Wishes Being Stronger than Witches...

In a place not so different from this one, but where magic was real, a woman was once a village healer.  She relied on her magic to create healing balms for the wounds of her neighbors, and lived a most contented life.  That was, until the day the evil witch came.
            Desiring power above her own, the witch stole that of others, siphoning off what magic remained within them, and growing fat with their stolen strength.  Overtime the witch had developed a method that worked well, namely to capture those from whom she wished to steal and place them in a tower that had no doors and only a single window.  And this is what the witch did to the healer.
            Now, the healer had a small daughter, and she, too, was taken by the witch—for the witch thought this gave her a stronger hold over the woman.  Convinced of the strength of the witch, the healer did little to try and escape, for fear it would put her daughter’s life at risk.  And so, drenched in fear and sorrow, the woman and the girl lived in the tower and waited.
            What it was they waited for, the healer was not entirely sure.  A rescuer, perhaps—a white knight on a gilded steed played in her mind.  But, of course, the knight never came.  And as the days passed into a year and a year passed into two, the woman came to believe that the witch had a right to her magic.  In fact, the healer thought she had very little right to anything at all.  Save the innermost thoughts of her mind.  A most important thing, however, for inside her mind was something more powerful than magic: a wish.  As it happened, her daughter shared the very same wish—that one day they would both be free.
            Wishes, it turns out, are stronger than witches.  And in the sharing of a single wish, the healer passed some of her magic into her daughter’s mind, something the witch did not notice.  Indeed, it took some time for the healer to notice.  But when she did, she waited until her daughter was full of magic, and then she told the little girl her plan.
            The day came when they stood on the stone lip of the tower window, and turned the one to the other.
            ‘I’m scared,’ the little girl whispered, her hand tightening around her mother’s.
            ‘Me too,’ her mother whispered back.
            They smiled quickly at each other.
            They jumped.
            And then they flew.

Popular posts from this blog

The Woman in the Tower

Once upon a time a woman sat alone, locked at the top of a stone tower.       When the people who had come to settle near the tower first approached it, they discovered her locked inside, and set about freeing her. The question as to whether she had been put there, or whether she had voluntarily ascended was to become a moot point, for when the door was finally unlocked, she refused to descend. Indeed, so often did those who wished for her liberty come to the door of the tower and try to remove her from the top most room in which she had once been locked, that, after a time, she discovered a way in which to lock herself in—and all others out.       It is unknown how long she remained locked in the tower room, for no one could get inside to see her until a sizable knight who happened to be passing was asked to go up and use his hefty shoulder to beat down the door.       But when he did so, it was discovered that the tower had been abandoned; the woman’s whereabouts were unknown.
Read more

The Shadows

The light shown on Anya’s fingers. It curled around her palm and danced. This, she thought, was the sheer pleasure of having magic.       But in the midst of her play, a shadow grew.   It was not unexpected; it was the cost of doing magic, for it always begot shadows.   But it never ceased to offer discomfort.   If she could find a way to practice her craft and leave behind the adjacent darkness, she would.          Anya was not fond of the dark, or shadows, or of the sense of unease that grew whenever she let the flickering brightness dance.   But, too, there was a feeling of wholeness in her work.   How could that be, such fulfillment when darkness lay about her?   A constant wonder—the weight of it only born by extinguishing the light for a time until she could bear it again.       Today was such a time.          Anya took the light, and threw it at the darkness.   The next breath, and it was gone.   Elimination brought palpable relief, while at the same time she felt the loss of
Read more

The Fae Wood

There were the haunted woods. You know them. The ones you walked through that night when the mists lit up with an eerie light and you knew you’d regret it if you didn’t follow the light to its source.       The source was the moon, of course. There was no surprise in that.       But the twilit pond did surprise you.       Not because it was a pond, but because of the faerie creatures that danced about it with their tiny bodies gliding about on shining wings, all gossamer and glow.       When you stripped off your jacket and dove into the pond, that surprised you, too.       Not as much as the Fae creatures on the other side who pulled you up as you gasped your breaths and told you that you would be there for the next hundred years.      Which was fine, you decided in an instant.        You didn’t mind.        It had always been a dream of yours, a fancy of wonder. It was a grand, enticing way to spend a hundred years.       W hen you came back, the world was not much ch
Read more