Past the village fence and down the winding forest path sat the witch’s crooked house. The villagers came to her with their ailments, their wants, their petty vengeances, asking for cures, for spells, for curses.
She gave cures without conditions or promises, spells only after long consideration, and curses never at all.
Once, the villagers came only in the dead of night, but now she found them knocking on her door in daylit hours, pleasant and open with her as they were with the butcher.
“Your house is rather spartan,” a woman remarked whilst the witch made her a salve. “I thought a witch’s house would be all cluttered, like in the tales.”
The witch had nothing but a handful of ingredients, a set of clothes, and a rolled-up blanket. She knew better than to burden herself. Keep things light; own no more than you can carry; that was the old way.
They said times were different, safer. The king himself kept magicians in his court.
But the witch remembered the roaring crowd and the smoke of burning torches. She knew how fast things could change.
She had seen too many storms to trust a sunlit morning.
Word Count: 197
This is for Sunday Photo Fiction. Thanks to Susan for running the challenge! Photo credit to Susan Spaulding.
Lovely title, lovely scene setting, in fact a great piece of writing, yes I loved it.
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Thank you!
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An engaging piece of magical fantasy! 🙂
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Thank you!
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This is really good.
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Thanks!
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(Also, I shared this post on Twitter and nice things have been said about it – letting you know in case you want to check it out, or if you have a Twitter handle you’d like me to associate with the tweet. https://twitter.com/BlackCatEdit/status/1046765090400346113)
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Thank you so much! The Twitter handle is @livingauthors if you wanted to add it.
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She is no witch. She has different beliefs, but she is no witch. Yes mob fury can be brutal. No one wants to burn at the stakes.
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Sadly, not all people see it that way. Thanks for commenting!
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