Deep in the green, sopping woods of the American Pacific Northwest, where the air is pungent with wood and mulch, lay a quaint little cabin. Its dark, moldy wood paneling was surrounded by a bleak grey-stone path – one that only those prepared to pay the cost could find. After all, the magic in these woods was dangerous, and no human would ever wield it in good consciousness.
The day was bleak, with pale clouds held down low in the sky, constantly threatening to drop heavy sheets of rain down on anyone dumb enough to be outside; but never quite going through with its bluff. Instead it would let go of a few drops at a time, enough to make any passerby nervous about their lack of umbrella, but not enough to be called a downpour. Which was fortunate for Anne Adams, who was waist deep in prickly foliage and ankle deep in mud that was two levels of wet away from being swamp juice.
From an outsider’s eye, it would appear that she was wandering aimlessly, and getting mad about it; but Anne was actually walking a path so fine that her feet left it crushed behind her. The trail was a thin line of small glowing rocks that were only barely visible through the underbrush. Each time she stepped on the pebbles, they would sink into the sludge, then bubble back up to the surface with the next step. This was the only path to the witch’s hut, as the unusual magic user wanted to stay off the radar of extremists who imprisoned anyone with a hint of magic on their person – human or not.
Witches were rare. Humans were never supposed to wield magic – they were unsuited for it mentally and emotionally. Monster and mutants were built to sustain the power of pure magic running through their veins, but human’s veins were built for nothing but blood and the things it carries with it. Even so, there were the few risk-seeking humans who still played with the stuff and became able to control various types of magic. Effects aren’t instant, but down the line, humans affected with magic in their veins begin to go mad. There were rumors of a whole witch city in the Mid-West that began to eat dirt and make blood sacrifices to mud to awaken a false god. All in all, witches were only a small part of the reason magic was so feared by humans, but even the smallest parts can have big impacts.
There is a funny thing about humans, where they are attracted to the things that would likely kill them. That’s why Anne was trudging so deep into the forest to meet a witch, in fact. Humans like to think that as long as they aren’t doing the initial act, that they are in the clear. Anne, like so many other almost-thrill seekers, figured that she could play with magic as long as it wasn’t her doing the actual spell, and the witch that lived in these woods was known to sell spells to people just like her.
Finally, after an hour of walking, her feet hit ground that didn’t sink or squelch when she put weight on it.
“Thank fuck.” She muttered to herself and adjusted her backpack straps. The glowing path was leading to a clearing up ahead, and Anne could only hope that that was where the witch’s cabin lied. She hefted her bag, took a deep breath, and kept going, following the trail closely. She didn’t have the extra sense of magic to let her know that she was being watched.
The clearing opened up to reveal the glowing path dispersing into the spirals of grey stone that covered the thirty-foot radius around the dark cabin. Over the doorframe, even from so far away, Anne could see a bleached white ribcage of some unknown animal, decorated with plant clippings and beads. The tiny glowing stones interspersed between the cracks of the path made it glitter in the low light, and when she breathed in, her nose was met with the musk of things crawling underfoot. She walked out into the clearing, and the door slammed open.
“Get over here! Hurry, you idiot!”
She hesitated long enough to get a look at the figure standing there, but she couldn’t see much. They were covered in cloaks, and their face was shadowed by a large black sunhat. They chucked a sachet of something over her head and into the tree line. For a moment, nothing happened, and Anne just stared at the witch in confusion. They were waving at her like her life depended on her moving forward, but the woods were silent.
“For god sakes, get your white ass over here!” they screamed, and all at once, the forest exploded in noise. A piercing screech shook the very ground she stood on and rang through her ears like the high-pitched strain of fluorescent lights. Anne squeezed her eyes shut and slammed her hands over her ears. A hand clamped onto her arm and pulled her forward, and when she managed to open her eyes through the pain, all she saw was layers of fabric, dark and earth toned, save for one strangely bright blue color. It smelled like rosemary and cloves.
All at once, she was inside the cabin, the witch was standing over her, and the forest outside had gone quiet again.
“You idiot you think you can just tramp around in this forest with nothing but the clothes on your back?” the witch snarled, “if it weren’t for my clearing you’d be dead, and I assure you, no one would ever find you.”
“Wha-what was that?” Anne asked warily looking to the window as if the monster would reveal itself now that she knew it was there. It didn’t.
“Monsters run rampant in the forest here, especially the ones that live in fog. Did you not even notice it?”
