a web novel series of broomsticks, semiautomatics, and jetpacks.
by stefan gagne

(The following is a fan work of fiction and not copyrighted by Stefan Gagne, aside from using characters derived from his works.)

A Short Story
by Lirazel

There’s those that think the Fae brought magic to Earth. And even that there were no witches before the ones trained by the Fae.

She had an errand un the city, and she’d decided to spend some time at a free lecture, on “Magic Before Pandora”, before walking home. Not that she liked cities much, but one often had to go there for this or that. She even had a few customers there, people who thought her simples did them good. She had gone to the lecture hoping that perhaps someone had gotten it right – but not hoping very hard.

Which was just as well, because the young muff behind the podium was rehearsing the tired old wheeze about how all magic before the Pandora Event was a foreshadowing, an “echo back in time” of the coming future. Only real by chance, not controllable, not even particularly interesting except for the way people tried to use it to gain power and were always thwarted, sometimes spectacularly.

He had the last part right, but not the first, she thought as she moved slowly along the street, away from the auditorium. People – well, beings, then – beings of all sorts surely did seek to use magic to gain power.

But the first part…

In her day, every witch had a Granny. Or an Auntie. You have to be of a certain age before you can train a successor well. In her case, it was an Auntie, Auntie Rose. A tiny little woman, often distressed by how clumsy her chosen apprentice was, but still… not throwing her over. Training her carefully to sense the rock beneath the dirt, the water flowing underground, the rhyme and reason for the place and shape of every tree.

First, came the gardening. She learned to see how a plant was growing, and what it needed to grow more strongly, more fruitfully; then, how to guide it to that growth. Next, the gathering of herbs and the compounding of simples. Basic recipes at first, and then how they should be adjusted to the people who needed them. Calling them “simples” made them seem safe and easy, and so they were, to take. Compounding them was anything but. Just collecting the materials for some of them took a full year, and that’s if everything went well.

Last came the midwifery. Walking with the mother to the gates of Death Herself, returning with the new life – most of the time.

It was during the simples stage that her temptation had arrived. And Auntie Rose, wisely, had not held her back. She had given her a packet of tea, “Made for you, deary,” and sent her out with a Blessing of Return on her feet. Handy thing, that had turned out to be…

She had reached the outskirts of the city now, a neighborhood too shabby to be called a suburb. As sometimes happened, even in these days, a couple of louts had followed her. Between her age and her basket, such things often happened. Sometimes she wondered if she should do something a little flashy, just for once, just to get the word out. After all, in this day and age attacking an old lady with a walking-stick and a woven basket was even more dangerous than attacking a small, bald, smiling, elderly monk.

And once again, she decided against it. What would it prove? And it might make her an even more tempting target. Instead, she stopped for a moment and swung her cane in a quick and complex pattern between two trees that reached long, leaf-clad arms over the road. Then she lifted her skirts and stepped high, as if she was passing over something and trying not to touch it. She moved down the shadowed street, fast becoming more of a woodland track, and did not look behind her.

She did hear them start to run as she reached the darkest point under the trees. And smiled as the sudden, pounding steps turned and faded away. They would find themselves back where they started, with no memory of how they had gotten there – or of her. She kept on moving down the path, enjoying the dark and the glimpses of the stars, for another five miles, until the road widened a bit, fields took the place of trees on either side, and she reached her little house – formerly Rose’s little house – on the outskirts of the village. Or, if you liked, under the eaves of the forest. Not quite one thing, not quite the other. Just where a witch should live.

A cool breeze worked its way around the posts of her front porch. Autumn was coming early, apparently. She'd always had a good sense of the seasons... when to plant, when to harvest. That wasn't from her witch training, it was simply from years of living on the fringe.

She was likely the oldest living witch, but no one knew her little secret. She'd managed to get wise about Lilith's little training camp before it could corrupt her, running away when nobody was looking. Since then, she'd carried on in with how she felt a witch ought to be, decade after decade. Keeping her village healthy, tending to its problems. Being everybody's favorite kindly old lady.

Autumn coming early. Well, well. All things pass. But now, there was a witch on the throne of the seasons... and one like her, one that resisted Lilith's temptations. Good. The old ways (despite really being the new ways) would carry on. And Spring would be right around the corner.