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The first thing you notice about the witch is her hair: longer even than you’d guessed, dark, matted with tangles that would break the teeth from combs--and filled, for the obvious reason, with dead leaves. You twirl your own leaf nervously between your fingers as you take a seat on her hard wooden chair. The smell of her house reminds you of lifting up a stone to see moist earth full of insects under it.
The witch turns from her cupboard, a mushroom held aloft between her two fingers. “May I offer you anything?” The mushroom is a delicate whitish-pink against her dark skin, its surface dotted with blobs of red liquid that jiggle gently as she holds it towards you. You try to think of other things they look like that aren’t blood. “I appreciate your offer, Ma’am, but I’m um, not hungry, I’ve just had dinner not an hour ago!”
She gives you a level look. “Bleeding tooth fungus is inedible. I did not say ‘may I offer you anything to eat.’ But at least you know your manners.” As if that is the end of the matter, she tosses the mushroom casually into the air, where with a flurry of wings something fast and dark snags it before vanishing into the rafters. You feel a hot prickling across your upper lip. Did you just fail a test… or pass one? She turns her attention to the leaf you are so carefully holding.
“Hmm. Maple. Good condition. A nice reddish-orange, my favorite. I am sure that you let it fall of its own accord, yes? You didn’t--” she mimes the gesture, her fingernails clicking together, “ pluck it?” You shake your head vigorously. “Yes Ma’am, I did. Ah, that is to say: no, I didn’t, to the latter, Ma’am.” She lets out a throaty chuckle, and you dip your gaze in a polite nod to avoid looking at her teeth.
She claps her hands: business time. “Write your request in full on the leaf, in as fine a print as you require. Be careful not to pierce its skin.” She slides a tray onto the table in front of you. Its contents: one feather, black. One inkwell, also black. One small incredibly sharp-looking knife, black. Volcanic glass? Your eyes flick from it up to her. “Am I supposed to write it in… blood, or?” She shrugs. “Do whatever you want, girl. It’s your wish.”
You go with the ink. The feather trembles as you lift it. Breathe in, breathe out. This has to be done. “You see, my brother, he--” The witch stops you with a raised finger. “Tell it to the leaf.” You use your finest calligraphy, and the feather doesn’t shake at all.
The witch sits across from you, fingers steepled, watching. If she blinks, it’s when you do. You have to use the back of the leaf to fit everything on there, but sooner than you would have thought, it’s done.
She takes the leaf and peers closely at it, her lips moving as she reads, but the words she whispers are not the ones you wrote. This goes on for some time, her expression as scrutable as a stone. Finally she stretches, joints crackling, and sits back heavily in her chair. As she stands, handing you back the leaf, her voice is suddenly demure--or, pretending to be? “Where… do you think it should go?”
Her hair drags across the ground as she adjusts it, and you wonder if it has ever been cut. Then again, you can imagine it dulling the edge of even your mother’s sharpest sewing scissors. You realize just how many leaves are in there, some fresh but many older, broken apart, decomposing, the rich loamy smell of them almost overpowering. You tuck the stem of your leaf gently into the hair above her ear so it stands proud, like a little flag. Is she… smiling? She pulls back before you can be sure.
She runs her finger tenderly along an edge of the leaf, then nods. You know when you’re dismissed, but at the doorway you can’t help but turn back. “And…” the word tumbles from your mouth before you can stop it. “My wish? It will come true?”
Something dark moves behind her eyes. “No, girl. Of course not. I have no mystical powers. I am a madwoman, living alone at the edge of the woods, and when the season is right you people come to me with your hearts’ desires in your hands for no reason at all. The answer to your wish was inside your heart all along.” The words drip caustic from her lips, and you would rather bite into the bloody fungus than hear that tone again.
Outside, door almost closed, you pause. “Perhaps”, you say, addressing the sliver of darkness beyond the door, “I could come back? Not for another request, but, just... to talk?” The witch’s voice echoes out of the lonely house. “You wouldn’t be the first to say that.” This seems to be as close to an invitation as you’re going to get.
Home. Moonlight streams in through your window as you lie in bed, staring at the ceiling. Apparently night fell while you were with the witch. You have no idea how long you were there, but you feel emotionally wrung out, exhausted, but peaceful. You sleep deeply, and without dreams. Inside of a week your brother is dead, so. It must have worked.