Chapter Text
Prologue: Stella Morae
Stella Bell was a witch and a bastard, and she knew it. When people called her a bastard, or a witch, it didn't bother her too terribly much—she was a bastard, and she was a witch. No sense getting vexed about the truth, her mother had always said.
So whenever some resentful person flung those epithets at her, Stella would smile... and then fling back a retort carefully crafted to drive the proverbial knife into whomever it was calling her names. Depending on the circumstances and her mood at the time, she might even fling a hex as well. Though "witch" and "bastard" didn’t bother her as far as name-calling went, she didn’t want to let people think they could get away with insulting her.
She was the latest in a long line of bastard witches, so she'd had her whole life to get accustomed to the idea and learn how to let the insults slide. Her mother, Eleanor Abernathy, was born out of wedlock, as was her grandmother, Esmerelda Laroche, and her great-grandmother, Isabella García Rodriguez. Isabella’s half-gypsy mother, Mirela (also illegitimate), had been the first to set out to the Caribbean after nearly being burned as a witch and a heretic by the Inquisition in Spain. But she escaped, and came to the Caribbean, and there her descendants remained.
In the proceeding generations, the line of Mirela o Washosko García began to grow in knowledge and power. Her daughter, Isabella started a grimoire that was augmented by charms, spells, potions, and remedies from all manner of witches, voodoo priestesses, and even some genuine doctors and midwives. This cache of knowledge passed down from daughter to daughter, each adding to the book. The book was what mattered—the book and the magic. These would get them respect in a world that scorned them as disrespectable. These would help them survive.
The men in their lives, after all, certainly wouldn’t help. Either Mirela's descendants had horrible taste in men, or there was some credence to the rumours of a curse. Whatever it was, Mirela, Isabella, Esmerelda, and Eleanor gave their lives, their hearts, and their bodies to men who gave them very little in return. Mirela, Isabella, Esmerelda, and Eleanor all eventually found themselves alone, relying on their wits and their powers and the history behind them to endure in a world that would all too easily see them crushed under the relentless march of the respectable and the rational and their thrice-cursed standards.
But they endured. Sometimes they even managed to thrive.
Stella Bell, however, was pretty sure she was not thriving.
Perhaps her ancestors had stored up a reserve of anger and bitterness at the world and Stella was the lucky recipient. Perhaps the stain and consequences of witchcraft and bastardy were catching up to them, and Stella was the one who tripped when fleeing. Perhaps her standards were just a smidgen too high. Or perhaps she was just naturally a sour, shrewish, dissatisfied little bitch. Whatever it was, Stella really did not understand how anyone who lived there on a permanent basis could possibly thrive in a place like Tortuga. And she had dwelt in Tortuga for the better part of nine years.
As each year passed, she grew to loathe the place just a little bit more. Loathed the mud that was equal parts dirt, water, spilled liquor, and other substances she didn’t care to think on. Loathed the stench of rum, and sweat, and too many unwashed people. Loathed the dull roar of drunken voices, shattering glass, splintered wood. Loathed the barbarity and anarchy that didn’t even take the trouble to hide itself.
As each year passed, it grew just a little bit more difficult to take solace in those things about Tortuga she did like. Grew just a bit bitterer to remind herself that she had nowhere else to go, and had to stay out of necessity. Grew just slightly harsher to be completely alone, save for when those few she could tolerate gracefully came to visit.
But she stayed. Stella stayed on that island, and waited. Waited, and listened to the faint promises of a better life that came on the wind and through the water. A better life was coming, if she would be patient and wait for it to arrive. If the spider would just wait on her web a little bit longer, soon the winds of fate would bring her a tasty fly.
So Stella held fast to that promise, and waited.