She continued to watch the window, and when she squinted, she could see the tendrils of fog peering around trees. It curled and moved in a way that a mindless mist should not. A quiet whimper left her lips, and the witch rolled their eyes.
“Well, you’re here now. What do you want?”
Anne finally pulled her gaze from the outside and stared up at the witch. They didn’t seem interested with her in the slightest. Instead their attention was on a shelf of herbs and spices.
“I want a spell.”
“Obviously.”
“I mean, I want a spell that will make people remember me. I want to be remembered.”
They turned and looked her up and down, and she shrunk back under their harsh stare. She could just barely see their eyes from under the brim of their hat, and they seemed to swim loosely in their sockets. There were deep eyebags that left purplish stains under their eyes.
“Have you tried doing anything memorable?”
“What does that even mean?”
The witch sighed and turned back to the shelf and plucked a few jars off. They put pinches of the chosen dried plants into a small cloth bag, the tied it with a hay-like twine. When they brought it over to her, it reeked of something akin to a dumpster rotting in a sulfur pond. Anne covered her nose and shied away from the offending smell.
“It’s Asafoetida. It will protect you. The rest is dried Ash and Aspen bark, for prosperity and eloquence. Leave the same way you came in, or else you’ll get lost.”
“That’s it?” she asked as she took the bag carefully and put it in her backpack.
“Were you expecting me to toil over a cauldron and say some jargon? You do know that that’s stereotyping, right? Magic isn’t always like what propaganda says it is. Especially not for witches.”
Anne looked down and dug dirt out from under her nails.
“I guess…”
“Now get out. You’ve caused me enough stress today.”
“Don’t I need to pay you?”
“I don’t particularly want anything from you, so no. what can I take from someone who says she’s so easily forgettable, anyways? Nothing of value to me, at least.”
The witch led her back to the door, but when they opened it, she hesitated.
“Wh-what about the fog monster?”
They rolled their eyes hard and pointed out to where the glowing stones lead off into the forest. The area around it was mostly clear of fog.
“Stay on the path, and it will protect you. Plus, you have the Asafoetida sachet. As long as your feet stay on the Benitoite shards you won’t be a target.”
Anne nodded slowly and as she left the cabin, she watched her feet carefully to make sure she didn’t misstep. She looked back only once, when she reached the tree-line, but the witch was nowhere to be seen. There was nowhere for her to go besides forward now, into the thick of the forest and fog.
The whole way back, she worried that there were eyes on her, watching her every move through the forest sludge, but the wood’s gaze had deemed her unimportant, and was now focused on the little cabin in the clearing once again.
* *
The moment the human woman had left their cabin, the witch named Eunoia was moving on to more important things. They collected vegetables from the closet they had turned into some strange version of a greenhouse. It made the whole house musty with the scent of wet soil, but the thick air was worth it for the fresh produce. They did not appreciate leaving the forest to buy groceries often.
With a big cloth bag of carrots and cabbage, Eunoia left through their back door. Their back porch couldn’t be seen from the path out front, so they doubted the woman from before would track them all the way back there. The porch was decorated by multiple plant-covered arches that led towards the forest’s edge. Thick fog blanketed the path and swirled around their legs as they walked through the heavily floral walkway. This was where Eunoia grew most of their herbs and flowers, which attracted creatures of all kinds. The fog nymphs loved to swirl around the bases of the arches, and insects visited the flowers throughout the day. A tiny nymph made of partially solid mist playfully tugged at their ankle-length skirt as they stepped by, and Eunoia gave it a warm smile.
They may have made the monsters out to be blood thirsty creatures ready to attack the woman at a moment’s notice, but it simply wasn’t true. If Eunoia’s clients knew the gentle (yet occasionally curiously malevolent) nature of the monsters in the forest, the area would be flooded with tourists, scientists, and poachers. They wanted a quiet life, so instilling monster-based fear into idiot’s hearts was the best way to get one.
Eunoia knelt down to be face to face with the little monsters. A few more floated over to them, chittering excitedly amongst themselves. When Eunoia brought out a head of cabbage and held it out to them, the little beasties tore it to shreds in seconds. It was like watching a swarm of piranhas, but vegetarian. When the little things had their fill of leafy greens, they sunk back into the fog. One turned as she got swept back into the breeze, and chirped out a very small, “Thank you, Eunoia!” The witch nodded in reply and continued down the path.
