The [Witches]’ house hadn’t changed from the last time Alice had visited. At all.
As in, there wasn’t even any snow around it. The grass just turned perfectly green around it, the temperature balmy, the sun… actually, the sun wasn’t shining, clouds still covering it over their heads. Still, it was a change. She’d never expected [Witch] Aria’s Skill, [All Terrain Gardens], to be powerful to the point of subverting the seasons.
“This is surreal,” said Av as he began taking off his winter clothes, already beginning to sweat underneath them.
“The power of Skills,” agreed Alice with a nod. Sometimes even people from this world could get surprised at just how powerful Skills could be.
After a few minutes of taking off the extra layers they’d put on the started walking again. Not to the front of the house though: instead they followed a small gravel path that wound around the wooden beauty and led to the back.
There, they were greeted by a small clearing in the expansive garden where a fire merrily burned inside a fire pit, small enough to be cozy, big enough to keep them warm for the coming night: just because [Witch] Aria’s Skill allowed her to keep her garden in an eternal summer it didn’t mean she could also control the temperature’s excursion between night and day. It would still be chill when the sun set.
In they walked, and when they did a detail struck them: the clearing… it was bigger on the inside.
What is this Dr. Who shit? wondered Alice as she looked around in wonder.
Someone coughed beside them. Turning around, Alice saw it was the old [Witch] Aria.
“You’ve noticed, haven’t you?”
“Yes, I think it’s pretty noticeable. It’s bigger on the inside, somehow.”
The old woman laughed: “You’d be surprised how many people don’t notice until well into the night. At least, for the first timers. It’s a Skill I have: [Always Space for More at the Festival]. Beria once bet she could fit an entire circus here so long as it was for the Festival. I told her not to bother: we can call ourselves lucky that the churches don’t care enough about these mountains to check what we do during this day.”
Ah, yes, sometimes Alice forgot about the strict limitations about stories and storytellers. She never understood how the churches and local authorities managed to enforce those stupid laws, but apparently they could and they did, with great accuracy and even greater punishments.
Many trees had been felled to make benches for this occasion, although by the looks of the wood that had happened a very long time ago. Nonetheless, Alice was sure the forest had given that small part of itself for free, out of simple kindness. Truth be told, the whole area was permeated with a sense of calm and kindness.
It wasn’t some kind of supernatural sense or some witch power, no, it was more like a feeling in the air. She felt welcome, desired and loved, the warmth hugging her like an old friend while the flames seemed to start dancing even more cheerfully in front of her eyes. Ok, so maybe it was something that had to do with her Class actually. She was, after all, an [Occultist], in a way. Maybe her Class was changing even aspects of her not shown by her Skills. Was that a thing?
“Hello!” said the fire cheerfully.
Alice nearly jumped out of her skin at that, while the voice giggled and, a moment later, from behind the fire emerged a little girl.
Immediately she sighed, a hand going for her heart. She still wasn’t hearing fires talk. That would’ve been a bad thing.
“Lili, you scared the soul outta me. Hi!” she got down on her knees, to their protests, and opened her arms wide, the witchling running towards her to hug her back.
After a few seconds of this they separated and the young girl smiled up at her: “Are you going to be telling stories during the Festival? Ones that aren’t as scary as the one about the tortured girl, I hope.”
For a single moment Alice’s expression darkened as she remembered that yes, that had happened. She hoped Beria would be a little less bitchy this time around.
“I don’t know. I don’t think I will? You only invited me to the Festival, you never told me about -” she stopped, remembering [Witch] Aria’s words from two days prior: I hope you’ll have more stories like the ones you told Averick, young witch.
“Oh, the old hag,” she whispered as she slapped her forehead, “She invited me without inviting me. And I agreed. Crafty little hag.”
Lili nodded: “Yes, that sounds like [Witch] Aria. She said it would be good for there to be five witches to tell the stories.”
“But I’m not a witch!” nearly shrieked Alice, only managing to contain herself because she was talking to a child who had no fault in this matter.
