The Tourist

As I sat here, on a slightly damp rock, I noticed that I was fixating a little too long on a tree in the distance. It was perfectly symmetrical and hung over luscious green grass that was lit up by lights planted at the base of the tree. A loud clap of thunder brought me back to my present thought, and the circumstances that had led to this very moment. I was here, on this rock, waiting for the perfect opportunity to sneak into the prison remains. I knew that if I was going to go unseen I had to wait until the next tour group was taken into the prison.

It was a cold night in Port Ruth, an eerie island that was a thirty-minute ferry ride from the mainland. The kind of cold that sends shivers down your spine and makes frost from your exhale. I had heard far too many haunting stories about these grounds, and if I was being honest, I was terrified, but I had far too much pride to show that. A legend held that whenever a Witch from our Covenant had entered these grounds, they had never been seen again. I was determined to see whether these grounds still imprisoned my kind and if this was the case, I knew I had to do something about it.

The tour bus began to drive toward me and approached me from my right. It slowed to a brief stop in front of me.

“Are you apart of the tour?”, the overly friendly driver asked me, as she stretched her neck toward me, which would have strained her neck at the very least.

“Yes, I am. Thanks!”, I responded as I hesitatively climbed onto the bus.

The bus was open, without sides, which was convenient seeing as I couldn’t stop sweating despite the chill in the air. The bus stopped outside the entrance to the prison remains. Everyone started to climb off of the bus, as the tour guide gestured towards the prison.

The buildings were ancient. The bricks were golden and brown, and they were all uniquely texture. Larger bricks bordered the barred windows, and the main prison building, which had been partially yet severely burned, was five stories high. I realised that this island appeared to house more than just a prison when I saw a church and the remains of a hospital. I couldn’t shake the eerie feeling of these grounds.

The tour guide started reciting what could only be a rehearsed and false explanation of the history of these grounds. Based off the legends I had heard it was wildly inaccurate, but I wasn’t surprised. She explained that these grounds had once hosted delinquent women two centuries ago throughout the 1800s, who had committed crimes of treason, theft and murder.

“Ugh!”, I sighed out loud.

Everyone turned to me as I realised that I had exclaimed out loud. My commitment to keeping a low profile had been compromised by no other than myself.

The tour guide gestured us inside. The wind was so strong that it nearly blew me over, but of course I didn’t let it because it would have made me seem weak. So, instead, I held my ground and tightly grasped onto the stone pillar that was now holding both the remains of the prison entrance and myself upright. I had purposely let the tour group ahead of me, and once they were almost out of sight, I entered the prison through an entrance that comprised of an arch way of bricks and ash. My steps echoed through the ruins, as if I was the only person here.

I didn’t know what exactly I should be looking for, but logic told me to look for the most obvious identifier of a Witch; our unique birth marks. They are a sacrament, that are entrenched onto the skin of Witches when they are born. These marks were always located in the exact same spot on the back of the neck, where the body meets the Witch. As I turned my head to the left, I caught a glimpse of the tour guide in the distance. She was wearing a red scarf that effectively covered her neck.

The tour guide caught my eye as I fixated on her scarf. She hurried towards me and grabbed my arm before dragging me into a dark room. I was rendered speechless by the surprise of the ambush, and before I could even form a thought, she was pulling down the neck of my tight black skivvy.

“Ah ha! I knew you were a Witch from your outburst!”, the tour guide barked. I caught a glimpse of her name tag. Her name was Gloriana.

“Stop! That is simply a birth mark. Now, can I please return to the group?”, I asked.

“You do know what they do to Witches here, don’t you?”, she asked me, suggesting that I was about to be outed to everyone.

“Of course, I’ve heard things, but it’s all just a myth!”, I needed to sound convincing.

“Listen to me very carefully, because I am only going to say this once”, Gloriana threatened, as if it was possible for me to be focusing on anything but her in this moment. “I know you’re a Witch because I, too, am a Witch”. She quickly ripped her scarf off and revealed her mark to me. “I am here to ensure that no witch is ever captured on these grounds ever again. But why, young one, are you here? You have no business coming here”, she was a lot calmer now, thankfully, and for the first time since our conversation began, I felt as though she genuinely cared.

“Once I heard of the terrible things that had once happened here, I had no choice other than to see for myself”, I pleaded.

Suddenly our voices weren’t the only voices we could hear.

“Who is that?”, I was anxious now. We weren’t alone.

