The Witch They Made Me

I sacrificed everything for love, my very essence, my Nahualtse, rebuilding his family' s empire and bearing him nine children-then I fell into a year-long coma.

I awoke expecting to hold my babies, to be reunited with the man who had promised to protect us all.

Instead, I found myself in a crumbling mansion, forced by my husband, Ethan, into a macabre game of "Mafia," where the pieces were our nine toddlers, and the penalty for a wrong choice was their death.

His manipulative childhood friend, Sabrina, had twisted his mind with dark magic, making him believe I was a witch and our children were abominations.

I failed his cruel test, my power too weak to discern my own, and watched in horror as he snapped our daughter' s neck because I made the wrong choice, because I couldn't tell her true nature from the deceit.

How could the man I loved, the father of my children, become such a monstrous stranger, and what more horrors awaited me and my remaining children in his twisted game of death?

I used to believe my greatest sacrifice was for love. Now I know it was for a lie.

Three years ago, I married Ethan Scott. His family, the titans of Wall Street, had crumbled, their empire reduced to whispers and shame. I, Annabel Chadwick, last of a bloodline he could never comprehend, repaid a debt. He had saved my life once, a simple act of kindness in a world that had shown me none. So I gave him my own life force, my Nahualtse, the very essence of my Skinwalker power.

I channeled it into the dying heart of Scott & Associates. I made them kings again.

The cost was immense. Giving birth to our nine children, each carrying a spark of my power, drained me to the core. It left me in a coma-like sleep for a year, a hollowed-out shell of the woman I once was.

Ethan had promised me forever. He swore he would protect me, protect our children. He said he understood the price I paid.

He lied.

His grandfather, the old patriarch, was the only one who knew the truth. He respected it. He honored my sacrifice. But the old man was retired, his power in the boardroom replaced by Ethan's new, ruthless ambition.

Just before I fell into that long sleep, there was an incident. Sabrina Fowler, Ethan's childhood friend, a woman whose jealousy was as old as their families' rivalry, had insulted me. She called me a "charity case," a "freak." Ethan, in a rare display of loyalty, banished her to a finishing school in Europe. He told me he would never let anyone disrespect me again.

But as I lay helpless, she returned. I didn't know it then, but her shadow had already fallen over my family.

Today, I woke up.

The first thing I saw was Ethan' s face, handsome and familiar, but with a coldness in his eyes I' d never seen before.

"Annabel, you' re awake."

His voice was flat, devoid of the warmth I remembered.

"The children," I whispered, my throat raw. "I want to see our children."

"Of course," he said, a strange, thin smile playing on his lips. "It' s their first birthday. I have a surprise for you. For all of you."

He helped me dress, his hands clinical and distant. He led me from the sterile white room, not to a nursery filled with laughter, but to a black town car waiting outside. We drove for what felt like hours, leaving the familiar gleam of Manhattan for the decaying grandeur of the Hudson Valley.

We stopped before a Gilded Age mansion, its stone facade crumbling, its windows like vacant eyes. The air was heavy with the smell of wet earth and secrets. Inside, the opulence was suffocated by dust and neglect. A crowd of New York' s elite, faces I recognized from financial magazines, stood in a large, dark-paneled ballroom. They watched me with a mixture of pity and morbid curiosity.

And there, sitting in a high-backed chair as if on a throne, was Sabrina Fowler.

She was next to Ethan. His hand rested on the back of her chair, an intimate, possessive gesture.

My blood ran cold.

"Ethan, what is this? Where are my children?"

He looked at me, and the mask of civility fell away completely. His face was a canvas of pure, chilling indifference.

"We' re going to play a game, Annabel."

Sabrina laughed, a sound like shattering glass. "A party game. It' s called Mafia."

My mind reeled. Mafia? I knew the game. Deception, accusation, elimination.

"The rules are simple," Ethan continued, his voice echoing in the cavernous room. "There are a number of children here. Nine of them are yours. The others are... props. You are the 'Vigilante.' Each round, you must identify and protect one of your children. The rest of the players, our guests, will vote to eliminate a 'Mafia' member-one of your monstrous offspring."

He paused, letting the horror sink in.

"If you protect your child, they are safe for the round. If the mob votes out one of your children, they will be ritually sacrificed. Their pelts will make lovely trophies, don' t you think? A unique party favor for our friends."

"If you manage to save all nine of them by the end of the game," he said with a final, cruel twist, "you are free to leave with them."

My legs gave out. I collapsed to my knees, the world spinning. I hadn' t seen my babies in a year. My power, the Nahualtse that connected me to them, was a faint, dying ember. I couldn' t sense them. I couldn' t tell which of the small, frightened faces in the room belonged to me.

"Ethan, please," I begged, tears streaming down my face. "They are your children. Our children. Don' t do this."

Sabrina leaned forward and whispered something in his ear. His face hardened into a mask of rage.

"My children?" he snarled, his voice dripping with venom. "You tricked me, you witch. You and my grandfather. You birthed abominations. Monsters."

He gestured to a game master, a man in a tuxedo. "Let' s begin. Draw the cards."

