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“A witch ought never to be frightened in the darkest forest, Granny Weatherwax had once told her, because she should be sure in her soul that the most terrifying thing in the forest was her.” ― Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith
This is what you know about the witch:
She’s lived in the house on the mountain for as long as anyone alive can remember. Old Lady Liza says her grandmother was there when the witch came to the mountain, but you’re not sure if you believe her. Old Lady Liza has a habit of saying things that make a good story as though they’re things that are actually true.
What is true is that people go to the witch when they need help. Not often, and not that they blab about it, but it’s a known fact that if there’s something you need, something the clerics and the guardsmen and the liegelord can’t fix, you ask the witch. You pay, and people don’t talk about what they pay but the not-talking makes you think it’s nothing as easy or common as gold, and the problem is solved. So they say.
The last thing you know about the witch is that no one goes inside her house. People knock on her door, she answers, she gives them what they need, they leave. Folk who’ve been there say there’s always smoke rising from the chimney, strange sounds and smells coming from the place, but no one knows what’s actually inside.
That tends to just make people more curious.
“C’mon!”
You stumble over a knotted root and pitch forward. Ahead of you, darting through the undergrowth, is Mattie. She’s your best friend, or at least, the closest you have. She’s the one that doesn’t mind when you come out to play stinking of dyes, or with your hands turned funny colors. This adventure was her idea. “It’s not much farther, just over the next hill!”
“We shouldn’t be here!” you hiss, brushing dirt off your knees. “She’ll turn us into- into frogs! Or spiders!”
Mattie grins at you over her shoulder. “Only if she catches us!” she calls back in a sing-song voice. “C’mon, all we have to do is pick something from her yard. Or do you want the others to think you’re a baby?”
You frown. Mattie was the one who took the dare, you could point out. She’s the one who has something to prove. You could turn around right now.
“Let’s get it over with,” you say, and follow Mattie up the hill to the witch’s house.
It stands on a rise, clear of the trees by a good hundred feet on three sides, with the sheer rock of the mountain at its back. There’s a path, sort of, leading up to the front door, but it’s not much more than a game trail. The house itself doesn’t look built, really; it looks grown , like it bloomed in the mountainside and clawed its way out, sprouting lopsided walls and crooked windows as it went.
“Look.” Mattie points at the long, skinny chimney sticking up out of the roof. “No smoke. Bet she’s not even home.”
You shiver. “Just grab something and let’s go.” The light of the just-setting sun is throwing long shadows over everything, turning the branches of the trees into grasping claws. “We gotta get back before nightfall.”
“Alright, alright.” Mattie steps into the yard. You both freeze for a second, half-expecting her to get struck by lightning. Nothing happens, and Mattie laughs. “C’mon,” she says, grabbing your hand, “help me find something good.”
You look at the plants. There’s all kinds: herb and flowers and bushes and all sorts, some you know from the woods and the fields, but most you’ve never seen before. So many colors and shapes and smells- you hardly know where to begin.
“Here!” Mattie tugs you over to a patch of small white flowers, the heads of them bent over toward the ground, four white petals making a bell around the center. “I’ve never seen one like these before, they’ll have to believe us it’s from a witch’s garden.” Before you can answer, she leans down and picks one.
The witch’s door creaks open.
You freeze, terrified. Mattie has no such hesitation. She drops the flower and takes off for the woods as fast as she can run, leaving you alone as a figure steps out onto the rough wooden porch.
She’s both older and younger than you expected. Witches in stories are always young and beautiful or ancient and withered. The witch before you is somewhere in between: she stands straight, and there’s no warts or wrinkles on her face, but the coppery-orange of her long, long hair is shot through in places with silver. “What are you doing here?” she says, and the weight of her voice makes you shiver.
You can feel tears brimming in your eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t- the others, the other kids they said- and we didn’t want them to think we were scared or- or babies or anything, so- I’m so sorry, I-” You lean down and pick up the flower, holding it out to her. “I don’t know if you can fix it? Maybe? I’m so sorry?”
The witch looks from you to the forest. “The other one. The one who ran. You know her?”
You nod. “She’s my friend.”
The witch raises an eyebrow. “A fine friend to leave you to fend for yourself when you get into trouble.”
You don’t really know what to say to that. You’re still holding the flower, and you realize it’s shaking a little in your hand.
The witch sighs, and holds out her hand. “Give it to me.”
Slowly, you walk up to the porch. Even more slowly, you drop the flower into her open palm.
Her fingers curl around it. “Thank you.” She looks down at her hand for a second. When she opens it, the flower is gone. You look up at her, wide-eyed, and you see her expression soften, just a little. You were wrong before, she does have wrinkles: what people call crow’s feet, just around her eyes. “You’d better find your friend,” she says, and you take off running before she changes her mind.
Nobody believes you when you tell them. Even Mattie denies it, you think mostly so people won’t think she’s a coward for running off. After a while, it seems like a dream even to you.
Until the night Peter gets sick.
The thing about your Ma is that she’s…
She’s a good dyer. Everyone loves her cloth, even the seamstresses and clothiers for the lord himself. She works hard to put food on the table, twice as hard since Da left right after Peter was born. It’s hard, making enough to take care of herself and two children with just her and you to do the work, but she manages.
She’s a good dyer. And if she’s short-tempered and generous with a smack and has you do more of the dyeing than she does these days, you figure that’s just what Mas are like. And you don’t mind looking after Peter so much. He’s a sweet thing, not quite six, and he’s just starting to help out with the dyeing work. He’s a cheerful little boy, and you don’t take much notice when he gets a cough one day. These things happen, so you give him some soup and send him to bed early while you finish up the day’s work.
