The witch on top of the hill does a lot of good for the right price. Henri believed this since everyone in his village believed it.
He burrowed deeper into his high collared cloak against the chill and stepped out of his house. It was barely morning and the stars still fought to shine through the break of day. At this time all was silent, still and cold - Henri could imagine in a few short hours the village would come alive as it once did. He could imagine the silence was by the nature of the regular cycle of life and not the sound of a village with their spirits broken.
But if he stayed and waited, he would have been disappointed to not hear the sounds as he did in childhood. No friendly greetings to neighbors, no shepherd guiding their flock out to graze, no women out to scrub clothes by the stream. No, the sun would rise and he would see the burnt down houses and abandoned courtyards filled only with rats, debris and people wishing they weren’t there. He walked by a burned down barn and he could still smell the smoky scent from it, even though the fire had quelled nearly a week past.
Long ago, they said the witch at the top of the hill did a lot of good, including saving the cows when a strange disease took hold of them and they stopped giving milk. Now there were no cows left. Henri wondered how many people still remembered the witch at the top of the hill and how many of them believed in her existence. As a boy, people would come up with all sorts of stories to make him and his friends behave. Don’t wander into the woods as werewolves would come and hunt you down. Finish your vegetables or ghouls will come through your window at night and gnaw at your toes. Don’t insult your father or a harpy will cut out your tongue. Was it the same for the witch on the hill: just another silly story the villagers tell one another?
After a twenty minute walk away from the edge of the village, Henri approached the graveyard. It was quite modest during his boyhood years, but now plots spilled over the haphazard boundaries of the small cemetery. Mounds of dirt in neat rows ran on both sides of the path. Some had a marker on it: an etched piece of stone or plank. Most did not.
He had meant to walk quickly past, but before he realized it he had stalled to a stop. Henri stared at two mounds of dirt, almost identical to the ones around it. He had remembered - six mounds from the far end, both with a stick jammed at the lower right corner. The one on the right was Jacob, the one on the left, Cilly. Henri blinked - or was it the other way around? For a wild, insane moment he wanted to dig them up with his hands and find out. Was it Jacob on the right and Cilly on the left? He had to know. He needed to be sure.
He was the one to bury them so why couldn’t he remember? They were waxy, pallid and cold. Cilly had her eyes closed as if in slumber but Jacob stared at him with blank, unseeing eyes. Henri clenched his hands and made himself continue walking down the path. He wondered if Jacob would still be staring at him from under the mound of dirt.
Past the cemetery, the clearing stopped short at the edge of a dense forest, the one where werewolves supposedly wandered. A single dirt path led into it, at times unreliably as the forest floor infringed on it. The deeper Henri trekked into the forest, the less of a path there was until eventually he was sure there was no longer one. Day had broken through at the point, but the dense canopy of leaves and branches above him hid most of the sun from him. Birds and squirrels called down to him as if to taunt him, this human who dared walk onto their territory. This stupid human who believed in stories of monsters in the dark.
Henri huffed as he labored up a steep hill in what he hoped was the right direction. No, monsters didn’t just appear in the dark. Oftentimes they came to you in the light of day, grim faced and dressed in red and gray. They spoke in your language and could have been your brother in a different life. Real monsters didn’t harm you as punishment for being naughty but rather killed you for perfectly ‘rational’ reasons. His shoe scraped against a stone and he nearly slipped, but he caught himself before he fell flat on his face. Some bird chattered loudly above him, laughing.
Another hour of hiking passed with only critters he couldn’t see accompanying him. He wished he brought a water skin with him but his decision to go on this journey came to him suddenly that morning the moment he woke up from another nightmare. If he hadn’t acted on a whim, he wouldn’t have left his house at all.
