Nasty Little Witchling

I was eight at the time when I first managed to use magic. It wasn’t a happy discovery.

When my morning lessons were over, I enjoyed being outside of our cramped cottage. The entrance to our home didn’t let any air in, and the smells from the potions hurt my eyes and throat.

The animals stayed clear of the area around the cottage, and Mother didn’t like me wandering too far away since it worried her, so I sat at the edge of the clearing to watch the birds and insects.

The bees were my favourite. They had fat bodies and tiny wings that vibrated to make a buzzing sound in my ears and mind. The chickadee birds were the same but a lot more fuzzy and cute. I giggled a lot the first time Mother tried to tell me their name.

I knew they had to use the magic she spoke about to fly; there was no other way to get them in the air with all their chubbiness.

The chickadees usually flew away as soon as they found an acorn they liked, and the one I was watching had an acorn floating towards them already. I was sad that they would be leaving.

I begged them to stay, so I could watch how they managed to eat the seed that was almost bigger than their head.

I held my breath as they hopped away a few times, but they settled down again.

The floating acorn had the same feeling as the bee's buzzing. I watched as the feeling got stronger, and the acorn started to crack. There was no sound to the cracking as it spread all over. The feeling stopped as the acorn was crushed to pieces and fell to the ground, the little bird hopping over to peck at the remains.

I wanted to try. I scrunched my face at the acorn for the whole afternoon and wasn’t sure if it was me, or a stray breeze, that made it roll over.

It was completely normal to me that the rabbits moved dirt without touching it, or how the fish shot water balls at insects that flew above them. I couldn’t swim like a fish, or fly like a bird, so why would I be able to do the other things they did?

Mother’s teachings on how witches used magic never mentioned anything of the sort, but something in the back of my mind told me I could.

On the third day of watching and trying I had a small seed floating above my palm, but it felt like I was getting confused between lifting the seed itself and pushing air in around it. I ran to show Mother before I forgot the feeling.

That was the first time she hit me. I didn't remember seeing it coming, I was on the ground with half my face in pain before I could understand what happened. The only thing I knew for certain was she had been making perfume that day, and the cottage smelled of daylilies.

I didn’t know the meaning of some of the words she said to me besides them being mean but I found out later. The last thing she said was plain and simple, she was screaming at me to leave, and so I did.

I wasn’t allowed to go towards the other people, so I ran deeper into the forest. I got up when I tripped and ignored the raw feeling in my throat until I reached a river I couldn't wade through, and fell to my knees next to it.

Mother hadn’t told me why she was so angry with me. Usually, the reason was easy and I knew what I did wrong, a broken glass, wandering off, or missed chores. She was teaching me potions and curses for when I was old enough to use magic, so why wasn’t she happy that I showed her I could?

I watched a fish dart below the flowing water and listened to the birds chirp. The misty air was refreshing, but the smell of perfume still clung to my nose. It sent my thoughts back to the cottage. My cheek started to throb with pain again.

A snake glided across the river using magic and for once I didn’t care to look any deeper. I tried not to care when they came close, but I silently pleaded with them not to bite me as they slithered past. Mother sometimes captured snakes for her poisons and their fangs scared me.

This one was confused as to why I thought they would bite me. I wondered if the next dangerous thing to come across me would feel the same.

The sun beginning to set made me feel like going back to the safety of my home, but I didn’t want to see her and she didn’t want to see me. Crickets started to chirp, which was usually when we started preparing dinner and I worried about being so far away from the foraging area I knew. I wanted to find a pile of tart blackberries and eat them till I was sick, other than that I didn’t feel like eating.

Something falling into my lap startled me. I was ready to jump up and fling the offending creature, or twig, away when I saw it was a bundle of blackberries. I jerked my head back and scanned the trees and undergrowth around me, but I couldn't see anything but foliage. A stem jutting out from the pebbled bank of the river caught my eye and I watched as it moved towards me on leafy feet.

I backed up until the water lapped at my back as it moved up to me, and stopped at my feet. The berries that had fallen off my lap lifted into the air and floated in front of my face to block my view of the moving plant. I peeked around to see its—their—leafy hands up in the air. The berries being right in my face, and the feelings I got from them, made me think they wanted me to have the berries.

“Thank…you?" I plucked a berry off to carefully check if they were the edible blackberries I was thinking of.

They were.

I ate it, and then another just in case refusing their offering would offend them, and another handful since they were good.

Once I had picked the stem clean it was still floating and I felt the now familiar feeling of magic. I touched my cheek and thought back to the conversation again.

I had shown her how I could lift the seed. I had expected a smile, praise, and excitement that I could now practise being a witch instead of just learning.

She had only scowled and screamed.

The berry stem dropped and the feeling was gone. A voice in the back of my mind and the shuffling plant told me they wanted me to follow. Since they had brought me the berries I wanted and now I was thinking of finding a place to sleep I hoped that was where they would take me.