You wake in the night to the sound of his cough, and it’s much worse. You stagger out of bed and there’s Ma, rocking Peter back and forth as he coughs, deep, wet coughs that wrack his tiny body. “I’ll run for the cleric,” you say, making for the door.
Ma shakes her head. “Don’t bother. We’ve no money for it, and the way he’s gone, he won’t last long enough to make it worth their while anyway.” She runs a hand over Peter’s back, trying to soothe him. “There’s naught to be done, child.”
You stand there, heart thudding in your chest, and then you run out the door into the night. Your feet carry you through the familiar buildings, past the fields outside the city, along the forest paths, until before you realize it, you’re running up to the witch’s house and pounding on the door. “Help!” you cry, chest heaving, “Help, please!”
The door slams open. You leap back, because the witch is there, hair flying and- and one of her hands on fire? When she sees you, she twists the hand and the fire vanishes, leaving smooth, unbroken skin, and you want to ask how she did it, but- “Please, ma’am, please, it’s my brother, Peter, he’s sick- he’s sick and Ma says he’s gonna die and we can’t afford the clerics, he’s only a baby, he’s my brother, please help us, please-”
The witch puts up a hand. You snap your jaw shut.
“Show me,” she says.
You race back home, the witch following close behind. As you go, she asks question after question: how old is Peter, has he been sick before, what did he eat today, how long has he been coughing like this. You answer as best you can, paying no mind to your sore feet and aching lungs, to the tears trailing down your cheeks.
When you get to the house, Ma’s put Peter back in his bed, and he’s frighteningly still. “Who’s this?” Ma says as you and the witch come into the room. “Idiot child!” She cuffs you upside the head, setting your ears ringing. “I told you, we’ve no money for clerics.”
The witch steps up to the bed. “I’m not a cleric.” She reaches down, over Ma’s indignant protests, and places a hand on Peter’s chest.
A warm green glow spreads from her fingers. It fills the bed, then the room, and your hair begins to swirl around your face like it’s caught in a spring breeze. You smell earth and rain and the sharp scent of lightning, and you hear the low rumble of distant thunder. You feel more than hear Ma gasp behind you, and you can’t help but take a step forward, then another, until you’re standing next to the witch, looking down onto the bed.
The light fades. Peter blinks up at you, sleepy and confused, and takes his first free breath that night.
“There was an infection in his lungs,” the witch says as you stare at your brother. “I cleared it out. He should be fine now.”
You look from Peter to the witch. “How did you do that?”
She smiles. It looks sad. “Magic,” she says. “How else?”
“We can’t pay you.” The witch turns to Ma, still standing in the door to yours and Peter’s room, eyes wide. “Well, we’ve got no gold and precious little else to bargain for, especially since this one-” she nods at you “-went and botched our last order. We’ve got nothing you’d want, witch.” She spits the last word out at the witch’s feet.
The witch looks from Ma, angry and bitter, to you, bruise already forming on your cheek from where Ma hit you. “Actually,” the witch says, voice brighter than it’s ever been, “I could use an apprentice.”
Ma squawks, but you ignore her. “Me?” you say, voice trembling.
The witch nods. “You work for me for a year and a day, and I’ll consider the debt for your brother’s health repaid. Deal?”
She sticks out her hand. You look at Peter, now sleeping peacefully, then to Ma, who’s fuming at the prospect of losing her free worker. You look up at the witch.
You shake her hand. “Deal.”
It feels like you blink and you’re back at the witch’s house. You have a satchel of your things that you don’t remember packing, and you’re still barefoot and in your nightclothes. The witch leads you up the path to the porch and stops at the door. “I don’t really have anything ready for a guest,” she says, looking almost… embarrassed? “I’ll get you a real bed and things tomorrow, I promise.”
She opens the door and leads you inside. It looks surprisingly like… well, like a home. You were expecting bubbling cauldrons and leering skulls, the sorts of things you’ve heard about witches in stories. Instead you see well-worn furniture, flowers and herbs hanging to dry, soft knitted blankets and potted plants. From outside, the house looks small, barely more than a two-story cottage, but as you go further in you realize the wooden walls are only part of it. The rest has been carved out right from the stone of the mountain, near doubling the room inside.
You catch the witch watching you as you take everything in. “I’ll give you a full tour in the morning.” She leads you a narrow staircase to the second floor. “This’ll be your room, at least for now.” She opens a door into a small room, all of the walls floor-to-ceiling bookshelves packed with books. She looks down at you. “Can you read?”
You nod. “Some. I had to learn, when I was little, but…” You shrug. “Not much call for it.”
The witch nods. “Well, feel free to look through any of these that you’d like.” She walks in and begins pulling blankets off the armchair in the corner, as you stare at more books than you’ve ever seen in your life. “I hope… That is… Are you okay with sleeping on the floor tonight?”
She looks nervous, like she thinks you’ll say no. “It’s fine,” you say instead, because what else do you say to someone who saved your brother’s life and is giving you a place to stay. And then, because you have to know: “Is Peter… He’s gonna be okay, right?”
She puts the blankets down and walks over to you. She kneels down in front of you so she can look you in the eye. “Peter’s going to be fine. His sickness is gone, and nothing else bad will happen to him. I promise.”
For some reason, you believe her.
The moment is broken by a screeching noise from down the hall. The witch rolls her eyes , another thing thing you’d never expect a witch to do, and stands, muttering to herself. “Big baby, honestly, I leave for like, two hours…” She walks out. “I’m coming! I’m coming!”
