The First Witches

By Justin Sue

            Mama used to tell me stories about when the witches first appeared.

            “Must’ve been back when the earth was flat and the sea was still hot,” she’d whisper to me, pulling the blanket up over my chin, “that’s the way they like it, y’know? They liked the water back when it was warm as a fresh-drawn bath. I think that must be why they came up onto the stones of Greypine.”

            That’s where we lived back in those days; Greypine. It was a little ramshackle ocean town on the Eastern coast. I remember the rocks jutting up through the waves like the teeth of a giant beast. I’d often look up into the sky and wait for the second set to chomp down and swallow the little village whole. I’d seen enough evil-looking fish wash up that I knew what monsters looked like and if they had to live somewhere it’d have to be the ocean.

            The carriage bounced along the pebbled road leading up to my former home and her stories kept repeating themselves forward and back in my mind. I envisioned the witch ancestors, hairy and lithe, pulling themselves out of the frothy waters over those great, black, teethy rocks. They were nothing like the witches we have now. Now, you couldn’t tell one of them from Adam apart from the practices and odd natures they carried. I had a few friends growing up who were witches, and we’d play in the yard most summer days, though Mama always warned me not to follow them home.

            We came to a resounding halt at the city archway and the driver called out a loud yep! To signal we’d arrived. I climbed out of the stagecoach and tipped the man a few silver coins for the trouble. Greypine isn’t on no map and so was out of the way to any coachman. He tipped his hat and turned his horse around. He and his horse and his carriage made their way back into the eaves of the washed-out trees for which Greypine got its name. Before I’d even entered the village, I could already smell the salt in the air and hear that thunderous crash of wave upon rock that shuddered my spine. I wouldn’t be staying long and thanked the stars for that.

            As I made my way through town my feet seemed to remember the pathway to the witch’s keep far better than my mind did. They fit easily between the grooves of the stone walkway and dodged divots that I otherwise might’ve turned an ankle on. Though I’d left this place so long ago, somehow my body remembered it all. The structure of the place seemed unchanged in many ways. True, a new sign here or there or a few replaced boards, but the spirit of Greypine was consistent. I knew where to go and what turns to do to get myself there, but still I was hesitant.

            Though Mama had spent her whole life warning me of the witches and having me recite the rules about their homes and their wicked ways, I rebelled as any child would. I knew the witch’s keep and I remember the girls that used to go there, entering with a small sack of donation, and leaving with herbs and spices alongside the odd trinket here or there. I’d watch them from afar. Mama said I was cursed with the sin of curios bones, always itchin’ to get out and roam the streets all on their own. She never knew how right about that she’d turn out to be. Just thinking about her words and warnings had my bones ache, but then again that’s why I was there.

            Her keep was well tended to, even by witch’s standards. They didn’t believe in doors, so this witch kept a curtain to block out the rain and salt. It was dark inside with just enough light sneaking through the fabric-covered windows for me to see the dusty glass jar that sat at its entryway. The open space was like a waiting room, though piled high with pots and pans, books, and the like. Hanging over the frame of a secondary doorway behind the reception-style desk was a painting of one of the ancestors. It resembled a caterpillar, long and covered in ink-stained skin. The creature’s long, black hair draped its body and disfiguring the general shape of the thing. I tore my gaze away from its sickening appearance and searched my pocket for a witch’s fare. The sound of silver coins dropping were sure to alert the resident of my arrival, and sure enough they did.

            From out at the back a woman hobbled around the corner, her arrival announced by the clanging of utensils and tools on rotted wood floor. She had a slight limp to her right foot but was not the hag that Mama had told me witches hid away as their true form. On the contrary, this woman was lovely. She was about near my age and wore a sheer, flowy dress that caused me to avert my gaze.

            “What needs bring ye my way, boy?” she asked.

            I tried to hide my face and looked at a distant wall as she spoke.

            “I-I was raised here, ma’am.”

            “Look me in the eye as ye speak!”

            Her thin frame was a diversion from her booming voice. I turned fully to face her.

            “Why, then,” she continued, “are ye back? Most folk who leave Greypine do their best to keep from returning, but here ye are, plain as the sea is loud.”

            “I,” the words caught in my throat. I’d never actually said them out loud before. Hard as I might they refused to be spoken, like some terrible curse. “I…” Struggling once more, the words finally broke from my lips. “I have been to many doctors, miss. Not one can cure my ailment, and I remembered my Mama speaking of your kind’s odd magic.”

            She huffed at me and turned back, returning to the cavernous room at the back, receding into the darkness.

            “My kind,” She repeated through a clatter of what I must have assumed were tools of some sort.

            I’d hoped that perhaps she might be fetching some kind of witchy instrumentation to pry the disease from my body. I’d assumed that possibly she might be mixing a potion of herbs and animal parts to realign me back into the health of my younger body. As I attempted to peer into the darkness, she emerged holding an old leatherbound book and slammed it onto the table.

            “Tell me again, what this sickness is.”

            I paused for a moment. Suddenly I couldn’t be sure if I could trust her, but I’d come all this way. Rolling up my sleeve I tensed my arm, holding it out for her to see. “It takes a moment,” I said, stiffening my muscles. Sure enough, in a few seconds time, three or four, my arm began to waver back and forth as though attempting to steady itself. Another second went by, and the wavering evolved into a violent shake that nearly threw the rest of my body off balance. My good arm reached out to steady me, grabbing hold of the table.

            “You, see? I can’t hold that for more than a moment,” I beckoned as I rolled back down my sleeve. “It keeps me from using my hands in any fashion. Writing, eating, and the like. Lifting a book from a cabinet is a tortuous task that leaves me, more often than not, dropping things dear to me.”

