Bone of My Bone
The Witch in the Woods could only be found on All Hallow's Eve, the wisewoman said, when the veil between the worlds is thin, and only if the right words were spoken, the right ritual performed, and then only once. Cass had memorized the incantation she provided, brought the ritual dagger and herbs, but now, as she chose her way through the trees in the semi-dark, doubts and worries grasped her. The wisewoman had already tried everything she knew.
This was her last hope.
He had promised to marry her, had given her a gold ring and spoke his vows in church, but by the time his wife, babe in arms, found them, it was too late. She was already pregnant.
What reason was there even to tell him? Shame and anger rose up like heartburn. How could he do this? How could she have been so stupid? So trusting?
Having her new husband proven a bigamist was bad enough, the whole village watching with pity or scorn as he slunk out to his lawful wife who cursed her at her own door. As if she wanted this.
Who would marry her now, a ruined woman? She thought of the seed of him growing inside her, part of him inside part of her whether she wanted it or not, and felt guilty. Guilty for not feeling guilty for what she was about to do. She should be torn, shouldn't she? Riddled with remorse that she couldn't have the child, that no one could know? But she wasn't.
It just felt like a reminder of her stupidity.
Her thoughts were looping again, and she resolved to focus on the task at hand. She was close. The gurgling of running water made her veer left, and she followed the sound until the trees gave birth to a meadow where the stream emptied into a dark pond.
There was a hush upon the lea, and even the brook's bubbling dissipated in the enclosure of oaks. Poised at the pond's edge, Cass sprinkled the herbs across the surface, and chanted:
Old Mother, Wise Mother
Witch of the Wood
Good Mother, Proud Mother
Blood of my blood.
Old Mother, Wise Mother
Bone of my bone
Good Mother, Proud Mother
Welcome me home.
Slicing her fingertip with the dagger, she carefully allowed three drops to fall into the water, singing:
Old Mother, Wise Mother
I wait at the shore
Good Mother, Proud Mother
Open the door.
She hadn't realized she'd been holding her breath until moments passed with no change around her. With deep breaths, she quelled the rising panic. There was no guarantee that she would find the Witch, and some who found her wished they hadn't. Some returned blind, some maimed. Some didn't return.
Her last hope. She would be banished if anyone discovered her condition. She had no one and nowhere else to go. Nothing to lose.
The sudden flicker of fireflies pulled her gaze right and when she looked back, there was an ivy-covered cabin in the meadow. A wooden bridge spanned the stream. Relief and fear unfurled within her as she inched across the rickety planks towards the hut, now lit from within.
Her last hope.
Resolve and desperation prodded her to knock three times on the carved, wooden door. She didn't know the ancient symbols or what they meant. With a creak, it swung open, and Cass hesitated, as if she could turn back now.
Once she stepped over the threshold, the fire in the hearth brightened. Inside, the walls were woven willow wands, and herbs and dead things hung from the rafters. Corked clay jars lined the shelves along one wall, casting oddly shaped shadows. A small cot piled with furs and blankets was pushed against the far wall. The scent of death made her breath catch and fear trickle the back of her neck.
No turning back.
"What do you wish of Old Mother?" The voice was strong, despite the frail old woman in the chair near the fire. "Come, Cassandra, let me look at you."
Forcing her fear down, Cass knelt so Old Mother's hands could trace the contours of her face, reading whatever truth they told. She sorted her words before answering. "I wish your help in ridding me of this child, whose father deserted me. I only have one thing of any value," she tugged the wedding ring from her pouch, offering it. "This should be enough to meet your price."
"Not my price," she patted Cass's cheek, cackling. "Nature's price." She waved the ring away. "Ha! As if it were that easy." Old Mother pinned her eyes with hers. "What you ask is no small boon. Be sure it is what you truly want, as it cannot be undone once it's started." Her gaze was of an owl sighting a mouse, and Cass shuddered.
"It's what I want." For his part to be no part of me.
"So it shall be." She sprung from the chair like a much younger woman, and busily picked and pounded and blended ingredients into a small cauldron, stirring in her muttered incantations. Once the mixture began to boil, she poured the dark contents through a sieve into a clay bottle. Pushing a cork in the top, she handed it to Cass, "Drink this once you get home, and get straight into bed. By the morning, you will know your fate."
