Deep in a mesquite forest, within the Grove of Souls, an ageless Mother Tree is dying.
The witch of these woods sits troubled by a pile of dead leaves. She needn’t glance up at the Tree’s brittle branches to feel their weight in her bones. Squinting in the dappled light, she embroiders. Her hands ache, but she stitches banner after banner in hopes of binding life to the wood. Spells are knotted into the thread and sigils are pierced into the fabric. Red for protection. Green for abundance. Blue for strength.
As she works, a jagged sound punctures the wood’s music. Not hooves, or claws, or pads. Boots. Scratching, shuffling, and impossible.
Apart from the witch and the animals, only the noiseless feet of the dead trudge the dry earth of these woods. Endless silent streams of souls converge, their journey ending at the Mother Tree.
Across the ages, she has witnessed these spirits: sacrifices to blood-thirsty gods, followers of the water goddess, and believers who killed their god for their own salvation. All flow like a river through her forest, through her Tree, and beyond.
Mortal feet, however, have never ventured past her boundary wards.
The witch whistles at a grackle flying above, asking, “What tramples through my woods?”
He only laughs before flying on.
She blows on the pile of leaves, calling to the trees beyond her glade, “What crosses beneath your branches?”
The trees ignore the old woman’s susurrations and continue their gossip.
The footsteps draw ever nearer, accompanied by a soft voice humming. The witch and her woods grow quiet and still, entranced by the tune.
Soon, the mortal emerges into the Grove of Souls. A boy. Chattering to a girl-soul in a language the witch cannot understand. He holds the girl-soul’s hand, only letting go when the pair reaches the Mother Tree. The spirit travels on. The boy remains.
Why is he here? What danger does he intend? Perhaps this boy is the reason her deathless Tree is dying.
The witch glares, never pausing her needle in its work. The boy prods at her garden, pats the Tree’s trunk, and wades in and out of the spirit stream before coming to a stop in front of her cottage.
“Hello,” the boy says with the language of the forest. He’s near enough she could reach out and stitch the sacred words inside his throat with her needle. “What’re you making?”
She hovers low over the fabric, hiding her work from prying eyes. She will not be fooled by his round cheeks and innocent smile.
“It’s pretty,” he says. “Protection for the tree, right?”
“How d’you know that?” her voice is harsh and raspy.
“She told me.” The boy waves a dirty hand in the direction of the Mother Tree.
The witch pokes him with a finger, gnarled as the mesquite branches. Seems real enough. “How’d you find this place?”
He shrugs. “I heard the song—”
“What song?”
“Hers, I guess. She’s singing to the spirits. Calling them home.”
“Tree doesn’t sing.”
So he’s a liar, she thinks, and liars must be dealt with. She ties off the final stitch, then thrusts the banner into his chest. “Here, hang it from the Tree.”
He heads for a young mesquite, no more than a few centuries old.
“No, fool, the Mother Tree. From her highest branch.”
“But…”
“Do it.”
The boy climbs like a lizard, avoiding the weakest branches. From the ground, the witch whispers a spell, a plea for the Tree to fling the boy far from their clearing. But he arrives safely at the top and secures the banner before climbing back down. When the traitorous Tree lowers him gently to the ground, the witch stamps inside her cottage and bars the door behind her.
Long ago she would have borrowed the body of a hawk or a jaguar and journeyed to the forest of one of her sisters for their counsel. But no forests remain within her reach. Not anymore. The Mother Trees and their coven of guardians have all been burned away or chopped down over the ages.
Instead, that night she borrows an eagle passing above her cottage and lands on the sleeping boy’s chest. She slashes his face with her claws and pecks out his eye. Its thick juices burst in her beak and coat her tongue. It tastes like victory. Safety. She leaves the eagle to finish his feast and returns her soul to her own body.
But the world she returns to is darker. Too dark.
Her groping fingers find jagged, wet gashes across her cheek, hollow bone in place of her right eye.
The injury she inflicted on the boy rebounded on her. What magic does he possess?
He is banging on her door. “Grandmother, are you well? You were screaming.”
“Go away.” She needs time to think. This boy and his magic intend to take everything from her, including her Tree.
Several days later, the witch has recovered enough to leave her cottage. She finds a crown of fresh banners flapping in the young mesquite’s branches. The embroidery is crisp, its colors bright.
“Next time make your own thread,” she scolds. “Go gather wool to replace what you wasted.”
Time passes. The boy remains. The witch seethes. She hates needing to rely on him, so she tosses every hex she knows at him while he does chores. She tries drowning him in the well, but chokes when her own lungs fill with green water. She feeds him poisonous mushrooms, but her own stomach convulses. She’s never encountered a force like this. Is there nothing she can do to stop this boy? To stop all he has taken from her?
Eventually, she becomes so weak she can only rest under the Tree, witnessing with one eye as it withers. With her back to the ground, the witch can sense the power and life leaving the Mother Tree through her roots. It travels in the direction of the boy and his young mesquite.
She pleads with the Tree, “Tell me what to do. I’m sorry I have failed you. How can I protect you and these woods?”
The Tree bends her branches low to caress the witch’s face, nudging her to look at the boy spinning thread beneath his own tree. For the first time in her many lifetimes, the witch hears her Tree’s song:
“My faithful friend, you’re wrong to oppose.
Your sapling will tend to mine as she grows.
We’ll teach them our ways in these final hours.
Where old wood decays new growth flowers.”
Some time later, perhaps years, perhaps hours, the witch joins the stream of souls passing through the Mother Tree’s heart. She feels the wood harden and close behind her and hears the Tree call to her in a frail voice, leading her beyond.
This story previously appeared in A Coven of Witches Anthology, 2023.
Edited by Marie Ginga
LL Garland enjoys gaming, writing speculative fiction, and exploring deep, dark woods. She’s been called “disturbingly competitive” at all three. She lives in a house with three dogs and two libraries - a fancy one for show, and a hidden one for the weird stuff. You can find more of her stories on her website, LL Garland