“You aren’t,” agreed Lili with a nod that convened she agreed wholeheartedly, “Your Class says as much. But both [Witch] Aria and Commodora agree that, for a moment, you were touched by our Class, before it disappeared inside your current one.”
Alice sighed. The girl, and the [Witches] by proxy, was right. She could still remember the words whispered in the back of her mind months prior, during that night after she’d come back from the mountain. She remembered how, for but a moment, she’d been a [Witch], before the Class had been… what was the word used? Ah, right, ‘Consolidated’, into [Occult Herbalist].
Then she realized what Lili had just said: “Wait, Commodora? When did she meet me?”
“Yesterday night.”
She frowned: “Yesterday night? I didn’t see her.”
“Yes, you didn’t. Apparently she and her pack were feeling playful, so she broke into the house you two were sleeping in and rummaged around your things. She took your comb. It was a good comb.”
The way she said that last thing made it sound like the comb was no more… which she feared it wasn’t. Well, at least that explained why her stuff had looked so disorderly this morning and why she couldn’t find her comb.
Sighing, she asked: “Is it normal for Commodora to randomly break into houses and steal stuff?”
Lili shook her head: “No, it isn’t. The villagers are protected by an agreement. You weren’t though.”
“Of course we weren’t.”
Hanging her head she sat down heavily on a tree trunk, looking at the crackling flames whispering sweet nothings at her.
“I don’t have a hat,” she said.
You’d think that, of all the excuses to use, that would be the weakest of them all. It wasn’t though: for a witch her hat was everything and a hatless witch wasn’t a witch at all. At least, not one that would fit for this occasion. The Appalachian witches didn't wear hats, for example. They stored their crafts inside their bodies, with all the collateral effects you can imagine. Half the monsters described in the folklore of those twisted mountains were just witches who’d gone insane while practicing their crafts. In their defense though, they’d been doing that during a time when witchcraft and its practices were dying, in a part of the world that seemed to actively reject magic and the occult or, if unable to do that, corrupted them, all because of the presence of old, dead, gods, lying buried underground, killed by the Spanish, the British, the colonizers in general, and afterwards the liberated Americans.
Lili tilted her head to the side: “What do you mean you don’t have one? It’s there, over your head. Can’t you see it?”
Alice blinked, then took a page out of the girl’s book and tilted her head: “I’m pretty sure I don’t have a hat, little witchling.”
Lili nodded energetically, her hair bobbing up and down hypnotically: “But you do. It’s on your head, and in your head. It’s there when you close your eyes to sleep. The hat remembers you better than you remember it. It has no craft though, no chains to bind it.”
The two stared at each other for a few moments, before Lili smiled and turned around, waltzing out of the clearing, leaving behind a very bewildered Alice and a silently amused Averick.
“And she’s only an apprentice you say? Are all [Witches] like that? ‘Cause that’d explain why they keep saying you’re one,” he asked.
“Av, kindly, shut up.”
He laughed.
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Night came fast, faster than she would’ve liked, but it was still winter even though the clearing and the garden seemed to think otherwise.
She was still sitting at the campfire, looking into the flames as she thought of a story that would fit the night. Certainly nothing dark: warning tales were some of her favorites, but she’d realized only years after grandma had told them to her just how fucked up some of them were. Some children talked about how traumatic ‘The Little Match Girl’ was, or ‘Red Shoes’ for the matter, and she’d absolutely agree, while inside she remembered the story she’d heard as a child about a girl turning into a flesh eating monster after consuming her sister’s corpse in a forest because they’d lost the way and had been attacked by wolves. Grandma had never learned what kiddie gloves looked like.
She was glad about it now though.
Still, again, she wasn’t going to be telling one of those stories during a night of celebration such as this. Well, there were no rules that stated she couldn’t, but she didn’t want to ruin some children’s evening.
Looking into the fire she allowed her mind to wander, her hands braiding something with some twigs and grass and flowers she’d gathered. It shouldn’t have been a complex choice, she knew what probably amounted to hundreds of stories, or at the very least a hundred. She also knew how to create a story from scratch, but a) she couldn’t be bothered with going through that process and b) she felt like the Festival was meant for true stories.