It then suddenly occurred to him that if he was headed in the wrong direction, he would be in grave danger. The Sekrelli camp was rumored to be a few hours' march northwest of his village. What if his wandering took him further north than he wanted? A wave of panic caught up to him, overwhelming him in his exhaustion. He was stupid for not thinking this through. If Sekrelli soldiers saw him, they would kill him immediately. With Jacob and Cilly gone, who would bury him? He didn’t have family left either, who would be left over to mourn him? He leaned against the tree and looked around wildly, almost expecting to see gray and red banners appearing just between the trees. Henri could almost hear the clink of armor, the groan of wood and string of bows drawn taught, arrows aimed at his heart.
Then he noticed in a particular direction he could see light filtering through the forest. There, surely, the trees thinned towards a clearing. Despite his paranoia, Henri quietly crept towards the light. No banners, no signs of soldiers or military encampment. His heart leaped in his chest as he saw a curiously carved wooden sculpture. It blended in with the other trees in the forest so he didn’t spot it at first. It reached his chest in height and was surrounded by large stones to keep upright and was roughly in the shape of a person with long hair that reached the ground, their eyes closed in a serene expression. A single hand reached out from behind the curtain of hair, disproportional to the rest of the figure as it wrapped almost halfway around the circumference of the figure in a grip. As he approached, he saw various bundles of dried flowers and berries around it.
The statue was positioned so that the face pointed towards the thinning of trees. He thought that if the statue could move, its giant hand would be gesturing towards that direction, urging him to proceed. The birds chirped louder now as if reaching a crescendo in a heated chorus - they no longer sounded condescending, they sounded excited.
Yes, this was the right direction. Henri made his way to the clearing within the forest and walked towards the hill lit under a late morning sun.
—
Perhaps it was the trick of perspective but Henri could have sworn that the house on the top of the hill was closer. Another hour was dedicated to climbing the deceptively small hill under the sun now directly overhead. A dirt path wound up the side of the hill and preferred to lead him to several plateaus of more even grounding. The hill was covered with long knee-height grass that rustled in the breeze. Along the path, several wooden statues that looked similar to the one in the forest lined the sides like servants greeting him as he passed. They were much smaller than the first one he saw, only mid-shin in height at most. They had the same serene face framed with long hair and a curiously large hand wrapping around the torso, but also included several holes carved out around the squat bottom to reveal a hollow inside. When the wind blew past the tall grasses, occasionally it would catch the holes of these squat wooden statues and make a low humming sound.
When he finally approached the house at the top of the hill, a slight tinkling sound joined the symphony of noises. A wind chime of complex construction hung at the corner of the hut. It glinted in the sun, but Henri didn’t know of a metal that was of a greenish hue like that. When he was able to look away from the beautiful metal contraption, he realized the house had no windows. Only waist-high walls and then window sills that were covered with a dark blue curtain that shuffled in the breeze as the wind blew. Hesitantly, Henri walked around the perimeter of the house and found that one side had the framework for a door. In place of a door, a similar blue curtain hung all the way to the floor.
Before he could touch the fabric, the curtain at the doorway whipped open and a pair of liquid green eyes peered out. They were set on a handsome, angular face. This… this was the witch?
“Yes?” the witch asked. Her eyes had no whites to them, no iris nor pupils. They were completely dark green and it made Henri uncomfortable as he didn’t know if she was looking at him or not.
Henri was at a loss for words. Surely he could have rehearsed what he was going to ask the witch during his half-day trek to her. “Why do you not have windows?” he blurted out.
The witch looked surprised, but then broke out into a laugh. It was a warm, rich sound, almost nostalgic. Henri doesn’t hear that sound much anymore. She straightened and stepped to the side, drawing the curtain open wider to invite him in.
“What are you, a house inspector?” she said.
“What is a… house inspector?” Henri asked.
Inside the witch’s house was surprisingly bare. A small stove next to a counter and a few shelves and cabinets lined one wall. Another wall had a low shelf of books. The middle of the room had one knee-height table, bare except for a cup that was empty. Next to the table was a thick rug and a small round pillow. Opposing the wall with the stove were stairs that led down to a basement.
