And it was with me today as well when I headed into the
woods to see off the November Witch. I
wanted to be sure she left on schedule because December is weighing heavily
upon me. I can only take so much. I was patient as I walked, but I knew she
would find me. It is a child’s game we
have played for a long time now as I am not young. The signs were everywhere—frozen pools of
water that just a couple of weeks ago would have still been running down the
slopes of the woods, icicles hanging from rock formations, the putrid scent of
an unlucky animal caught by the coyotes the night before. Everything said “Witch” to me.
There was no ambush this time, no slings or stones or
arrows. There was no hidden trap and no
poison mushrooms. Instead, she sat upon
a rock waiting for me, as if waiting for a good friend or a long lost lover,
her tattered dress of forest leaves hanging down in a long train that was still
beautiful, albeit bedraggled. Her once
beautiful face was slightly swollen now and lined with time. She smiled and waved when she saw me, and I warily
raised a hand in response. I will never
trust the November Witch.
She rolled her eyes at me. “Oh, greet me like the friend I am!” she
said. “You and I have known each other
for a very long time. That must count
for something, at least.”
“What do you want, Witch?” I asked.
“Nothing. Can’t I talk
to an old friend and be welcomed?”
“An old friend?”
“Why yes, of course,” she said, “Do sit down.”
But I did not sit.
I could smell the trickery in the air.
She is an old adversary, but old or not, she knows the woods as well as
I do, maybe better.
“So you’re going to see Him, then?” she continued on,
seeming not to notice that I kept my distance.
“Where I go is not your concern. You have done your level best to stop
me. Again and again you have tried, and
with the help of Mercury this time, you almost succeeded,” I said.
“You are brave.”
“You are flattering me,” I returned.
“You are smart.”
“You are cutthroat.”
“You are cutthroat.”
“Will you speak so ill of an old acquaintance who only
wants to see how powerful you have become?” she asked.
I turned to leave, but she stood up quickly, much faster
than I would have imagined she could, and I was reminded that there was not
much distance between us. In fact, we
were closer than I would at first have thought.
“Please,” she said, holding her hand out, “I know I have
been beaten this time, and yes, I will be back again next year. But I can at least acknowledge when I have been
bested.”
She still held her hand out, a small and delicate hand
after all, and I moved closer and reached for it. Why not? I thought. Let’s have a truce, if only for a
moment. But as I reached, I felt an icy
breeze on the back of my neck and I froze in motion, my hand only a few inches
from hers. And then I backed up—quickly,
very quickly, feeling angry and foolish.
How close had I come to a final embrace with the Witch?
Her hand fell to her side and she smiled, a smile that
never reached her eyes, a cold smile that froze upon her face as her entire
body froze before my eyes. She turned to
crystal ice, each white tooth in her mouth frozen and exquisite. And then they dropped out of her mouth, one
by one, and fell to the hard rocks at her feet, smashing with a tinny, tinkling
sound. Her gaze was frozen in time, and
she could no longer see me. I had witnessed
for the first time a slight brush with the Great Alchemist.
I turned as fast as I could and ran into the woods. I knew I should not turn around and look at
her. I did not want to tempt fate, having
witnessed the alchemy, and I knew I was lucky to be alive just now. Then I heard a large crash as her entire body
of ice crushed and fell to the forest floor, like the sound of the stained
glass windows from nine hundred and ninety-nine cathedrals crashing to the
ground. The Witch was dead. Again.
I stood still in my tracks. I could hear the wing beats of the usual
suspects, those who always come at death.
My heart moved with pity—it shouldn’t have, but it did. I expected no more from her than what I had
gotten, but from me I expected no less. I
decided it was not for me to judge the Betrayer. There was another Judge who waited for her, who
waited for all the Betrayers.
“Come you angels of mercy,” I whispered, “and take her to
the Summerland where she will be safe from the bloodlust of the night woods. Come Epona, and carry her away like the wind!” No sooner did I say it than I heard the
massive hoofbeats behind me. They seemed
to mingle with the drumbeats I could hear in the distance ahead of me as I
walked forward into the woods. I did not
turn around to see the transmutation.
I kept walking and I was reminded of Dante’s Inferno. "Lasciate
ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate" said the sign on the Gate of
Hell. “Abandon all hope, ye who enter
here.” There were nine circles of
torment that the soul had to journey through, each worse than the one before
it. The first was Limbo, the second was
Lust, the third was Gluttony, the fourth was Greed, the fifth was Wrath, the
sixth was Heresy, the seventh was Violence, the eighth was Fraud, and the ninth
was Treachery.
The ninth was saved for the Betrayers. For surely there is nothing worse than those
who claim to love us and betray us. The
inner ninth circle of hell is saved especially for them, and rightly so. This is the realm of the traitor, of the
oathbreaker. The Betrayer of friends, of
family, and of country. But most
especially, the Betrayer of love. Abandon all hope.
Goodbye to the November Witch for another year. I continued on my walk, the threatening
drumbeats in the now darkening forest growing a bit louder and deeper
still. I reached for my alabaster
scabbard and looked within. There inside
was a tiny stub of an old candle, which I always guard like my life. A glowing ember sat at the tip of the wick,
giving off a soft and warm light.
“We are almost there, my beloved,” I said out loud. “Will you trust me?” But who was I talking to?? I did not know, nor did I know the words
would escape my lips until the very moment they did. I was afraid.
Even after all this time of being cared for, I was still afraid. “You can go back and be the seed that never
sprouted, or you can be the one who burst and bled his soul upon the Earth in a
holy sacrifice. The choice is
yours. The choice has always been yours,”
I said. To him.
That was enough for one day. I am only a woman, and I am tired. But, of course, I will fight. I was born to fight. I move on, then, to icy December.