A deck of cards was passed around to the children. A small, dark-haired girl in a simple white dress drew a card and her eyes went wide with fear. She held up the card. It had a single word on it: 'Doctor.'

"A healer," Ethan said with a sickening smile. "How ironic. We don' t need a doctor. We need a demonstration."

He walked over to the little girl. She flinched, trying to back away.

"No," I screamed, scrambling to my feet. "Ethan, stop!"

He ignored me. With a swift, brutal motion, he grabbed the girl and snapped her neck. The sound was sickeningly loud in the silent room. Her small body fell to the floor, lifeless.

The guests gasped, a collective, horrified whisper.

Ethan turned back to me, his face devoid of any emotion.

"Now," he said, his voice a chilling whisper. "The game begins. It' s your turn to choose, Annabel. Who will you protect?"

The room was a blur of pale, terrified faces. Children. So many of them, all dressed in fine clothes, their eyes wide with a fear that mirrored my own. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, trapped bird. I couldn't breathe. My power was a ghost, a memory. I was blind, deaf to my own blood.

"Choose, Annabel," Ethan' s voice cut through the haze. "The clock is ticking."

The high-society vultures watched me, their faces a mixture of morbid fascination and disgust. They were here for a show, a spectacle of cruelty to spice up their jaded lives.

My eyes scanned the crowd of children, desperately searching for a sign, a flicker of recognition. An amber glint in the eye, the unique warmth of my lineage. But there was nothing. Just fear.

Then, a small girl with hair the color of wheat took a hesitant step forward. She was tiny, clutching a worn teddy bear. Our eyes met, and she mouthed a single, silent word.

"Mama."

My world stopped.

She took another step, her small hand opening to reveal a bracelet. It was made of simple, colored beads, a trinket I had woven in the final days of my pregnancy. I had made nine of them, one for each of my children, a small piece of me to hold onto until I woke up.

A wave of relief, so powerful it almost buckled my knees, washed over me. It was her. My daughter.

I opened my mouth to declare her my choice, to use my 'Vigilante' power to shield her.

But then I saw it.

A glint in her eyes. It wasn' t the warm, earthy amber of a Skinwalker. It was a cold, sharp, unnatural blue, like chips of ice. It was the color of Sabrina Fowler' s eyes.

A trap. The bracelet could have been stolen. The word a coached lie.

My mind, sharpened by a lifetime of hiding, of survival, took over. The love, the desperate hope, receded, replaced by cold, ruthless logic. If this was a trick, and I fell for it, one of my real children would die. I couldn' t risk it. I couldn't save them all if I acted on emotion. I had to be as cruel as my tormentors.

The game master looked at me. "The Vigilante must choose who to protect. The mob must choose who to eliminate."

I took a deep breath, my voice shaking but firm.

"I protect the boy in the corner," I said, pointing to a quiet child who had hidden himself away from the others. I had no reason, just a blind guess.

Then came the vote. The guests whispered among themselves, pointing fingers. Sabrina leaned over to a portly man beside her, her red lips moving silently. The man nodded and stood up.

"We vote to eliminate the girl with the bracelet," he announced. "She seems too eager. It' s a classic Mafia bluff."

A chorus of agreement followed. The vote was unanimous.

"No," I whispered, a fresh wave of horror washing over me. What if I was wrong? What if my logic was the real trap?

The game master declared, "The girl with the bracelet has been voted out."

Sabrina rose from her chair, a triumphant smirk on her face. She walked towards the little girl, her heels clicking on the marble floor.

"Come here, little monster," she cooed.

The girl didn't cry. She stood her ground, her small body trembling. As Sabrina reached for her, the girl lunged forward and bit her hand, hard.

Sabrina screamed, yanking her hand back. A line of blood welled up on her pale skin.

Ethan was there in an instant, his face contorted with fury. He grabbed the little girl by the arm, his grip brutally tight.

"You little freak!" he snarled.

He ripped at her hair, pulling her head back. Taped crudely behind her ear was a small, matted patch of coyote fur, coarse and dirty. He tore it off.

Underneath, revealed in the dim light of the ballroom, was a patch of shimmering, silver-fox fur. The unmistakable mark of my bloodline. The true sign of her Nahualtse.

It was her. It was my daughter. They had disguised her, hidden her true nature to fool me.

My soul shattered. A silent scream ripped through me, but no sound came out.

Ethan looked from the fur to me, his eyes empty of recognition, of love, of anything human. He saw only the monster Sabrina had convinced him I was.

Without a word, he threw my daughter to the ground. He pulled a small, ornate pistol from his jacket.

The little girl looked at me one last time, her eyes, now shining with their true amber light, filled with a hurt so profound it broke me.

"Mama," she whispered, a tear rolling down her cheek. "You didn' t choose me."

Then Ethan fired.

The sound echoed through the ballroom, a final, deafening crack. The high-society guests gasped, murmuring amongst themselves about the "freaks," the "monsters" I had brought into their world.

I could only stare at the small, still form on the floor, my heart a gaping, bleeding wound. I had killed her. My own daughter. I had played their game and I had killed her.

Ethan' s cruelty was a bottomless pit. And I had just fallen in.