“I mean it. Every emotion, Dean. Even the bad ones. It's why I fell. It's why- why I'd give anything not to have to go back. Anything…”

___________________________________________

Fascinating...

That was the only word Anna could think to describe this. She was accustomed to watching humanity from a distance, never interfering, never getting close; but when Anna draped her wings over Ruby that night to soothe her after stepping out of her dreams - for the first time - Anna had drawn near….and stayed.

Anna watched Ruby stretch when morning came, slivers of sunlight peeking through the curtains to fall across her face and her amber hair that was wildly strewn about. She looked warm, rested, content as she slowly blinked into consciousness. It made Anna feel oddly proud, like maybe she had helped in some small way.

When Ruby slowly sat up, allowing the blanket to slide from her, Anna also slid her wing from the bed to settle it against her back.

Ruby’s eyes went wide. She jumped from her bed and scrambled away, frantically turning and looking around her home. She turned toward where Anna stood, and frowned, tilting her head, eyes unfocused.

For a moment, Anna wondered if Ruby could somehow see her true form. She stepped closer, studying Ruby’s face, her confused expression mirroring Anna’s own. A moment passed and then another. Eventually, Ruby huffed, rolled her shoulders, and grabbed a bucket as she headed outside.

Anna came back a few times over the next few weeks - temporarily, she told herself - tightening her patrol on most days to the immediate area. It made sense of course. After all, she would need to keep an eye on the strange girl who seemed to be able to interact with her in ways that most humans could not.

Humans with an extra sense weren't unheard of. There were mediums who spoke to spirits and other supernatural entities. Ruby was probably one with such powers. These abilities were not evil in and of themselves, but they could be misused. Anna decided that she would keep an eye on her to make sure there was nothing more nefarious or demonic happening here.

Anna had been watching humanity for over a thousand years. Occasionally, she was sent on a short mission. Occasionally, she fought the rogue demon. But mostly, she just...watched...and waited. She watched. She waited.

And now - occasionally - she watched Ruby.

~~~

Anna watched Ruby move around her garden, picking what was left of various fruits and vegetables. It was fall now, so the sweet potatoes, apples and a few other things were coming into season, but many of her plants had run their course through the summer and she was now gathering their final stragglers of the season. Occasionally, she would pause and look around her, almost seeming as though she expected to see someone there.

Ruby picked up her basket full of apples, eggplants, squash, corn, and a few tomatoes and peppers, and headed towards her house. As she opened the door, she paused again and looked behind her, a confused expression on her face as she stepped inside.

Anna followed her.

She watched as Ruby carried the food to the table at the left side of the room. She set most of it aside and selected a few items to wash, using water from the bucket she had pulled from the stream behind the house this morning. After a moment, she set down the sweet potato she was holding and spun around to face the room.

She shewed her lip for a moment. “Is someone there?” she asked softly, looking towards where Anna was standing. She sighed. “Look...it’s okay. As long as you don’t intend to harm me, I have no quarrel with you either, but…” she crossed her arms, “I’ve been having this strange ‘being watched’ feeling since the middle of summer, and I just think it’d be polite of you to show yourself.”

Anna blinked. Etiquette hadn’t exactly crossed her mind.

“Fine.” Ruby waved a hand dismissively. “Be a creeper then, I guess.”

Anna sighed, relieved that Ruby was unbothered by her presence. She wasn’t quite sure how she felt about being called a creeper though...

~~~

Fall turned into winter, and Anna watched quietly as Ruby moved around the house, blanket draped over her shoulders, checking on various herbs that were hanging to dry and moving some of them to glass jars on her desk.

Not even bothering to look over her shoulder, Ruby’s voice addressed the not-so-empty room. “Are you ever going to show yourself, Spirit?” she asked.

Anna rolled her eyes. If she only knew...if Anna were to show herself, it would be the last thing that Ruby ever saw.

“I know you’re here.” Ruby huffed. “I also know that when you’re here, the bad spirits aren’t.”

So, Ruby could sense other spirits, not just Anna. She must indeed be some sort of medium then...and pretty in tune too. It was true that since Anna had stationed herself in this area, she had dealt with many unclean spirits, demons, ghosts; but while she had expected Ruby and the others around lives to improve, she hadn’t really expected Ruby to so clearly notice it.

“You come here often...but you won’t talk to me. Why?” Ruby pressed.

Anna chuckled, working to keep it quiet so as to not hurt Ruby’s ears. Even so, the embers in the hearth sprung to life.

Ruby rolled her eyes and continued checking her herbs. “I was plenty warm already, you know.” She sighed. “Or maybe, that’s the only way you know how to talk. Even so...thanks, I guess; but if you burn my house down in the night, I won’t forgive you.” Seeming satisfied with her herbs, she tossed the blanket she’d been wearing onto the bed and settled into her chair, pouring over some books on medicine.  

