The Binding Witch and The Fortune Taker

The Binding

I'd seen Mom do this probably a hundred times, but it never stopped creeping me out. Not the whole midwife thing - I can handle a little blood and gore. It was what happened after.

The Binding.

I glanced at the new mom, a woman named Jessica, holding the baby my own mother had just ushered into the world.

"Hurry! Fix her so she's not a witch." Jessica's eyes were shining with tears of joy and anticipation as the silky black bands of the binding spell slipped around her newborn's damp skin. A magical echo of the charmed fabric sank into the baby's skin and the poor creature let out a small wavering cry.

This next part made my skin crawl. Not just a metaphor, the charmed binding ribbon fixed a barrier around the body, locking the magic inside. I shuddered. They ask us to do this to their babies.

"Hold on, little one," my mother said. "Almost done."

The babe wailed and a tiny array of lights formed the barrier around its body and throbbed with a pearlescent glow once, twice, then dimmed to nothing. A magical christening that removed, rather than granted, divinity.

Jessica caught her breath in a short, surprised burst that touched my heart. Not many Bindan women appreciated the beauty of magic, much less the bitter ache of its light snuffed out.

It used to hurt my feelings to see the mother's eagerness to be rid of their daughter's magic. Boys were easier, because we didn't have to bind them. The mother just had to avoid kissing the baby boy in the first day of life to halt the trigger that brought forth their magic. A girl's magic is active at birth and those bindings hit too close to home.

I would have done anything to have the magic they've thrown away. I'm a hedge witch: the child of a magical mother and human father. Sometimes the mother's magic got passed down to the child, sometimes it didn't.

In my case, it didn't.

My mother's nod got my attention.

I sighed. "And that's it." I forced a smile and cut the umbilical cord on the other side of the clamp with a wet snip. I quickly swaddled the infant and passed her to her mother. "She's all yours."

I sat back and sighed. The most magic I could do was limited to some minor kitchen brews: potions that even a human could do, if they had the right ingredients, in the right order, at the right time, and for the right reason. But that kind of knowledge is closely guarded. No being not born of a witch would even know where to look for such things.

"Thank you, Kathy," Jessica said, and gathered her babe to her chest.

"It's Kate." I said, with a sigh. They never got my name right. At least she was close.

She ignored my correction. "And thank you, Clea." Jessica said.

She was in a world of her own, so I let it slide. She stared at her perfect, non-magical child and snuggled in the down comforter.

It's not like she's the first Bindan who got my name wrong.

I'm just the help who managed the birthing schedule and coordinated our midwife visits around our other job in the region's renaissance festivals, made sure we had all the medical supplies we needed and ensured we had enough gas in the truck to get here when they needed us.

So, you know. Nobody special.

Mom watched me. "Tell me about it later?" she whispered.

I liked that she always said that to me when I got upset. I appreciated the understanding, and the time to just sit with my feelings before sharing them.

"Sure," I shrugged. It's not like talking about it was going to change anything. "Later."

*****
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