So she looked at the dancing flames, ideas flitting through her mind.
Then a crack resounded from inside the fire, making her flinch and breaking her reverie. Looking inside she noticed that a piece of wood that had been bigger than the others had cracked down the middle, giving the flames some new fuel to consume. Her eyes focused on the red embers and she was struck by a flash of inspiration: banniks! She could tell a story about the spirits of bathhouses! The ones that… stole newborn children… and put pieces of wood in their place.
Yes, alright, no, that was a very bad line of thoughts.
She settled back down, her eyes now looking down at the little crown she’d braided together while thinking. It wasn’t much, she hadn’t been looking after all, and she was certain it would be falling apart the moment she touched it wrong. Why was this so difficult? Why did she care about it so much? She was certain that up to a month ago she wouldn’t have given a shit and just told one story at random, consequences be damned, because she had been tricked into joining this. She fucking hated having a conscience! She wanted a refund!!!!
Also, she didn’t. Because sure, having thoughts about people’s feelings mattering wasn’t something she was used to anymore, but it was… different from what she’d become back on Earth.
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Sighing, she threw the wreath into the fire, now remembering stories of Kupala Nights, of the wreaths braided by young girls and left to float on a river, hoping that they wouldn’t sink, for that meant the loss of a loved one or the end of a love. She also remembered the stories of the fern flower, an impossible flower made of a mix of infernal and celestial fire capable of giving incredible powers to anyone who could get it. But those weren’t stories that would fit a night such as this.
Still, there was something there. Something she could use.
And then she remembered another story her grandma had loved to tell her. A story that would fit the situation perfectly.
She began gathering sticks again, working as fast as she could.
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There were rather a lot of people in the clearing now. She was quite certain it had expanded again to let all the people from the village and, apparently, another nearby one, in.
And right at the center, by the crackling fire, she stood, together with the other [Witches]. On her left, calm and unmoving as a tree in a windless day, stood Aria, her hat for once proudly standing up without the usual crook to one side. To her right primly stood Lili with a proud smile on her face, probably happy to be part of this festival as a full fledged [Witch] and not just an apprentice for one night and one night alone.
To Lili’s left stood Beria, her smile light and hearty as she looked into the fire as if it were a lover.
Meanwhile, to Aria’s right, sat Commodora, her legs bent into a position that was reminiscent of a dog sitting primply in place. Even then, though, the furs covering her body looked especially well groomed and shiny, her dark black hat standing straight. Alice noticed only then, through the flames, that little wolves had been stitched into it, showing them playing and running around the brim, the distortion caused by the heat making them look more lifelike, as if they were moving. Of all the hats, hers was the most beautiful.
Then Aria spoke: “Welcome one and welcome all. Tonight, it is the Festival of Stories. Tonight, we celebrate the death of the last great [Witch] to ever wander this world. Tonight, we, the last of her kin, shall tell, all over the world, the stories that we desire, like the [Storytellers] of ancient. Tonight, we shall forget craft and desire and let stories take hold of us, for it is a [Witch]’s duty to remember and tell truths. Tonight, no lies shall be admitted, no subterfuge shall be allowed. [So It Was Said, So It Will Be]!”
As the final words left Aria’s mouth Alice felt compelled to repeat them and, like the other four [Witches] around her, she did.
And the System? The System listened.
She spoke, and there was gold in her words. Her words felt more… true, somehow, more real than they had any right to be as they commanded the world around them and told it her intentions without hesitation.
Was this what it felt like to speak a Word of Power? A Word of Creation, the first words spoken by God when it created the world as it was known. Was this what it would feel like to use one without your skin sloughing off your bones together with all your insides because of the sheer potential? She hoped it was, because the sensation was mildly addictive in how right it was.
They stood around the campfire, the world settling around them as it accepted their command.
Then they sat down on the surprisingly comfortable logs.
And [Witch] Aria spoke: “As is tradition, the youngest of us will start. From her, we shall go counter-clockwise around the fire. Let the Festival begin!”
Alice hadn’t noticed, but they were all smiling in joy.
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Once upon a time… nah, this is just too cliché a start.