Anna huffed and the candle on Ruby’s desk lit.

Ruby smirked but didn’t comment.

~~~

Months passed.

As she had for millennia, Anna watched...and waited. Lately, it wasn’t so bad. Lately, she didn’t mind the times in-between missions. More and more often, she watched Ruby.

There was a young boy at the house today. Anna had seen him a few times in the village. His own house was close by.

Ruby flicked the back of his head as he came running into the house.

“Ow!” The boy looked up indignantly. “What was that for?”

Ruby eyed him with what looked to be some genuine exasperation but no real annoyance. “ You do realize it’s rude not to knock, right?”

The kid grinned. “Oh shove off, the door was wide open. And whatcha gonna do anyway? Put some scary hex on me?”

Ruby raised an eyebrow. “I might.”

The kid plopped on her bed. “Whatever. I don’t care what people say. I don’t think you could use scary magic if you wanted to.” He grinned up at her. “All you’re really good for is stuff like this.”  He held out his leg, showing what looked to be some sort of rash.

Ruby sighed and pulled some suspiciously fresh jewel weed from her desk. “You got into the poison ivy again, I see.” She tisked at him as she began tearing the leaves into a mortar and grinding them.

The boy cocked his head. “Wait...you usually have to go pick that, ‘cause you say it’s better fresh. When did you start keeping it in here?”

“I don’t,” Ruby replied, casting a quick glare over her shoulder, “but it’s nice outside and I had a feeling I’d be seeing you.” She pointed at a jar on her desk next to the one she’d pulled the jewel weed from. “I had also picked some plantain in case it had been wasps.”

The kid’s mouth fell open. “I take it back. I think you’re a witch after all.”

She swatted at him playfully as she knelt and began applying the poultice to his leg.

~~~

It was the beginning of summer. Ruby was kneeling in her garden, cursing at the tomato plants for not being ready yet.

Anna laughed and let the breeze dance in it.

Ruby blinked and looked up. “It’s you, isn’t it?”

Anna was really beginning to wish she could answer her.

Ruby shook her head. Casting one last look down at the plants, she huffed and tromped back inside.

Anna looked up at the sky. It was getting dark. The sun had fallen behind the mountains and the brighter stars were beginning to show themselves through the twilight. Ruby would probably be turning in for the night.

Anna looked back down to the ground and around the garden, a thought occurring to her. She bent and touched the leaves of the nearest tomato plant, allowing just a touch of her grace to flow into it. The vine thickened slightly. Anna could feel the nourishment flowing through it and being fed to the fruit. Anna smiled. She touched a few other plants - not all of them as it wouldn’t do for everything to ripen now and there be nothing left for later - but she did help a few of them along to where they would be ready by morning.

At dawn, Ruby walked out, carrying a bucket to get water from the stream. She paused and cocked her head, then turned fully to gaze out at the garden. She set the bucket down and made her way between the rows of plants. She chewed at her lip as she looked down at the tomatoes in particular. “Now, yesterday,” she announced, “I would have sworn you needed another week…”

Anna smiled and ruffled her wings. The wind stirred around them.

Ruby shook her head. “You really are a strange one aren’t you. I don’t think I’ve ever had a spirit help with my gardening before. But then…” a small smirk grew on her face, “I don’t think I’ve ever had spirit keep me warm and chase my nightmares away before either.”

If Anna could sputter, she would have. Of course Ruby could sense her, but she still felt very called out.

“Thanks, by the way!” Ruby called as she walked back to the house and retrieved her bucket. “Maybe someday I’ll actually get to tell you that to your face, huh?” she added cheekily.

~~~

Anna watched Ruby slam the door behind her and spin around to beat her fist against it. “What do I have to do?” she demanded.

Anna watched helplessly.

That morning, Ruby had gone door-to-door in the village, offering some of her surplus from the garden to families that she knew probably needed it.

Anna looked at the still-full basket of fruits and vegetables that Ruby had dropped on the floor.

Every single family had turned her away.

Ruby sank to the floor and pressed her head against the door. “What do they want from me?” she quietly begged of the empty room.

Not that the room was actually empty. It rarely was these days, and Ruby knew that. She could always tell. “You know the funny thing about it, Spirit?” Ruby whispered. She had taken to talking to her to fill the silence, as one-sided as the conversation was.

Anna didn’t hate it.

Ruby turned around and leaned her back against the door. “I actually do have magic in my family,” Ruby continued. “Just...not on my Mom’s side like everyone thinks. All I got from my mom was this red hair; the magic’s from my Dad. He didn’t teach me how to use it. He didn’t practice it himself...but his mom was a witch and his dad was some big time warlock.” She sighed. “But none of them even know that about his parents. It’s not why they’re scared of me.” She clenched her fists and thumped the back of her head against the door. “These superstitious idiots just think I’m some sort of curse because of my red hair! You know, in Europe, the inquisition is even burning red-heads for witches...something about us ‘having the devil’s fire’.”

“I’ve done nothing to them.” Ruby’s voice was thick with barely contained emotion. “I’ve never given them any reason to hate me, or distrust me even a little. They don’t know my family, where I come from. All they know is that I showed up here at fifteen, an orphan, and did my best to make a life among them.” Ruby picked up an apple from her basket and looked at it angrily before throwing it against the back wall. “My parents had come here to get away from persecution, thinking we could escape our past in the New World. It didn’t work. Sure, they didn’t know about the actual magic in our blood, but stigma followed us anyway. When things started looking bad, my uncle - a tanner - took my baby sister and fled back home with her.” She swallowed. “But he couldn’t get passage for all of us.”

Anna knelt in front of her and extended her wings forward, cradling Ruby in them, making a cocoon around the two of them to shield them from the fall chill and the rest of the world, even if Ruby couldn’t really see it.

She seemed to be able to feel it though. Anna watched Ruby slowly relax and wondered at how Ruby could even find Anna to be a comforting presence when she was little more to her than a whisper, a ghost over her skin.

Ruby pulled her knees to her chest and lay her head on them, wrapping her arms around her legs. “Thank you, Spirit,” she sighed.

It’s Anna, she wished she could reply.

