Rough Writing

This is the opening of a peice of writing from a few years ago. I've been working on rewriting it. I thought I'd post part of it here and get some feedback. If you would like to beta read it, just let me know.

So far there is no title. Suggestions?

 I opened my eyes, blinked and closed them. What was the use of having them open if I could not see a thing? I sat up and hit my head hard on the low shelf that was blocking the single candle's light. Softly cursing, I peered around the shadowed room. 
 “Well, she’s finally awake.” A voice that dripped honeyed sarcasm slid though the darkness behind the candle. “Come with me, my child.” A ragged figure detached itself from the wall. Bony fingers twined themselves onto my arm. “Don't bother to fight, and flight is not an option either with those chains about your ankles.”
 She pulled me into a lit corridor. At the end, a woman hunched over her clasped hands in a tall, carved chair.
 “The slave I told you about, My Lady.” The honey woman bowed to the floor and salaamed her way out of the room. The woman’s gaze followed her, 
 “Come closer.” A magic flowed into the empty space between the old woman and I. It was permeated with a deep hatred. And fear.
 I shook my head. I had no desire to be closer to the witch than I already was. she bowed her head, lank gray hair hiding her face. Her lips moved and I felt myself being pulled toward her. Dark magic attached itself to my legs and I could not fight it. Step by step, she pulled me across the floor to her. I stood there, inches from her.
I turned away so I did not have to look at her, but her perfume wrapped about me. I was so close to her. I wanted to get away but the magic held me.
  “There is plenty of will power in you. But I can break that out in a few moments.”
 I stared coldly at the witch and gave a derisive snort.
 “You think I can’t?” She watched me. 
  The magic lessened so I could walk in front of her, but not away. I paced slowly. 
 “Speak, you churl. I have bought you and you are what ever I wish you to be. Speak!”
 I shook my head. Until I knew where I was and what she had “boughten” me for, and why, I would not utter a word.
 She stared at me. I could feel her will boring into my head. It hurt, like knives delicately sliding under my scalp and cutting sections away. As much as I knew accepting the pain and letting her knives work in my mind would make it stop hurting, I did not want her to do anything to my thoughts. I had seen soldiers brought in by my father's men forced to give their thoughts through magic. They never were the same, though that might have been the betrayal staining their lives forever on. The witch's insidious probes kept pressing until I was sick to my stomach. I collapsed to the floor, ready to retch. 
 The pounding stopped suddenly. I looked up; the witch smiled. “You held me out. Very good. I like a slave with spirit. You held me out but for one little thing.”
 Fear flooded me. I didn’t know what it was that she had seen but memories can be used against their owner, easily.
 “A house with a lawn leading to a lake. A woman comes out to meet you.”
 I had not thought about that place in ages, having it thrown in my face caught me like a whip lash on the back.
 The room around me melted and changed. I closed my eyes and struggled to close my ears to the sound of my grandmother’s voice. It was wonderful to hear and despite what my mind told my senses, they wouldn’t believe. It was love in that voice, not the harshness of the witch’s rasp. Perhaps this was the reality and what I had seen and heard was just a dream. Grandmother had eased bad dreams before.
 “Come, my dear. I have your favorite dessert on the terrace out back.” She paused. “What’s wrong? You look upset. Did you have a bad dream while you napped?”
 I nodded, eyes still closed. 
 “Oh dearest, I’ll get you some tea. That always calms you.”
I felt her hand take mine. It was the same old withered hand that I remembered so well. This was the voice that had comforted me when my parents had died easily evicted the unfamiliar feeling is had in the pit of my stomach. Slowly I opened one eye. My grandmother had me by the hand and was leading me past her house down the sloping lawn. This was exactly as I had always remembered it.
 I sat in a comfy chair at the old wooden table. Grandmother went into the house. 
 “I’ll go and get your dessert. You just stay here and watch the water.” 
 I stared across the water. Trying to remember how I had gotten here was hard. I could remember darkness and fear, but all bad dreams came with those. A slice a pie dripping blueberries was placed in front of me. I looked up at my grandmother. No…
 “You know I don’t like… You are not my grandmother!” I picked up the piece and threw it as hard as I could at the witch who had dared to masquerade as my grandmother. The pie flew through the air; berries spinning off and down. Slowly, it faded from view and a sodden rag fell at the feet of the old witch.
 “So, you can speak, my slave. Very good. Very good. I was beginning to think I had bought a mute.”
 “You’ll wish I was before long.” I could not hide the vindictiveness in my voice, nor my accent. As all my countrymen do, I tended to soften my “l”s and elongate my vowels. 
 “Ah. Further proof that you are the slave I bought.” The witch smiled. It was sweet but all to sour. “You’re Landarian. Yes, your family was too. I’ve wondered how a Landarian would sound… . “ She laughed. “Don’t worry, my slave, I can deal with your voice for a long time, what ever you may say, and if I can’t, you may find being mute is far better than what I can do to you.” Her voice hardened and still was able to slide like honey. 
 I knew she could do it—the power still pulsed in the air—but I wished to see how far she could be pushed. And what she would do. I knew she was a witch but what kind? 
 I began to think of the worst types of witches and unbidden the sight of her defiling the memory of my father’s beloved mother slid into my mind’s eye. This was the most horrid… Before I could think of what I was doing, my body had made one of the most offensive gestures I knew. Shocked and shamed with myself for knowing such a thing but not for using it now, I waited. 
 The witch’s eyes hardened into grey steel shields. Her countenance had softened, but her eyes frightened me.
 “I shouldn’t have done that—” 
 “My yes, slave. It would have been wisest not to. But since you did…”
 I swallowed had. I could finish that sentence a millions ways and I knew the most horrible of these was probably the mildest thing she was capable of doing. 
 