You follow her, quietly, to the end of the hall and through another door. This is the biggest room you’ve seen yet, with a large opening out into the night sky. Scattered around are perches, and perched on them are big, black birds. Most of them seem to be sleeping, but one must have been woken up by the noise of your leaving and coming back, because it’s screeching on its perch.
The witch walks over and runs her fingers down its back. “Hush, love, you’ll wake the others.” The bird rubs against her fingers like a cat, feathers ruffling and settling.
You step, carefully, into the room. “Are… are these crows?”
She looks over her shoulder at you. “Ravens. I started keeping them after…” She trails off, and turns back to the bird. “They’re good company, actually. They’re really smart. And they’re social, once they get to know you.” She turns and stretches out a hand. “Do you want to say hi?”
You shake your head. She shrugs. “Alright.” She gives the raven a few more strokes, then leans in to kiss is on the top of its feathered head. “Back to sleep, you.” Turning to you, she says, “Sleep for all of us, I think. It’s been an eventful night.” She walks you back to the- to your room, now, and helps you arrange the pile of blankets on the floor. “First thing tomorrow--a bed,” she says again, then starts to leave.
“Wait.” She stops at the sound of your voice. “What’s your name? What should I call you?”
She tilts her head. “My name…” Her eyes are looking at something very far away. She smiles. “Don’t worry about it.” Before you can ask more, she heads back down the stairs. You barely register her steps retreating before you fall fast asleep.
Being a witch’s apprentice isn’t like you expected. She doesn’t turn you into anything unnatural, which is a relief. She doesn’t do anything magical at all, really, after that first night of healing Peter. Mostly she just… gardens.
She teaches you how to weed and prune, which plants are edible and which are poisonous. You started your apprenticeship near the end of summer, so when autumn comes and the weather cools you help her harvest the year’s supply of everything: yarrow for tonics, snakeroot for poultices, blessed thistle for teas; horsetail to treat ulcers, ground-ivy to treat coughs and colds, peppermint to treat nausea and stomach pains; and countless others she grows, she says, just because they’re pretty or smell nice. You didn’t think that witches would grow pretty things, but apparently this one does.
Once you’ve got a grasp on the different plants, she puts you to work preparing them. This part you understand; working with Ma to prepare the dyes for cloth isn’t all that different from working with the witch to prepare the herbs for use. It’s the same grinding, cutting, and mashing to make poultices, steeping leaves and or hanging stems to dry. Except the witch doesn’t yell at you when you make a mistake, doesn’t hit you or shove you out of the way to do it herself. She shows you what you did wrong, shows you how to do it right, explains why it needs to be done one way rather than the other. Before long, she’s let you take over preparing the plants entirely, even the ones that can be dangerous if they’re prepared wrong. She says she trusts you with them.
She teaches you about the ravens: about what they eat, when they sleep, how they keep themselves clean. You learn all their names, their personalities. They even talk, short words and phrases, a couple of which you’re sure the witch didn’t intend them to learn, and which you know the children back in the village would be very impressed by for their profanity. Witches swear; who knew?
Witches have nightmares, too. Every so often you’ll wake up in the night, in your own little bed that you still don’t know where the witch got it from, and hear muffled noises coming from downstairs. She wakes up in the night, the witch does, makes herself some tea and sits and reads or works on potions until morning. Sometimes when you wake up you can hear what sounds like somebody crying. Once, you hear her scream. She doesn’t talk about it the next day, when the nightmares happen, but you make sure to make lots of tea and be extra helpful, anyway, just in case.
The most interesting part of your new life, though, is when people come to the witch for help. You never realized how many people did, and you’re surprised how many you recognize. Old Lady Liza for her bunions, Cor the miller’s child for their father’s weak heart, Annie from the seamstress’ shop for something to stop her falling pregnant. Big or small, they come with their problems, and the witch does what she can to help them. She never makes house calls, though, and you wonder often what it was that made her decide to help you that dark night. You never can work up the courage to ask.
You read her books. It’s hard, at first. They’re much longer and more complicated than the things you read in school, and you need the witch’s help for a lot of it. But you get better, with practice, and you discover that you actually like reading, when it’s about things you’re interested in, not just dry lesson books. You read about herblore and forestry, about geography and animal biology, even about folklore and mythology. The witch answers all of your questions, and she talks about the histories and myths you read in a way that makes them feel alive, like she actually watched them happen. You work your way through, shelf by shelf, and you think it might take you a lifetime to learn everything the witch knows.
It’s a strange life, much different than your old one. You get the sense that the witch isn’t used to having someone around all the time. She talks to herself more than to you, at first, and she keeps making food and setting places just for one. Other times she’ll start talking to you in languages you don’t recognize, only switching back when she sees the blank look on your face. You see her start to call you by a different name, a number of different names, before she catches herself and uses the right one. These moments fade as the weeks pass by, as you come to know each other more for your own sakes.
Perhaps the most jarring change, though, is how much more you enjoy this life than your last. The only thing you find yourself really missing is Peter, but the witch assures you that he’s doing well, whatever way she has of knowing such things. You love learning about the plants and potions, you love getting to know the ravens and their habits, you love reading the books and learning more about the world than you ever knew was possible.
Winter’s Crest comes, with little fanfare. It was never a very big deal at home, too little money and inclination to waste on silly things like giving gifts, and the witch doesn’t put too much stock in it, either. If anything, the holiday seems to make her more withdrawn than usual. You don’t see her at all the entire day, although you when you turn in for the night, you do find a sprig of white flowers on your pillow, the same kind Mattie pulled from her garden that very first night. You put them in a vase with some water, place them in the middle of the kitchen table. If the witch notices, she doesn’t say a word.
