Cornerwitch
I was inspired by Elsewhere and The Cornerwitch. I hope it is good.
Everyone in their little town called them Cornerwitch. Not much was known about their background or their home life, only that if you needed something (protection, beauty, luck, sleep, anything) they had a spell or a potion or a rune to help-for a price. They never charged very much, and if you were desperate enough they gave freely. This Cornerwitch was generous.
Their origin stretched back to the beginning of middle school for them. They found a book of the Fae in the school library and they could hear it calling to them. They devoured every last word of it and then looked for more. The next time they went to the library there was a book of witchcraft waiting for them on a table and they devoured that one too. Book after book after book until their parents found out and punished them harshly, but at that point it was too late.
They got clever with their witchcraft after that. Carving runes into worrystones so they were nearly impossible to find, sewing them into underclothes, turning potion mixes into tea bags, turning bibles into portable hidden altars; they were unstoppable. They started selling their spells and tea and runes their sophomore year of high school when their parents found one of their altars.
They saved what they could from their parents’ rampage and in order to restock started to sell in return for offerings of dried herbs and crystals and anything else they could get their hands on.
They sold calming draughts as tea bags, protection runes in worry stones, luck spells in small bottle necklaces, healing potions in pastes to be spread over bruises and scrapes and cuts. Cornerwitch had what you needed.
Their senior year changed. Their parents found out about their business and something changed in them. People who went to Cornerwitch came back and warned people not to look too long and to bring salt or iron with them. There was something sharper about them, something new and other about the bruises and the grimace and the hollow smile as Cornerwitch bargained with those desperate enough to seek them out and warnings were given as though Cornerwitch were Fae. Be careful, was the whisper of the wind in the ears of those who looked for them, Be wary.
By the time they were to go to college the birth name they put on their application and student ID for Elsewhere University was as much them as any nickname as they had ever worn.
Cornerwitch walked around campus free of burning iron and protective salt as they offered deals to students naive or desperate enough to take them, their hollow smile full of sharp teeth and air moving in waves around them as the flutter of unseen wings sprouting through the cape they wore caressed the faces of those they passed.
Rumors had it they studied the forbidden major. Rumors had it they walked completely unprotected at all times of the day. Rumors had it they dealt deals with the Fae as often as they dealt deals with humans. Rumors had it Cornerwitch wasn’t human and if you had the sight you would see exactly who their parents had turned them into.
The truth was in two hearts that beat as one on the high court of the Fae where their parents could never harm them again.
[x]
