Witches: Part Two

She saw him coming, saw him in the future, saw the pain and the pleasure, the sad ending to a tale she might have rewritten if only he hadn’t stirred in her the promise that she could be, for once and only, like other girls. A woman, not a witch.

She carried the child. Raven black hair streaked white, the mark of witches. Intuition stirred through her to foretell truths that no one would believe, the Cassandra gene.

Some don’t believe us. Some call us witches. We know their vision is blurred by greed and power and they are wrong.

A Dog Who Purrs?

Kohnan is a dog, though at times we think he’s a cat. Like when he luxuriates in the sun and, swear to God, purrs. Snout out, a rub on the rug, all two feet of him stretch, roll, vigorous arch, turn over and repeat. Pure pleasure.
I rub his tummy and his neck. He deigns to hold court on the comfy rug because he’s royalty. Devotion is his due, right? His liquid brown eyes melt me.
But when I leave the room, he foreswears sunshine for my sunless office and settles at my feet. I guess he is a dog.

Autumn Chill

The dawn light has changed
to a grey gold cousin of the blue brilliance that brightened my summer. 
Max's golden lab fur blends into the tawny tall grass. 
He looks at me. “What do you want? The works? Right.” 
He pees again, strolls to the center of the meadow lawn, and squats to do his business. 

His business is to 
please. It is the thing he does best, most naturally. Despite arthritis, 
his portly, chunky body seems to yield. Face aging white, 
he's older than I am. Seventy-seven. 
At seventy-two, cranky and arthritic, I won't age gratefully or graciously.

Roads Traveled

Gretel did these interviews reluctantly. She hadn’t been a saint, far from it. She did what she had to after her stepmother kicked her and Hansel out. “We were homeless.” The reporter looked into Gretel’s eyes and seemed to reach into her soul. It was an uncomfortable moment. The reporter’s face softened. “But you… Somehow…”

“There was an older woman. When she died we made a go of the bakery. We built a home to shelter runaways.”

The woman wiped away a tear. “She was my sister. The black sheep in an old Wiccan family. She wasn’t all that kind.”

It Takes a Princess to be a Queen

Poor little thing, feet bare, bedraggled dress, beleaguered, and common. The prince says to me, “I’ve found a wife.”

More like a wet kit.

I could say, “She’s a sly one.” He would never listen. He has too good a heart.

So, I tell my maid, “Find her a gown. Let her sup in the kitchen. And lastly, make up the softest bed with the hardest pebbles inside as a test.” Maid’s done this many times.

The ungrateful girl eats nothing. The satin is not fine enough, the slippers too stiff. By morning, I know she’s a princess most uncommon.

A Stormy Night Atop a Pea

Edmund Dulac, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

She rushed along a lightening illuminated path. Mud sucked one satin slipper off, the other she tossed away calling it useless, like she had the cooks whose roast meat was not bloody enough, their bread not crusty enough. Torrential tears fell. Rain streamed from her hair, her clothes, and the tip of her nose.

A man and his unruly mare pulled up, clods flying.

“Fool, do you know who I am,” she asked.

Eyebrow raised, he said, “A woman in need of dry clothes.” The lord carried her to his castle, grand as her father’s.

She didn’t sleep a wink.

A Mother’s Quandary

My only daughter, a kind one her. Didn’t she bake a cake, ripe with almond scent, to bring her grandmother? To visit my mother is arduous, more than one day’s journey. Should I caution her? Could my daughter understand if I warned her about the treacherous nature of the beast we women become by the light of the moon? And as fate would have it, the moon is full tonight.

I must trust my precious girl. I tell her, “Stay on the path, avoid strangers, clean yourself in the river along the way if you must. My love to Grandma.”

The Woodsman’s Lament

Blood. It was blood everywhere. Soaked into the cracks of the wooden floor, on the old lady’s nightgown, pouring out from the dead wolf’s throat. The carving knife and the young girl’s hand what held it dripped with the stuff. I thought she were cut, too. Like the wolf tore her open some way, I thought. But when I got to her, she were fine. Dazed, a murderous light in her eye, innocent no more.

I tucks them both in bed, gets a fire going, then sits down. The girl’s asleep. I tell her Grandma, “Let’s say I did it.”

A Baby is More Than a Symbol

Pinky cheeks, a rooting mouth against Hester’s full breast, the newborn was greedy. Driven by her wants, she took what she needed. She was utterly satisfied.

Her twin brother squirmed in their father’s arms. “He’s strong, look at those little fists.” Eric passed him to his mother.

Eric gazed at his suckling son, then at his daughter.

Hester’s eyes teared up.

“We’re ready now,” Eric said. Thirty, not the nineteen they’d been when God had spared them and took away their sin.

The mother’s emotions were more complicated. While he had gone to war, she had made her own peace.

Is It Me or Them?

A week after my mom was buried, my friend, Agnes, started to resemble her. At first, it was just the nose. Then the eyes, including a dramatic change from brown to blue. Agnes grew wrinkled and unreasonable. She started arguments. I ghosted her and mourned the loss of my best friend.

One day, I picked up Agnes’s photo and did a double take. She pixelated into my mother. Then the pixels reverted to the original. Mesmerized, I watched the picture magic from one to the other until I couldn’t tell them apart. I wish I could let my mother go.

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