# A prologue written in Third Person Omniscient ### (A sample chapter of something I am editing currently.) [Alex Eos](https://substack.com/@alexeos) Feb 14, 2026 After receiving great feedback and comments, I decided to share what I am working on right now while trying to get Starforge Legacy finalized by my publisher. As always, I am drinking a cup of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Cinnamon Sugar Cookie with honey. I want to point out, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters is not sponsoring this substack as much as I wish they were. That being said, I am listening to Ison’s Inner-Space, which is an ambient Dronegaze metal(?) band from Gothenburg, Sweden. Check them out. With all the housekeeping out of the way, please enjoy my Prologue of The Real Witches of Madison County (working title). Until next time Alex 🧋 Thanks for reading. * * * ## **Prologue: What the Garden Knows** Now: Bang bang, he shot me down. Madison county had rules. Some written in blood, some whispered and some etched in the fine print of HOA contracts, no one actually read. The subdivision by laws were stricter than witch’s blood oath and twice as binding. You couldn’t paint your mailbox “unapproved mauve” without the whole town complaining about how gaudy it was. That second koi-pond, not a chance without written permission from Sandra Pendergrass, the HOA board and the magic three ring binder that kept more secrets and lies hidden yellow hole punched paper. And you definitely—Definitely— couldn’t bury a body in your backyard. That too was frowned upon by the HOA. But then again, as petty as Madison county was, that small town was never normal. Even the peonies in the cul de sac trembled under the sun-baked sky. Not because of wind. Madison County had barely any breeze unless it was spiritually significant or Sandra scheduled one in her weather-appropriate spell grid. If the town barber squeezed funny, if rain ruined the perfect wedding, Sandra Pendergrass would reign fire down upon someone’s house with the wit and charm of a woman scorned twice. Madison County was different, the air heavy, pressurized like the sky saw too much shit and held back its opinions. The small town of Willow brook thrived on gossip as both non-magical people, witches, and wizards went about their ordinary life in Madison county. A figure stepped through the wrought iron garden gate behind a sign that read The Goldbergs, come back with a warrant— 211 mulberry lane. Dennis “The hammer” Castellano stood five foot four with rough hands like rebar, and a face chiseled from rock and granite with a dull knife. He spoke in a gravely whisper that carried the weight of pain and terror he once caused. Behind his cold, calculating, sad eyes was a man who viewed violence not as passion but as craftsmanship—precise, efficient and had regrets about doing one last job. Dennis was the kind of man who would break kneecaps, twist arms, and drag you along to his daughter’s ballet recital while holding you at gunpoint with a small pistol hidden between your ribs. He was the type to commit murder then stop off at Albert’s bakery to pick up a cannoli and some dessert for dinner along with a laundry list of groceries. Not like Margot Simmons, smoking two cigarettes while polishing her gun in the yard. While she did unironically borrow Trudy’s binoculars that doubled as opera glasses to spy on the man in Trudy’s yard, her eyesight worsened over the years and even on a good day Dennis would be a tall menacing blob with broad shoulders. Not even the raccoons who’d unionized behind Clarity’s compost bin cared about the man in her yard. Why would they? The union rep had it out with Trudy for installing those anti-theft wheelie bins that snapped tight at night. Not even Karen Gossen, who was too busy moderating “Madison County Moms Against Mercury Retrograde” on Facebook and spreading rage-bait astrology memes; which if we are being completely honest is something a Karen would do. Dennis remained anonymous in the garden in that deeply suspicious “I’m clearly not supposed to be in other people’s yards casing the place.” He cut through the Goldbergs to reach the peony bed on the property line behind Trudy’s yard—the spot HOA maps called drainage easement 1, Witches called it a vein to the earth, and everyone else called it a sewer drain. Past the hydrangeas Trudy Goldberg insisted were low-maintenance (they weren’t), and the hummingbird feeder that became a territorial gang war for