It’s weeks later the first time you work up the courage to ask something of the witch. You’re sitting down to dinner, and it takes you nearly the whole meal to get the words out. “Um, excuse me?”
The witch looks up from her meal. She’s got some pages of parchment spread out next to her soup bowl, a recipe for something she’s still working out the problems with. “Hmm? What is it?”
You shift a little in your seat. “It’s… I was wondering if… Well, the thing is…”
She sits up, leans back in her chair. “Alright, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing!” you blurt out. It’s still hard, even weeks in, to get over the feeling like one wrong move will send you back to Ma and the dyeing vats. “Only… I was wondering if I could have some time off?”
It comes out more of a question than you want it to, but the witch doesn’t seem angered by it, which is already better than you’d hoped. “Can I ask what for? I don’t mind, of course you can,” she adds, maybe sensing how nervous this conversation is making you, “but Winter’s Crest was awhile ago. I’m just curious, is all.”
That makes you feel better. “It’s Dragonsfall next week, and I was hoping-”
“It’s what ?”
You flinch back from the table. The witch’s eyes are wide and her voice too loud, and you’re afraid suddenly that you’ve offended her somehow. “It’s- it’s Dragonsfall, it’s- it’s just a festival we have in the village every year, it’s-”
“Dragonsfall.” The witch sits back and runs a hand through her hair, pushing it back from her face. “Dragonsfall. Freakin’ figures.” She laughs, although you can’t tell what about this conversation has been funny.
You wait a moment, but she’s quiet, almost lost in thought. “So. Um. There’s a festival in the village? And- I don’t mind being up here, I like it a lot, but I thought I might go and- there’s usually entertainers and vendors and things, so I just wanted to go see- Just for one evening, really, if- if that’s alright?”
The witch shakes her head, turns her focus back to you. “Hmm? Yes, yes, of course, of course you can go, it’s fine.”
You pick your spoon back up and take a couple more bites of your soup before you ask. “Do you- Would you like to come with me?”
That really does take the witch by surprise. “To the festival?”
You nod. “It’s a lot of fun. If you wanted to.”
She thinks it over. “Huh. That’d give people something to talk about.” After a moment, she grins, the same kind of grin Mattie used to do when she had an idea you just knew was gonna get you both in trouble. “Yeah. Sure, why not?”
So a week later, for the first time in anyone’s memory, the witch comes down from the mountain and into the village. You get there just as afternoon is turning into evening, and even though it makes you a little uncomfortable, it is kind of funny watching everyone gawp at the witch. It seems so silly to you now, being afraid of her when you know how she takes her tea and what her hair looks like she she wakes up in the morning and the things she says when she drops a book on her foot that she makes you promise not to repeat.
What’s less silly is the way people are afraid of you, too.
People you’ve known your whole life, people who bought cloth from Ma, who gave you coppers for chores when times were hard, people you called your friends… You’re hard-pressed to find even one who’ll look you in the eye. One woman actually tugs her small child behind her when you pass, clutching some kind of holy symbol hanging from her neck.
Beside you, the witch snorts. “That’s big of her.” At your look, she rolls her eyes. “She came to me two years ago wanting something to help her get pregnant.” She tilts her head, trying for a better look at the toddler peering out from behind the woman’s legs. “Nice to see my work paying off.”
She chuckles, but you don’t, and she sighs. “I’m sorry,” she says. You look up at her and she’s frowning, brow furrowed. “You shouldn’t have to deal with… this.” She gestures at the people you’re walking past, sending some of the more nervous ones skittering back like sheep from a wolf. “When I took you on as my apprentice, I didn’t think-”
“It’s okay.” The witch doesn’t look convinced, so you reach out and take her hand as you walk. “I’m glad you did. I like being your apprentice.”
She smiles at you. “Really?”
You nod. “Really.”
She squeezes your hand. You squeeze back.
And it’s mostly okay after that. You lead the witch through the village, picking out your favorite stalls and vendors from past festivals. You buy spice-roasted nuts from one woman who only looks a little worried at taking the witch’s coin, and you eat it as you walk down the main road. There’s flags and lanterns, paper streamers and shimmering beads, even some magical lights flickering overhead, the whole village lit up and shining. You find yourself babbling as you walk, pointing out to the witch different shops and buildings, sites of funny stories or bits of mischief. The witch walks with you, taking it all in, and you find yourself wondering if she’s ever even been to the village before. She’s done so much for these people, but she’s never seen the place she’s worked so hard for.
“Look! Quick, it’s starting!”
You’re drawn from your thoughts by a swell of excited chatter. “What’s going on?” the witch asks.
You grin. “It’s the story-man! Come on!” As you tug her towards the village center, you explain. “Every year, we all gather and hear the story of Dragonsfall! It used to be just the old high priest that did it, but a few years ago this man started coming. He does it every year, come see! It’s like magic!”
The witch smiles. “Well. If it’s like magic.”
You pull her impatiently toward the large open courtyard at the center of the village. It’s set up like it has been for the last however many years: a large white canvas is stretched across one side, with a fire crackling in a fire pit a few feet in front of it. Already sitting next to it is the story-man.
He’s very unassuming. He keeps his head down, brown hair falling past his chin and covering his face as he pokes at the fire. If you walked past him in the street you might not even notice you had. It’s only when he straightens, abruptly, and looks out to the gathered crowd that you see his eyes, and you find yourself drawn in. Come closer , those eyes seem to tell you, come closer and see what I see .
