Healing and Harm
Her feet carry her where her broom cannot
The forest whose boughs she walks beneath
is primordial and rather un-fond of Magic younger than it
So it is that she forgoes convenience
as she treks deeper into the dark and twisted trunks
The sound of life is distant, muffled
Echoing from a world beyond
She must ignore these calls
And maintain focus on her goal:
At the far edge of the forest
A Hamlet lies
old friends die
Grass turns to moss
Dirt consumed by root
And light all but blocked
By grasping branches interlocked
The calls from beyond still remain
Clawing at the concentration of a witch
who seems ever smaller
On this path a sight nearly missed
Purple red leaves concealed by the mist
Her breath caught in her throat
A very rare herb
Her knife is out
It cuts up the stems
Plants lifted from loam
Piled neatly aside
The young one, she grins
At the fortuitous find
Leaves to ease pain,
soothe the mind
Her fingers flush with excitement
As she bundles them up
Finding the twisting of knots
To be far too much
She looked at her nails,
saw black in the bed
She pulls out the new leaves
Careful not to touch
Examines each part
As her breath becomes rough
She saw what she fears
A small tuft near the base
A creature at leaf
She knew of these things
but thought them extinct
Her pulse began to quicken,
she knew her time was short
The spell came to mind,
Incantations carefully formed
through shaky breath
Light coalesces at the tip of her wand
Energy surges
but a screech tears through the air
The forest reaches out
Through insect and vine
She mutters regrets
She can’t whisk it away
She falls to her knees
Vision fading at the edge
She grabs her tattered bag
Pouring contents on the ground
A mortar, a pestle
Oils, tonics, and leaves,
A cauldron to boil
This was all she would need
But first a flame, one life-saving spark
With no flint and steel, she must accept the dark
A flame erupts
By softly whispered word
The forest forms vengeance
Creatures called from their hives
To bite and to crawl
So the trees could hear her cries
She grits her teeth through the pain
Finishing her work
Her vision fades
Her heart stammers and lurches
She scoops out a vial
Tilting her head back, fighting a gasp
The water is scalding,
scarring her throat
Steam released
In a stretched-thin scream
The vial falls from her grasp
She can no longer kneel
She falls to the ground
Ragged gasp after ragged gasp
Her vision goes black
Her her body is numb
She chokes
She coughs
She stops
The forest is quiet when she opens her eyes