A Girl Made of Time - Part Two of Three
Short Story | Folklore Fantasy
First, some boring housekeeping
You are in the Fiction Section of Notes from the Town Hermit. Just like in my main publication, these stories centre on themes of identity and what it means to be human. Main genres are literary and slipstream fiction and fantasy written with a lyrical and poetic writing style.
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Now that that’s all out of the way, please enjoy today’s story.
Branches whipped my face as I ran. Each footfall sent shocks through my legs, but the mushrooms’ light pulled me forward, their glow pulsing like heartbeats in the gathering dark. Thoughts ran wild as I weaved in between trees and leaped over stones I sensed rather than saw. What if it was because of me? What if I caused my mother’s death? What if I really am evil? What if I had just been good, like she wanted? What if? What if?
(In the castle, I watched my younger self run. In the cave, I waited, knowing every stumbling step, every gasping breath, every tear that would fall. I had lived this moment three times over.)
Tears stung my eyes, but I paid them no mind. I had no idea where the trail of mushrooms was leading, nor if they were meant for me. I didn’t know why I had followed them at all. My teeth chattered despite the summer warmth, and my hands shook so badly I could barely lift my skirts as I ran. How would I find my way back home? What would I find there, even if I could make it back?
A stitch in my side made me stop and bend over double, panting for breath. I wrapped my arms around my chest.
Even as I tried to slow my breathing, it picked back up again. A mist was rising. The lights had begun to go out. Fear blossomed into full-blown panic.
I pulled myself upright with a loud, unladylike groan, glad none of my family members were there to comment on it, then immediately after, felt a stab of regret at the thought of never seeing them again. I’d be a remnant of a story; the foolhardy girl, lured by mushrooms into the forest after nightfall. Heavens almighty, please don’t let that be my legacy.
Stumbling toward the fading glow, my outstretched fingers brushed against something like vines. Then a breeze fluttered across my tear-soaked cheek. Before I could make my mind up about going forward, a deep, croaky voice called out, “Well, don’t just stand there, child! You’re upsetting the fungi,” and a hand closed around mine to pull me in.
Now that I think about it, I must have looked atrocious: tears and snot running down my chin by this time, even as I smeared them across my face with my sleeve and tried to lap them up with my tongue. My hiccuping sobs after a long run and dreadful fright did not improve my situation. But all this was done unconsciously, for I could only look at a hunched figure in billowing robes striking a match and coaxing a fire to life.
“Who are you?” I spluttered in between hiccups.
The witch’s lips curved into a bitter smile. “Don’t you know? You called for me.” She paused, then added softly, “Or perhaps I called for myself.”
My stomach dropped. “Mad—I mean—Your Majesty, the queen?”
The figure turned, and the fire illuminated her face. It was unwrinkled, framed by dark, greasy, and tangled hair. She didn’t really look like a witch. If I had to guess what witches looked like (haggard, hunchbacked crones, probably). Her eyes, though. They seemed like deep wells, the bottoms of which I wouldn’t be able to find.
(They were my eyes. Are my eyes. Will be my eyes.)
“You’re a foolish one, aren’t you? Or sweet. In my day, they used to make smart children.” The witch held up her right hand, and in the firelight, I saw a small scar on her thumb—exactly where Dom had bitten me during a fight last summer.
“But, but, you said—”
“I said you called for me. Goodness gracious.” The woman came right in front of me, just as Mum did earlier. She grasped my chin. “Yes...you do have it. The same gift. The same curse. The ability to see what others can’t.”
“Have what? What am I doing here?”
“Time isn’t a river.” The witch’s spoon scraped against the cauldron’s rim, each stroke releasing clouds of steam that smelled of earth and decay and possibility. “It’s more like those mushrooms out there. All connected underground, feeding each other information. The girl becomes the witch becomes the queen becomes the girl again. Each trying to find a way to save everyone without losing herself in time’s threads.”
I forgot about caution, about wisdom, or what little I had of it. The image of my mother lying on the ground with my brother and sister crying and screaming pulled the words from me in a stumbling cascade. “Are you saying... you’re me?”