“Once there was,” he says, and any other speech or noise in the square falls silent, “and once there wasn’t. In ages past, the people of Tal’dorei lived much as we do now. They worked and played, lived and died. They tilled their fields and raised their families, and each day was much the same as the next.”
As he speaks, he moves next to the fire and stretches out his arms. His hands cast long shadows on the sheet behind him, and as his fingers twist shapes begin to emerge: simple, rough sketches of people, beasts of burden, trees and houses. It’s a game you’ve played with Peter a dozen times, making dogs and birds against the wall of your bedroom by candlelight long after you were meant to have been asleep.
“And so the people passed their time,” the story-man says, “believing they were safe.” He drops his hands, and looks out over the square, and his eyes seem to find each and every person as he does. “But they were not.”
As if on cue, a log shifts in the fire, cracking like a gunshot and sending sparks soaring towards the sky. “From faraway north,” the story-man says, “there came a terrible evil.” His hands twist and shift in front of the fire, but now the shadows cast are wicked and frightening. Enormous wings, toothy maws, talons that curve horribly as they slash and strike. “Five great dragons, scales shining in the evening light, fell upon the wondrous city of Emon.” The monstrous shadows collide with shapes of buildings, claws and teeth ensnaring people as they flee, and tearing everything they touch to rubble. “And yet they were not sated. On they flew, across Tal’dorei, killing and burning, until every city, every person, came under their dark and evil rule.”
The story-man pauses. “But hope was not lost. For it was still, in those days, the age of heroes. And there rose up seven who would resist.”
His voice rises as the shadows move, forming the silhouette of each great hero as he names them. “The Warrior. The Archer. The Healer. The Singer. The Inventor. The Winged Champion. And the Wild Mage.” One after the other, they appear: the Warrior, hulking, his great axe lifted above his head; the Archer, bow drawn and arrow to the string, her hair woven through with feathers; the Healer, small, one hand holding aloft a holy symbol; the Singer, smaller still, head thrown back in a raucous cry; the Inventor, arm outstretched, his beautiful and deadly creation brandished in hand; the Winged Champion, borne aloft by great feathered limbs, as beautiful as the dragons’ wings were hideous, spanning the sky behind him; and last, the Wild Mage, a slender woman whose form sways and dances on the sheet as she transforms herself into a great beast easily the match of any who oppose her.
On the story-man goes, crafting his tale as skillfully as a master smith might craft a sword. He tells of the Seven Heroes, their journey across Tal’dorei and across the seas, to far strange countries in search of aid and allies. He tells of their friends, of dragons and sphinxes, and of their enemies, of Fey creatures and wicked giants. He tells of the weapons and magics they find in their travels, and the cost they paid for their power. He tells of death and resurrection, of love lost and then returned, of mighty words and mighty deeds. He speaks for what must be hours, but you spend every second of it enthralled, enchanted, too absorbed even to look to the witch for her reactions to the tale.
At last, the story-man tells of the final battle, how the Seven retook their city and defeated the King Dragon in the center of Emon, shattering his wicked heart and banishing his evil forever.
“This all happened many hundreds of years ago,” he says, “but there are those that say if you listen closely, you can still hear the footsteps of the Seven as they walk among us. Whether the story is true or no, one thing is certain…”
The story-man’s eyes sweep over the crowd, and then somehow come to rest on you. “We shall all pray to the gods that if such evil should find us again,” he says, voice low and solemn, “there will always be those who rise up to defeat it.” Still looking at you, he winks.
The fire flares, so high and bright you fear the people sitting closest to it will burn, then falls to ash and embers. When your eyes adjust to the sudden darkness, the story-man is gone.
“What did you think?”
The witch considers the question. Her hair shifts in the early spring breeze, and you shiver. You’re not quite back to the cottage, and the evening has grown cold with the setting of the sun. The witch shrugs. “It was fun. The lights were beautiful, and the food, and the dancing-”
“And the story?”
You walk on. The witch is quiet. “The story’s always my favorite part,” you say. “We always played at being the Heroes, my friends and me.”
The witch smiles. “Yeah? Which Hero did you want to be?”
“The Winged Champion,” you say. “He can fight, and fly, and-”
You break off. The witch is smiling, but she still looks sad. “He’s my favorite, too,” she says.
“Yeah, he’s pretty cool,” you say. “Not as cool as the Wild Mage, but pretty cool.”
You’ve reached the cottage. It’s easy at this point to disarm the wards around the door, unlock it, and step inside, wiping your feet off on the mat. “I think I’m gonna go to sleep now, it’s been a long day,” you say, and then realize that the witch isn’t with you. You turn and realize that she’s still standing in the doorway, frozen. “Is everything okay?”
Slowly, the witch nods. “Yeah,” she says, sounding like she only half believes it. “Everything’s good.” She smiles, a little. “Good night.”
“Good night,” you say, and you head to bed. Your dreams that night are full of black feathers and shimmering scales, and a wild woman with long red hair.
