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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Decent_Hovercraft556 on 2024-11-13 01:29:08+00:00.

I’m a witch.

While that may sound far fetched it is true. I’ve always at least somewhat believed in the supernatural. Call it instinct, call it superstition, or call it naivety. No matter what, I can work with magic and spirits well enough.

I live in Colorado, near the mountains. While we all know that the Appalachian mountains are scary most people don’t realize the horror of their younger cousins. They are young, and they lack any of the ancient life of their elders but their horrors are far less known. But I’m getting sidetracked, let’s get into the meat of the story.

I woke up at about 6 in the morning on the saturday when this began. I was going to head into the mountain forest at that time so I was preparing accordingly. I put on my favored old hunting boots, a warded flannel jacket, and I wore a belt with an abundance of pouches. I put my ritual knife, a crescent shaped blade with a bone handle and several spells on it, in its sheath and slung my rifle over my shoulder before heading out. After all I know better than to assume the woods are safe.

The twenty minute drive to my little dead end of a dirt road was calm, if only the whole trip was like that.

In the early morning chill I trudged uphill to a brilliant, purple and blue, clearing of wildflowers where I crouched down and started cutting some columbines by the stem, the morning dew fresh upon my skin. Calmly I started to cut through my next set of flowers, some larkspurs which were flourishing, their harvesting accompanied by the song of birds. Thus I stepped to my final harvest. I cut some bluebells by the stem and started placing them in a pouch. As I was crouched by them I heard a twig break. I snapped my head up and held my knife in front of me, but there was nothing there. I assumed it was just some animal, but that was my first mistake. I walked onward towards my next destination, a small stream a mile or so away. I walked through and my eyes watched for familiar landmarks, a oddly bent tree here, a dilapidated wooden structure there, but as often as there were familiar landmarks there were unfamiliar things. A tree had some fresh damage which might have been claw marks, a little fox den a few meters away from my path collapsed, and a mutilated corpse.

That was something else I should have noted, I approached the corpse only to see what appeared to be some sort of deer. I’ve never really been disturbed by death or gore so I felt it would be worth it to take this animal corpse which had clearly fallen upon a trap or got a stray buckshot striking it or something. After all, it would be a waste to just leave it behind. So I got to work, blood pouring into a preset jar, meat squelching as I skinned the creature. As I methodically skinned the creature I met its glassy eyes, there was no life in them but there was something there. In the reflection of the eyes I saw something rush between two trees. On instinct I grabbed my .22 rifle, it wouldn’t do much but it could scare off a threat, and I started poking around, my bloody knife resting in its sheath. But nothing was there, not just no animal but nothing, it was dead silent. There was only my breath and the sound of my fingernail tapping against the gun’s barrel.

I mumbled a quiet prayer, “Lady Artemis, mistress of the hunt and the wilds, please grant me safety in this wood.” and another, “I call upon the green, grant me safe passage and forage.” And several other prayers. I wasn’t actually scared then, but I wish I had been maybe things would be different then.

As my search yielded no results I returned to the carcass and continued harvesting, the empty eyesockets peering into me. As I finished harvesting the corpse it was midday and I had used a small tarp I kept in one of my larger bags to carry it over my shoulder as a rucksack I carried on to the stream. As I walked the forest returned to life and the hairs on the back of my neck that I didn’t even know were raised settled down. I quickly checked my phone as I arrived at the creek, it was 12:20 and there was no hint of any need to return home. I filled some jars with water from the stream and started walking upstream to see if anything else I wanted was around. I saw a few golden chanterelles I harvested and also some fly amanitas I avoided. But for the next hour or so there was nothing else of note, no silence or stalking creatures or odd landmark.

