5 Witch Drabbles

A Witch is Born

On the night of her flowering, beneath a sickle moon, she crept into the black forest and struggled through the overgrowth until arriving at a moonlit glade pockmarked by toadstools. To a fool, the mushrooms’ configuration appeared natural. It was anything but. Knowing better, she disrobed, knelt in the center, and sang the hymns.

When a pair of fiery orbs appeared in the shadows, she was prepared. The Dark Man entered the glade wearing a hungry smile, trailing brimstone. His cloven hooves silent in the loamy earth.

She’d already pricked her finger by the time he opened the ancient book.

Grimoire

The ancient leather felt smooth against her palm as she ran her hand over the book’s face. Bound in a very peculiar hide and passed from cunning woman to cunning woman for centuries, it remained the only Earthly possession she cherished. The light of the intricately arranged black tallow candles flickered in the wind of the book’s opening. All of Heaven and Earth were contained within, penned in blood and souls and aeons, and imbued with the taint of the eternal gloam. Her breath frosted the air above the spread pages. Eyes closed, lids trembling, she repeated the desired incantation

.

Sacrifice

He roused slowly. A beam of light shined from above, the entrance to the barrow. Kennet would be climbing out, soon to roll the stone over the opening, leaving him in darkness. The hexed ropes wouldn’t budge regardless of how he worked his wrists. He was bound arms and legs to the stone.

He and Kennet, her acolytes, were tasked with procuring a sacrifice. He thought.

But no.

He was the fool.

The overhead light winked out as something heavy brushed against stone deeper within the barrow. Coming nearer. The air grew frigid, and a carrion wind blew against him.

The Wailing Hex

The root wailed joyfully as she lay it in the blood bath. Black clots stuck to its bark as it writhed. She added a touch of goat’s milk, dipped a finger into the pudding, and stirred; carefully traced the symbol of power on her forehead. Twisting, knotting roots filled her gullet as she spake the words and made the signs.

Hex complete, she slid the bronze bowl beneath the master’s bed, the root sighing contentedly, and stole out into the evening. The blood-moon climbed the firmament in the west, and horses’ hooves echoed down the cobbled street. Her quarry approached.

The Stake

Jeers from the crowd grew into a rolling thunderclap as the bishop snapped the manacles around her wrists. Vegetables pelted the platform, splattering her broken form. She stretched; her body thankfully freed from the stocks, but her heart dreaded what came next.

Don’t scream, she warned herself. Don’t.

She’d heard the tradesmen working the last two days, but now turning and catching sight of it nearly dropped her to her knees. A great pyre filled the village square. Logs, sticks, and kindling piled high, all ready for her and for the spark.

She screamed as they dragged her to it.