We travelled through increasingly overgrown areas where the trees grew so close together in some places that I couldn’t squeeze through. I walked under roots that looked like claws digging into the ground and curtains of vines that I worried had thorns.

We eventually entered into a small clearing before evening. It was covered in fluffy moss and other walking stems. There were a few larger ones with more than a few leaves and some made of twigs. I eyed the trees wearily, expecting them to start walking around too, but they stayed put.

“Hello,” I said softly. I received brief glances and feelings of greetings from the nearest and decided that was a good enough introduction. I sat and sunk into the mossy floor near my new friend.

There was nothing left. No more distractions. No more worries about snakes, food, and shelter. I fell back and let the tears I had been holding in leak out.

I tried not to disturb the plants and hoped they didn’t have any ears to hear my choked sobs.

…

I spent the whole of the next day feeling numb and limp in different positions of sitting and lying down. I didn’t want to go home—if I could still call it that.

I watched the plants move about and use their magic, and got bored enough that I tried to copy it like the chickadees.

The leafy hands of my friend smacked me whenever I was getting it wrong, but their explanations focused more on feelings than the actual instruction I was used to. They hit often, but not hard and only caused some mild discomfort with the little hairs on their leaf making my hand itchy.

Before the end of the day, I did manage to get a flower to bloom and float a seed above my hand by holding it, not the air around it like the birds. With nowhere else to go I fell asleep in the moss again.

It was peaceful here. I wanted to stay for as long as I could.

…

I used the few curses I had picked up from Mother, when she sometimes burned or pricked her finger, to hurl at my past self. I should have left yesterday or even right when I woke up.

In my defence, there was nowhere for me to go, but that didn’t help me feel any better with all my blood rushing to my head.

Vines had wrapped around my legs while I had been eating the fruit my friend had brought me. They dragged me across the moss and lifted me into the air by my ankles. My tunic flopped over my face.

By the time I stopped flailing around and pushed it back up a large trunk had taken up almost the entirety of my vision.

“I…I...don’t hurt me. I was led here. I didn’t know. I was just hungry and tired and sad. I’m sorry, please don’t hurt me.”

My heart pounded as my breath came out in short gasps.

Place your hand on my trunk, human child.

I did so without a second thought to the words in my mind, and almost placed both of the hands holding up my tunic onto the trunk. The bark felt just like any other tree, but the tips of my fingers tingled with magic.

Hmm, weird human. You are a human, yes?

I almost started to speak but stopped myself. I’d seen the other humans cut down trees. This looked like a tree, would they be angry with humans? They might be, but there was nothing else I could call myself if not human, so I nodded slowly.

My sapling thought you were strange, but I did not realise how much. I would have called you an elf, but my kin say they are not nearly so…porous.

“You knew about me…you’re okay with me being here?”

My offspring would not disobey me and bring outsiders here, my instructions are the reason you are here since I wanted to observe you for myself.

“Oh, then…could you put me down please, humans don’t like being upside down.”

Ah, at least humans do not break all of nature's expectations. Roots do indeed belong near the ground.

I almost added a ‘gently please,’ but it wasn’t needed. More vines wrapped around my waist and lowered me so my feet landed on the moss.

Once I had patted down my hair and it wasn’t in my face I went back over what they had said. My heart was still racing, but my head was feeling less airy.

“You called me ‘porous’, like a sponge?” I asked. “And why can I hear you so clearly?”

You freely give and take that which gives us treants life, and do not hoard it in yourself like the others. You are one with the forest such that if you were not in front of me I would confuse you with it. That lets me speak with you like this and not resort to other methods—

“—like this,” an eerie voice whispered on the breeze.

I understood what porous meant even less than before. Did they not think I was a human because I was a witch or my magic? I guessed it was the magic since Mother had seemed convinced I could never become a witch and that she had wasted her time with me.

“Umm, can I stay here for a while?”

You do not wish to return to the other humans?

I had never even met the other humans. I saw them sometimes and snuck out once to follow Mother to the town, but never got close. I thought the full story of finding my magic and what happened after would make them feel sorry for me, enough for them to let me stay. They already invited me here, so it shouldn’t have been too difficult to get them to let me stay for longer.

At least until I had a plan of what to do.

During the explanation, I felt a sense of disgust build up in me. I thought it was my feelings towards my Mother, though the target and origin of the disgust became clear when the treant spoke again.

I pity your progenitor, your 'mother.'

The words and accompanying feelings of disappointment shocked me. This was going all wrong.

If my offspring disappointed me as such I would cut them off from my mana to make way for another more worthy replacement. Let their rottenness feed the forest if they are unable to fulfil simple obligations.

They were so very angry and only my own confusing mix of feelings kept me rooted to the spot instead of running away in fear.

Your mother has no such option, you are their only offspring and to uproot you means to uproot all of their effort. There is no replacement ready to take your place. They are stuck with the rot unless they wish to start over.

Humans are also so much harder to grow than my saplings.

A parent nurtures and guides their offspring, yours did such?