But that was before I saw the circle. It was on top of a mostly flat boulder, faded chalk marks made a circle around a core carving which looked like a spiral with some sort of runes around it. The carving was caked in a red-brown substance. As I stood by the circle the air felt off, the gentle breeze stilled and the animals grew silent. This place caught my interest, I scribbled the symbols down in a notebook, a set of five lines pointing away from another line, a branching line which resembled a tree, something that seemed to be a lightning bolt, and a set of curved lines sticking together. I resolved to try and figure out this weird spot, another foolish mistake.

It took several hours to copy it all down, and the sky was dark with clouds. I could smell the rain coming, I had to get home soon. After all, I was just barely sixteen and got my license barely a month ago. So I rushed down the mountainside with far less caution. I ran past the dilapidated building and the weird tree and the dilapidated building. When I noticed the building for the second time I realized something was off. How did I get turned around in a place I have roamed for since I was twelve and got my first knife. And as I paused I noticed something in the trees, there was a flash of something in between the trees. So again I grabbed my rifle and moved to inspect the area with some muttered prayers. There was again no life but there were some odd symbols on the trees, Forgetting my circumstances I copied them down. But I then remembered my circumstances and slashed through the symbols with my enchanted ritual knife. Then I turned and continued hurrying downhill. Now I got through the flowers and reached my car, a beat up little pickup truck. I quickly placed the deer harvest in the back and tied it down and slipped into the driver’s seat.

As I closed the door I noticed something. It was hidden between a tree but I saw its arm, it clearly bent with at least two joints before it slipped into the dark and it’s six bloody clawed hand held two glassy dark eyes.

I never was one to run. I punched my bully when he was twice my weight as a little girl. I drew a knife on the creep who was following me when I was twelve. I pointed my .22 rifle at the mountain lion that nearly pounced on me during my first hunting trip. And I stood my ground against the spirit which entered my home and terrorized me and my siblings. But this thing was different, I felt my instinct to fight overwhelmed. It was something greater than me, it was powerful, and I was just some squirrel or mouse. I tore out of the little dead end fast enough that I nearly shot off of the road when I came on a turn.

By the time I got on a road where I may have interacted with another driver my fear had settled, instead of rushing away I focused on every little detail around me, I scanned for any marking or movement. I analyzed every landmark possible. But now as I saw me phone tell me it was 19:00 I was in town. As I pulled into my driveway and started unloading my loot I saw something on the side of the trunk.It was a set of six scrapes.

I rushed to store my loot and then grabbed some chalk from my magical workspace. I scribbled down a pentacle and some protective sigils at the doors and windows. I started to make some witch bottles when my mother caught notice of my erratic behavior.

“Dear, what happened,” She asked. She was well aware that I didn’t react like this normally. When I didn’t respond she continued, “It’s okay dear, what’s going on?”

“Mom I have to set up some protections for the house, something might’ve followed me.” I answered as I placed some iron nails and my blood in a jar and murmured some protective charms before moving onto the next. I spoke up, “Tell the others that this is a ghost thing and to stay put.”

My mother, unsurprisingly, did not take my orders and instead asked a question, “What do you mean by ghost thing?”

As I made my last witch bottle I answered, “I know you don’t believe but there is some sort of spirit which was causing me issues.”

I quickly ran past her into our yard and buried one bottle in each corner of the property and ran back inside. I then heard my siblings scamper out of their rooms.

My older sister, Erin, looked at my disheveled state. She quickly grabbed her own hunting knife and rifle before returning and speaking, “So Amy, what’s happening?”

My younger brother, Jacob, spoke up this time, “Sis what’s happening, I’m scared.”

Following this my little sister, Elizabeth, spoke up, “Yeah, is it another ghost. This time I’ll fight it!”

I was pretty confident before this but now it was a bit more serious. I breathed before speaking, “You all should be fine, remember the charms I made you?” I began, getting a series of nods, “You should be fine if you have them with you. And Liz, you’re too young to fight this one.” This seemed to satisfy my younger siblings and they went back to their room. But Erin stood firm.

“I don’t know anything about magic but this is serious isn’t it…

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