The Witch Story by EriQ LeRouge
THE WITCH STORY
Written by EriQ LeRouge
Illustrated by Jeanett LeRouge
THE WITCH STORY
This story is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead, or a zombie, is entirely coincidental.
Text & illustrations copyright 2013 © EriQ & Jeanett LeRouge
Published by These Books Are Red
License Notes
~ CHAPTER ONE ~
“Heh, heh, heh…”
Sophia chuckled to herself and leant as far over as she dared. Her position became more precarious because the further she stretched above the murky, bubbling ooze, the further the giant lily pad came close to tipping.
I would be in a pretty pickle then, she thought, the black goop would wrap its arms around my old bones in a loving embrace and I would sink into the depths to be with it forever.
Thankfully her objective was almost within her grasp. Sophia's knobby fingers brushed past leaves and tickled the stalk. With a deft twist, she snapped the stem and carefully pulled herself back till the lily pad was stable once more.
The old witch cradled the precious object in her hands before holding it up and turning it this way and that in the light of the full moon. The Glory of Chrysanthus, a soft white flower with silver tinged petals. Born only once every decade, the bloom lasted a solitary hour before crumbling back into the void. This beautiful blossom was priceless.
Sophia popped it into her mouth, gnashing the gentle petals, stem and leaves between her crooked, fetid teeth. The plant's juices immediately began numbing her mouth, but she chewed on relentlessly until what was once a lovely plant resembled a messy pulp.
She spat it back into her hand and then plopped the whole gooey goop into a small mole-skin bag that hung from her belt. Muttering some words of incantation, the old hag wound a leather strap beaded with runes around the neck of the bag, sealing it shut.
Hopping back lilypad to lilypad would have been easier had her bones and body been a little younger and little sprier. In fact, she used to do that very thing growing up as a young lass in the village. She recalled the hours spent wandering across the marshes with her mother, who served as a sort of herb woman for the village.
There wasn't much to the village back then, a few dozen homes spread higgledy-piggledy between the road and the forest; each family trying to scrape a living either in the marsh, the woods or the small pastures between. Sophia's mother never spoke of her father, but Sophia gathered that he hadn't been from the village. She imagined him as a wandering knight or prince, who would one day return and bring Sophia and her mother back to his enchanted castle. There, they would all live happily ever after.
Sophia was always mocked as a “monster-child”. It was her face that prevented her from becoming close with any of the other children of the village. A sad deformity from birth, her nose was twisted, one eye slightly higher than the other. Her ears were even different sizes! But the stones had never hurt Sophia half so much as the words had. Carelessly tossed insults, overheard from parents' lips, dug deep into the heart of the child, lonely and friendless.
To escape from the ridicules and rocks, Sophia would wander into the forest or marsh, where the other children were forbidden to wander without an adult.
The one pleasure that she did have when she was by herself was to sing. Among the trees, she would sit sometimes for hours, her small angelic voice carrying her worries to the wind as it brushed through the treetops, spreading her tale through the woods to those who cared to listen. And listen they did. As an ear gets attuned to a foreign language, so her ear began to hear an echo of her songs hidden within the rustling of leaves or the rushing gales. On the marsh, the burble of swamp water or the trickle of a small waterfall became a low hum that responded to her voice, telling tales of things unseen or buried.
She became an invaluable help to her mother, seemingly to know “magically” where certain plants or animals could be found. Her mother strictly forbade her the harming of any animals though. Their healing practice, she said, was intended for good and it was only when absolutely necessary that the blood of another creature could be spilled. Once, and only once, had Sophia seen her mother take an animal's life, and that was when a young boy fell deathly ill after eating a blue lily flower.
Stupid fool, Sophia had thought as her mother slit the small rabbit with her flint knife, I knew not to eat strange plants when I was not more than ten moons old. As she grew older, she realized all of the villagers were idiots. Superstitious and fearful of everything they did not understand (which was a great many things), they tolerated Sophia only because of her mother, and tolerated her mother only so long as she continued to aid them with her “witch” herbs.
