I found and lightly edited a years-old original fiction piece. I think it was for uni, or maybe for funsies? regardless, I present: largely plotless sapphic witch roommates. Enjoy.
Crushed peppermint tea leaves. Mortar and pestle. Dried tobacco on the wall. Light filtering through the window above the kitchen sink. It’s strange, living with her. She hasn’t said anything about it, but you know. The first week you moved into the house, she took you to the nearby beach with candles stuffed in her backpack. An overcast sky stretched out above you and cats eye shells peppered along the sand. You remember your mother teaching you to scour for them along the white sand of Big Bay. Now, she wanders ahead. Her dress flows slightly beneath the oversized tan men’s jacket she shrugged on earlier. You stride slowly in her wake, savouring the view. Contrary to your childhood summers where sunburn peeled the skin from your shoulders, you wish you’d brought a jacket to stave off the early autumn chill. “Come on!” she calls, chin length hair bobbing around her neck. You want to reach out, to tease the strands back into place. Her lit candles defy the ocean wind, flames barely stifled as she fusses meticulously over their placement in the sand. You’re not sure what’s happening—you never asked the first time she did this and now it feels like you’ve left it too long—but she tugs her shoes off and you follow suit. Something about it feels… spiritual. Sensual. The sand between your toes, between hers, shoots energy through your limbs. You’re awake. *** When you finally ask her about it, she smiles. Her lip twitches on the left side, like she’s ready to laugh before you’ve even cracked a joke. “Are you a witch?” Her mouth drops. “You weren’t expecting that,” you say. It’s not a question, so she doesn’t answer. Instead, she occupies her hands by shuffling a tarot deck. Her legs—tan on her bare thighs and pale behind her folded knees— are pretzelled atop a cushion in desperate need of plumping. You kneel down before her, falling back onto your legs so you’re at eye level. She doesn’t look up. “You don’t need to tell me. It’s okay.” She sighs. “I thought you knew.” “I do.” A growl builds in her throat. You’ve said something wrong, you know it, but you can’t work out what. She looks up at you, hands stilling over the cards, and snorts before reading the top one out. “The lovers. When ambivalence lingers in your heart, this card signifies that you must make a decision in the realm of love.” And then she’s kissing you. You’re frozen, lips still trapped shut in concentration, caught in the moment before. She pulls away, falling back into her last position, shuffling the cards once more. “For the record, I am a witch.” When you lean in to kiss her again, a stray strand of hair catches between your lips.