The Little Girl and the Old Lady Who was Not a Witch

"For the last time, what makes you think I am a witch?"

Agatha stared down at the little primly dressed girl. She wore a pink dress, fur lined gloves, and a cloak of delicate fur from some animal far from this place. Her golden hair gleamed with lotions of luxury and a shining jeweled brooch on her chest said she belonged to the Duke’s family in town.

The girl had been pestering Agatha the last few days. Though she was being quite polite in her accusations, they didn’t come with a threat of burning or drowning, but they were still quite bothersome.

“Because I saw you casting spells in the forest the other day,” said the girl matter of fact.

“Oh? And what kind of spells was I casting?”

“I’m not sure, but I’m sure you were casting something. Perhaps you were casting a protection ward on your forest, or perhaps you were speaking to invisible creatures around you. It doesn’t matter, I know spell casting when I see it,” the girl folded her dainty arms across her chest as an exclamation point to her statement. “So you better not even think about denying it any further.”

The old lady raised her brow, “And it didn’t cross your mind that perhaps I’m a senile old woman who perhaps just has a habit of speaking to herself aloud when out in the forest?”

The girl's eyes narrowed, “I will not be deceived. I WILL be your apprentice. I demand it.”

Agatha’s old body groaned as she leaned her head further out her doorway, looking in the direction of the winding path that led out of her forest and down to the village. “Where are your parents, little girl?”

“I am not ‘little girl’, I am Lady Beatrice the Third, and my servants are waiting for me down the road. I told them to let me be and they listened, as you should be doing now.”

Face twitching, Agatha stared down at the little princess. Then a devilish smirk appeared across her wrinkled face, she reached out and stretched her old crooked fingers like a spider above the girl’s head. In a deepened, hoarse voice she spoke, “Well Lady Beatrice the Third, what if I chose to curse you instead? Perhaps turn you into a toad, or a worm! Don’t you think that would be a more likely thing a witch would do to such a pretty young thing?”

Fear cracked through the stern features of the little girl, and Agatha was beginning to feel guilty until the girl steeled herself and huffed, “You wouldn’t dare, for I know witches like to feed their power by draining the souls of little girls. It is a fair trade for what I want. I never found my soul to be very useful anyways. As long as I am your apprentice and you teach me your powers, I will be content.”

It was Agatha’s turn to look frightened, “What do your parents allow you to read?”

The girl simply raised a brow as if questioning Agatha on if she was ready to stop asking stupid questions. The old lady of the forest sighed and gesticulated helplessly with her hands, as if trying to physically grip reason.

“And what would you possibly want to learn from such a horrid creature as you’ve described?”

The little girl's eyes darted to the side as she refolded her arms like fortifications, “I have my reasons. That is all you need to know.”

A long, painful sigh left Agatha’s body. Then she simply tied her grey hair back in a bunch before picking up her basket and her staff. “I’m afraid you’ll have to go to another forest to find your witch. I don’t much care for little girls' souls.” With that, the old lady went about her daily chores around her cottage.

And the little girl hounded her every step.

When Agatha went to feed the chickens and collect the eggs, she would look back over her shoulder to see the girl inspecting the grain basket and the hen house as if looking for witchcraft. Perhaps in the girl's eyes these chickens were hellhounds in a clever disguise. Agatha chuckled at the thought.

When Agatha was finished de-weeding the garden, the girl carefully inspected the hoe for any de-weeding charms. And when Agatha tended the garden, she could feel the girl hovering over her shoulder almost trying to look through any illusions cast over the vegetables.

Day by day it went like this, and it became more of a familiar routine to Agatha. She even felt that if the girl wasn’t there then her days would feel odd. The girl had become a staple of her cottage as much as the cottage itself. To simply not have it appear would be alarming.

Agatha ignored the girl at first, thinking-hoping-Beatrice would lose interest. But when it became evident that she would not lose interest, Agatha began to greet her every morning.

And eventually, the girl found her way inside her house. Agatha cursed herself for leaving the door open. And the woman stood at her counter prepping lunch. Yet she could feel the girl's icy eyes scanning every inch of her cottage. She didn’t like the feeling.

“If you’re going to hang around here so much, you might as well make yourself helpful. Have you ever cut vegetables before?”

From the corner of her eyes, she could see a small look of triumph spread across the girl’s features, as if she felt she had passed some sort of test.

