First thing, and according to the witch, who said that she went by the name “Kerrigan Thornheart,” in the kingdom. “Diamond Kerrigan” in the castle. “Mother Diamond” in the Coven. “But you may call me Witch Mother, if Mother seems too cozy. I am… your new mother, a mother in magic, if you will.” She bowed to her and looked up to see her face.
“Why can’t I call you one of those other names?” Punzie asked.
She shrugged her shoulders, “You could, but names have a lot of power in them, even fake names. In the kingdom, I am a dashing outlaw who they come to for jobs that nobody else can quite do. In the castle, I am a worker who does the work that nobody else dares to do. In the coven, I do as my sisters do, taking in princesses who have been offered up to curses and quests, and training witches. But, a Witch Mother is more than just keeping you locked away. Plenty of princesses have not one magical bone in their bodies and so long as you put ‘em to sleep, keep ‘em fed, or freeze their body’s functions - they just exist until a prince comes to rescue them. Or, if they’re lucky, another witch.”
“Why would that be lucky?” Punzie asked, a bit horrified.
Witch Mother grinned, for the first time looking as evil as Rapunzel suspected witches of being. “Because a prince is wealthy in riches, but witches are wealthy in power.” Rapunzel took a step back, suspiciously eyeing Witch Mother. The woman smirked, sat on the foot of the bed and asked, “What do you know of your mother’s confinement during her capture?”
“She was taken by a witch of the Ebon Shadowlands, and held in an underground cavern, lit by the eyes of nocturnal creatures keeping watch of her…”
“Did the prince slaughter them during his rescue?”
Rapunzel furrowed her eyebrows, “I don’t know.”
“If they were keeping watch, that means the Witch of that cavern would have known the moment he stepped foot inside. Did they attack him? What type of nocturnal creatures were they, anyway?” She asked with a childlike wonder that Punzie could tell was fake. “Bats? Possums? Racoons? Were they some type of magical creations, or animals given employment by the witch?”
“ I don’t know. Do you want to hear what I do know, or do you want to interrupt?”
Witch Mother smiled, made a zipping gesture over her lips, which surprisingly literally zipped her lips together, startling the girl. “He… he went into the cavern. Wait. He was given the quest by his father…” Witch Mother tilted her head, like she had more questions, but Rapunzel waved her hands, as though shooing them away before they could be spoken. “I don’t know how his father came up with the quest or found out about it. I just know that he told my father that it was time that he went on a quest. He told him where it would be, and gathered him for an announcement and a seeing off. He was given provisions, a weapon, and a horse. He set off on Diamond Stallion, to find the princess and rescue her from the evil witch…”
Now, the witch unzipped her mouth, licked her lips to clear it away. “Oh. I know who your father is now. Right. I know who your mother is too.”
“Of course you know. She is the Queen.”
“A Queen, for certain, as she did marry a Prince, and shortly after this quest, a perfectly healthy king and queen, within mere months of each other, and so young, at that… passed away. He became king far too young, a lot of people said (when they knew nobody was listening, that is), and he had a daughter, some years later. He wanted sons, all of the kings do. But, unfortunately for him… He… was married to a witch. She never would have given him a son,” she waved a hand.
“What makes you think that my mother is a witch?”
“What makes you think that a woman who can use familiars to spy on you, manifest desires out of thin air and keep you safely contained and alive without human interaction nor social dependence, is not a witch?”
“Because witches are outlawed in the kingdom!”
“In the kingdom you were born in, and that is only for witches who are unaffiliated. Your father’s kingdom employed witches. Where do you think the prince got his stellar horse, his weapon that could defeat a witch, his quest?”
“From his father.”
“I love you. You’re so innocent.” She stopped smiling and looked serious, and mean. “Kings and Princes are always finding witches to try to get us to do their bidding. Sometimes, we’ll get a wicked queen, but usually, it's Kings and Princes. They want a quest for their son. They want a healing for their wife. They want to be rid of a daughter that they wished would have been a son… They cry out to us all the time…” She imitated a lamenting cry, “Someone! Someone please behold our plight and give us a way out of this!” A scoff later, she was calm again. “Sometimes, it is a war. They need a victory, or they need supplies. And the payment is often greater than what they can afford. Because they are wealthy with things that we do not need nor desire. But, sometimes, they might have something that we want.”
“What is it that a witch might want, if not riches? Or… fame? What are you getting, by being here?”