Spring comes, as it must, and you fill your days with planting and tending to the garden. Something has shifted between you and the witch since Dragonsfall. Before, you helped her around the cottage, but now she’s making you a part of everything. She asks your input on what to plant in the garden, what mixtures you think she should have on hand, even what remedies to give to the people coming to her for help. Alayne the huntsman’s page wants to know how to get her master to stop beating his dogs; you say give her a mixture for their food enchanted to turn any injury given to them back twicefold, and make sure she feeds it to them when her master can’t see. Cor the miller’s child is losing sleep from the stress of running their father’s business now that he’s handed most of the responsibility to them; you say make them a tea of chamomile and valerian root with soothing spells worked into the blending, and see if you can’t gently suggest they hire some more hands for the mill. Dove from the bakery wants something to heal her broken heart now that her sweetheart’s moved away to marry someone else; you say nothing but time can truly fix that, but give her a bottle of rosewater and tell her to put some in her tea each night until the aching goes away, and when she runs out send her to the herbalist in the village for more, the one with the shopgirl who’s been soft on Dove for ages and might have a shot now that she’s moved on.
The only part she keeps from you, still, are the payments. No matter how much input you give on the cures and solutions, what the witch receives from her petitioners is something known only to her and them. It’s starting to itch at you, being so close to knowing everything and yet not. You begin to chafe in your life here, spending more time wandering the woods around the cottage, as if you’re searching for something but you don’t know what.
You’re grateful for your explorations when one of the farmers comes to the witch for help one late spring afternoon. Widow Hoffman looks frightened when you open the door to her. She tells the witch about the cave on the edge of her property, how she’s heard strange noises the past three nights and how none of the animals will go near it, how it feels like something’s walked across her grave every time she looks inside. The witch listens, nods, tells her she’ll take care of it. Once Widow Hoffman leaves, the witch begins gathering materials from around the cottage. “I’ll be out for a few hours, at most,” she says, putting herbs in various pockets and flipping through books. “Make sure to stir the poultice over the hearth, three times clockwise, once counter, and reset the wards once I’m gone.”
“I want to come with you.”
The witch pauses and turns to look at you, her face carefully blank. “Come with me?”
You nod. “I help with everything else. I want to help.”
She considers. “It’ll be dangerous.”
You nod again. “I know.”
“I don’t know yet what we’re dealing with,” the witch says, as serious as you’ve ever seen her. “I will do my best to protect you, but I can’t promise that you won’t get hurt.”
You swallow down the uneasiness churning in your gut. “I understand.”
After a long pause, the witch nods. “Okay. Grab the torches. We’ll need them.”
It’s a quiet walk to the cave. The sun is warm on your skin, but as you head into the forest thea air is chilled under the shadows of the trees, and clench your arms to your sides as you walk to try and keep from shivering. The witch seems not to notice the temperature, her sharp eyes watching the path ahead of you for anything out of the ordinary.
She finds it when you reach the cave. There’s a stretch of empty grass about 50 feet wide between the mountain face and the Widow Hoffman’s field. Or rather, what you assume used to be grass. Everything in a 30-foot-radius, reaching out from the cave, has gone brown and dry and dead. You’re back in the open sun now, but you’re shivering still, and the cold gets worse the closer you step to the cave mouth. You look to the witch.
She’s looking at the cave as well, worry pinching her brow. “Give me your torch,” she says. You do, and watch wideyed, as she takes it in one hand and conjures fire in the other, lighting the end before handing it back to you. “Stay close to me,” she says quietly, and lights up her other hand before stepping into the darkness.
You follow.
This cave isn’t a large one. Widow Hoffman told you as much. It’s little more than an indent in the mountainside, maybe 100 feet deep and 50 feet across. As soon as you enter, though, the darkness surrounds you completely. Your torchlight extends barely a foot around you, and you have to strain to make out the witch’s form as she walks mere steps ahead. There’s no sound, nothing but the soft tread of your feet, and you feel sure that if there were light you would see your breath misting in the air in front of you.
You’re just about to ask the witch how much deeper she plans to go when something slams into you from behind.
It’s so sudden you don’t even have time to scream. One second you’re walking behind the witch, the next you’re on your back on the cave floor, your torch clattering to the ground next to you. It rolls, sending light spinning crazily over the walls and ceiling, and in the light you can just make out the thing bearing down on your chest. You can’t tell if it’s the flickering light or the creature itself, but it looks like its shape is shifting, like it’s made of dark smoke or mist, something that can barely maintain a coherent form. The only thing you see clearly are two glowing red eyes, set deep inside a black cavern of a face, eyes that glint with triumph as a clawed smoke-like hand descends and sinks into your chest.
The scream dies in your throat. You feel like you’ve just jumped into an icy snowmelt, or fallen from a tree branch and landed on your chest. Your breath is gone, and there is pain, you can feel the deep scratches across your torso, but more than that, you can feel this monster sapping your energy, your very life . Blindly, with what little strength you can muster, you fumble for your fallen torch. By some miracle your fingers close around it, and with a hoarse cry you bring your arm up and swing, striking a flaming blow across the creature’s face.
The noise that follows is one you’ve never heard in your natural life, one that will haunt your dreams for weeks to come. The keening shriek seems to rattle your very bones, and it takes all your willpower not to drop the torch and clap your hands over your ears. The monster recoils, its eyes flaring with malice, and it raises its intangible arm for another strike.
“Look out!”
You hear the witch’s cry but understand it too late. Your eyes widen as the creature brings down its arm and you have one agonizing second to think This is it, this is how I die, oh, Peter, I’m so sorry -
A blinding, brilliant light explodes inside the cave. You think wildly of something you read in one of the witch’s books about the creation of stars and it’s like that’s happened here, now, the birth of a star in this awful dark place. A beam of pure light energy slams into the creature’s side and it howls. It rears back, writhing in pain as the light burns it away like mist on a lake in the morning, and the monster melts and screams and scatters at last into nothingness.
It’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen.
“Are you alright?”