“Yes and no,” the witch said, still stirring. “I am you as you will be, just as the mad queen is what I will become. What you will become. Time gets tangled when you’ve lived it thrice over.”
My mind whirled. I wrenched my face away. “But that’s impossible! The queen is—and you’re—I’m just a peasant girl! And my mother needs help! Can you help her? I’ll give you anything you want. What do witches want? I don’t have any food to spare, or clothes, or money. I can give you a lock of my hair. It’s quite nice, you see?”
The witch held up her hand—my hand—and I faltered into silence. “You have me confused with the fairies. They’re the ones to bargain with, but if you ever do come across them, you’d do well to flee instead.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Did they really teach us nothing those days?”
My temper flared. “We’re too busy trying not to starve.”
“Ah, yes, coming to that.” She shuffled to the corner of her cave, and I noticed various jars collected there. Surrounding them were clusters of mushrooms, as dull-looking as you might expect of mushrooms. The witch—my future self?—waved her arm at them. “Move aside, you troublesome things. Bringing this wench over here. I ought to chop you all up and feed you to the trolls.” At her words, the shrooms hopped away.
“The queen’s madness,” she continued while clinking jars and pouring liquids, “is not madness at all. It’s the weight of living three lives at once. Walking the castle halls at night, speaking to her past selves, trying to find a way to break this cycle.” She paused. “Or perhaps to ensure it happens. It’s hard to tell anymore.”
“But why? Why would I become queen? Why would I hide food from starving people? What’s that got to do with my mum?” I sprang to my feet. “I must go back! Is she dead? Flora and Dom need me.”
“Your mother is not dead. By now, your brother and sister have brought her back into the house.” For the first time, I read some compassion in her eyes. “You didn’t cause her collapse. Pure and simple, she’s hungry from many days of going without food so her children could have a few bites more.”
Something burst open in me. I don’t know how long I sobbed while the witch sat across from me, staring. Tears have to stop sometime, though—a truth all the more incisive when a family still waited for me at the edge of the forest.
“You look a horror, girl.”
I sniffed and glared at her. “And you’re the rudest witch I’ve ever met.”
Something like a smile crossed her face. “They do say rudeness and ill-temperedness come in handy sometimes.” She leaned forward as though to whisper a great secret. “Sometimes we must create the very problems we’re trying to solve. How else would a peasant girl become queen? How else to keep her family from starving? The old laws are clear: in times of famine, when the earth itself rebels, the crown must pass to one who can speak to growing things.” She gestured at the dancing mushrooms.
“It is for your family you do this. But they’ll fear you, a little, oh yes. Power changes how people see you. Even when you’re trying to help them.” The witch’s voice grew distant. “Dom will never quite trust you again. You ran when he needed you, and he can’t forgive you for that. Flora will achieve her dreams of nobility, but not in the way she imagined. And our mother...” She shook her head. “Some wounds can’t be healed, only survived.”
She thrust a mug into my hands. “Drink this.”
“What is it? Poison?”
“You’re wasting time, girl. Do I look like a fool? It will help you see the food the queen has hidden throughout the kingdom. Feed the people, and they’ll call you queen whether the nobles like it or not.” She smiled grimly. “Then you’ll understand why the witch waits in her cave and the queen walks the halls at night.”
(In the castle, I pressed my hand against the cold glass, watching this scene unfold in a mirror of water. How many times had I lived this moment? How many times had I tried to change what comes next?)
My mouth fell open. The witch took this perfect opportunity to dribble the foul liquid into it. I spluttered and choked. Even as most of the potion flowed down my throat, it tasted of decay and freshness and time. I swallowed, and my vision blurred, then sharpened. The world fractured like a broken mirror, each shard showing a different version of me—the girl I was, the witch I would be, the queen I must become. When the pieces merged again, I could see what had always been there, hidden in plain sight: a packet of food.
“I hate you,” I said.
“Shame.” The witch shoved me from her cave.
The mushrooms lit my path home once more.
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