Even then, it only took one bad season for the sheep and a woman dying of childbirth to bring about the murmurs of bad witch luck. But what tipped the scale was that one of the woodcutters had seen Sophia singing in the forest. This was considered witchy to the highest degree and the villagers promptly cast them out of the village.
Gathering their few belongings, Sophia and her mother tramped through the forest till they came to a large stone tower. Unbeknownst to the two, the forest had led them here, to a place filled with ancient spells and magic. Sophia's mother had been severely ill, and without the proper medicines to keep the pain away, she wouldn't live long. Sophia scoured the tower for any sort of medicinal herbs or plants, but instead, in the top tower, found an ancient crumbling book. Inside, listed within the pages not rotted away, were magical recipes.
Sophia poured over this manuscript, until there, on the second last page… she found the spell of healing. It required the sacrifice of several animal lives, which Sophia knew that her mother would not approve of, but were necessary.
When Sophia returned with the healing concoction, however, she found her mother already had passed on. Sophia sadly pulled her mother's beautiful velvet cloak from her shoulders and wrapped herself up against the night's chill. Whether it was the illness that had killed her mother or the physical and mental strain of being ousted from the village, Sophia didn't know. But she was definitely certain that it was the villagers who were responsible for her mother's death.
~ CHAPTER TWO ~
Sophia rubbed her chin as she thought back to that time. It had been almost 20 winters since that day. Aye, 35 winters old, Sophia thought, glancing at a reflection of herself in a swampy pool, but looking not a season under 60. It was the proximity that magic that had done this to her, that and the relentless way she had pushed herself in the past 20 winters to complete the spell. It would be worth it all in the end, though.
She had one more ingredient to gather. Sophia had postponed this one for last, knowing it would be the trickiest to pull off. The unblemished blood of a pure female, drawn by the light of the Summer moon. There was only one virgin girl in the entire village that Sophia knew of: the village leader's daughter.
The witch slowed as she came close to the outskirts of the village and crouching, began to crawl through the swamp grass. The watchman should be around somewhere making his rounds, Sophia thought, but there's no way to tell wh-… The watchman suddenly rounded one of the huts, shining a flickering oil lantern over the swamp and for one heart-stopping moment, Sophia thought she had been seen.
The fat, sweaty guard held his lantern high and scanned over the marsh landscape. The beam swept across the small bunch of cattails behind which Sophia was crouching, paused for a moment, and then moved onward, as did the watchman. Sophia had exhaled the breath she had been holding and crept across the road where the watchman had been.
It hadn't been eas
“Heh, heh, heh!”
A wheezy cackle escaped Sophia's lips as she thinks of what will soon… very soon… become hers… “Then these imbecile villagers will PAY for what they did to my mother!” She muttered between thin and reedy lips. A dog began to bark nearby and Sophia shifted her old bones upright again and moved on.
Sticking mostly to the shadows, she snaked her way through an alley; she moved left, behind an old cart, then right, making her way closer and closer to the large manor that sat in the middle of the village. The moon was still out, fat and round, her soft gentle light both helping and hindering Sophia's creep around the village circle to the side of the manor house.
A handy woodpile stood stacked against the wall and from there it was simple to open the window and slip inside. The girl lay fast asleep on her bed, curled into a fetal position as if to protect herself against what was about to happen.
Sophia drew the vial and small flint blade from her bag and stood overlooking the slender virgin. To take blood from an animal was one thing, but to purposefully injure another human… Sophia's eyes narrowed. But how many times had she been injured growing up by the other children's words and weapons?
The girl turned in her sleep, rolling onto her back, and Sophia saw the beautiful face framed by perfect golden locks. A scowl grew across Sophia's face, as she remembered the torment and abuse she had known as a child that this spoiled girl would never feel, all because of how she looked on the outside.
