Chapter 6 - Introductions - Hazel Winslow

AN: This is a particularly rough chapter, and I don't generally do content warnings, but this one needs all the warnings. Hazel POVs will be quite rare (8 in the whole series? I'll run out of epigraphs if there are anymore...), but a few early establish her character and a lot of the mysteries. Otherwise, she'll look like a gigantic ass-pull.

If you're not up for it, there's a TL'DR at the bottom.

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The next thing I saw was this. When the lamb had opened one of the seven seals, I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, “Come!”  

Book Of Revelations 6:1

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Hazel Winslow shuffled down the hotel hall, hiding behind her stringy brown hair. Her slim form was hidden in the folds of an oversized hoodie, and her head was withdrawn like a turtle’s. She could feel the stares from other people burning on her skin, and their curiosity ignited. A small teenager, a child, alone, here? A number of people automatically dismissed the thoughts and concerns on their own, automatically assuming that someone else would take care of the problem, if there was one, and it wasn’t their responsibility. Hazel was, after all, openly shuffling down the hallways and stairs of the hotel in broad daylight, her mind involuntarily brushing up against everyone else's. It took painful straining to bring her mind ‘back in’, to not read every thought of people that wandered close to her.

Anyone who didn’t have their thoughts move on and dismiss her, who thought of interfering and ‘helping’ her had their thoughts diverted. Hazel didn’t know how, didn’t know why, but she had mind control “super powers” - it was the best word for it that she’d found, and it fit - and simply… redirected their attention. Slipped the thought in that her guardians must be having a lie-in. Erased the memory of her existence from their mind.

It was better this way. Less attention, fewer problems. The last hotel Hazel had been at started to get persistent with asking her questions, even as she continued to modify the staff’s memories. A peek inside at why they had been so persistent had shown emails and electronic records showing a hole where she was, and demands from people far away to ‘fix the error’. People Hazel couldn’t touch, and trying to fix the problem was more trouble than simply… moving on. It wasn’t like she had much to her name.

It was a shame superheroes didn’t seem to be real. There were no spandex-clad forms leaping from buildings. No tinkers in their lairs, no people flying through the air under their own power. Maybe if there were, things would’ve been different.

But Hazel had no other explanation for her abilities. No other reason for her being able to slip into anyone’s mind and simply change it. Thoughts, memories, feelings, knowledge, all of them were her playthings. She used her abilities, and used them well, in a singular pursuit.

To have people leave her alone.

Hazel waited by the staircase - fewer people than the elevators - with her hands in her pockets until the coast was relatively clear. Then she slowly walked down the stairs, hissing in pain when she stepped wrong, but otherwise made it down without incident. She turned past the ornate pillars into the breakfast buffet, and brushed past the host. The boy was dressed like a penguin, and if Hazel wanted, she could uncover all of his secrets. Go rooting through his mind, find out everything there was to know about him. 

Too much effort, too much work. She’d already implanted the idea that ‘Hazel belonged here’ and he wouldn’t bother checking her. The teenager briefly debated erasing the memory of her entering the buffet, but that was work. She grabbed her plate and waited in line, voices from the past haunting her.

Don’t eat too much! You’ll get fat! A shrew-like voice reminded her, the kindest words her former guardian had on the topic.

The food’s too good for the likes of you. A deep voice echoed through her head, just another in the litany of rules and reminders. Five weeks and hundreds of miles of distance, and she couldn’t escape their presence in her own head. 

She could modify everyone’s memories but her own.

Hazel hunched over as she got into line, feeling the stares burning into her skin. Just a few people looking at the buffet table and the person behind her in line, but she could feel their looks playing over her. The line moved forward and Hazel looked at the food, more memories assaulting her. Words she’d heard as long as she could remember.

Hazel carefully cut half a slice of bread onto her plate, and in an act of brazen defiance, put the other half of bread onto her plate as well. She probably wouldn’t eat it today either, but it was her way of sticking it to the voices in her head. To the cruel memories.

Her favorite table in the corner was open, half-hidden by a statue. Hazel took a seat with her back to a wall and let her thoughts drift as she slowly nibbled on her toast.

