Finding Amelia: The American Witch Tale Series
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Daphne Anders
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127K
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36
Chapter 1
ALEXANDER
I was born in Latvia in 1736 as Aleksandrs Jansons to a witch mother and a human father.
My father was unaware of my mother’s abilities until she had to use her healing powers on me after I suffered a bad accident.
From there, our life became hell—they sent a hunting party after us, determined to bring us in and hang us for witchcraft. I was twelve when my mother and I fled, leaving behind our home and drifting with the wind as witch accusations reached an all-time high across Europe and America.
I changed my name to Alexander Jacobs to assimilate.
1764: the American Colony of Massachusetts. I was twenty-eight when I came into my powers fully, officially stopping the aging process.
Fear of witches in the American Colony of New England was still prevalent, with trials, accusations, and executions taking place often. My mother and I had arrived a few months ago and settled in a small town called Salem.
The town had a dark history with witches in the late sixteen hundreds, but we felt comfort in the fact that America was far away from those we were running from. I held employment in town as a trader, selling goods such as cotton, yarn, barley, tobacco, and spices and teas locally.
My mother kept up her healing practice and would mix herbs and remedies for ailments. I would sell the goods in the town square market daily.
The townsfolk were friendly, and my business was doing fairly well. The previous witch hysteria was absent from the town.
I walked through the cobbled streets of Salem that whispered old secrets. Secrets that held a magical past of their own.
Every weathered brick along the often-frequented town square path felt heavy with history. Though the town had grown with time, the townsfolk still held their breath when the air turned thick, and they still made the sign of the cross when a woman walked alone with herbs in her pouch, as if she was the devil herself.
We had lived through the hell of the trials and barely made it out alive ourselves. My mother, cautious by nature, rarely left the cottage we owned at the edge of town near the wooded area.
The cottage was placed near the edge of the tree line, where the woods grew thick with a heaviness in the air, and the animals grew silent, especially at the midnight hour. Mother always said the trees listened, and in a place like Salem, that warning carried weight.
Though I had taken to the market to earn an honest living as a trader of my own accord, I never let my guard down—not fully. I needed to be careful; I knew what it meant not to be.
The fear of discovery was a shadow of my past that still followed me even as I bartered goods and made quiet conversation with the townsfolk. Many of the townsfolk still viewed healers with suspicion, especially those who lived apart from the town center and away from the monotony that was their life.
A misplaced look or suspicious remedy could raise questions that we didn’t want answered. People feared the unknown.
It was ten o’clock in mid-June, and the market was bustling with business and customers. I had already made dozens of sales for the day, of cotton and popular herbs, when a thinner woman with ivory skin, rosy cheeks, auburn-colored hair, and magnetic deep-blue eyes approached my open-air storefront.
I had seen her before, from a distance—she was beautiful and looked well kept, as if she was from a home of some prominence. She reached her thin ivory hand out to take hold of some dried spices, allowing them to slip through her fingers as she brought them up to her nose to smell.
“Lovely.” She smiled toward me, our eyes connecting.
“It’s the finest sage in our town,” I commented, studying the woman. I felt I could almost recognize her.
She studied the spice once more, sifting her hand through the sage, and then peered back up toward me. “How long have you been in town for?”
“My mother and I came here a few months ago from Europe,” I replied.
“Well, the town here is pleasant, and the witch hysteria is a matter of the past, so, I understand your inclination to move. I hear Europe is a mad place now with witch hysteria at the moment.” She studied my facial features with her hypnotic gaze.
“And your name, madam?”
“Amelia. Amelia Gipson.” She smiled as she extended her hand to mine.
I placed a small kiss on the back of her hand. I recognized the connection as our hands touched.
She had magic too. She was a witch.
There was an allure about her—beyond her magic—beyond her appearance. It attracted me naturally, as if our souls were bound.
We had an unspoken connection as we exchanged glances and as our touches collided. It was like nothing I had ever felt before.
I was drawn to her and to the rawness of our connection. I was cautious, quiet, and uncertain at times.
But Amelia…
She seemed like she was different.
She moved through Salem like a flame in fog—delicate, luminous, untouchable. Yet there was steel beneath her softness. I sensed it immediately.
That she would speak so plainly about Europe’s madness—and with a knowing gaze, no less—told me she was not merely curious. She was testing me.
And I, foolish or bewitched, welcomed it.
Her presence stirred something dormant in me. Not just my magic.
Something deeper. Something ancient.
I hadn’t felt this before. A budding spark, threatening to light myself ablaze.
