My Auburn Witch (18+)

Prologue: My Auburn Witch

My mother would tell me bedtime stories. They would always amaze me; taking my mind away to magical places and influencing my dreams as I slept through the quiet darkness of the night.

Mermaids and giants. Witches and wizards. They never would bore me and were always so enchanting. Each night, the stories would change and the oddly familiar characters would never appear more than once.

But, there was one story that would never change. At first, it was a simple tale; a young girl, born into magic, running away to find her prince charming, but, as I grew older, the story grew darker.

Once upon a time, there was a young witch, who lived with her mother and father on the edge of a great forest. The little witch had long flowing hair and tiny freckles upon her nose and cheeks, and loved to play in the wild. The trees around their house would glow bright with pink and violet flowers during the spring and summer, but would always fall to the ground as autumn came each year; like a layer of perfection upon the soil. There was a shallow creek that ran alongside their home, bursting with life from tadpoles to Corixidae, where the little witch and her mother would play for many an hour.

One winter, an unforgiving storm approached, plagued with spirits of the dead and with the pain of their passing, they haunted the nearby village until the villagers became consumed by a great sadness.

The young witches father went out one morning to help tend to the sick, but when night finally arrived, he had still not yet returned. The young witches mother, was disbursed by worry, and went out in search of her love, with her tiny daughter in hand. The snow had fallen heavily upon the path, and after many hours, the woman finally found her husband, grey and cold, sat upon a lone wooden stool in front of a great alter. A wizard, who was well known to the villagers, glowed with dark magic before him and when he saw the little witches mother, compelled the villagers to fetch her. The woman took the little witch, and ran deep into the forest, searching desperately for a way to escape, for a safe place to stay and live peacefully without consequences. Once her mother found a home of refuge, she hid the magic of the little witch, hoping that the little witch would live a long, happy life in safety.

I would always have so many questions about the characters in the story, and yet my mother never discussed it. She would simply say, “It is a tale, sweetheart, one that my mother told me. It is my favourite, and it deserves to be passed to you”. Once I became too old for bedtime stories, I would tell it to my little sister, over and over again; but she never seemed to enjoy them the way I did. While I fantasised about dancing flowers and mighty unyielding flames, she only cared for ponies and puppies. Maybe my mother told the tales differently, or maybe I forgot some big finale. Or maybe, I just loved fairy tales.