“No but you will find I am a fast learner.”

The girl was not a fast learner. But Agatha did not mind. It was enjoyable actually, to have company again. Even with this little ankle hound. And while the girl started off rough, with Agatha’s careful guiding, she taught the girl how to not startle the chickens, how to carefully collect the eggs and what to look for. How to properly pull up a weed so that it was fully gone, and what pests to look out for in the garden and which were helpful.

All in all, Agatha was impressed that the prim girl was willing to do such dirty work. At the end of the first day of real chores her pink dress was brown, but was replaced by another equally bright dress the next day. And despite the grime, the little girl never complained.

Agatha also assumed that the girl no doubt thought this was ‘secret witch training’. That perhaps one day, Agatha would reveal the last step that really turned all these menial tasks into powerful spell incantations.

While Agatha did much of the talking at first, it didn’t take long before the girl was doing most of the talking.

“Is your familiar an owl or a black cat? I think I would take the cat personally.”

“Are you sworn to the bidding of a fiend?”

“Do you control the strange howls of the beasts at night?”

“I heard it takes three to make a coven is that correct?”

“Have you ever turned someone into a frog?”

The girl would sprinkle questions like these into everyday conversations, almost as if setting a trap for the ‘would be’ witch to fall into.

Eventually everything was so clean and in place at Agatha’s cottage that there really wasn’t much chores left to do on the daily. That was when Agatha started to teach her to sew, knit, and even basket weave. One day, before the girl arrived, Agatha was going through her old shed trying to find something for the girl to do that day, when she stumbled upon her two sons' old case of pastels.

They were more than half used up, and they brought a smile and tear to her face. She just remembered that she had wanted to hang onto these momentos forever, but decided they would be put to better use today.

Beatrice was delighted when she saw the pastels, but she quickly steeled her face again-all business as usual-and made a firm request, “Just for a bit, and then you’ll teach me some witchcraft today right?”

“For the last time-“

The girl raised a gloved hand and then sat down with the pastels.

Agatha found herself rocking on her chair while knitting, listening pleasantly to the little girl chatting away as she drew over parchment after parchment. She would perhaps have to make a long trip to market to fetch some more.

The girl was talking about all her known facts of witches, when suddenly she became very silent. Agatha paused and leaned over, spotting the picture the girl was drawing. A brilliant ocean scene, with a sandy beach and gulls flying up into the puffy clouds. The girl had managed to capture the sunlight sparkling across the ocean in a breathtaking manner. Agatha was genuinely impressed.

“My that’s a pretty picture,” Agatha commented.

“It’s my ocean,” the little girl said. Her voice was quiet, hardly above a whisper.

Then she stood up and rushed out the door without another word. Agatha was left stunned, stooping over to pick up the girl's gloves that she left behind.

Agatha sighed, “Just as I thought. Just a lonely, homesick girl.”

It hadn’t crossed her mind that she wouldn’t see the girl again, until the next day she realized there was no pounding on her front door. Curiously, she went about her day, constantly looking over her shoulder for the little girl. But no signs of her appeared.

It was late into the night when there eventually came knocking. Agatha was in a daze as she stumbled to her door, even more so when she opened it to find the town’s Duke standing before her. His face was wrinkled with worry, “Master Agatha please forgive the intrusion, but Beatrice is missing. We believe she got herself lost in the forest as that’s where the tracks lead, but this cursed rain and weather, it is messing with the hounds. You know this forest better than anyone else-“

“Say no more. I will find the girl.”

She closed the door behind her and immediately gathered her things. She grabbed a traveling shawl, a walking staff with a bell at the end of it, a large blanket, and the girl’s gloves. She opened her door and gave out orders to the Duke and his hound masters. Telling them where to go and look. Though Agatha assumed they would still be unable to find her. The forest had a way of swallowing people up.

A forest can be a scary place. At first its majesty is awe-inspiring. Towering pines that stand like giant green knights. Furry creatures that scamper about from the corner of your eyes. The mist and the crunching of pine needles. But if not careful, one can get lost in the forest. One moment the path to the town is at your back, then the next moment you turn and it appears as if someone has closed shut a door of trees over your path. Suddenly, the forest does not feel so wide and open, instead it feels enclosed like the jaws of a beast.