In a time after the end of the War of the Arachne, during the Era of Respite, [Witches] were hunted.
They were hunted because they remembered the sins of the gods, they were hunted because they knew of what had happened on Rodar, they were hunted because of what one of their kind, the Witch of Spiders, had done, and they were hunted because the world saw only the worst of their kind (but was it the worst? Were they doing the wrong thing? We’ll never know).
The story goes that, during this Era, a [Witch] rose above all of them. Her name was forgotten, never passed down by those that came after her by her own request, but she is still known, to this day, as the Witch of Stories.
A [Witch] who, upon wearing her hat for the first time and seeing the world, thought that no emotion would ever fit her, for there were too many and choosing a single one wouldn’t do justice to the whole of them that coexisted inside the minds of mortals and immortals alike. She looked inside her hat, and chose to leave it empty.
The other [Witches] called her a fool, not because she was rejecting the ways of her Class, for they knew that being a [Witch] meant doing anything one wanted and believing in what they wanted without caring about what the rest of the world thought. No, they called her a fool for attempting to do things in a different manner during a time when they were hunted and killed just for their Class. They asked her, begged even, that she do things following one of the most known old ways, that she may have a better chance at surviving, but she was a [Witch], and as such she did as she wanted, and she chose not to bind herself to a single craft.
Then, when the begging stopped, when the tears were shed and the hugs given, when the covens swore that they’d try to find a way to help her, for there were still many more covens even back then than there are now, the girl looked at her hat, then at the whole of the living, and decided that, since she loved every facet of them, she’d become a [Witch] bound to that which could help represent the entirety of the world: stories.
That is how the Witch of Stories’ story began, but tonight we do not remember her birth, sadly. We remember her death.
It came at the end of the last Witch Hunt, when our numbers were steadily dwindling. It didn’t matter what magics the [Witches] cast, how foul or how benefic, how much they begged and groveled or tried to hide: always, they were found, and always, the were killed, sometimes fast, with something as simple as a sword through the heart, and sometimes, unluckily, in much more creative ways.
During the last days of the Hunt she, in her full powers, carrying the weight of hundreds, maybe even thousands, of deaths on her shoulders and in her hat, appeared in front of the steps leading to the entrance of the College of Memoirs. There, fearlessly and sorrowfully, she called out to the Grandmaster, calling upon an old rule in their books: the Right of Hearing.
Nobody had heard of it being used in centuries simply because it had been buried between hundreds of other rules.
Still, the Grandmaster himself appeared and listened to her request: that he challenge her in any way he saw fit and, in exchange, if she won, he’d order the end of the Hunt once and for all and that, in the future, none such hunts may start anew. The Grandmaster laughed and agreed, shaking her hand and not noticing the First Dealmaker looking over the deal and blessing the terms with her Skills.
Then he gave her the challenge, with these exact words: “You, woman, who call yourself the Witch of Stories, huntress of that which we forbid, I challenge you to gather, in Five days, Five Hundred and Fifty Five stories. Bring them to us and we shall end the Hunt.”
So it was said, and so it was done.
The Witch turned and walked away, slowly fading away as she went to the first of the many stories she’d have to find and witness. Her hat was the last thing to disappear and, as it fell to the ground, it turned to look at them, like a black eye glaring at them.
And it whispered a story, one known only to our kind and the Grandmasters, maybe not even them, not anymore: once upon a time there will be an itsy bitsy spider. The world will try to drown it in blood, but it will fail, and the spider shall feed and, in the end, eat them all.
A very short story, yes, but it was a hat telling it, what do you expect?
Five days came and went. Five days during which the Witch of Stories didn’t eat, drink, sleep or even stop for a single moment. Everywhere all over the world stories were happening, all she had to do was witness them all and she’d manage to save her kin. What were her needs in the face of saving them?
The thing about stories, my dear listeners, is that they can be anything. When someone thinks about a story, they think about heroes fighting dragons and winning or losing, they think of soldiers doing impossible things during wars, they think of monsters being killed to save cities, goblins rising from their muddy abodes and destroying countries in their fury. Nobody ever thinks about telling the tale of a [Baker] rising in the morning to do her job, or the story a child creates while playing with a stick. Not even the Grandmaster had thought of that.