~~~

Anna had been watching humanity for over a thousand years. Occasionally, she was sent on a small mission. Occasionally, she fought the rogue demon. Mostly, she just...watched...and waited. She watched. She waited. She didn’t interfere.

She watched humanity.

She waited for orders.

She didn’t interfere.

She watched Ruby.

She waited for assignments.

She didn’t interfere in human affairs.

She…

For the last few years, she had been watching Ruby. She was intriguing. She was so full of life and spunk and kindness. Watching Ruby had become one of Anna’s favorite things while she waited.

She watched Ruby, who - after her parents had been burned and in spite of the way people treated her - had developed a passion for herbs and medicine and used this knowledge to help people rather than hate them. Anna watched Ruby with growing awe and adoration as she went about her life, doing her best when it would have been so, so easy to do her worst.

And Anna watched them accuse Ruby of being a witch.

She waited with hope that they would come to their senses.

She didn’t interfere.

“No!” Ruby screamed as she was dragged from her hut while people from the village trampled her garden, laid their axes to her trees, used their torches to burn her home and everything in it.

Anna watched the embers rise into the cool night sky.

“Please! Don’t do this!” Anna heard Ruby scream. “I haven’t done anything! I haven’t hurt anyone!”

Anna watched in horror as they dragged Ruby to the town center. How could they? Her wings unfurled of their own accord as they tied Ruby to a giant stake in the middle of the town square. She hovered over them, vibrating in anger.

Anna watched.

Anna held back.

Anna was not supposed to interfere.

People called out false accusations of the horrors Ruby had committed as bundles of wood and kindling were piled at Ruby’s feet. They said her presence had ruined their crops, that she had put a sleeping curse on a young girl, that she had slain a woman’s husband with fever.

One young boy cried and screamed that Anna was good, that she had always only helped them...but nobody listened. They were only full of righteous fury against their witch.

The town’s leaders laid the torches at the base of the stake.

Anna watched as the wood around Ruby lit.

Anna…

She…

Watch. Wait. Do not interfere in human affairs - those were her orders; but sometimes...one can only watch for so long.

And Anna could not watch this.

Anna cried out and rushed the stake. All around the square, people cowered and covered their ears against the sound. She beat her wings and people were thrown by the force of the wind they created. She beat her wings again and the burning wood that surrounded Ruby was scattered through the square, setting carts and huts and shops ablaze.