There was a small soft serve ice cream server at the breakfast bar. Hazel had never tried ice cream before. Her guardians had tried to taunt her with it, letting Dylan eat it in front of her and never letting her have a taste. She didn’t quite understand that particular cruelty. If she’d never had it, how could she know what she was missing? Hazel had been smart enough not to bring it up. Ever since she’d been punished for putting her perfect math test on the fridge, what was supposed to be evidence that she was as smart as Dylan, she’d learned to keep things to herself. 

It wasn’t like the Matrons at The Handmaiden’s Cross Seminary would ever serve ice cream either.

Maybe that would be Hazel’s crowning accomplishment here. Having a bowl of ice cream and seeing what all the fuss was about. But maybe that was a bad idea. Maybe it tasted so good she’d realize everything that she’d missed.

Decisions, decisions.

As Hazel slowly reached for the second half of her toast, a fancy luggage bag was roughly picked up, leather snapping against leather. She didn’t hear a bag though. Hazel heard a belt, and felt searing pain from her shoulders to the back of her knees.

She stood up fast, her chair crashing against the wall. Hazel wasn’t even close to her table or the chair anymore. The girl was already fleeing across the room, feeling the burning stares of dozens of glares in her skin. Her mind brushed up against theirs, diverting their attention and making them forget. She didn’t care about the mess she was leaving behind, running as fast as she could back to her room. 

Hazel took the stairs two at a time, running out of breath before she was done with the first staircase. She didn’t let her burning lungs or noodly legs slow her down, the phantom feel of hands driving her on. Higher, higher, up and up until she got to her floor. Her hands fumbled with the unpaid card key, and she shook as she tried to swipe herself in. 

No no no, Jesus Christ, don’t let them have caught me already. Hazel fervently prayed as she tried to get back into her room, scenarios tumbling through her mind. Then the door light clicked green, and Hazel was through a second later. She slammed the lock closed, latched the door catcher, then grabbed the blanket and dove under the bed.

Hazel would never be a superhero. She knew what she was.

Just a scared little girl hiding under her bed.

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Hunger drove Hazel back out of her room the next day. Hunger, housekeeping, and the urge to do better. They were nowhere near. Shepherds of the Living Word didn’t have its tendrils all throughout the town. The police weren’t members, happy to keep things ‘all in the family’.

Hazel grabbed her half toast without a second thought, and skittered over to her corner table. Her mind involuntarily brushed up against the other patrons, getting a daily dose of what everyone was thinking. Breakfast, vacation was about to end, stress over an important meeting in an hour, wondering if a junior colleague had made it back to her hotel room alright last night, a thousand mundane thoughts assaulted Hazel’s mind.

She slowly worked her way through breakfast when a new mind entered her range. This one was different. It was the difference between a quiet ceremony outside and a church. The difference between people proselytizing on the street corner and a cathedral. 

The mind was blessedly closed off. Armored, in a way Hazel hadn’t known was possible. It was like a thousand hexagons were layered in an overlapping pattern, perfectly enshrouding it, and they were ever-shifting. Changing position, rotating, moving around in such a way that a scratch would immediately be shuffled back. Any destroyed tile would promptly be replaced.

It was fascinating. Hazel reached out and tapped on it, trying to get inside to find out more… then realized the owner of said mind was briskly striding towards her. She was a stern-looking woman, with grey hair done up in a bun. She held herself with dignity and poise, moving through the crowded room without looking around. She had the presence of some of the high-powered executives Hazel had encountered, able to command the room with a word if she chose to.

Busted. Part of Hazel’s mind thought. The other part was on the dress the woman was wearing. It was exactly the same as Ms. Barnes' favorite dress.

Hazel shrunk into her hoodie as the woman approached, casting her eyes down to the floor.

“Ms. Winslow?” The woman asked as she drew short at Hazel’s table.

“...Ma’am?” Hazel replied. The woman sighed. She took out a stick, flicked it a few times, then sat down at the table.

“I am Professor Mistvale. I am pleased to inform you that you are a witch, Hazel. I would like to offer you a position at the Camelot College of Charmwork and Casting. I also must inform you that what you’re currently doing is quite illegal.” She slid over a sealed envelope to Hazel, whose thoughts had gone in a wildly different direction. She brought her knees up to her chest, wrapped her arms around them, and pressed her face into her knees.

One phrase beat through her head like a thundering herd of horses. Pointed words that suddenly took on a different meaning with the woman’s revelation.

Thou shall not suffer a witch to live.

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TL;DR: Girl escapes from a cult, is a natural mind mage, is also invited to Camelot.