So the morning came, exactly five days later, that the Witch of Stories, ragged and breathless and hungry and thirsty, walked up to those steps, her pride helping her not to stumble, and presented the requested stories.
Still the Grandmaster didn’t believe her and he asked that she tell them to him. All five hundred and fifty five.
The Witch of Stories agreed, for that was nothing compared to what she’d done so far, and began talking.
First, though, she asked for food and water, but those were denied, saying that in the time it’d take her to eat and drink she could make up some fake stories to fill in for the possible missing ones.
Gritting her teeth, the Witch of Stories began talking.
She spoke and recounted, and while the people around her feasted and drank to their heart’s desire, nothing was given or allowed to her. But it didn’t matter, because this would help her people.
Five days later all five hundred and fifty five had been told, to the complete astonishment of the Grandmaster and the College in general, but not to the surprise of a figure observing through the windows, an old man with a doctor’s bag.
The Witch, lips and throat parched, mind hazy, eyes wide and bloodshot, sat on the ground, breathing hard, as she requested that they respect their side of the deal.
The Grandmaster though laughed as, with a pleased smile, he said this: “Witch, I think our deal was clear: you were to bring us five hundred and fifty five stories, gathered to be given to us. These stories though, they aren’t yours. They are still out there, free, changing and becoming more. We cannot use them, cannot hold them, cannot make them ours.”
The Witch of Stories despaired upon hearing this, knowing it was not right, what the man was doing and saying, but also knowing that he was taking his words to the letter and that he had, indeed, given her an impossible task, for stories couldn’t be captured, not without damaging both the storyteller and the one whose story is being told.
Clutching at her head, she felt tears begin trickling down her face. It had all been for nothing.
Until someone else spoke.
A girl who looked no older than twenty five, wearing worn traveling clothes, a tombstone hat, a cape that had once been black and a bag slung over her shoulder. Her hair was a fiery red that seemed to be burning with a light of its own, a light that paled in comparison with the one in her eyes.
She smiled and stepped closer, and her words were heavy with an ancient power that nobody could ever hope to harness. A power she had gained through trickery and was keeping through friendship.
“I have heard these tales and counted them. Five hundred and fifty five were requested, five hundred and fifty five were given.”
The Grandmaster though didn’t give up: “They are not ours though.”
“You are asking for the impossible, small man. Stories cannot be held.”
“And yet that is what happens inside these hallowed halls.”
The First Dealmaker looked at the man, then at the College with a sneer of disgust, then at the Witch with sadness. Finally, she knelt by the woman’s side and, in a whisper, asked: “What would you be willing to give up to make sure this deal comes to fruition?”
The Witch of Stories looked the First Dealmaker in the eyes and saw, in them, a strength that could probably end entire continents, held at bay only by the knowledge that there were Consequences for every action and beings more powerful than her who would make sure they reached her.
And she simply said: “Everything.”
“Then, greatest of all the [Witches] of our history, I offer thee this proposal: give up your life, the storyteller’s life, in exchange for trapping these tales you told, that they may be held. It is a kinder price than the one the College has made others pay to gather their stories.”
The Greatest of All Witches looked at those eyes, seeing hatred and sadness and acceptance, and… she kissed the First Dealmaker.
“Do as you wish.”
And the Dealmaker? She stood, stunned, then nodded: “So it was said, so it will be.”
She snapped her fingers.
There were no screams, no pain. Just soothing nothingness that pervaded the Witch of Stories, and then she was gone, in her place a book bound in colorful silks just like her robes, and her hat, now a Relic.
The Dealmaker took the book and the hat, hiding the latter and giving the former to the Grandmaster: “As stipulated. Five hundred and fifty five stories, to be held and kept by you and you alone if you so wish. Now, [Respect Your Side of the Deal].”
The Grandmaster did, for he had no other choice.
This is the story of how the Witch of Stories saved our kind.
This is the story of her death.
This is the story of why, every year, we celebrate this Festival.
We shall not forget.