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The Escape

 When autumn sorted itself out and decided to arrive, the woman had some thoughts. Mostly, she was tired of examining her own aging, marking the entrance of each wrinkle, of each new dark mark that made a home on her face. Signs of deterioration. Signs of death.

    She'd tried all the potions. Why not? After all, they were there. It cost her little, on average, to try them.

    Except it cost her more, in the end. 

    Every little examination until she was too tired to examine any longer.

    She stopped then. All the potions. To her horror, she saw that they had worked, a little. They had offered her some grace. Still, she was too tired to visit the witch for such things. There were other needs to visit witches for, at her age. Other potions to take. Other pains to ease.

    And then, a curious thing occurred. Without the potions, she had no cause to examine herself so closely. No need to see if they had worked. No need to pour over her face, while hoping correction. She just was as she was, and that was all there was. So oddly freeing.

    It was a most curious realization, that wrinkles never mattered, death couldn't be fixed, and perception never meant what anyone wanted it to mean. 

    She left herself at the mirror, and didn't think about it anymore. She had work to do. 

Of a Migraine

The trouble with witches, from time to time, is that they tend to have no offspring. They do, however, have apprentices. Now, there is nothing that precludes a witch from a wedding. Witches are occasionally known to have a jolly kick-up of a day and evening in such an affair. They tend to make the most of the drink. They even, on occasion, make the most of the groom. But such states are rare.      The witch knew this was the case.       She explained that this was the case.      She even offered a slightly distant, rather rhythmic pat on the back.       None of it did any good for the apprentice weeping uncontrollably on the couch-cum-bed that made up the potion-making-cum-kitchen-cum-spare-room. Indeed, the young lady didn't seem to quite grasp the fact that young gentlemen weren't often wont to wed a woman of a witchly persuasion. It was a simply matter of mathematics. Men liked to know a certain amount of things. M...
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The Woman Who Chose the Enchanted Forest

Once upon a time a woman wandered into an enchanted forest. She met the river, and the spirit of the trees. She saw the fairies dance. She met the wise old witch who lived in the corner of the forest in her small cottage surrounded by herbs. Then she went home.     That was her first mistake.      How did one come back from an enchanted forest, she wondered?     Day after day, she continued to wonder.      That was her second mistake.      But mistakes do not necessarily a lifetime last.      On a day of her making, in an hour of her choosing, when she had wondered her wondering for the last time, she stepped back into the enchanted forest.      There she made her life, for there had been no reason to leave. 
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'Fun'

 There was once a witch who left her house for an evening party. They had said it would be 'fun.'     As she walked down the path, she thought about it. She paused. No, that couldn't possibly be right. She turned around and walked back to her house.     She reached her cottage door, made a cup of tea and sat in her favorite chair with a book.     They had made a mistake. She'd tell them tomorrow. They had got the notion of fun all wrong.     
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Three Things, Save Two

 There are three things a wealthy person thinks to fear: poverty, degradation, pity.      There are three things an impoverished person lives in fear: injustice, abandonment, the weather.      There are three things a kind person wishes to change: society, systems, the minds of the wealthy.      There is one thing a wise person knows to change: herself. 
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