The arches ended at the first tree. It almost appeared to make the forest continue with the arch aesthetic, but that was a lie. The only monsters that could cross their grey stone and benitoite paths were ones like the fog nymphs, which floated. The arches were potent with wards, so unwanted monsters couldn’t crawl across them to reach the house. As much as Eunoia trusted that the monsters in this forest weren’t all that bad, they still disliked having visitors. The house in the middle of a forest nearly impossible to navigate was supposed to get rid of them, but monsters somehow had the uncanny ability to pop up when least expected.
They stepped off their path and felt the rush of the forest underfoot. It had a magic all its own, different from theirs. It smelled like mushrooms and wet earth, and when it mixed with their magic, it felt like worms under their skin. Eunoia tried not to go off their path often, but once a week, they gave extra food to the nearby monsters as a sort of peace treaty. A way to say sorry for forcing them off the land Eunoia had claimed as their own. The last thing they wanted was to become like the white settlers who stole and pillaged and never gave back to the Native Americans who Eunoia was descended from. Racism ran rampant between humans, but the wilderness was no place for such hatred. Even if Eunoia wasn’t a monster, they still needed to respect the laws of the land set in place by the magic beings.
They met the monsters in the same place each week, at the fork in a river that was about a fifteen-minute walk from their home. The walk was usually full of sounds of the forest; birds chirping, streambeds flowing and shifting, trees growing and dying. The woods were a very loud place when one learned how to listen. However, on this day, the only sounds Eunoia heard were their own footsteps. They had never heard rushing water silence itself before; it was always such a forceful, bodacious part of the forest, they hadn’t imagined anything without it. That being said, the lack of even the simplest sounds put them on edge. Their breaths came awkwardly as they tried to match the pace of their racing heart instead of the crackle of insects under the earth.
The sudden snap of a twig somewhere to their right made them go rigid. Eunoia stood still, with a foot poised to step, but not willing to make a sound. They had never, in all their years of being out in this place, been met with a situation such as this. Another snap echoed to their left this time, and as they peered through the thick trees and high-reaching underbrush, Eunoia could just barely see the movement of something like an emaciated arm getting dragged through the dirt. It was far longer than one that belonged to a human, though. There was a quiet snuffling that came above them, like a bear trying to figure out how to open a cooler full of camper’s food. Whatever was in these woods with them, making sound in this silent scape, there must have been more than one of them. Eunoia decided against finding out what they were.
They bolted forward, still towards the original meeting place, though they now doubted that any monsters they knew would be waiting.
A woman’s delighted laugh followed them through the trees, but they didn’t dare turn back. What followed the laughter was rough footsteps, many at a time like a multi-legged beast. Something nipped their ankles, but whether it was a claw, teeth, or a passing branch, Eunoia didn’t care to find out.
Eunoia ran harder then, than any other time in their twenty-nine years of life. The tromping behind them quieted slowly, as if somehow, they were able to outrun the beasts, and they quickly dove for cover behind a giant knobby tree. It must have been a Redwood, considering the size of the trunk – it concealed them completely. The roots were slightly lifted above the soil, making a protective seat of sorts where they slid down to catch their breath. They raised their hands above their head to try to fix a stitch that had formed in their side, and took long, slow gulps of air as quietly as they could manage.
When Eunoia could breathe right again, they rummaged through their cloak for any kind of protective magic they could find. Star Anise, Lemon Balm, and bundles of bracken were scattered around them as they cleared themselves of things that were useless in this situation. Their throat felt like it was closing in panic as they slowly came to the realization that they hadn’t come prepared for the worst. Eunoia always prepared for the worst. It came with the paranoia.
Eunoia threw a big chunk of rock salt at their feet in frustration. It had looked like quartz for a split second, and raised their hopes up, which just made it that much more disappointing.
Soft footsteps through dead leaves brought them out of their searching. It didn’t sound like what followed them before, but they knew monsters could deceive easily, so they were still wary.
A woman was approaching them through a white wall of fog. When their eyes met, Eunoia jolted back but only hit the rigid tree behind them. The woman smirked at their shock. Her eyes were solid black, without an iris or pupil.