“Someone who looks at your house and makes sure it conforms to a certain set of codes and rules.” The witch took out another cup and a glass container from a cabinet and set it on the squat table, then sat on the rug. Henri awkwardly settled on the floor across from her as she poured him some water. “It’s for safety reasons, I’m told, but sometimes people take advantage and make you pay for renovations you don’t need.”
“I suppose you have those where you’re from,” Henri said. He gulped down the water - in the heat of events, he had forgotten just how thirsty he was. “I’ve never heard of that before.”
“Right. But you’re not here to look at my house,” the witch said pointedly. “What is your name?”
“Henri from the village of Alton just east of here,” he said, straightening his back. “I apologize for being here unexpectedly, miss…”
“Miss? Oh, I don’t have a name,” the witch said. She said this dismissively as if it was the most mundane thing in the world.
“How can you not have a name?” Henri asked.
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The witch shrugged. “In some places, being nameless is considered holy, an honor. There, you are referred to by your occupation as you are bound by your duty for the rest of your days. I find it more strange to be called something arbitrarily your whole life, especially if the name means nothing.”
“Surely you want people to be able to refer to you as something,” Henri said almost exasperatedly. What was he doing discussing the usefulness of a name with a witch?
“Hmm. What’s in a name?” She seemed to smile to herself as if it was an inside joke with herself.
“Do you have a nickname, perhaps?”
“What do you think of me as, Henri of Alton?” the witch asked.
“The villagers where I’m from call you a witch,” he said. But then quickly added, “A good one that helps people in their times of need.”
The witch’s face darkened a little and Henri was afraid he had insulted her. But the expression passed and she smiled at him. “Well, then you can call me Witch,” she said.
“Isn’t that insulting?” Henri protested.
“Only if you mean it as an insult,” the witch shrugged again. She poured him another cup of water from the glass container. He drained it again. “Now if you consider me a ‘good witch’ that helps the needy, you must want something from me. Speak.”
—
Even as she beckoned him to speak, he didn’t know where to start. Should he tell her about the Sekrelli raids washing over the lands? Of the ruling Mage’s Circle unwilling or unable to stop them? Of the devastation to realize that the Sekrelli had previously forced cities and villages to join them, recruiting able bodied men and women, but his own village was the first where the enemy forces didn’t bother?
Henri looked down at his own hands, callused with farming and chore-work. He had walked all the way here for something to change. If he walked back, he would have to contend with Jacob’s accusatory stare from underneath the dirt. So he told the witch everything he knew as best he could.
First came the threats to the village elder. Diplomatic representatives on giant armored war horses visited them daily for weeks on end, sequestering the terrified village elder into his own house for hours on end. In decades of overseeing their humble home, the elder had no idea what to do with foreign military men who demanded him to give up everything. Surely these strange men would leave as soon as the Mage Council caught wind of their aggressive intrusion on their peaceful farm life. The single shred of survival instincts in the elder had him coordinate an operation to lead the children, the women and the otherwise weak or elderly away from Alton as discreetly as possible, just in case. Most who needed to leave did so reluctantly. Some, like Cilly, stayed.
Then the ‘just in case’ happened. The Sekrelli soldiers either ran out of patience or received an order and they executed the village elder in the center of the village. A small fight broke out that day - just men with shovels and rakes trying to hit armored soldiers on monstrous mounts. A few villagers died. Henri saw the beginning happen and he didn’t stay to watch the rest. He didn’t need to. Something had awoken those soldiers and they had meant to destroy.
He went to Jacob and Cilly’s house and helped them pack as much as possible and the two of them ran. He remembered cursing Cilly for not leaving earlier, cursing Jacob for not making her. It was the last thing he said to them. As they escaped, he tried to go back to the village to stop them from setting fires to the houses. He should have gone with them. He should have been there. Perhaps then he would have been struck down alongside them as they tried to flee Alton.
And then… and then…
“And then I buried them,” he said with a hollow voice. He thought he could hear the scrape of shovel against dirt, the thump of lying down corpses into the graves. The silence droned in his ear as he sat alone in front of the freshly piled dirt. He looked up and the witch seemed to wince, as if she heard that terrible sound as well.
