I Was Raised by the Witch The Town Burned Twice

I Was Raised by the Witch

In the quiet town of Alderfen, everyone knows the story of the witch who was burned at the edge of the fen.

They say Gormlaith Marlow was dangerous. They say she cursed the town. They say her daughter, Ruth, was lucky to survive.

But Ruth knows that the story they tell is a lie.

Raised by Gormlaith in a house surrounded by fire, secrets, and suspicion, twenty-year-old Ruth has spent her life learning how to work with flames while avoiding the people who still call her mother a witch. When a mysterious fire destroys a building in Alderfen—and refuses to behave like an ordinary fire—Ruth begins to suspect that the town's darkest secret has never truly disappeared.

Then strange things begin happening.

A ruined house refuses to burn. A hidden boundary appears on an old map. Family fire-dogs vanish from homes across the town. A forgotten parish record reveals a history that Alderfen's most powerful families have tried to erase. And beneath it all lies a mysterious connection between fire, water, and a debt the town has carried for generations.

As Ruth searches for the truth about her mother's past, she discovers that Gormlaith may not have been the monster Alderfen believed her to be.

She may have been protecting them.

Now the old debt is coming due, and Ruth must decide whether to continue living in the shadow of the woman everyone feared—or become the person capable of confronting the truth that the entire town has spent generations trying to bury.

Because Alderfen has burned before.

And this time, the fire remembers.