I'm dead. Really dead. Not in the "there'll be a twist at the end and I'll be saved" kind of way. Just dead. I knew that this was going to happen. In fact, I knew for three years that today, on my birthday, I was going to die. I didn't really believe it at first but as the day got closer I understood everything.
This whole thing started back three years ago. I had just turned thirteen and I wanted to start earning myself some money. After all, my parents wouldn't pay for everything I wanted anymore. The only job...
There's somebody standing in the corner of my room. I have no idea who they are. I don't recognise the outline, the shape. I think the figure is a woman. She, if she is a she, is tall and slim, almost skeletal, like a witch. This thought scares me. I don't want to be visited by a witch, especially not the ghost of a dead witch. Which is worse? A live witch, with a wand and a broom? Or a ghost witch, with neither because she is no longer a physical substance? Would the live witch or the ghost witch...
It was a pleasure to burn, in the end. Sarah had known it was coming without being told. Knowing things without being told was all part of being a witch, she supposed.
She hadn't ever chosen, as such - but rather she preferred to let the currents and grooves of the world guide her path through it. And the world had chosen for her to be a witch.
To anybody else, this might have seemed like a state of affairs that could be analysed and considered - weighing up the pros (foresight; cackling) and the cons (burning) - but for...