Early on, it was just a few looks.
The kind that slid off your skin like drizzle—cold, but ignorable. A second too long. A face that stiffened when I passed. Eyes that flicked to the edge of my hood where a lock of blue hair might peek through, then quickly away, like seeing it might curse them.
I told myself it didn't matter. People stared before, too. This was no different.
But it was.
Because this time, they didn't stop staring.
The shift was slow, but unmistakable. A hesitation in a greeting. A delayed response. Words that used to come freely now weighed down by the kind of pause that comes just before the weather turns bad. Something had changed—or maybe it had always been there, waiting beneath the surface for a reason to grow.
The priest came more often. Father Aldwin never accused, never questioned outright. But his visits changed. He lingered longer, eyes tracing the doorframe like he expected to find symbols burned into the wood. He asked Ingrid if we were sleeping well. Asked Einar if the fire had ever flared unexpectedly. He brought "blessing salts" one day, tucked into a pouch he handed off with a too-kind smile and a sermon about "spiritual cleanliness."
That smile stayed too long. His eyes searched too much. He left too slowly.
Ingrid didn't say a word. Just thanked him politely and placed the pouch in the fire after he left, watching it hiss and spit into the coals until nothing was left but scorched linen and salt-ash.
The children were the next to change.
They'd always been shy, but now they crossed the road when they saw me. One girl burst into tears when I waved. A boy I used to play chase with shouted something cruel before sprinting away, laughing in the brittle, mean way kids do when they're trying to be braver than they feel. I heard them whisper about my eyes. About my hair. About how I'd apparently threatened to turn one of them into a frog. And for the record I had done no such thing.
I tried to ignore it. Pretended it didn't sting. But it did.
then I overheard a mother, say sternly, to her son: "You don't go near that girl. You want to catch what she has? You want to bring that into our home?"
The words were quiet. Meant to be private. But they reached me just the same.
It was like moss spreading under the snow—slow, silent, but impossible to stop. By the time you noticed it, it was already everywhere.
Eventually people even stopped trading with us. First the baker, then the fishmonger. One by one, the stalls we'd always visited began giving polite excuses.
"Sold out." "Nothing left." "Maybe next week."
Only it was never next week. Even when the stall behind them still had the same goods. Even when I watched them serve others right after turning us away. I saw the sidelong glances, the way their voices dropped when we approached. The subtle, practiced avoidance of our eyes.
Einar never complained. Never shouted. He just nodded, turned away, and did more hunting, more fishing. Ingrid said nothing either, but I saw the wear in her eyes. The tightness in her hands as she kneaded dough with flour from our stores, freshly bountiful as they were. The way her voice grew quieter at dinner, the way she folded Leofric's clothes slower, like every moment of peace needed savoring before it slipped away.
They never blamed me. Not once.
But I blamed myself.
The worst came when a nearby farmer's field turned black.
A blight, they said. Crops withered. Leaves curled and turned to ash. It wasn't our field. We didn't even live that close. But the whispers came anyway. They always found a way to trace misfortune back to something—someone—they didn't understand.
I heard them as I passed by the well. One woman said it plain: "It's that girl. The red-eyed one. She cursed them."
No one disagreed.
And I knew then, without question—they weren't afraid of what I might do.
They were afraid of what they might decide they had to do to me.
That night, I didn't eat. I sat outside on the cold step while the wind bit at my fingers, watching the stars blur behind watery eyes. I didn't cry—not really. Not like I had when I was younger. I just sat. Breathing slow. Listening to the night.
And listened.
To the silence between the snow. To the crunch of hooves in the distance that never came closer. To the way the village had begun to pull away.
I felt it like a slow exhale. Like something ending.
And I knew—I could learn their language. I could teach them to use their land more efficiently. I could help their children.
But it would never be enough.
Not to them.
And one day, if things got worse… it wouldn't be whispers anymore.
It would be torches.
Thankfully, it didn't come to that. Not yet.
No mobs. No shouting. No one banging on the door in the night demanding to see the witch girl.
Instead, it came in smaller ways. Sharper ones.
A silence from the neighbors who used to wave across the field. A cold shoulder from the woman who once brought Ingrid berries when she was ill. The carpenter who used to laugh with Einar over firewood bundles now barely made eye contact when they passed on the road.
They didn't say anything. They just stopped.
Stopped visiting. Stopped smiling. Stopped treating us like part of the village.
And that absence—that deliberate absence—hung heavier than any words could've. It sat in the air like smoke. Subtle at first, then suffocating.
It changed the way we lived.
If we needed something, we had to fetch it ourselves. No more friendly bartering, no more sending word with the neighbor's boy when we needed eggs or thread. Even the priest's questions started to feel more pointed, as if he were trying to figure out if I was actually connected to the misfortunes of the village.
Einar made the trips to town shorter. Focused. He stopped lingering. Stopped engaging. I caught him sharpening the axe more often—not because he planned to use it, but because the act gave him something to do. Something he could control. I knew that rhythm: the need to have one hand on something solid when everything else is sliding.
Ingrid stopped humming when she worked.
That was the worst part.
She still smiled. Still called me "dear" and wrapped Leofric in soft blankets and kissed his tiny hands like he held the sun. But her eyes were tired. Distant. Not broken, but worn down around the edges.
She tried to hide it, for my sake. I tried to pretend I didn't see it, for hers.
But it was there.
I knew they didn't blame me.
Not in their voices. Not in their eyes.
But I also knew this wasn't how things were supposed to be.
We were a family. We worked, we gave, we helped. I'd earned my place here. Or tried to.
And now?
Now we were being quietly erased.
Not punished, exactly. Just… abandoned.
The kind of exile that doesn't come with borders or guards. Just empty paths, closed shutters and an entire community learning how to stop needing you.
It didn't hurt all at once.
It hurt in little pieces.
Like realizing no one was going to help us bring in firewood this year. Like seeing a loaf of bread set aside at the market, only to be pulled away the moment we stepped near. Like noticing that Leofric's christening had gone unmentioned by the priest, even after three visits. Like standing outside in the frost and hearing the laughter of a festival you weren't invited to.
So I stayed quiet. I trained when I could. Stoking the hearth with thoughts and careful flicks of will. Kept my powers hidden. Practiced breathing. Stillness. Learning the edges of what I could do without tipping the scale.
I wanted to believe I could still fix this.
But a small voice inside me—one I didn't want to admit had started sounding like Loki—kept whispering the truth:
No matter what you do, they've already decided what you are.
And I couldn't unmake that decision.
Not with kindness.
Not with silence.
Not even with fire.