The Witch

Power without clarity becomes burden.

There was, and there was not, a time when the Raven left the tightrope behind and took to the skies. They said the witch lived in the forest cave where the pines grew too close and the wind always whispered sideways. The place was hidden, yet everyone knew of it, knew to stay away. Children were warned, traders took the long route, and even the crows flew wider circles there. It was said the witch turned wandering souls into roots and stones, that her breath could wither crops, that she brewed curses into her tea.

But myths, the Raven knew, often have their own agendas.

The Raven arrived one evening as mist tangled itself through the branches. She had followed a barely-there trail of mossy stones, guided not by signs, but by a pull she couldn't name. Her wings were heavy with silence, and her heart with memory.

The cave wasn’t grand or foreboding, it was quiet. The scent of herbs drifted faintly in the air, mixed with smoke and the cool dampness of earth. A small fire crackled at the mouth of the cave, and beside it sat the witch.

She looked up as the Raven landed nearby.

Her face was lined with time and weather. Not cruel, not kind. Just there, like stone or moonlight. Her eyes, though, they were startling. Not because of their color or shape, but because they looked straight through.

“Why are you here, Raven?” the witch asked. “And why don’t I frighten you?”

The Raven tilted her head. “Because I also understand the power of myths,” she said. “And how false they can be. I wanted to meet the witch that everyone knows about but no one cares to meet.”

The witch watched her for a long moment. Then she motioned to a flat stone near the fire. “Sit, then. And tell me your story, Raven.”

So the Raven did. She spoke of long winters spent waiting for spring that never came. Of flying in circles and calling it migration. Of carrying wisdom on her back like a pack too tightly bound. But she did not yet speak of the Kingdom, or the Grey Squirrel, or the tightrope, for that truth still lived beneath her ribs, tender and raw.

The witch listened without interruption, stirring a simmering pot with dried bark and petals floating on the surface. She only spoke when the Raven had finished, her voice low and unhurried.

“You have flown far, and you’ve shed much,” she said. “But even so, I see the binds still on your wings. They are made not of rope, but of belief.” She leaned forward, her gaze fierce and tender all at once. “Until you can see that you are trapped, you can do nothing.”

The Raven blinked, her feathers twitching at the weight of the words. “What do you mean?” she asked.

The witch stood, brushing ash from her hands. “I mean your story still circles a wound. You have left the blackberry bush, but you carry the thorns. The myths that shaped you still echo in your choices.”

She stepped toward the cave entrance, gesturing for the Raven to follow.

“I am called a witch because I live alone. Because I heal in ways others don’t understand. Because I don’t play by the rules of the world beyond this forest. That frightens people. So they call me dangerous.”

She turned to face the Raven. “But danger is often just power seen from the outside. You have power too, Raven. You always have. But power without clarity becomes burden.”

The mist had begun to lift. Pale light filtered through the trees. The Raven looked into the cave, the place so many feared, then back to the woman they called witch.

Turning away, the witch said, “Myths, after all, wear many faces.”

And as the fire dimmed and the forest stirred, the story the witch had asked for, the one still burrowed in the Raven’s chest, began to stir.

“I will share my story with you,” she said.

© 2025 Sarah Dooley. Story and images by the author. All rights reserved.