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The Poison

 Once there was a princess whose leg was poisoned by a monster. She lost the leg, of course, for the monster's fangs' poison was unique and improbably new to the witch who served as the castle's healer.

  It was easy for the king to hate the witch.

  Easier still for the rumors of her foul and malevolent craft to seep into castle discourse.

  It was much harder for the princess to say otherwise. Far harder for her to stay the tide of rumor that set the castle's people on a hunt; the kind with pitch forks and torches and spewing mouths.

  Harder still for the princess to stand on one shaking leg before a small witch's cottage and tell the hunters, go home.

  Little stops a rumor. It stops faster, though, when a one-legged princess defends her healer with her life. It stops faster when a witch continues to do her duty. It stops fastest when time has made rumorous tongues stand still.

  But it does stop. And it did. With only a tinge of sorrow.

A Wise Blanket

The day was cold, though there was sun. The wind whipped.     The witch curled up, in her small chair in the midst of her small room set in a small cottage, with a blanket.      She stared out the window, and thought about venturing into the bright sunlight.      The blanket suggested otherwise.     She had a cup of tea instead, while curled up in her chair. She organised her thoughts. The world was bright both in and out.     The blanket was very wise.
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The Girl and the Tree and Her Life After

 Once upon a time there was a girl. She was the kind to throw her arms to the wind and dance barefoot in the rain. Naturally, she was the kind to wander. And once, when she wandered, she found herself in an enchanted wood.     It took no more than a moment for her to find a tree she liked. As usual, she asked the tree a question.      'Tree, would you tell me a secret?' the girl asked.     Quite unusually, the tree whispered an answer.     The girl thought about the tree's response all the rest of the day.     She thought about it all the rest of the week, all the rest of the year, and for the many years that came after.     She thought about it as she lay down on her last day, in her last hour, even her last minute.     Her life had been spent thinking. And it was not a waste.
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The Stories

I saw a strange thing in the wood one night. A witch on a broomstick flying through the air. Or maybe she was just a woman. On a broom. With a pointed hat.      She wove through the trees low, flying toward a glow in the distance.     I followed.     She landed in front of the glow that had become a brightness.     The brightness moved toward her; it swallowed her.     My eyes adjusted to the light. Or, rather, to the fairies that gave off the light.     The woman with the pointed hat who from time to time flew on a broom, sat on a stump that curved like a chair, nestling in as though it had been made for her.     The fairies flew still in the air, or sat on the ground, or on the surrounding shrubs. Comfortable, but leaning toward her. They were waiting.     She took a breath, and began to speak stories.     About princesses and princes and witches ...
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The Woman Who Screamed

 Once upon a time there was a woman who screamed up at the stars every night for a year.     It made no difference, except to her heart.     At the end of the year, she found her heart was stronger.     Which is, it must be said, a very nice consequence from yelling.
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