So, here's what I'm working on for her. Nothing would please me more than a few reviews on it. It'll most likely be a short story, perhaps spanning into the realm of novella. I'm not sure yet.
I realize that the first bit is relatively long, but hopefully not enough to drive away reviewers.
I.
“WITCH, n. (1) Any ugly and repulsive old woman, in a wicked league with the devil. (2) A beautiful and attractive young woman, in wickedness a league beyond the devil.”
- Ambrose Bierce
The mist stretched through the forest, curling its thin fingers around every branch, into every crevice. It tackled any hint of light from the moon and smothered it with a good deal of duct tape. The adorable, fluffy woodland creatures that might have lived in the woods were either sleeping in their respective burrows or had long ago met their end in the teeth of one of the beasts stalking between the trees.
In retrospect, it was the perfect night for anyone to visit a witch.
The woman would have disagreed. In her mind, the perfect night to visit a witch consisted of an armed escort, a moon brighter than a sun, and the comforting weight of a very heavy stick in one hand. All of these were painfully absent and, as she stumbled through the undergrowth, she tried not to focus too hard on that fact. Or the fact that she was well and truly lost and that, on the part of a sudden dip in the forest floor earlier, her ankle hurt like anything.
The woman looked about herself, at the trees unwilling to give her any hope of direction, and wanted to cry. Of course she would get lost on her first visit to the witch’s house. Of course those washerwomen from her village had bragged about how finding witches was so bloody easy. “Just go through the woods on night right before a new moon,” they had said. “About half way through ’em, sing a little song. She’ll find you long before you’ll find her, hon.”
They had laughed after saying it too, in that sort of way that people who know more than you generally do.
She stopped, guessed that she was about as near to the middle of the forest as she was ever going to come, and drew in a deep breath. The terror of the night walk left her voice tight and slightly off-key, but she sang regardless:
“There was three men came out o’ the west,
“Their fortunes for to try,
“And these three men made a solemn vow,
“John Barleycorn should die.
“They ploughed, they sowed, they harrowed him in,
“Throwed clods upon his head,
“And these three man made a solemn vow,
“John Barleycorn was dead.”
The mist and the silence stole away the song from her lips, slapped her on the wrist, and, with a shudder of leaves somewhere near enough to make the woman start, dared her to break the foreboding mood they had worked so hard to create again.
She remained standing stock still and squinted into the darkness, waiting for the mist to suddenly solidifying and hardening into the form of some ugly old crone with an unfortunately-sized mole. She looked and she looked for nearly a good half hour before a voice behind her said:
“Oh, that’s where you are! Funny, you always in the last place I look.”
The woman shrieked and turned quickly on her bad ankle, causing herself to give a squeak of pain and fall back very hard on her bottom.
“You scared me!” she said quickly, trying to find something in the darkness to direct the statement at. She could find no one standing there, look as hard as she might.
“I’ll help you up in a moment, dear. I’m not all here yet.”
Suddenly, there was a hand and a part of an arm floating in midair, stuck out toward the woman. She tried to scream and found her throat too paralyzed with shock to listen.
“Well, don’t just sit there starin’,” said the presumed owner of the hand. It beckoned to her. “Lemme help ya up.”
Numbly, the woman took hold of the arm, felt it pull her up, and stood. She stared with her jaw tumbling toward the ground as an elbow materialized, trailed quickly by a shoulder, bits of torso, and eventually the rest of the woman’s body.
She was lacking in the mole department. She wasn’t even old enough to pass for a suitable witch, and her face and bright green eyes were far too appealing to belong to a witch. Though her clothes, a raggedy dress darker than the night surrounding them and a floppy-brimmed, pointed hat to match, looked witchy enough. And the whole appearing bit-by-bit seemed like the sort of thing they did, too.
“Hullo,” the witch said and smiled a surprisingly white smile. “I heard you from me place. Lovely singing voice, dearie, but you was ’bout a half step off and the high notes was getting a tad scratchy.”
“Um. Hello.” She wondered if she should introduce herself.
