bewitched me

oh mother, i can feel the soil falling over my head

APRIL 8TH, 2017. 9:46 AM. SHIMANE OUTSKIRTS. JAPAN.

The countryside—the trees, the bare grass untouched by the civilization down the nonexistent road and around a hill, the small stream that led to a lake, the soil, the herbs and lingering symbols and runes carved into trees, the strange howls at night, the fairytale witch coven in the woods—it was all yours.

Yes, you were that strange witch girl at Maki's school.

All those things—the myths, the stories, the mysterious looks you got from people when you made the thirty minute frolic down to the nearest village—were all yours.

And, they were your coven's, too. Your mother especially. But your mother was different from the other women; the others weren't as nosy and they didn't quite have the suspicion to stick their snouts all the way into your business when you so much as breathed about talking to people outside of your coven. They all watched quite closely over you as you harnessed your cursed technique, which they were bewildered by as no one in their coven ever had a cursed technique before, and albeit, the pesky questions about it were annoying and they pestered you for information like it came with a prepackaged guidebook, but none of them were as eerie of it as your mother.

Your mother hated your technique, at least, that was what you thought.

For the longest time, long before she herself even joined, the coven had prided itself on being a witch-only coven after Jujutsu sorcerers became an influx in other covens around Japan. Your mother was one of those women who wore her pride on her sleeve and kept her heart in a freezer. She was also one of those women who believed that witches were above Jujutsu sorcerers, claiming that 'their cursed energy brings nothing but trouble into this world.' She cared even less for normal people, she believed they were the biggest contributors to the cornering of the witch population around the planet. She believed everyone who didn't have magic in them—normal or Jujutsu sorcerers—was no more worthy of a witches spared glance than the dirt on their boots.

Your mother wanted to keep you sanitized—locked away from the rest of the world where curses and criminals and Jujutsu sorcerers and filthy non-witches roamed the land—and clean from the clutches of the undeserving. When she was pregnant with you, she prayed to the trees and the leaves on their branches and their trunks and the soil beneath their stumps that you wouldn't stray away from the coven, that you'd stay a pure witch like the other women in your family tree had been (and some of the men, too).

She was thrilled when she first laid eyes on you.

All your studies came from your mother and the rest of your coven. Katsu, the coven's resident author for keeping several lifetimes worth of books on her shelves, taught you your grammar and spelling and how to read and write (and taught you Latin, as well). Okuda, the chef between the nine of you, as explained, taught you your culinary skills and all your potions combinations. Your mother, Akizuki, taught you how to use your witchcraft, how to feel the magic that seeped from your blood into your bones. Shibata (your personal favorite from the coven, aside from your familial obligation to your mother) was the one who gave you your grimoire for your twelfth birthday and put on the last page a quite interesting quote for you to have remembered her by: 'The power of the stars are in your hands, hasu. Don't burn yourself trying to harness it. P.S., I know I'm your favorite to sneak out to the village with.'

Reading the second half for the first time made you laugh when you were twelve. By the time you made your decision to leave, it made you sad.

Shibata was the only one who actually taught you anything about the world outside of the coven. She taught you the good, the bad, the ugly, and everything in between. She told you about different beliefs and ideologies people had and their versatile ways of life. And, inevitably, she told you about the world of Jujutsu, since your mother never actually delved deeper on why Jujutsu sorcerers were 'vermin,' as she liked to call them, and gave you a really, really basic rundown about how techniques and whatnot.