Back in the forbidden woods, there was a tumble down shack in a small clearing where the sun rarely reached. Vines grew randomly up the walls, over the roof and chimney and down to the door. It was a dark place, smoky and green and damp with vegetation and rotted wood. It was home to Aunt Annie, the one eyed fortune teller.
She was an ancient, gypsy-ish woman, a crone some said, who favored long skirts and peasant blouses. She was usually barefoot and wore garlands of dried woven leaves, pelts, silver hoop earrings. Her hair reached to her waist in an untamed mane of silver and black and she walked with a cane, made so the folklore said, of human bones. She had one good eye and an empty socket for the other but she saw better than most as she read tea leaves and tarot cards and examined our palms with a cackle, predicting fame and fortune, long life, love and tragedy, sorrows and redemption. She sold charms and potions and for the right price would cast a spell to turn unrequited love around or improve the harvest. It was rumored that she could churn the ocean into a hurricane with a few words, cause or cure illness, improve the harvest, even wake the dead if she were of a mind to but when we brought her the little fox that had been caught in a trap, she shook her head and talked to us of all living creatures having a time and a season. She took the small animal from us almost reverently and said she would tend it to God - we watched in awe as she laid the body on her kitchen table, combed out it's fur and washed off the blood, then gently wrapped it in old linens and placed it in a scarred wooden box with sea shells and dried flowers. We buried the little creature in her yard at the edge of the trees and Annie knelt at it's grave and said magic words to help guide it to heaven. Then with a snarl, she took the evil trap and cast a spell on it so that it would never harm another of God's creatures and she hammered it to a misshapen mass of metal and hung it on a tree - a warning, she told us, and a protection against evil and she spit on the ground then looked upward and muttered, Make it so. She stood like a statue, her skirts blowing in the damp breeze and her arms raised to heaven, her hair swirling around her shoulders and in a clear, strong voice she ordered, Make it so! The wind seemed to die down instantly and she lowered her arms and leaned heavily on her cane as she turned toward her shack and began to limp her way toward it, an old one eyed woman who lived alone in the forbidden woods with her spells and magic charms and nature for company. And sometimes with a handful of wide eyed children to comfort and teach.
She was an ancient, gypsy-ish woman, a crone some said, who favored long skirts and peasant blouses. She was usually barefoot and wore garlands of dried woven leaves, pelts, silver hoop earrings. Her hair reached to her waist in an untamed mane of silver and black and she walked with a cane, made so the folklore said, of human bones. She had one good eye and an empty socket for the other but she saw better than most as she read tea leaves and tarot cards and examined our palms with a cackle, predicting fame and fortune, long life, love and tragedy, sorrows and redemption. She sold charms and potions and for the right price would cast a spell to turn unrequited love around or improve the harvest. It was rumored that she could churn the ocean into a hurricane with a few words, cause or cure illness, improve the harvest, even wake the dead if she were of a mind to but when we brought her the little fox that had been caught in a trap, she shook her head and talked to us of all living creatures having a time and a season. She took the small animal from us almost reverently and said she would tend it to God - we watched in awe as she laid the body on her kitchen table, combed out it's fur and washed off the blood, then gently wrapped it in old linens and placed it in a scarred wooden box with sea shells and dried flowers. We buried the little creature in her yard at the edge of the trees and Annie knelt at it's grave and said magic words to help guide it to heaven. Then with a snarl, she took the evil trap and cast a spell on it so that it would never harm another of God's creatures and she hammered it to a misshapen mass of metal and hung it on a tree - a warning, she told us, and a protection against evil and she spit on the ground then looked upward and muttered, Make it so. She stood like a statue, her skirts blowing in the damp breeze and her arms raised to heaven, her hair swirling around her shoulders and in a clear, strong voice she ordered, Make it so! The wind seemed to die down instantly and she lowered her arms and leaned heavily on her cane as she turned toward her shack and began to limp her way toward it, an old one eyed woman who lived alone in the forbidden woods with her spells and magic charms and nature for company. And sometimes with a handful of wide eyed children to comfort and teach.
No comments:
Post a Comment