored, and she used her last bit of strength to try and lift her head toward the sky.

“Ladies and gentlemen. I speak to you here, today, as King Leith. The country of Leith hereby sentences this woman to be burned at the stake for being a practicing witch.” The same bearded man declared this, his voice booming over the gathering crowd. “Her child will be burned next to end this bloodline of torment and monstrosity.”

The crowd cheered and lifted their arms into the cold air. The baby was placed in front of the man, and Lilith’s deep blue eyes seemed to take in the entire situation in front of her, even if she were too young to understand.

The fire was lit and the woman said not a word as it began to lick and char her gangrene foot. For a moment, the woman’s eyes darted down to look at her child, her world, and she offered the most gentle and slight smile. It was a smile that no one would remember.

Lilith’s face twisted as she started screaming and crying, kicking and thrashing her arms beside her as the flames quickly grew and blossomed over her mother like a flower. The woman now turned back to the moon and let not a sound leave her gored face.

Lilith thrashed and cried while the crowd cheered, her voice shrill and her incessant crying being the exact sound that sparked annoyance among the crowd. She screamed louder and louder as the flames reflected in her wide blue eyes.

She wailed, screeched, her piercing voice desperate and loud and grotesque and hateful and if God was real, then she had just felt its caressing touch. Lilith’s hair shot bright white, almost glowing while her mother’s body charred and faded into black before her, her mother’s eyes melting like runny eggs down her face.

With a loud, echoing boom, the ground below the village split and cracked apart as the sky roared and rolled, black and ominous. Flames burst from the broken ground while people tried to sprint back before the cliff would open up beneath them, sucking them in before slamming shut and crushing them.

Rain poured down and the consuming fire dwindled, and all that was left was her mother’s charred body that slowly fell and crumbled into the crowd.

King Leith stared in shock and bewilderment as he lifted the crying child into his arms, and a small smile edged up his face. This child—this child was the most outrageously powerful being he’d ever set his eyes on—Lilith, was that what her mother had called her? He threw the child onto his back and pat her little back, a wicked smile now adorned.

“Little rabbit, do you think I could raise you to be my obedient woman?”