Maybe This Time

The Witch

The first thing I notice is a darkness so thick it becomes hard to breathe.
There is no sound, no smell, not even a temperature to this place. Just darkness.
I slowly get up, move my arms in attempt to find some object, some wall, something that gives me a hint as to where I landed.
I can't be in the forest anymore, that's for sure. It seems as if I am not anywhere at all, as surreal as it sounds, believe me, it felt just as surreal.

"Hello?", I call into the darkness, in cas that gives me a hint. It doesn't. The sound does, in fact, not even travel far enough for it to reach back to my own ears.

And that is the precise moment where I start to get scared. Maybe I have died. I mean, isn't that the great nothing everyone has talked about?
Well, it certainly is almost like nothing, except for the deep darkness that still presses itself around me as if trying to suffocate me.
And if can be suffocated I certainly can't be dead.
So actually, nothing would be better than this.

While I'm still debating if it is possible that the fall really was unfortunate enough for me to have found my untimely death, I  notice something in the distance.
Distance! Distance means that there is space here! So I am not dead after all!
And it is a light! A small light, but it seems warm and inviting, so I dont give it a second thought before I make my way into it's direction.

Now I also notice the underground below me, which is full of lose stones and going steeply uphill. More than once I am close to losing my balance and almost fall down again, which is especially scary because I still can't see how far the world goes down behind me.

It takes me ages and I am severely out of breath -but alive!- as I reach the light, which is still exactly that. Warm and unassuming, not bright enough to be noticed any place else but here, in absolute darkness, it is the greatest thing I have ever seen.
So I do what any reasonable person would do and step into the light.

It is like going through a door, a door that, surprisingly, leads somewhere. I find myself in a narrow cave, barely big enough for me to stand up straight.
It is similar to an actual room, with colourful carpets and pillows all over the ground. And in the very middle of one I see her sitting.
She is wearing a flowy, dark dress with frills and lace that doesn't even give a hint as to what her body looks like. Her auburn hair is just as flowy and hides her face almost as well as the dress does the body. I can only guess her looks from the pale, slender fingers which are only accentuated by long, pointy fingernails, seemingly absolutely ready to stab me at any moment.

I just stand there for a moment, wondering what the appropriate thing to say is in a situation like this, I mean, technically I did just break into her home, as she points her icy blue eyes, which I can now see, directly at me.
She chuckles lightly: "This is not my home, fear not. And you certainly didn't break into it - not that it is possible to do so. You followed my call, so you are a guest I invited to come here."
"Sorry, what?" I am too perplexed to even notice the fact that this woman can apparently read minds (or mine, at least, which is scary enough).
"Oh, I know girls like you. You have barely set foot into this earth and already you know that it is not yours to conquer. Just unlike teenagehood is supposed to be and you know that it is not just." She points to a spot in front of her: "Sit, please."

I follow her orders and end up with my legs crossed, just like her, her words still setting in my mind. "Girls like you", she said. I didn't know there was a category for me. I never thought that the strange mess in my mind could be seen as anything other than weird.
I don't even know what she means by girls like me, but I am already certain that I don't want to give any impression that I am not a girl she thinks I am. This may be my only chance of fitting somewhere and even if the category is awful it will be more than I ever had.

"Fear not, girls like you aren't awful." Okay, so she can definitely read my mind. "The opposite is true. You may not be here to conquer the world, but it is not you who is at fault with this, unlike you thought all the time. Unlike you still think.
 "You think your problem is that you are a broken mess that couldn't give someone the burden of sorting them out. But your problem is that you think you need someone to be sorted out, when you are perfectly capable of that yourself. You have more power than you realise and it pains me to see it waver around your body unused as it is.
 "With my help, if you decide to take it, you can shed off the scars of your past that hold you back and become greater than you were ever destined to be."

Maybe she thinks that world domination is my greatest wish, but nothing about this sounds inviting at all to me. Yes, power and greatness are wonderful words to throw around but they mean nothing compared to the face that hasn't left my mind since I last saw them.

"Oh, Billie?"
"You know Billie?"
"Of course I do, darling. I know every soul on this earth, even those who don't belong to me."
"Does Billie belong to you?"
"You would have known if they did, believe me. But I should have known that it was all about them for you. Do you know how rarely you have acted out of a motivation other than shallow, superficial love in your life, my dear? Because it is honestly concerning.
But Billie, no, Billie does not love you."
I knew that. Of course I knew that. That is the mantra that replays in my head every time I see them and wish so, so deeply that things would be different. It is the underlying thought that seeps through each of my thoughts, the writing I see written on the glass each time I look in the mirror and think 'Of course they don't love you. Your face couldn't convince anyone of loving you.'
Still, it hurts. This strange woman who has somehow instantly become an authority figure in the world to me telling me the worst thing I could have been told with such a certainty that eradicates even the last hopes I could have clung myself to. It really, really hurts.

"But be certain, Billie won't love you any more if you sit here crying in my cave."
"You said you can help me. Can you make Billie love me?"
The woman sighs. "Oh, love, dear, love is a complicated thing. Impossible to truly put in spells and a danger if handled unwell. Love potions are a common idea, but only work to raise a scary obsession. So we choose to stay away from them.
But do not worry, you should know that we all long for something in our hearts, even your precious Billie. The question is, if you can become the thing they, oh, so desperately long for. If you do, they're yours. Promise me, I know people well enough to be sure of that."
"Well, what do they long for?", I ask
"Now, that is not my job to find out. I told you, they are none of my children, so my knowledge of them is limited. And yes, you are my child, but only in a spiritual sense, fear not", she adds, as she sees the confusion on my face. Needless to say, I am barely less confused now.

"But if you can't help me with Billie, then what did you call me here for? There is nothing else I need."
"Oh, darling, you may not know it yet, but you need me. I only call my daughters to me when they have found out for themselves that this world doesn't serve them and grow dire need of me. I may not be able to pamper you with the love of the people you decided to be your current obsession, but my offer is far greater. With my help you can bend the world in a way that serves you. Everything you cannot think of right now because your mind is clouded. It may seem confusing to you now, but everything will clear up once you step back on the surface."

"And what do you get in return?", I ask sceptically.
"Nothing. See it as a present from your heavenly mother."
"So you are a kind of god?"
She laughs: "No, not quite like that. But the closest thing you'll find on this earth."
"Do you even have a name? You never told me."
To that she only smiles softly and hands me a round amber that is worked into a dainty silver necklace. There is a little fly encapsulated in it. "That is the only thing you need. As long as you wear it I am with you and nothing bad will come to you. As long as you have faith in me. Turn around." She puts the necklace around my neck. It weighs surprisingly heavy on my sternum.

"That is all you need. As long as you never break our sacred bond of love and faith."
And with those words the cave around me gets blurrier and blurrier until it disappears completely again.