 Over the next few days, I did whatever the witch told me to do. I found out soon enough she was a Shapter witch, and the most powerful of these. She could change the shape of anything including people—it was most horrible when I discovered this fact—and she had the power to shape things with out notice, which she was quite adept at. You had to be very careful, or you might be the thing shaped. Nothing was every as it seemed at first or second glance in the black stone house she dwelled in. I never saw the outside.
 Throughout the days and weeks that followed, I began to assert my will against hers. For some reason, she was loath to harm me, though I could most definitely tell when she wanted too. She seemed to restrain herself. The closest she came to hurting me was when I had burned the “stew”. She never ate and I was only given meal, so it had to be something foul. When she found it, smoking in the fireplace, her eyes steeled once again into the grey shields as she looked at me facing her defiantly. A rat ran past my bare foot, but it was shaped. A spoon hit my toes. 
 “Your diet seems to be getting a little monotonous, slave. Eat it. You’ve seen to it that its usefulness is nothing to me.” She stood over me as I was forced to eat the kettle’s contents and moved only when the last vestige was gone. Later that day, she found me, curled up in a corner, mutely crying in pain. 
 “What is it doing to me?” It hurt so bad, I didn’t care if it looked like I was asking her for help. 
 “Nothing compared to what it would do if it was made properly, my slave. You merely have the worst ache. If it was properly made, you can’t imagine the pain. Slave, any more burning and this shall repeat itself. But you may get different results with different stews.” She grabbed my face and held it tightly in her bony hands. The steel eyes looked directly into mine. “Try it.” The tie I had used to keep my dirty dreaded hair out of my face was shaped and a red, yellow and black snake slid down my neck and to my chest. 
 Screaming, I snatched it and tried to throw it away. It twisted around my wrist and hung there, a macabre bracelet. Terrified of its venomousness fangs, I sat and contained my sobs. The witch laughed, a cruel sharp sound. She left me to my misery, stomach knotted in pain and fervently hoping the snake didn’t strike. I never rebelled in that way again.