The next morning, a mouse-sized skeleton curled in a bloody pool on her twisted bedsheets. She stared at it in horrified fascination. It was larger than she would have thought, impossible to tell boy or girl, and its lack of skin or organs was mystifying. She examined it, waiting to feel something normal. She should ache with sorrow, writhe with remorse, but she couldn't muster anything but relief and morbid curiosity. Blood still coated her thighs and her nightdress, and she washed herself before lifting the teeny bones and gently placing them on a towel before balling up the sheets and her bloody nightdress for the laundry. She would need to treat the stains before they set.
She managed to ignore the bones until early evening, when their pull made her wrap them neatly in brown paper, like a present, and tie it with a twine bow, made her hike to the pond and heave it in as far as she could.
#
The next morning, Cass was stiff and sore. She hadn't slept well, had heard baby's cries in her dreams, cries that followed her no matter how far or fast she ran. She kneaded a sore spot in her back and noticed a hard, round knob near the wing bone. At first, she thought it might be a pimple or boil, but it was too hard and there was no tenderness. Maybe some cyst or bone growth? She shrugged it off, determined to ask the wisewoman about it if it didn't go away on its own or grew.
The baby no longer was a part of her. A deep peace born of a new beginning settled into her, and her heart was lighter than it had been since her wedding, before it all crumbled into dust. Something had lit a candle within her, and she glowed despite the lack of sleep. The rest of the day passed in a giddy haze.
That night, she was again pursued by baby screams, but this time, an amorphous child was always ahead of her with arms raised plaintively. Every time she tried to turn down a different path, she was there—she was sure it was a girl, though she had no idea why—arms stretched towards her. She woke gasping and shivering. In her dream, Cass wanted to pick her up, to soothe her sobs, to ease her pain, and that scared her more than being unable to run away.
She mentally slammed the door on that thought, and the following one that said, you did what you had to do, and rose to dress. It was in straightening the cotton that she felt the knob had grown larger, mushrooming into a cluster of various knobs. They vibrated as her breaths came more rapidly, yet she couldn't breathe . . .
The wisewoman peeled her off the floor—how had she known? Her mind sifted through the haze but couldn't latch onto anything. Her eyes swept the chamber, and she realized she was home. Why was she on the floor? She couldn't knit thoughts together.
The stout woman hauled her up to sit her on the cot, and settle a blanket around her shoulders. The wisewoman's gasp told her she had felt the knobs. Suddenly, her chemise was around her neck, the woman's hands moving across her back.
"I see you found the Witch," she murmured, probing the mouse-sized mass with knowing fingers. "This could only be magic." She stopped prodding and pulled the fabric down.
"Is there anything you can do?" She could sell her gold ring, she wasn't destitute.
The wisewoman must have been calculating the same thing, because she hardly hesitated before saying, "I might be able to cut it out." She stood, wiping her hands on a stained apron. "I would need to gather some things. Return tomorrow morning—I'll need the light, and this will take a while."
Cass nodded. Before she reached the door, the wisewoman turned back. "With magic . . ." she shook her head, "No promises."
#
Even before she set out, she knew she would not find Old Mother again. It wasn't All Hallow's Eve. She had no herbs. She had returned the dagger to the wisewoman.
And no one had ever found the Witch in the Woods more than once.
Still, she made her way to the pond. She sang the chant. She spilled the blood drops—this time from a kitchen knife—into the black water. And waited.
When no hut appeared, she pleaded, "Help, Old Mother!" But nothing happened. No one answered. She collapsed, sobbing, on the cold, damp ground. She had no idea how much time had passed before she picked herself up and shuffled home.
#
The child haunted her dreams that night, so in every direction, there it was, raised arms, demanding eyes and loud, incessant caterwaul. The more she fled, the closer the baby was, grasping her skirts, arms clutching at her, forcing her to accept it, pick it up, take it in. Screaming, she raced down twisting paths where tree branches snatched at her until she had no more breath or ability to move, and she sank to a ground covered in billowing fog, the baby's cries reverberating in her ears, insistent eyes and arms everywhere.
In her despair, she knew she would never be free of it, that this was the price. She could not undo it. The child was indelibly a part of her, more than it was ever a part of him. She recognized that too, even as she wanted to deny it. The fog cleared from the ground and all that was left was the little girl, who looked so much like her—how had she not realized it before?—sitting with helpless arms upraised, hope glowing from innocent eyes begging to be held, loved. The child's face reflected hers in perfect miniature, and she finally understood.
Part of her.
As she picked up her child, cradling her against her heart, she knew she wouldn't see the wisewoman in the morning.
~
Kaitlyn Downing—part fairy, part mermaid, and part cat—spends most of her time in her pool or her garden in Florida with her four cats when she's not teaching English. Her work has most recently appeared in Hemlock, 34 Orchard, Inkstains, among others.
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