“I think I understand,” she said softly. A gust of wind woke him from his dazed recollection, the sound of the wind chime snapping him back to reality. He shuddered and bowed over his cup on the table.
“There is senseless killing going on out there,” he said thickly. “Men who no longer value life. And they had all but destroyed my village.”
“I’m sorry, Henri of Alton.”
He looked up sharply, his eyes suddenly focusing again. “Would you not help us?” he demanded. “You… you’re a witch are you not? You have power - influence. You can parlay with the army for us.”
“Do you think they would listen if I spoke to them?” the witch asked. A rhetorical question. Sekrelli soldiers listened to no one but their king, and their king wanted blood.
“You have abilities like a mage, right?” Henri shoved a hand through his hair, thinking. “Isn’t there something you can do to scare them off? I know they made camp not too far from here. You can fight for us.”
“No,” the witch said simply. “I cannot fight for you. I cannot personally do things like that in your world. ”
“How… how can you sit there and pretend to be helpless when you’re a witch?” Henri burst out. “You’ve helped us before and now you’re making yourself seem helpless and useless. You must know what’s going on out there. You live here too.”
This time he knew he had insulted her. She pressed her mouth into a thin line. “It’s always the same with you people,” she said. “Always playing the same games with morality. Those who suffer deserve salvation, those who enjoy peace must give it freely away, those who are lucky must be scorned. You all think everyone and everything in the world should receive a fair and equal fate.”
“And why shouldn’t we think that?” Henri spat. “Would you have men just accept their suffering? How could you just sit there, witch, when you have the power to wave your hand and make it all go away?”
For a long while, the witch was silent and still, so still that Henri wondered if she was still alive. Her liquid green eyes seemed to be fixated on something far away, her expression vacant as if listening for a distant sound. The wind chime softly tinkled in the breeze in harmony with the rustle of tall grass and flutter of curtains. Then the witch blinked. “I understand what you want from me, Henri of Alton,” she finally said. “Present your price.”
Henri stared at the witch. “What?”
“You wish for a solution for your problem,” the witch said. “And I will give it to you if you give me proper compensation.”
The witch on top of the hill does a lot of good for the right price. Wasn’t this exactly what he was waiting to hear from her? “I understand,” he said nervously. “But I have nothing to give you. Everything of value was taken from me.”
“That may be true in the present,” the witch said. “But you have things of value in the future. Surely you can imagine something of value that could be forsaken in exchange for the power to make your problems ‘go away’.”
“But I don’t… have those things yet.” Henri’s expression sunk into a confused frown. “How can I exchange them for anything?”
“Oh believe me, you do not want to see the math behind it,” the witch said. When his face did not look less confused, she waved a hand at him. “Never mind that. Think of this way - if you exchange something in your future, you’ll never see it as you’ve given it away.”
“So… if I say I’ll exchange a chicken I’ll own in the future, I’ll not have that chicken if the opportunity presents itself?” Henri said slowly.
“Sort of, but to a more severe degree. You’ll have to think of it in the following way: ‘I’ll never own chickens again for the ability to drive off the soldiers from our village.’ Then any prospects you’ve had for being a chicken farmer will truly never happen.”
“This is like old man Thomas’ way of gambling,” Henri muttered. “He would say things like ‘I’ll never drink again if I get a good hand o’ cards.’”
“That is exactly how it is,” the witch said. “Except this is no gamble. If your old man Thomas asked that of me, he would truly never be able to drink again but he’ll probably hold cards that win the game immediately. Not a very good trade, if you ask me.”
“But if I had no prospects of owning chickens anyway, then it would be a very good deal,” Henri asked. “If it was something I didn’t want anyway.” He was never any good with animals.
“I must warn, if your given price is something trivial in your heart, then the exchanged result will also be trivial,” the witch said. “So weigh the importance of your price carefully. Because of this I advise you to think about it before presenting me with your price.”