You turn to the voice and your breath catches in your throat. The woman that stands there is glowing gold, fire wreathing her head and her hands, radiant and beautiful.
Then you blink, and it is only the witch, the light from her spell fading, her face creased with concern. “Are you alright?” she asks again.
You nod, shakily, and then attempt to sit up. At this point, you are forcibly reminded of both the claw marks in your chest and the supernaturally-induced weakness of your body, and you lie back down rather abruptly. “Ow.”
“Oh, shit-” The witch rushes to your side and drops to her knees. “Shit, shit, here-” She puts her hands on your chest and immediately your whole body floods with warmth. You let out a gust of grateful breath, and watch in wonderment as the gouges on your chest shrink and close, only the tattered front of your shirt giving and hint that you were ever hurt.
Another pulse of magic, and you feel your strength return, enough that you are able to wobble your way to your feet. “What was that thing?”
The witch stands as well. “A wraith.” She runs her hand through her hair, and you realize with a start that it’s shaking. “A pretty weak one, thankfully.”
You gape at her. “That was weak ?”
The witch just looks at you for a long moment. “Come on,” she says finally, reaching out to lay a warm hand on your shoulder. “Let’s go home.”
The walk back is a quiet one. You reach the cottage just as the sun sets, and neither you nor the witch says anything until you’re both sitting at the table, mugs of steaming tea in your hands.
The witch is the first to break the silence. “I’m sorry you got hurt,” she says, looking into her mug rather than at you.
You shrug. “It’s alright. I wanted to come.”
“Still…” The witch takes a long drink and sighs. “I took you on as my apprentice. It’s my job to teach you what you need to know to handle yourself, and I didn’t.” She smiles, a bitter thing. “I thought I could keep you safe.”
“I want to learn.”
You surprise yourself by speaking, and the witch, too, judging by her expression. “Living here with you, it’s been… More than I ever could have imagined. I want to know more. Not just the little things, the- the potions and the minor spells. I want to learn everything. The magic, the fighting, the payments-” You swallow hard. “I want to learn it all.”
The witch smiles. “You wanna know the truth about the payments?” She leans in, and you lean in too, unable to resist, as her voice drops to a whisper. “It’s all bullshit.” You frown, and she nods. “Yup. I’m making it all up. I don’t need anything from them, not really, but people expect a witch to, you know-” She waves a hand in the air. “Be all mysterious and powerful, all magic comes with a price, shit. So I make up whatever I want. Whatever I think they can afford to trade. Less, if they’re hard off.” She grins. “More if they’re dicks about it.”
“What about me?” The witch’s head tilts curiously, and you look down at your own mug. “When you healed my brother, you said… You took me as payment. Have you ever- done that? Before?”
“No,” she says immediately, so much so that you almost flinch, “never.” A beat, and then you feel a warm hand cover yours on the table. You look up and meet the witch’s eyes. “But I’m glad I did,” she says softly, with a smile.
You smile back. “Me, too.”
Spring rolls onward into summer and your education continues in leaps and bounds. Neither of you talk about the fact that once midsummer passes, there’s only a few weeks until your year and a day apprenticeship is up. Instead, now confident in your observations of her work, the witch begins to teach you magic. Real, proper magic, the kind you’ve heard about in stories and read about in books and never dreamed you could ever do for yourself. The first time you conjure a flickering candle-flame in the palm of your hand, you think your face will burst with smiling. Sometimes the witch makes a game of it, enchanting small objects around the house and having you Detect Magic to find them, having you race the ravens through the woods with you casting Longstrider on yourself to try and keep up. Other times the witch is solemn, making sure you understand every part of Detect Poison before she lets you try it on the food she’s prepared, making you practice your Goodberries over and over before you feed them to anyone including yourself.
The day a little boy knocks on your door crying over his scraped knee and you heal it with a word is one of the best days of your life.
Your studies have other applications, too. The witch takes you with her when she leaves the cottage now, showing you the wards and spells she’s placed on the land to keep it safe and thriving. She brings you when she clears out a nest of harpies high up in the mountain, and while you’re nowhere near a strong a fighter as she is, you’re able to hold your own, and even save the witch from a minor scrape or two. Spring rolls onward into summer, and you think this might be the happiest you’ve ever been.
You should probably have guessed it’d be too good to last.
“Hello! Hello! Are you in there?! Open the door, please!”
The pounding at the door comes in the middle of your lesson. The witch stands up from the table, hand flying to the staff that leans against the wall, never far out of her reach. At her nod, you slowly walk over and open the door.
Standing there is Mattie. Her chest heaves and her face is streaked with sweat. You think, dumbly, that she’s grown a good three inches since you saw her last. “Come, quick,” she says, panting, “please, you have to come-”
“What is it?”
The witch has come to stand behind you, but Mattie barely glances at her. “It’s Peter,” she says to you. “He was helping your Ma with the vats and he messed something up, and she’s- I’ve never seen her so angry, I think-” She swallows. “I don’t know what she’ll do, but you have to come.”
Without so much as a look back at the witch, you take off running towards the village.
Stupid , you curse yourself as you run, stupid to leave him with her, stupid to think that she’d stop at just you, stupid not to be there to protect him . Dimly, you hear Mattie and the witch both calling your name, but you ignore them, pushing yourself to move faster. In another circumstance, you might notice how much quicker your feet move now than the first night you ran this path, how much easier your breath comes as your body has grown stronger over this year of learning and growth, but now all you can think is Peter as you last saw him, asleep in his bed, and what might become of him yet.