I nodded in numb shock. My mother had fed me, clothed me, and taught me everything I knew. She’d stated as much in a cold tone between yells.

Are they not at least owed your gratitude? Yet you repay her with blatant disobedience.

It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t choose this, I thought. I didn’t trust my quivering lips to speak.

You were provided the nutrients and wisdom of those that grew before you. What more did you need? The path had been laid out in front of you, yet you could not follow it. My offspring all grow in the same way I did. Few are defective enough to not manage even that.

I lowered my head in shame. Tears dripped down my face, but I felt more hollow than sad.

The parent treant started to turn and walk off when I did not respond. Roots rose up from the ground to connect to their legs with each step and sunk back down after. It was a slow exit from the clearing.

The baby treant brought me more fruit though I felt like throwing up my last meal rather than having another. Every thought threatened to be the one to make my legs buckle beneath me.

I had been angry at the treant’s words, but I could now see that they were right. Mother had always treated me well and it was my fault that she acted differently now.

If I hadn't tried so hard to use magic I might have been the witch she wanted me to be. I had disappointed her.

I got up on shaky legs.

The walk back was slow as I placed one foot in front of the other. I silently wished to run into a predator I could ask to eat me, so I didn’t have to go back, but I still scanned my surroundings.

Seeing the cottage again made my stomach drop. That worsened as I climbed up the ladder.

Mother was home.

Her back was to the entrance despite hearing me coming. Her short blonde hair was just long enough to tie together at the base of her neck. When she turned her green eyes down on me, I noticed how sharp her features were for the first time.

Her face was twisted into a scowl that looked strange on her. I stared at her boots instead as I worked up the courage to talk.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I'd meant to say more. I had planned to say more.

“I was thinking over it while you were gone and have realised I acted too hastily. This whole affair is partly my fault you see. My lineage should have been stronger than some mediocre mage, but you proved that assumption wrong,” she said and moved towards a shelf lined with glass vials. “I held off forcing the matter because of that assumption but now we can move forward. I should not have told you to leave. We can put that behind us now.”

I tried not to be disappointed. In my ideal scenario, she was happy for me to be back, she hugged me like she used to and said she was sorry for everything. In the worst, she screamed at me to leave again and I had prepared myself for that.

This was worse.

“Sit, I need a blood sample if I’m to see where you went wrong.”

It felt like I was sitting beside myself as the needle entered my arm. This was all happening to someone else's body, not mine.

…

“Hey, Val. Val? Valeria? Is corn that interesting?” a voice that sounded like Trissa’s asked.

I refocused my vision and saw the head of corn at my feet where I left it. The baby treant and farmer were gone from my sight and senses. It might have been my imagination, but the sun looked further along in the sky than I thought it should.

“Are you okay?” Trissa asked while pulling herself up to sit behind me.

I dragged my eyes away from the field to look back at her. Her hair was in a different pattern this time and she was in a short-sleeved tunic and pants with colourful threads creating patterns on the smooth fabric. “Yeah, I am. How was knitting?”

“It was fine, but I don’t knit, I sew. Only pricked my finger once on the machine this time, see.”

A small ribbon of fabric with a red splotch was tied around her finger.

“I’m trying to make myself some better pads. My sister made ones that never scratched, but I’m running out of those that she left. Do you want any?”

I wasn’t sure what she was referring to. Maybe something more permanent to stop her finger bleeding. I didn’t need anything like that so I shook my head. “Oh, no thanks. Thank you though.”

Trissa frowned. “You’re sure?”

I nodded and turned back to look at my dangling feet.

“I spoke to my parents about you staying with us. Mum was okay with it, but Dad says you would have to pay rent. Do you have money from your errands?”

Mother had coin stashed away in the chest that I could use. I knew roughly how many loaves of bread it could buy but not what someone would charge for a room. The inn I had tried to use oce wanted to charge me around several loaves of bread worth for a single night, twenty-two roe. Last I checked—which was a long time ago—Mother had a few hundred roe, which was not enough to last.

“Mum talked him down to fifteen roe a week as long as they get to meet you beforehand,” Trissa continued.

Ten days to a week for fifteen roe…was cheaper than twenty-two a night.

I was still worried about meeting her parents but thinking back to the treant made me remember how wrong their words sounded, how wrong Mother’s treatment felt. I was afraid if I met her parents they would say the same thing about me. That I was the problem and they couldn’t let my rot near their daughter.

The part of me that hated who I was wanted me to go, to confirm how pointless I was. Another wanted to see if her parents were different and wouldn’t scorn me.

“I’ll come,” I said quietly.

“That's good. I thought I was going to have to drag you. I’ll bring you back with me tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” All my resolve left and was replaced by a racing heartbeat.

“Yeah, you’ll be fine. Mums making stew from a deer dad caught in one of his snares, so we’re having it all week…and biltong for the next few.” She said the last part with a sigh, which I took to mean she didn’t like the dried meat that much. I didn’t either, so maybe I would be less of a problem if I stomached it without complaint.