But aside from a small niche of women who believed in the cards and gemstones, but not magic in general, everyone else thought witches and our lifestyles were fairy tales.
It was startling to realize the world didn't know you existed. More so, that if they knew you did, they would consider you evil, on par with the demons, not a source of light and good that we truly were.
But I devoured the books Ace had provided. I read until my eyes went blurry, and my head started to hurt, a part of me worried that I would run out of space in my mind to store all this new information.
I was ravenous.
Each day, after working in the garden and bathing, I curled up with a book until I couldn't read anymore.
"Are we sure it's a good idea that the witch learns things?" Drex asked as he walked into the room, going straight to the bottle of whiskey I came to relate to him.
"The witches have always had access to the books," Ace said, looking up from his book.
"Yeah, but none of them used them. Too busy crying or screaming at us."
My heart ached whenever they mentioned the other Sacrifices that came before me. I didn't know them personally, of course. They lived before I was even born. But they had lived here with these demons. And from what I could tell, they were not treated the same way I was being treated. They lived for years in the basement before they were permitted up.
That led me to believe they weren't ever given a chance to bathe fully, had to endure plates full of meat and sad vegetables, they never got to walk outdoors, breathe in fresh air.
I didn't understand why my treatment was so different. Why I had been pulled out of the basement. Why I was allowed to tend a garden, cook my own meals, bathe in Ly's tub.
Things had changed, though.
I didn't understand why, but after three nights of sleeping in Ly's bed, I was banished back to the basement for the evening hours. After the sun went down, and after dinner was made, eaten, and cleaned up after, he snapped at me and led me to the basement, locking me down there.
After being upstairs and allowed to walk mostly free—though Ly's gaze followed me everywhere—it had been easy to forget that I wasn't a guest here. I was a prisoner. I was The Sacrifice. And I still had no idea what that meant to these demons.
I'd heard them speaking of the other Sacrifices. About how long they stayed in the basement. Years, it seemed, before they were permitted upstairs. And, I figured, they were only let up for whatever purpose the demons had for them.
I was the exception, not the rule.
Not so engulfed in my grief now, while I walked around the basement, I was able to see things I missed the last time.
The hanging flowers, even some herbs that must have been found wild in the woods. The love and care that was put into the alter. There were murals on the walls. The pentacle. A wheel of the year.
Then, nearly hidden behind an old cloak was a list.
Names.
The names of many of the Sacrifices before me as well as little details about them. Favorite seasons. Favorite colors. Favorite tarot cards.
Curious, I moved around the mostly-empty space, foraging for any other possible traces of the women before me, clues as to what happened to them, what their sacrifice ended up being.
I'd gotten the nerve up to ask Ly once what the plan was for me.
He'd gruffly informed me that I would "know when I needed to know, so don't ask again."
I'd been at the house for almost two weeks at that point, and while I hadn't seen any true evil behavior from the demons—no women were raped, no men were tortured, no satanic rituals were performed—I had found them, as a whole, to be cocky, condescending, and rude. Not damnable offenses, but frustrating when you lived with them.
I was actually feeling a bit of guilt for often being too outspoken, too impatient, too disruptive. To my mom, to my coven. I should have been a better daughter, a better community member. I should have been quieter, calmer, more patient.
Had I been, I would still be at home.
At this time of day, I would have been in the garden, raking up potatoes, pulling up carrots, carefully storing them in packed dirt in the root cellars for the winter.
That said, if I had been a good member of my coven, someone else would be here in this place. And maybe she wouldn't have been strong enough to ask for a proper bath, or to ask to open a garden to provide food for herself. Maybe she wouldn't have been provided the freedoms to walk around up in the main house.