I heard a woman clear her throat, but I was yet to see her face. The door to the dark room we were in creaked open as a woman entered the room. I was intimated. I was suddenly aware of the small confines of the room.

“What is going on here? Gloriana, you are forbidden to leave your tour group and frankly you are forbidden from entering this room, or any room, that is not on the tour”, she yelled as if her anger was directed at something else.

“Yes, Madam Lucy. I got side-tracked. It won’t happen again. Please forgive me”, Gloriana said convincingly as she hurried out of the room and presumably back to the tour group. Her quick escape without me reminded me that we were perfect strangers.

Lucy quickly turned her head to me, and looked at me intensively, as if she was attempting to discover everything about me by one glare.

“And what brings you here?”, she seemed genuine for a brief moment.

“Oh nothing, Madam. I will be getting back to the tour now”, I politely lied.

“Turn around, dear, I have a fine necklace that would go well with your skivvy”.

I turned to be polite, without thinking about what might happen next. The woman stood behind me as she held the necklace with both hands and proceeded to clasp it together. She pulled down the neck of my skivvy.

“You are not a tourist. You are a Witch. How dare you show your face here, especially during the witching hour”, she screamed. I turned around to face her and truly tried my best to convince her otherwise, but my attempts were pointless. This was clearly not the first time she had identified a Witch.

Her gaze did not leave me as the veins in her forehead progressively rose.

“The necklace I put on you acts as an imprisonment spell. For as long as you have it on you are under my control. The best part is that your mind is still yours, so that you know you are imprisoned, and don’t bother trying to remove it; only I can do that”, she laughed, as if she had done this far too many times before. “Now, go to the prison quarters and put on a tour guide uniform!”, she demanded.

Part of me expected my body to move free from my minds control, but it didn’t. My body stayed grounded, here, in this dark and threatening room. Suspicion filled Lucy’s face as I remained still. It was in this moment that I realised two things. Firstly, it was suddenly made abundantly clear that what was happening here was a twisted and intensely thought out plan to continue to imprison Witches. Secondly, I couldn’t be the only Witch that was immune to the imprisonment spell. Gloriana clearly held autonomy over her actions.

I walked out of the room and I was determined to find the quarters before Lucy realised that the spell had not worked. A night owl suddenly became visible within the prison ruins as I hurried to the exit in hope of finding the quickest path to the quarters. It sat, still and plump on a horizontal foundation, and its vivid orange eyes met mine for what felt like eternity. I couldn’t tell, in this moment, if this particular owl somehow knew something that I didn’t. My instincts told me that if I was to ever leave this prison, then I should keep this owl close by. I couldn’t linger in this thought for too long. I could feel the warmth of adrenaline pulsing through my veins in the moments before my survival instincts were enlivened.

I looked around and knew that I had to take in my surroundings quickly in order to convince Lucy that I was under her spell. Every tour guide was wearing a scarf to cover their Witch mark. They were all smiling and appeared to all be acting robotic; no one is this kind and bubbly. It was in this moment, after quickly observing these women, that I knew exactly what I had to do. I tried to smile as much as I could. It was the kind of smile that pulls your face a little too tightly. I gracefully paced to the tour guide quarters that was thankfully easy to spot once I had left the prison. Putting on the tour guide uniform, including the piercing red scarf, was the easy part. The scarf contrasted well with my jet black hair.

I now found myself in the driver’s seat of a tour bus. The bus quickly began to fill with ecstatic tourists who were a bit too loud. My instincts overcame me as I proceeded to act exactly how Gloriana had acted. I welcomed everyone on board and began to drive the bus. I slowed when I saw a young woman, similar age to myself, who was sitting on a rock near the ferry. I stopped the bus and stuck my neck out toward the nervous girl.

“Ma’am, are you apart of the tour?”.

“Yes, I am”, she replied.

I felt like I had already lived this moment.

Once the woman was on the bus, I proceeded to drive up to the remains of the prison. As I stopped the engine and stepped out of the bus, I saw Lucy was waiting at the entrance of the prison.

“Ah, hello everyone! You are in very good hands. Prudence has been a tour guide here for many years, and she will not be leaving anytime soon”, Lucy exclaimed.

I tried to fight it with everything I am. I now knew that the spell was overcoming me as I felt it consuming my autonomy. I yearned to know the secret to Gloriana’s immunity. The worst thought I had ever created entered my head: what if I am here, imprisoned in my own body, for the rest of my days?