The Town of Witching Tree

By Andrew E. Chirico

The move to a new town is never ordinary, especially for 13-year-old Libby that has just discovered she is a descendant of an ancient witch coven. Taking on life in this town is anything but easy and if she wants to survive, she has to play by the rules. Here, anyone can be a witch or warlock, alive or spirit and deciphering these possibilities can be nearly impossible. Are you a witch?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669838838

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Copyright © 2022 by Andrew E. Chirico.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 07/27/2022

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Contents

Chapter 1 The Beginning

Chapter 2 Strength In Numbers

Chapter 3 Unveiling Lydia Portals

Chapter 4 It’s Halloween

Chapter 5 Family of witches

Chapter 6 Surprise & Exploration

Chapter 7 Captured?

Chapter 8 A visit, from danger

Chapter 9 unbelievable and unorthodox

Chapter 10 Search and the fight

Chapter I

The Beginning

It was a long, winding road that led into town. I thought we’d never get to our new house, an old 3,500 square foot farmhouse set so far back that my dad claims you couldn’t see it from the road. He bought this house for our family to start a new life after my grandma passed. My mom was heartbroken, as we all are as my grandma was a very nice woman. She said she would come to see me as a spirit if she could but it’s been 2 weeks already and I’ve yet to see her or have any signs of her presence around me. Maybe it takes a while to figure out where you are and how to get places once you die? I’ve never even heard of this town before this all happened and we were moving here. It’s very desolate and only has about a thousand residents in total. We finally reached our new to us farmhouse and pulled down a long, creepy, dirt driveway that seemed to be overgrown as if no one had lived there or been there in quite some time. It was a very eerie feeling I felt the second we turned down that dirt road, it will be quite a walk to get the mail every day I thought to myself, that’s for sure. As we pulled up to our new house, that’s when it started. That’s when I knew my life was going to change drastically and never be the same.

Sometimes I get feelings about things and usually my feelings are right. This time I did not have a good feeling as my dad unlocked the front door for the first time and the big wooden door creaked along the floor. My little brother has been to the house before with my dad and already chose his room so I have to walk around and select from the others that are left. He always gets everything and I’m more of the black sheep so to speak. I finally found a room. Creepy as could be if you asked me as there was nothing in the room but an old scary looking teddy bear that lied in the corner all by itself. You could almost feel the history in this room, like memories trapped in time but I still selected it because this room faced the rear of the house and looked out into the woods. I’ve always thought woods were creepy and cool so I’d like to have this back room to look out the window at night and see if anything was going on in there. The day seemed to fly by today as it was already about 6 o’clock which is dinner time in our family. We were having pizza again for the third time this week as it has been a busy week with packing and moving. I ate some of my pizza and finished early today because something was compelling me to get my room setup. A feeling of excitement and anticipation came over me so strong that I could not resist going to grab some of my bedroom boxes from the garage and bring them up to my room to setup. I will have to wait for my dad to bring my mattress up to my room as I can’t quite carry that myself yet, I’m only 13 years old. I searched for boxes that says Libby’s room but only found a couple so far. I must have in excess of 25 boxes for my room all together, so this struck me as odd.

I grabbed the couple of boxes I could find for my room and brought them up there, excited to get started. As I set down the two boxes, I noticed that dad has already brought my mattress up to my room and set it on my floor. We will probably end up setting up my actual bed tomorrow so this is it for tonight. Luckily, I happened to find the box with my shelves in it so I can start putting them together and setting up my lights, figurines, and decorations I’ve accumulated throughout the years. I found the perfect corner for my corner shelf, just to the right of the two windows, so when I look that way towards outside, I can see all of my nice things. It was starting to get dark out now so I figured I’d better hurry as I had to start my new school in the morning and had none of my things ready yet to go to school with. I pulled my ballerina lamp from the box and placed it on the topmost section of my corner shelf I just setup and plugged it in. This was the last thing my grandma got me before she passed so this is very sentimental to me. After plugging it in and turning it on, the light flickered for a second, then blew out. I looked at the bulb and seen that it was black and immediately thought to myself that this was the first sign from my recently deceased grandmother. I setup a few more things in my room before calling it quits for the night and went to the window to look out and close the curtains for bed. The second that I put both hands on either side of the curtains, that’s when it happened. I seen a wrinkly old witch looking person run very quickly through my backyard. She stopped at the line of trees to look up at me through the window and then she quickly disappeared into the woods. At this time I was frozen. I wasn’t entirely sure what to do so I stood there and stared for a while probably anticipating seeing her again but a good amount of time passed and I saw nothing further so I proceeded to close the curtains and ran to tell my parents what I had just seen. Dad, Mom, I yelled as I ran down the stairs towards the kitchen as I figured they were doing dishes and cleaning up after dinner but once I reached the kitchen, all the lights were off and everything was already put away. I figured this was weird because I couldn’t have been up there but 20 minutes or so and my family usually takes a while to eat and clean up.