birds, waterfowls and passive-aggressive squirrels. Dennis paused near the koi pond that Gavin copied from Sandra and Trudy—Gavin’s last known landscaping project. The one he said would elevate the property value, even though it made the water smell like dead algae and regret. Dennis knelt beside the peony bed and whispered to the blooms. In his head, he was supposed to poison the ground near Trudy’s yard and make it look like her neighbor exposed the two acres of land between them to some hazardous waste run-off. He bent one of the standard HOA peonies and smelled the nectar and honey from within. He thought about his daughter. Her prom. The bouquet he bought that didn’t match her dress. How she stopped inviting him to things after she found out what he really did for a living. How she stopped calling him. Then nothing. The circle began to glow beneath the mulch. A dark magic feeding off negative energy, the sadness and sucking the life from the man. An ancient magic that predated Sandra’s tenure as HOA vice president. Lines etched themselves into the soil hissing with violet sparks. The garden pulsed once. Then twice. His handler told him to take a vial and pour it in the soil. Which Dennis took from his pocket and the golden flakes twisted and shimmered like heartbreak. He uncorked it and let the golden liquid bleed onto the earth. The peonies darkened. From blush pink to bruised plum to deeper red until it became unrecognizable and moist. The earth groaned and somewhere above him ravens and crows shrieked. He didn’t flinch. He closed his eyes placing the uncorked vial in his pocket and brushed the dirt off his pants as the sprinklers sputtered to life by a smart house watering system. His handler didn’t explain what the spell did. Explanations were for people you weren’t planning to bury. That and his mother always said magic was the work of the devil. But, we are not here to unpack why Dennis chose this line of work. The spell didn’t kill. It only assigned blame. The baseball bat handled the rest—small violence, big narrative. Madison County handled the killing fine on its own. It just made sure the right person got buried for it. Water misted over the magic, steam rising where it touched the sigil. Behind them wind chimes sang off key. Dennis crouched behind the trash cans, the baseball bat balanced across his knees like a bad decision waiting for permission. Gavin Goldberg’s truck rolled into the driveway a couple houses down—fresh wax, fresh confidence, the kind of shine that made the HOA newsletter feel emotionally inadequate. Dennis moved fast and low. One swing— CRACK. The windshield fractured in a perfect web. Two swings— CRACK. The side mirror snapped clean off. Not enough to total it. Just enough to make the story easy later: anger, recklessness, a man spiraling. Dennis returned to the shadows before Gavin even understood his own property had betrayed him. Dennis found this odd. Gavin cut across lawns like property lines were suggestions and wandered straight towards the peonies. Besides, It was three in the afternoon, Gavin was shirtless. Dennis couldn’t clock why he was humming or what. It was something tuneless that sounded vaguely like a 90s anime theme—probably Sailor Moon, Dennis figured, thanks to his daughter’s brief but expensive venture into anime and cosplaying. He tilted his head, watching his target prance around the yard in what appeared to be some kind of interpretive dance routine, and felt his eye start to twitch. The guy was now doing jazz hands at a garden gnome. Dennis had killed plenty of people for money, but this might be the first time he’d do it for free. Some folks might call this dumb luck, wrong place wrong time, or justifiable homicide. Dennis was leaning toward “public service.” “Peonies looking fire,” Gavin muttered to flowers, oblivious to the sigil still smoldering in the flower bed. “Hope Miranda’s still home.” He squinted up at Miranda’s gutters like the HOA had personally wronged them. Then he slipped through the side gate and started up the trellis to the roof. Normal people used ladders. People with secrets used walls. The earth shivered and the garden whispered back something bad. And Dennis Castellano—ex-hitman, part-time grocery shopper, and now magical errand boy—tipped his head to the shadows and muttered, “Done.” By morning, Gavin would be six feet under the same peonies, the neighborhood would have a corpse, a culprit, a scandal and secrets spilling out from every vein of the neighborhood.