“Folk call me Lisle most days.”
“I'm Marie,” she said, not sure if she should tell a witch of all people her full name.
“S'nice name. Rolls off the tongue. Let's come back to my place and I'll sees what I can do for you.”
Marie had no clear memory of the walk to the witch's house. She knew that Lisle had taken her gently by the elbow and propelled her along the dark path without any aid of light. When she wasn't chattering in a very un-witchy way, she hummed “John Barleycorn” under her breath.
Some how, Marie ended up sitting in a very normal, if bare, little cottage in the lap of a large rocking chair. A bowl of warm stew had found its way into her hands, spoonful after spoonful into her mouth. A blanket curled itself around her shoulders, capturing the heat off of the fire in front of her and holding it in.
Marie admitted to herself that she liked that witch’s house. It was not half as dirty as she had been expecting and pleasantly warm. The only real sign that a witch might even consider living in the place was a table behind Marie’s chair, one she had to crane her neck to see. Outside of the light of the fireplace, it flickered ominously with shadows ducking behind bottles and all sorts of odds and ends.
The witch sat silently on a stool beside her, watching Marie sip the soup with the proud look of someone not accustomed to visitors and felt she was doing a good job regardless.
“So what’d you come out here for? Gotta be important if you made the trip in the middle of the night and all.”
Marie looked guiltily at the soup, hoping for an easy answer to show itself in the midst of the scant vegetables and meaty bits. When nothing offered a helping hand, she drew in a shaky breath.
“I have a problem,” she said carefully. “Um. It’s a bit embarrassing. To be honest.” She coughed as daintily as she could into a napkin. “I, erm, can’t have children. I mean, I’ve tried. Of course I’ve tried. I even tried a couple men outside of my husband, because I thought, maybe it’s his fault.” Marie felt herself flustering. “I never told him that, though.
“All we want is a child. Even just a little one. Do you think... maybe...?” A deep breath. This was the hard bit. “Do you know where I could get one?”
She grimaced, waiting for the witch to burst into laughter. Everyone else did. What, they would giggle, do you think you can just hop the next train into the city and pick up a baby in the marketplace?
“Chillen? Those are easy,” Lisle said, already on her feet and going towards the shadowy table. “Easier than grown-ups. Those are real buggers to make, lemme tell you.”
So Marie sat and listened to the witch rummaging through things on the table, humming “John Barleycorn” again.
“Very catchy song,” she called over her shoulder, over the rattle of bottles.
Marie was twisting around in the rocking chair, trying to catch one glimpse of the witch's work, and quickly straightened at Lisle’s remark, feeling the blush spread. “Yes. I thought so.”
“John Barleycorn was dead,” Lisle said under her breath, barely keeping to the tune. There came a small pop from the table, a squeal from the witch, and then laughter. “Near shocked me.”
She came to the woman and reclaimed her seat on the stool. One hand thrust toward her, Lisle said, “Now, don’t you go losing this. This ain’t the stuff grown in the farmer’s fields, and the chickens eat. You go home and you put it into a flower-pot, and see what will happen.”
Marie peeked into the cup of the witch’s hand. There was a perfectly ordinary, golden seed of barleycorn.
“You could says I was inspired,” the witch said with a grin. “Good luck with this one. She’s a bit sassy.”
“Um. Thank you.”
She wasn’t sure if she meant it. You know how witches are. Always sneaky. Marie was almost positive that the barleycorn seed was intended purely get rid of her, but she gave the witch twelve shillings, to pay for the seed, regardless.
Soon something propelled her out the door with hardly a word of goodbye to the witch and, curiously, through the forest and within sight of her village. She could even see smoke from an approaching early-morning train from the thicket.
“Odd,” she said to herself, fighting her way through a stand of thick, squat trees. “I don’t remember walking here.”
Well, at least the witch did.
Quite original, with the more modern feel to it and the Terry Pratchett-esque witch. However, that type of witch seems to be becoming a new stereotype, so I don't know, you might want to consider tweaking.
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Points: 1566
Reviews: 5