As she approached, her features changed, and an awful tearing noise ripped through the area. Her jaw bone was elongating and breaking through her skin. Blood splattered across the ground as the skin of her face fell away to reveal the growing skull of an elk with black stumps where antlers should have been, as if they had been forcefully torn from her head. Her arms snapped and shifted in their sockets, growing longer than Eunoia’s own legs, but as skinny as twigs. They dragged along the forest floor as her legs contorted dangerously. She stumbled for a moment as the bones around her knees rebuilt themselves with the sound of termites eating at the foundation of their cabin late at night – a hollow crunching noise that kept them up with the worry that tonight would be the night their roof collapsed and crushed them.
When she regained her balance and continued towards the fear-struck witch, still pressed against the base of the tree as if it would protect them, she toward over eight feet tall standing up, but crouched down and prowled ever closer on all fours. Her elk skull was bleached white, like the ribcage over Eunoia’s front door, and had a mouth full of teeth perfect for tearing into an animal. There were two big tusks jutting out from the sides of her mouth that curved up over her cracking snout. It reminded Eunoia of the boars whose teeth burrowed into their brains if left unchecked.
A powerful stench of rotting flesh emanated from her maw as she got close enough for Eunoia to feel her heavy breathing on their face. White fur had sprouted all the way down her back, like a mohawk, but the hair looked like it had withered the second it grew. Everything about her screamed death, and yet here she was, living.
It was the sign of a feaster; a monster so radically against humans, that it started eating them and now couldn’t stop.
To their left and right, they could see two other similar monsters lurking just passed the fog bank.
Eunoia was going to die there if they couldn’t think fast enough.
“H-hold on.” They finally gasped. The feaster before them paused and tilted her head ever so slightly, as if this wasn’t what she expected from her prey.
“Why eat me?”
She gave a chuckle that was so light hearted, it didn’t sound right coming from her boney jaw.
“You’re the first human we’ve found in weeks, we’re starving.” She replied, and looked back to one of the other monsters, who nodded in agreement.
“Exactly why you shouldn’t eat me.” Eunoia said, and she snapped her attention back to them, but they couldn’t tell from the unmalleable skull if she was curious or angry. “If you eat me you’ll have to find your next meal. Who knows how long that will take. Keep me alive, and I can lure meals to you.”
The feaster sat back, looking very much like a dog that tried to sit like a human. She tilted her head to the left, then to the right, like she was scanning them. Eunoia tried hard to keep a determined face and not let their fear show. They were positive it didn’t matter, though. She could probably smell the sweat on the back of their neck that betrayed their emotions.
“You would hurt your own kind so easily?”
“They never did anything for me. The ancestors of my clients are the same ones who stole my Native people’s land and massacred us. Why should I do anything for White folk when I’m just a novelty to see on the weekends?”
The feasters laughed and the one on the right nodded. The one in front leaned in close until the smell of gangrene stung Eunoia’s lungs. She extended her clawed, emaciated hand to them. It was turned black and the flesh almost seemed to be melting off of the bone. Eunoia took it anyways and prayed that it wouldn’t have lasting effects in the long run.
“Well, little witch, we’ll let you live for now. If you don’t get us a meal in a week, you’re dead. Let’s see where this deal takes us.”
They nodded. “Call me Eunoia.”
“And, our dear little witch, I am Theda.”
* *
A loud knocking rattled through Eunoia’s dark cabin and jostled them awake. The sound of termites had kept them up again, but this time the smell of rot came with it. In their tired haze, they nearly missed the fact that someone was still knocking on the door.
“Get out here, lousy witch!”
It sounded like the woman from a few days prior. She didn’t sound happy. Eunoia considered rolling over and pretending they weren’t home, but the lady was insistent. They groaned as they stumbled through the cabin to the front, swung the door open, and startled her.
“What.” Eunoia demanded, voice heavy and strained from sleep.
“Your spell didn’t work! People hate me now, and I stink!”
They sighed and let her inside. She tromped through the door like she owned the place.
“There are arches through the back door. Walk through them all the way, and into the forest. It’ll strip the scent and the spell. Be sure to linger off the path so the spell doesn’t try to cling to you.”
She huffed and stormed out through the back. Eunoia started brewing some tea and sat at their kitchen table. They drifted, half asleep, until a scream out back was interrupted by a sickeningly wet crunch-snap. The whistle of the kettle drowned out the rest of the gruesome noises, and Eunoia calmly poured their tea.
Honestly, she shouldn’t have complained. She never said she wanted to be remembered in a good light. Now everyone would remember her as the woman who perpetually stunk of rotting garbage on a hot day. She decided to be a brat, and now she was breakfast.
Wheeler Graye 