You tear into the village with the witch at your heels. People’s eyes follow you but no one calls out, no one tries to stop you, and as you reach your old house you realize it’s because they can all see why you’re here. Crumpled on the ground in front of your door is Peter, his hands over his head, broken sobs shaking his body. Over him looms Ma, her face red with fury. “Idiot boy!” she yells, and you watch as she throws the metal tongs she uses for dye work at his head.
“ Stop !”
The cry startles Ma, enough that her aim is off and the tongs clatter harmlessly to the dirt. Her head whips around, face screwed up in a sneer, already preparing to shout down whoever’s interfering. When she sees you, though, her eyes go wide. “You.”
You stop in front of the house. “Enough, Ma.” From the corner of your eye, you can see the neighbors at their doors and windows, watching the scene unfold. “That’s enough.”
Ma laughs. It creaks like a rusty gate. “You think you can come back here, and tell me what to do? You run off with that-” she points at the witch, standing a few feet behind you, “-that bitch , and leave me with this useless mouth to feed-” She spits this last at Peter, who flinches from her. “And you think I’m gonna listen to a damn word you say?”
“Don’t call her that.”
Your voice is quiet, just loud enough for Ma to hear you. You’ve always thought of anger as a hot thing, a fire burning in your gut and spewing out from your mouth, but standing here, watching your mother, you feel every part of you go cold.
Ma scoff. “What? The bitch ?” She spits in the witch’s direction.
“ Don’t .” The word cracks across the space between you like a whip, and Ma’s eyes go wide. “She’s a better person than you’ll ever be, and she’s taken better care of me than you ever did. She takes care of everyone, including you, and you never even stopped to thank her.”
“Thank her?” Ma’s near shaking with the force of her anger. “For taking my best worker, for leaving him -” she jerks her chin at Peter, “behind.”
“She didn’t leave Peter behind,” you say quietly. “I did. I didn’t think. It was my fault.” You swallow, straighten your shoulders. “And I’m gonna fix it.”
You walk forward and kneel down next to Peter. You put your hands on his shoulders, and a ripple of gasps spreads through the watching people as your hands glow with warm light and all of his scrapes and bruises heal in a moment.
“Peter.” He looks up at you with wide eyes. “Do you want to stay with Ma?” His eyes flick over to her fearfully, and you squeeze his shoulder. “It’s alright. She can’t hurt you anymore, I promise. Do you want to stay with Ma?”
Slowly, Peter shakes his head.
“Do you want to come and live with me?”
Slowly, he nods.
You smile. “Okay.” Carefully, you pull your little brother into a hug. He hugs back, fiercely, refusing to let go even when you try to stand, so you take him with you, his arms around your neck and his legs around your waist.
You shift until his weight rests against your hip, and you turn back to your mother. “Goodbye, Ma,” you say, and you turn and walk back up the road.
“What are you doing?” you hear Ma yell behind you. “Stop! Somebody, stop this at once.”
Not a single person stops you as you carry your brother home.
The next week is spent getting Peter settled in. He shares your room for now, taking the bed while you sleep on the floor. You promise him you’ll figure something better out soon, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He’s fascinated by the cottage and its contents, just as you were when you first arrived, and it’s strange to find yourself easily explaining the things you found so mysterious and frightening not even a year ago. The witch chimes in occasionally, when you have need of her, but that happens so rarely you hardly even notice. You show Peter everything, what work he can help with and what he can’t. He is immediately infatuated with the ravens, who all seem to regard him as a very large, featherless chick and adopt him unanimously. You often find him sitting in their room, two or three bird sitting on his shoulders and preening his hair while he giggles.
The people still come. You’d thought they might have stopped after what happened, but if anything the requests for magical help increase. They come asking for you specifically now, not just the witch, and they regard you with the same mixture of awe and respect. The days are full of work for you and for Peter, more work, probably, than either of you did when you lived with Ma, but it’s good work, helping work, and you fall asleep each night tired, but so happy with what you’ve done.
A year and a day after you came to live with the witch, you come downstairs to an empty house. You frown. Peter, you know, is asleep upstairs, as are the ravens, but usually the witch is up by now, making tea and gathering the materials she needs for the day.
You find the note on the kitchen table.
My dear apprentice,
Today marks the fulfillment of our deal. As of now, your apprenticeship is at its end, and I am delighted to say that your skills are such that you are longer in need of my instruction. I am immeasurably proud of you.
I’ve felt for several years now that my time in this place is drawing to an end. I’ve been here a long time, longer than I’ve stayed in any one place for a while, and I’d forgotten how easy it was to hide myself away from the world. I don’t want to do that anymore.
The house and its contents are yours, to do with as you please. The ravens will probably do whatever they please, but if you keep looking after them, they’ll look after you. They’re loyal like that.
May you find the happiness you brought, for however brief a time, to me.
Be well,
Keyleth
You’re sitting there, staring at the name, when you hear a knock at the door. Moving automatically, the same steps you taken surely hundreds of times by now, you walk over, undoing some of the minor wards, and open the door.
A woman stands there, half-elven by the look of her, long blonde hair wrapped in braids around her head. When you open the door she smiles nervously. “Hello. Um, I was hoping I could get some help? From the witch?”
You look over your shoulder. The herbs you harvested last week are hanging in their drying racks, almost ready for use. The poultice you prepared is on its second of three days slowly heating over the kitchen fire. The bookshelves are full with tomes you put there after you reorganized them over the winter. The stairs creak as Peter slowly descends, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Everywhere you can see things you created and put there, evidence of all the work you’ve done here, everything you’ve learned.
You turn back to the woman. “What do you need?”