Hagintha Woods

I made a deal with a witch yesterday.

It wasn’t wise, but I was tired. Of the distance between others and I, of the way I could never truly relax around company. I was shouting across a gulf, and when others spoke, I understood, but I couldn’t really understand.

She had a mercurial smile, and every movement of hers seemed to colour the air around her. Certainly, if there was anyone who could help me, it was her.

She had ignored me as I’d approached, but she knew without me saying a word. “What would you like?”

To always know what to say, I’d thought. To be able to inspire loyalty, I’d thought.

“To feel.” I’d said.

I saw a flash of pity in her eyes, the quick streak of silver fish darting below the river’s surface. “Sure. But I’m taking your defenses.”

Were there even any for her to take? “Deal.”

But there were, and it cost me.

I got interrupted, given velvet compliments that hid bared fangs, forgotten seconds after I’d arrived. It was not new, but this time, I could not brush it off with a laugh. Each slight felt like a needle softly sidling under my skin, a hole so small only I could see the prick, a violence so small only I could feel the blood.

When my mother called, telling me she loved me but she loved my brother more, I could no longer smile. “Make me proud,” she whispered as she hung up. I could not reply, though I knew she was waiting for me to promise more than I had to give.

Finally, I could feel the pain. The skin I’d grown thick protected as much as it’d blinded, and now that it was gone, I looked down to find myself screaming: It’s not okay.

I lifted my hand to my face, and it came away drenched in tears. I ran, hurt and vulnerable. Each stranger staring was another cold slap in the face, the tremours of which rattled me to my bones.

I ran, and ran, and ran.

“Everyone locks themselves away,” She said, talking to the air in front of us both, “So they mock you when you don’t. They have to. If they don’t, they will realise that they are like this not because it is normal, but because they are afraid.”

“As they should be.” It was better when I did not know I was hurt, when I did not know how deep the hurt ran. “Why would anyone want something like this?”

“Because only then are they really alive. Tell me,” She said, catching my trembling chin between her fingers, “Why did you want to feel?”

I don’t remember, I want to tell her, but she is gone just as quickly as she arrived.

Instead, as I blinked away my tears, I noticed the field I stood in. The dandelions bobbed on the wind, and one of my tears rested on a four leaf clover, bowed but unbroken by the weight. A mimosa, curled under my thoughtless destruction, tentatively unfurled, ready to try again.

I’d never seen anything so beautiful.