The boy, one who had screamed Ruby’s innocence, ran forward and cut at the ropes that tied Ruby to the stake. “Run!” he screamed against the wind. “I’ll lead them the wrong way!”

~~~

Anna knelt beside Ruby as Ruby struggled to light the kindling she had gathered for a campfire, finally achieving a few sparks that she was coaxing into a small flame. Anna breathed onto it, speaking the fire into the rest of the wood.

Ruby let out a breath. “So it was you.” She pulled her knees into her and squeezed her arms around them. “I wish you would talk to me. You’re powerful, more so than any spirit I’ve ever encountered. Surely…” she sniffed and wiped her palm against her eyes, “surely you can speak.” She rested her head on her knees. “Sorry. I just...could you stay with me for a while? It feels warmer with you here.”

Anna watched tears roll down Ruby’s face and wished she could wipe them.

“I was scared,” Ruby whispered.

I know. I was too.

“Thank you for saving me.”

I shouldn’t have...but how could I not?”

Anna pulled her wings in close, covering Ruby from the night. As Ruby fell asleep, Anna let her grace sprawl, searching the area, feeling for any presence that posed a threat. She felt nothing. However, she did find…

Anna flinched away from the contact. What was that? She spread her wings and lept towards where she had felt it. It hadn’t felt like magic necessarily. More like...something had been sensing her back.

But things didn’t usually do that.

Anna followed the feeling to a small hut, somewhat removed from the rest of the village. It was surrounded by trees and a flourishing garden and bordered by a low stone fence. There was a small gate at the front, opening to a stone walkway that divided the yard in half and led to the door of the home. Anna glanced around. On the right side of the yard, she saw a number of food-bearing plants: tomatoes, peppers, various species of squash. Paying more attention to the trees at the back, Anna noticed there were a couple of pear, apple, and plum trees among them. To the left of where the path divided the yard, the garden consisted of herbs such as jewel weed, broad leaf plantain, sassafras, and yellowroot - most of which Anna knew could be used as medicinals for various ailments. There were even a few dogwood trees at the edge of the garden whose bark could be used to help with headaches if a tea was made from it.

It seemed that Anna had found her “witch,” though appearances so far would lead Anna to believe that this was the home of the benign type - the simple herbalist who spent their time helping people only to be thanked by being accused of being a witch. However, Anna remembered that strange pull on her grace…

She tread carefully over the stone path towards the house, tentatively reaching out again, allowing her grace to stretch through the garden. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary there. She reached towards the house.

Something latched on.

Anna recoiled from the contact, but whatever it was clung to her, refusing to release her grace. Anna quickly steeled herself and dove through the wall of the house, ready to deal swiftly with whatever had latched onto her.

She was not ready for what she saw.

It was just...a girl - probably about twenty-five - and she was asleep. Anna quickly glanced around.

There was nobody else - only the girl. Anna moved to the side of the bed and studied her face. It was scrunched against whatever dreams her mind was conjuring for her. There was little threatening about her. In fact - if anything - she looked...scared. And her soul was clinging to Anna’s grace as tightly as her fists were to the thin blanket that covered her.

Anna looked around, studying the place and its contents. It was a simple, one-room abode. There was a wood-burning stove at the back left corner with a table along the left wall in front of it, covered in various cooking utensils and supplies. To the right, there was a desk and chair pushed up against the side wall between the back wall and the foot of the girl’s bed, the head of which was against the front wall. The most suspicious thing that Anna could spy was the long strand of twine strung along the back wall, from which various herbs were hanging to dry. Even so, most of them were common and useful only - as far as Anna knew - for treating simple ailments such as burns and insect bites, and Anna could spot no grimoire or spellbook to go with them.

She looked back down at the girl. So far, she could sense nothing menacing here, nothing evil. There were not even any traces of magic used for any purposes, much less nefarious ones. But the girl was still strange. How had she sensed Anna’s presence, even in her sleep? How had she been able to react to her so, and even cling to her like this?

Anna pulled away.

The girl’s face pinched and her body curled in on itself. There was something about her - about all of it. It made Anna curious.

Anna sighed and reached out. She stepped into the girl’s dreams.

It was dark, cold. The sound of screams and angry shouting filled the air.

Someone ran past her.

It was her.

She was different though, younger, all red hair and wild limbs as she crashed through the underbrush.

“Find her!” a voice yelled in the distance.

The girl looked back, wide-eyed, before continuing to tear through the underbrush and into the forest.

Anna followed.

The girl’s legs barely seemed to function as such. They wobbled beneath her. She ran slowly, as through molasses. She tripped over everything. The forest was also against her. Roots rose to meet her. Branches and vines reached out and slapped at her and scraped at her limbs.

Suddenly, they were surrounded. Anna looked around to see a mob of angry villagers with torches and pitchforks on all sides.

“The girl dies too!” one cried.

She trembled. “I’ve done nothing!” her voice pleaded.

“She’ll curse us all if we allow her to live!” someone yelled from the back of the crowd.

“It was in her mother’s blood, her grandmother’s blood! Now look at her! They even had the gall to name her ‘Ruby’ and flaunt the curse!”

The girl sobbed helplessly.

Anna frowned, trying to understand.

“We end this curse on our village now!” someone screamed.

The girl trembled next to her and sank to her knees as the horde closed in.

Anna looked down at her. “Wake up.”

The girl blinked at the crowd. She squinted through the tears as though something didn’t make sense.

“Wake up!” Anna shouted.

The world swirled around them. The crowd faded away…

Anna was back in the hut, standing next to the bed.

The girl’s face scrunched as she rolled over and sat up in her bed. She ran a hand over her face, frowning at the sweat she wiped off of it. She shook her head and flopped back down. Soon, the girl’s breathing evened out as sleep came back to her, seemingly more peacefully this time, but Anna didn’t miss the tears that stained her cheeks.

Ruby…