Green Witch Glen

I live on the edge of this world and the one beyond. To most people, it appears merely as a mossy cottage in a forest glen. It is far from any village or hold. But, on clear winter nights, I can still see chimney smoke rising through the trees. I didn't need their company. I didn't want it. I had the trees and my herbs to keep me company, and the occasional critter who wandered to my doorstep. I've had sick foxes, limping deer, and the occasional bird with a strained wing. Sometimes even the strange, hairless, two-legged beasts wondered to my door, drawn by bits of poison gossip and stupid curiosity. Regrettably, I am forced to call them kin.

Witch. Sorceress. I hear these words often. They're hissed or spat at my feet, and yet when someone falls ill or a child would be birthed wrong, it's to my cabin they come running. I imagine it didn't help that the ravens had taken a liking to me, and flocks of them perched on my roof. I could have turned the people away. Once, an old man hobbled to my door looking for a potion that might help him better please his young wife, and he was the same man who, days previous, was in the woods gathering firewood when I overheard him say the village better start watching their children more carefully least I lure them to my cottage to boil their blood in a stew to drink and remain young.

And this at a woman whose only crime was healing their ailments. I had half a mind to fling a hex at his back and let him bring misfortune down to that little town of his. Lucky for him that was a road I had traveled only a lifetime ago and my soul was still weeping from the inevitable mark such abuse of power often leaves.

I treated his ailments and the ailments of all who followed him. But I did it with a rough hand and not a care for if they cried out in pain. If they didn't want to suffer then they shouldn't get hurt, and I told them as such.

I would have you believe that at this time I was quite an old woman. Though, I looked no older than thirty years. Don't ask me how it happened. I suppose it has something to do with living so close to the magic so many of you have forgotten already. Or maybe it was the little people forever playing tricks on me. I wouldn't be surprised to discover they were behind that strange little girl finding her way to my glen.

I'd gone some time without a visit from anyone but the occasional furry critter and the flashing lights of the little people. I was out foraging. I could glean much of what I needed from the woods and anything else found its way to me. Sometimes in the beaks of my raven friends. Sometimes sitting on my table when I arrived home from a long day; likely left by the Dryad. Little gifts started showing up sometime after I nursed an old oak tree that had been struck by lightning. No doubt it was her home.

I'd stumbled on a lovely patch of mushrooms when I heard singing coming from the pond I knew was nearby. It had been so long since I heard any such thing that at first I didn't know what I was hearing. I picked my way through the brush, and she was sitting on a rock, kicking her feet in the water. If sunlight and a flower bed came together and decided to be a child, I've no doubt it would look just like her. I thought for sure I was looking at one of the fair folk and feared I finally stumbled into one of their games.

I must have stood there for near a whole minute when her song stopped and she glanced over her shoulder at me. I'll never forget that smile she gave me. This pond was deep in the woods – deeper than any villager would travel willingly and she was such a young girl – seven at the oldest. She was everything I was not. Where my hair was dark as the ravens and laid heavy on my shoulders, hers glowed in the sunlight and had weightlessness to it. Where her face was sun-kissed and spotted with freckles, mine was milky white and without so much as a mole, but the differences weren't just there to see on the surface as I would come to discover.

"Hello," she said. "Are you a fairy come to play with me?"

I looked around the water's edge and asked, "Where are your parents."