But Agatha knew this place well. She had lived here all her life. While the guardsmen went hunting here, she foraged and travelled. She paid equal attention to what the moss and toadstools told her as she did to the flowers and the birds. She could navigate through this wooded maze. Even in the dark, she could tell where she was going and how to get back.

She already had a feeling where the girl got lost to. It was the same place she had gone to when she had gotten lost as a little girl, and the same one her sons fell asleep under when they got lost. A large, old, old tree stood out. Its roots stretching far and beyond the trees that surrounded it. Its branches reached down and over, touching the forest floor like arms reaching over and providing cover for a child. One that, as Agatha pushed the leaves out of her way, she found lying down now. The girl's familiar pink dress a torch against the dark green of the foliage, and her precious furred coat tattered with rotten leaves.

Agatha moved as swiftly as her old bones allowed, swinging her shawl off her shoulders and wrapping them around the girl as she cradled her in her arms. She rubbed her sides and blew her warm breath into the girl's face. The little girl's blue eyes shakily opened, and a smile beamed across her face. An expression of ‘gotcha!’ seemed to play out.

“I knew you were a witch!”

Agatha laughed weakly, “For the last time, why do you think I’m a witch?”

“Because only a witch could find me. I went far and deep into this forest to purposely get lost, though I didn’t really mean to. It just sort of happened. But I left my gloves at your cottage! And all witches have locating spells and charms, they just need a strand of hair or a piece of clothing to do so! Now you can’t deny it!”

Agatha shook her head lovingly, “Oh little one, I knew where to find you because I’ve been here all my life. I know these woods better than I know myself sometimes. I once had two boys once who both got lost when they were your age, as did I when I was their age, and my mother before me. It is almost a rite of passage here in this forest.”

The girl stared up at the woman, almost as if trying to pierce through any armor of lies and deception. But then the light seemed to flicker out of the girl's eyes, and her barricade fell. Her lips quivered, “Then…you really aren’t…”

“Oh little fox, what on earth did you want a witch for anyways?”

The girl's eyes looked away, Agatha could feel her shift closer to her. “I want to go home.”

“Home?”

“Not the village here, but back where I originally came from. The coastal town of my birthplace. Where mother and I lived before she had to marry the awful man here. I want my ocean back, with its glistening jewels and diamonds. My mother used to tell me those jewels were just for me! But here everything is so dark, and so tall. In the morning when I stare out my window, all I see are giant trees with scary noises coming from them.”

Agatha lifted a finger to wipe a tear from the girl’s face. “Little one, this place is only scary for you because you don’t know it yet. Those trees that tower so mightily above you are home to many small creatures who raise their young there. They hold onto their babies as I hold onto you now, thinking warm thoughts of safety and love. The calls you hear are the birds and the elk hollering ‘Good day!’ to each other. Everything is scary to you now because it is unknown. But I can help it be known to you. Change can be hard. Your home at the coast will always be your home. But this is your home too now. Sometimes you just have to get lost to find out.”

The girl seemed to take the words in, and Agatha could see a softness on her.

“Now about your father, has he done anything awful to you?”

“No, he is just an odd man. I wanted you to teach me to curse him so mother and I could return.”

Agatha had to struggle to get her breath back from her hackled laughter, “Oh dearie, I can tell that man loves you. He was so worried when he came to my cottage to look for you. And he allowed you to come pester me all these days. I’ve known him since he was your age too, and he’s just a quiet man. Much like the forest here too. But he is a good man, and he cares for you.”

There was a look as if the little girl had not realized that, and then she snuggled closer to the old woman, and Agatha could feel the girl's breathing leading her to slumber. She then lifted her staff and rang the bell, hearing the distant calls of the duke and his men calling out to her.

The duke was relieved to have her back in his arms, though a look of worried confusion speak across his face when the girl suddenly exclaimed to Agatha, “I no longer wish to become a witch! I want to learn the ways of the forest instead!”

Agatha chuckled, “I’ll see you tomorrow then, dearie.”

Back at her cottage, Agatha groaned as she stretched her tired, aching body. She leaned her staff against the wall and waddled carefully over to her rocking chair.

With a simple spell, her fireplace ignited with warm flame. She stretched her tired feet closer to it, thinking she would have to brew a tonic tomorrow to help with the muscle relaxation. As she sat back, rocking slowly to the warmth, she began going over a list in her head. Wondering which spell she had carelessly cast that the girl might’ve seen.

“I’ll just have to be more careful next time.”