Shaking these troubling thoughts from her mind, Sophia knelt and with a practiced flick of the wrist, and opened a small slit on the girl's forearm. The knife’s edge was so sharp that the girl didn’t even stir. Fresh red blood oozed up at the sudden breach and then began to trickle down toward the elbow, where Sophia's vial awaited. When filled, Sophia took a small jar from within her cloak and wiped a thin paste across the cut, halting the bleeding immediately.
Sophia sat for a minute, staring at the young girl's face, thinking. Then standing, she leant over the bed and stroked the soft hair once, before turning and climbing back out the window.
~ CHAPTER THREE ~
“Heh, Heh, heh!”
Sophia again chuckled softly to herself as she climbed her tall stone tower. “Very soon, my pretties. VERY soon, indeed!” She tapped her long, chipped nails against her six snaggly teeth. Her mother's long tattered cloak, once velvet and crimson, now hung ragged and shabby about her gaunt, bony shoulders.
“Once I complete the sacred spell, I shall have what was once denied to me! Heh heh heh!” She let another long cackling wheeze escape her dry lips. Drawing her last ounces of strength, she mounted the last few stairs.
Thrusting open the door, Sophia shuffled inside her tower's room and gazed around. All of her life's work resided within these walls: frog wart juice... pickled unicorn teeth... monkey-bone marrow...
To think of the TIME it took her to collect these numerous materials and the pains she had to endure while extracting them. Sophia hurried to the cauldron and sprinkled in the final ingredients: the mashed remains of the Glory of Chrysanthus and the vial of virgin's blood, taken by the light of the Summer moon.
At long last, the recipe stood complete. This was not the spell of healing that Sophia was concocting this time. No, this was the very last spell in that musty tower tome… the spell of beauty.
With withered nerves shaking, the witch grabbed the long ladle and lowered it into the simmering brew, stirring ever so slowly so as not to disturb the gathering magic. Three full clockwise stirs, then five counterclockwise half-stirs with a 3 second pause in between, just as the recipe had called for. Finally, the brew turned a light shade of pink and a bluish mist arose from the pot, bringing with it the smell of fresh spring roses.
Lifting the dipper to her mouth with both hands, she almost dropped it as she burned her lips on the hot copper. Ignoring the searing pain against her mouth, she guzzled the whole dipper-full. It poured scaldingly down her throat, damaging throat tissue and causing searing pain. She let the ladle fall to the floor and clutched her neck and stomach as the magic reached its crescendo within her body.
With a panic, she realized that something was wrong, it wasn't beginning like it should! What was she missing? She grabbed at the old parchment recipe, tearing it from her book. There! Right at the end of the page, in small letters. Serve warm and by the light of the moon.
The moon! Of course! Rushing to the window, Sophia ripped the tattered curtain down and the moonlight shone full upon her. Magic tingled up her body in an instant, replenishing old skin with a new and supple variety, strengthening old bones and making wrinkles vanish into thin air.
In less than two shakes of a wizard's wand she was transfigured in full youthful glory. Sophia stared into the cracked mirror, and traced a finger across her perfectly beautiful face. Her nose had straightened, her ears were now symmetrical and her eyes… her eyes were now gorgeous, wonderfully balanced. As Sophia gazed at her reflection, her elven eyes danced with a joyous light.
“I'm beautiful!” She whispered, and whisper is all she could do, for alas... the searing brew had damaged what magic could not repair...
Her lips would forever be a burnished crimson and her voice would never again rise above a whisper...
~ THE END ~
These Books Are Red, is collaboration effort created by brother-sister team: EriQ & Jeanett LeRouge. Growing up as bitter rivals, one day they decided that instead of using their talents to combat one-another, that they would instead combine their fabulous powers to create things of wonder and beauty.
EriQ does the writing and Jeanett does the illustrations… but who knows when the roles could reverse?
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