Four Witches - An Illustrated Novel

[hollinrake]

Four Witches is a working title whilst I dither about with the actual plot. I haven't written for years so I'm still pretty insecure about the whole thing, but I'm giving it a shot. Feels good. Prepare for excessive quantities of paragraphs and the words 'witch', 'ritual' and 'sacrifice'.

I aim to create an illustrated fantasy novel based around four witch daughters of an ambitious matriarch in a lesser house. The basis of their culture is simple – to gain power and insight into their land they must sacrifice part of their body and commit it to the Earth so that its power can be channelled through them. These sacrificial rituals take place upon hills or mountains – the higher the better – as these landmarks have the strongest connection to the Earth. Through these sacrifices the witch is permanently mutilated, but the return is tenfold as the connection grants the witch control over the elements or the ability to manipulate physical objects, depending on how and what was removed and buried.

In the beginning, this was enough. Small covens existed on blustery cliffs and high hills and when a young woman felt ready, she would leave on a pilgrimage, perhaps with a partner, to find her own hill or mountain to sacrifice to. The sheer act of finding untrodden ground at committing to it was enough to be blessed with great power, but over time the witches spread out and all the lands were occupied.

After this came The Famine. Devoid of suitable grounds, witches were forced to sacrifice to already claimed mountains and hills. The power hungry mutilated their bodies to gain favour but instead suffered slowly and died because the rituals could no longer support their wounds. Those that survived were left in sorry states with little strength to justify their loss. For seventy years the faith in the Earth floundered and began to fade.

However, two discoveries revolutionised the operations and rituals that were undertaken. Intricacies – circles that used symbols and runes – allowed the manipulation of the sacrifice and the increase of its power. Additionally, accumulative bloodlines began to emerge as families began to dedicate themselves to the same hills and mountains for the first time in history. Larger families that kept true to the faith would find themselves with gradually greater power than smaller families that gave up. Many richer families began to experiment with intricacies to maximise or specialise in their Earthly gains, and so large houses began to rise up and these powerful families built castles and towns on their hills and mountains.
It’s at this point that the story begins. There is still a great deal to be known about intricacies and although there are strong houses, they are not all powerful by any means. Lesser houses look to close the accumulative bloodline gap between them, causing tensions to rise. The age of peaceful, intimate covens has long since passed as powerful witches are once again emerging from the ranks, this time with better provision in healthcare. Infection and pain are still very much present, but the rise in practical prosthetics and the ability to control them through object manipulation allows confident witches to make far greater sacrifices than ever before. It was once said that you would never see a witch with ten fingers, but now you would never see a witch with four limbs.

In terms of practical application and storytelling I aim to write the novel as I would a normal book, but go through it including illustrations, portraiture, examples of intricacies and other images along the way. The main focus will be on illustrating key scenes and possibly having the text interact with it – overlaying across the edges and breaking up in interesting ways. There won’t be an illustration on every page as it isn’t a graphic novel at all – I want to concentrate on creating Magic the Gathering-esque illustrations that demonstrate what I view to be the most interesting parts or clear images I had in mind whilst writing it. A picture book for adults, if you will.

Now for the stuff I've been scribbling out. It's all very vague and self indulgent at the moment but I'm enjoying it and designs are gradually appearing. I've also included my initial brainstorm, although a lot of the ideas have changed since. Here's to an intensive summer of painting, studying and writing!