—
Henri sat by a window, staring out at the gentle slope of long grass. The witch had suggested taking a nice stroll around her hill, but he had hiked all day and would need to hike all the way back, so he opted to sit by the window. The witch was still at her squat table on the floor and was silently reading a book.
The entire exchange he’s had with her was bewildering to say the least. A witch able to grant wishes, accepting abstract payment in kind of things that has not yet come to pass. She had not told him what she would give him. Henri suspected it would depend on what he offered her. Which came to the question: what he could offer that was utterly precious to him, yet unobtainable and thus, expendable? Something that he very much wanted, but a twist in fate had made it impossible. With a stab of grief, he thought of Cilly.
In another world, in another life, she would have chosen him instead of Jacob. She would have seen him as more than a ‘dear childhood friend.’ If he were a different man, he would have said something when Jacob started courting her. None of that mattered now that they were both buried under mounds of dirt.
He looked up at the witch, who was now studying him with all green liquid eyes. Was the solution so simple? It only had to be a memory of something that ‘could have been’ that pains him for it to become an offering? Henri stood, resolute. If he could turn the bloody memory of death and the ugly memories of jealousy into something other than pain, then so be it.
The witch nodded even though he had not spoken. She seemed to realize that he had come to a decision. “Very well,” she said. She beckoned him closer to her and held out her hand. “From now on, words are sacred and thus should not be spoken. Hold in your heart the intent of what you want and what you are willing to pay.”
Henri sat across from her and held her hand. He noticed her skin held a tint of greenish blue. The back of hand was slightly rough to the touch, like they were scaly. Her grip on his was warm, strong and comforting. He relaxed slightly and screwed his eyes shut, trying to do what she’s told him to do.
A breeze picked up, jostling the wind chime again. The sound seemed oddly far away with his eyes closed. The witch spoke again: “Remember to hold the intent of both the items of exchange in your heart, not as words but as intent. Nod if you understand, Henri of Alton.”
Henri nodded. He thought of Cilly’s face, not as the waxy dullness on the day he buried her, but as the smiling warmness he remembered before she was engaged to Jacob. That was how he remembered her before he started avoiding her. He remembered how happy he was simply to watch her smile. Then he thought of the soldiers burning houses in his village. The stone-like expressions of hardened soldiers, the gleaming shine of swords and armor. He thought of the smell of burning flesh and the color of blood soaking the ground. He remembered the hatred that day, the smoldering blackness that choked him.
The witch’s hand slipped from his as he careened onto the floor of her house. His body suddenly locked up as if every muscle on his back convulsed at the same time. His eyes flew open in shock and saw that the witch was watching him calmly. He tried to speak but his chest also seized and he could barely breathe.
His flesh itched. The most horrible sensation of deep, torturous itching flared across his limbs, the worst being on his very face. It felt like a million insects burrowing into his skin, scraping, buzzing, irritating but his arms were locked up by his sides and he could not reach anywhere to scratch. Gods if only he could scratch, he would do it until his skin bled. He would tear through the muscle underneath it and scratch at the bone. Oh gods if only he could scratch! The itching compounded and grew and screamed at him as he writhed on the floor.
The itching gave way to pain and for a second he was almost relieved. Then he found that it was not a relief in the slightest. He tried to cry out but all sound was robbed from him.
Words are sacred and thus should not be spoken. But dammit, he didn’t want to speak, he wanted to scream. Why wouldn’t she let him scream? Now his skin felt as if it was on fire. He could imagine his flesh bubbling and melting off, oozing into some charred liquid sludge onto the damn witch’s house. But no flame existed around him, no molten flesh on the ground. Whatever was happening to him wasn’t due to fire.
The wind chimes that previously grew muted suddenly became deafening in his ears as Henri of Alton suffered on the floor. He thought he could hear the screech of birds, the ones he heard in the forest at the foot of the hill.
He could swear they were laughing at him again.
—