The Girl from Ashwood

Chapter Three — The Girl from Ashwood

Ashwood never forgave the Blackwells.

It was the kind of town that clung to its Puritan bones—white steeples, iron gates, and people who whispered prayers louder than their kindness. Even the trees leaned inward there, crooked and listening.

Rowan had grown up among those whispers. People fell silent when she passed, their smiles too thin, their blessings too sweet. Strange girl, they called her when they thought she couldn’t hear. Wild thing. Witch child.

Her aunt, Mara, would purse her lips whenever someone said it. “Ungrateful fools,” she’d mutter. Then, when the doors were shut, she’d turn to Rowan and say, “You owe me your life.”

And Rowan had believed her for a long time.

She remembered fire in dreams.

Always the same.

The smell of smoke, the heat licking at the walls, her mother’s voice calling from somewhere she couldn’t reach. Then strong arms lifting her into the cold night air, the taste of salt on her tongue, the sound of someone—Mara—crying her name.

She’d wake to her aunt’s hand stroking her hair and the same story every time.

“There was an accident, Rowan. I was babysitting you. Your parents’ lantern overturned. I tried to save them, but the flames…”

Mara’s voice always trembled at the end, just enough to sound like grief.

But the older Rowan grew, the less she believed it.

Because some nights, when she walked barefoot through the fields behind the old farmhouse, the wind carried whispers that sounded too much like her mother’s voice. It wasn’t an accident.

Rowan didn’t know that long before the fire, jealousy had already taken root in her aunt’s heart.

Mara Blackwell had been born without magic—something she could never forgive the Moon Goddess for. Her sister, Evelyn, had been chosen instead: the heir to their grandmother Isolde’s gift, the next vessel of Selunara’s light.

Mara had begged her sister to use that magic to help her bear a child, though no mortal womb could have survived it. Evelyn refused, knowing the Moon’s warning—a life born of envy becomes a curse, not a blessing.

And that refusal had cost her everything.

On a winter night heavy with snow, Mara brewed a draught of poppy milk and nightshade. She slipped it into her sister’s tea, then lit the match. The house burned before dawn, taking everything but the child.

To Ashwood, Mara became a savior—the woman who ran into the flames to rescue her infant niece. The town praised her bravery. The church gave her blessings.

And the Moon turned her face away.

When Isolde learned the truth, she said nothing. She knew Selunara’s judgment would come in its own time. But before her death, she whispered a single prayer that would bind the last of her strength to her granddaughter:

Protect the heir when the fire returns to the world.

The next morning, the old woman was gone—and the black dog appeared at the edge of Rowan’s field, watching with eyes that glimmered like stars trapped in water.

Windy had come to guard her.

Now, years later, in her quiet cottage by the sea, Rowan sometimes dreamed of Ashwood again—the smoldering ruins, the sound of her aunt’s voice calling from far away.

But when she woke, Windy was always there at her side, warm and steady, watching over her as though to say, That fire is behind you, child. But its ashes still remember.