            She rubbed her chin and mumbled something to herself.

            It felt like hours that we both sat there, in that dimly lit room. After far too long she reached under the table, and I could tell from her slow and meandering movements that she wasn’t sure what to do. Perhaps Mama was wrong about the witches. Perhaps modern medicine had passed their magic long ago. She returned with a handful of herbs clutched in overgrown nails. They were twisted together to create a small bundle that she lit on one end. The smoke lifted into the air and swirled about the room.

            “This will keep the negative energy of what ye got from sticking to my keep.” She said, not making eye contact, but instead focusing on her ritual.

            The herbs smelt strong and sour, and instinctively raised my elbow over my nose.

            “Don’t do that!” Her booming voice returned, crashing against me as the waves crashed against jagged rocks just past her window. “This needs to stick to your insides too. A bad spirit like that one will try and find a place to hide, and we’re not about to undo all my work by letting it jump back into you.”

            What work could she have meant? I lowered my arm and breathed in deeply.

            “There’s a room down the hall over here. I want you to walk behind me and find it. Ther’s a tub in there and you need to climb into it, wash off that stink so the spirits can’t find ye.”

            Doing as she’d asked; I ducked under the burning bundle and made my way to the back room as she began chanting something in a language unknown to me. The room had a stale smell to it similar to her ritual, but altogether different. What I’d assumed was her bed lay in the corner, no more than a bedroll on a few lifted planks. Mama had taught me that witches, derived from the oceans, cannot sleep directly on the land, and might use sticks as arbiters for their resting time. She’d told me they rest often.

            I found the tub behind another curtain, alike to the one at the front entrance. It was a fine tub like those in the nicer houses but was ill-kept as the beginnings of mold turned the once white of the tub to various degrees of green and brown. It was filled with water that was thick and black, but warm to the touch. Steam wafted over the rim where the water met the very top of the fixture. There wouldn’t have been room for another drop.

            “Have ye found it?” Her voice reaching through the corners of the keep and ringing against the old tile of the bathroom. “If ye found it then climb in and set yerself in the water!”

            I did as I was told and lowered myself into the water. I had to be quick and deliberate as I knew my bones couldn’t hold my weight for very long. My clothes immediately began to soak in the water, and I could feel its warmth begin to spread over me, dying my clothes as it climbed. The weight of the concoction felt heavy as though pulling me under. I greeted this feeling by submerging myself up to my neck and waiting for the ritual to work its magic into my bones. The overflow hit the ground of the witch’s keep and the crash felt like those of the waves, nearly jarring me out of the tub, but the water continued to pull me back in, soothing me back into place.

            “How long before this heals me?” I gagged out, my mouth nearly filling with the liquid as I spoke.

            There wasn’t a response from the woman. I waited a moment longer and called again, but again she remained silent. I lifted my arm out so that I could see it, but the black of the water had already worked at staining my skin a midnight black, broken up my patches where my flesh had peered through. Once again, I tensed my muscles and held my arm over the water. It only took a moment for my hand to begin wavering back and forth as before and I started to count out loud to myself, one, two, three, four. I’d gotten to nearly ten when my hand had stopped its wavering. It felt stiff, like my muscles had once again wrapped around the bone and steadied me. Flexing my fingers I experimented, attempting to sigh off her magic, but it remained. My hand had had cured of its ailment, and I rapidly burst forth the other arm to test it as well. It held strong.

            I began to laugh to myself, cheering and gasping at the witch’s potion. I cursed my Mama for telling me all those years to stay away and to not trust the witchy folk of Greypine, for in their trust had I been cured over what modern medicine couldn’t even attempt. Once more I rolled my sleeve up, sitting upright in the tub and causing more liquid to slosh onto the floor.

            As I rolled my sleeve my gasps of joy began to fade. There were black and string-like hairs knotted beneath my shirt. I pulled at them, believing that they must have snuck their way out of the concoction onto me or perhaps this was residue from my changing, but as I yanked on the hair, I felt the attachment to my flesh. I unbuttoned my shirt with speed to find that this hair, longer than that of most women, had attached itself to me and was seemingly continuing to grow, now floating over the top of the water.

            I cried out to the witch for help, but she did not return my call. The water began to rise as I felt the hair begin to tangle around me, dragging me deeper under the water into depths impossible for a single tub to house. In a haste I began to rid myself of my clothes as I kicked my way up toward the surface, the crashing of water echoing about the room as my guide. I could feel each individual follicle bursting forth with more hair and could hear it growing, blinding me as it wrapped about my face and head. I struggled to breathe, believing I may drown before my hand was able to finally break the tension at the surface and I felt the cool air of the outside world at my fingertips.

            My now dexterous hand waved about the surface, seeking something to pull me from that watery coffin. I felt something jagged reach out to me and I grabbed it, The surface was like stone, sharp and harsh to the touch, but with enough force I was soon able to pull my body from the water. My hair was long and covered my body in its entirety, blocking my vision as I found myself ascending the stone that had had seemingly broken out of the water itself, each of us a guide to one another.

            Before long, my torso was free of the black and murky water. The hair, thick and matted against my skin was brushed away by my free hand and I was able to see, but this was not the witch’s keep nor was it Greypine at all. I found myself in the ocean staring up at a great cliff that rose high above me, the thudding of wave over rock drowning out all other sound and a deep gray sky beckoning down over me.

            All about me I could see others like myself climbing their way over their own stone guides, and breaking for the land. Our bodies were wiry and covered in the same masses of hair. I couldn’t stay on my rock forever. Gingerly I leapt from the safety of the rock and made my way, swimming with my newfound body toward the land that would one day return to Greypine.