I walked to where my parents bedroom was, a wing all of its own off the side of the house that had its own hallway to access the room. I thought it was cool at first but now in the dark it’s a little creepy. I made it to my parents’ room and they were both sleeping. Dad, dad I whispered in a soft tone in hopes to not wake up my mom, she’s always skeptical about everything, I feel my dad will actually listen to me. Dad, I was setting up my room and seen a witch like person running in our backyard. She was really scary. Says Libby. "Hunny, there are no such thing as witches, your imagination is just playing tricks on you because you’re afraid and in a new home.

Let’s go back up to your room and look out together and make sure we don’t see anything, then you have to lay down for school in the morning, got it? says Libby’s dad as he grabs her hand and proceeds down the long hallway back towards the staircase. This hallway has windows on each side but not much to look at on either side as it is all grass and open land on both sides that seem to go on forever. Libby and her dad finally reach the stairs and go up to Libby’s new room, in the back of the house facing the woods. Hunny, if you’re scared, are you sure you want to keep this bedroom that faces the woods? There are 3 other bedrooms for you to choose from where you wouldn’t have to look out there if you didn’t want to. says Libby’s dad looking onto her with a puzzled face. Yes dad, I am sure this is the room I want. You know how I am, I want to see what’s coming or what is out there, it’s better than not knowing." Says Libby as she heads to the curtains and quickly pulls them open.

The trees were swaying quite a bit as it was sort of windy that night but there was no wrinkly witch to be seen. There, see I told you, there is no witch. says Libby’s dad as he closes the curtains and unfolds Libby’s blanket to lay it on her bed for her. Now go to bed. You have a big day tomorrow, I love you, Goodnight. says Libby’s dad as she reluctantly gets into her bed still staring towards the closed curtains on her window.

It seemed to take forever for Libby to fall asleep that night but she finally dosed off and got a few hours of rest. The next morning Libby wakes to see all of her things she had setup the night before had been moved. Birchhhhh! yells Libby in anger as Birch comes running up to her room. What did you do to all of my stuff? says Libby, pointing around to all of her things in disarray scattered over her floor. I didn’t do it Libby, I was scared in my room all night. I actually heard noises myself. Birch replied as he walks out of the room and back down the stairs. Birch may be spoiled but Libby has always known him to tell the truth as he has never lied before. He is basically the perfect child by textbook definition. Things keep getting weirder thought Libby but she carried on with her day, gathered her belongings and hurried off to her first day of school. WitchingTree Middle School read the sign as Libby looked out the window of her dad’s old pickup truck, happily dropping her off to school for her first day. Have a great day hunny! yells Libby’s dad as she gets out of the truck and closes the door ever so slowly while staring at the small school in sheer disappointment. Dad! yells Libby as she looks back at the truck in hopes he doesn’t make her actually go in there but Libby’s dad waves and drives off. Hi, I’m Chester, you must be Libby. I heard you moved into the old farmhouse on South Woods road, right? says a boy standing to her right. How do you know who I am? replies Libby as she looks to her side and sees that Chester is now nowhere to be found. I’m really starting to not like it here. Libby says to herself as she walks up the front steps and enters the school.

This school does not seem like your typical middle school and has quite a bit of an eerie feel to it Libby thought to herself but carried on in search of the guidance counselor’s office to get her class schedule and figure out where her locker was. Ahh, here it is, Mrs. Darkweather : School Councilor reads Libby from what seems to be a very dark and unwelcoming door down at the end of a long hallway, on the east end of the school. This hallway almost seems to be decorated for Halloween with dark purple, orange and black everywhere. Mrs. Darkweather’s door gleamed with character as the solid dark wooden door slowly creaked open. Come on in hunny. says an old woman’s creepy voice as Libby pushed the door the rest of the way open and entered the guidance counselor’s office. Hello. says Libby as she enters the dauntingly empty room. Libby looks around the whole room