“I will answer the first question. The second is my business.What might a witch want, if not riches? Perhaps the power of a vast ritual. War Witches, for example, can give a boon, or even an army of spirits, if they’re powerful enough, and in return for their help, they are perhaps granted souls, or the blood of the fallen. Either of those is a really good haul for a War Witch. Sometimes it is freedom. As you said, witchcraft is supposed to be illegal in your father’s kingdom, but if you were able and willing to offer something to a human of great status, your witch crimes would be pardoned and overlooked in the future. Sometimes, it is to find an assistant or a successor, if you intend to move on to bigger and better things. Sometimes… And this doesn’t happen very often, in fact your mother is the first to do it in my long lifetime, and I am told it has been at least 300 years since we’ve been able to claim this… Sometimes, it is a kingdom.”
Rapunzel gasped, felt lightheaded, then sat on the foot of the bed, next to Witch Mother. “For what it's worth, Punzie - I do think that your mother loved your father. If she killed him on purpose, I think she probably had a very good reason to do so.”
Rapunzel turned to her, glaring, and ready to argue about it. But, Witch Mother snatched into the air and was suddenly holding in the palm of her hand, Rapunzel's lips. “There is no question as to whether or not she killed him. This, I know for a fact. I wouldn’t have been able to take you if she hadn’t killed him. In my opinion, being the Widow Queen of a kingdom wasn’t a very fair trade, even for her firstborn daughter. But, now that I see you and I’ve seen the spirit that embraces you, I definitely came out on top.” She lifted the lips on two fingers, blew them once and they fluttered their way back onto Rapunzel’s face, making her mouth operable again.
She frowned. She didn’t know why, but she believed it. Even in wanting to protest and scream about it not being true. “It had to have been an accident, if she did that. She really loved him, and me. Whatever she’s done, I just can’t believe that killing Daddy would’ve been something she ever chose.”
“I don’t care one way or another,” Witch Mother told her with a shrug. “I currently have a circuit of thirteen princesses, and you’re the only witchborn one. The others I have to try to convince, if I’m ever gonna get my power’s worth out of them.” She turned and collected two handfuls of the hair, “But to find you, in this humble tower, with this homely princess… I could give the others away and still be ahead of everyone in the Coven, maybe even in the network!”
“The spirit in my hair… where did it come from?”
The woman quickly looked at her, “ Well, when we are witchborn, spirits know of our arrival to this plane. Some of us are marked. Whether or not we want it, we belong to a certain spirit, or a certain group of spirits. They are sometimes called familiars, and despite what you might hear, they select the witch. They always select the witch, be it at birth, or later on in life, when they discover each other. The two are connected, witch and familiar. If there are more familiars, there are multiple connections. But then there are spirits that are much more powerful than a familiar. We call what they do embracing the witchborn. It always occurs at birth , or shortly afterwards. Rarely do they embrace a witch later of their own accord, but sometimes, a which may find and coerce it to embrace her. Embracing is deeper than the connection of a familiar. The spirit who embraces a witchborn lives inside of them. An embraced witch’s power is dynamic, and often uncontrollable, if they don’t know what is inside of them. If nurtured, the embraced witch could become immeasurably great and powerful.”
“That’s… that’s why Mama sent me away..”
Witch Mother neither confirmed nor denied this, but Punzie cried anyway. After a moment, Witch Mother hissed, jumped to her feet and summoned her staff to herself. This shocked Rapunzel, as she hadn’t seen, heard, or experienced anything to merit that type of behavior.
One tap on the floor, and everything she took off came rushing to her, another tap and it all began moving to their various places, and with the third tap her staff hovered sideways, and she leapt onto it and flew right out of the window! Punzie sat, still in shock and quite confused. She didn’t see the woman again for quite some time, but in that time, she spent time writing down everything that she could remember about that night, in her texts. She drew a portrait of the woman, in various positions, making various faces she had watched her make. She even wrote down all of her accusations.
Months went by before she once again heard 3 taps and “Rapunzel, let your hair down.” She rushed to the window. She had started to wonder if she had been having an elaborate dream that night, but there she was, hooded, staff in hand, weapons on her person, awaiting the hair.
“I’ve seen you fly. Why don’t you just fly up here into the window?”
“Let down your hair, or you’ll miss out on a present!” Witch Mother sang.
“Ugh,” Rapunzel grunted as she tried to find the end of her afro. Putting it into a bubble ponytail had gotten old. Instead, she just dragged it, sometimes stepping on it and then apologizing profusely, sometimes tripping over it and feeling fortunate that it always moved beneath her to catch her in it’s fluffy softness. She found the end and threw it outside. Moments later, there she was again. The huntress looking witch with a small armory on her person. She tossed the staff and the cloak, which had been merely draped around her shoulders and pulled something out of the satchel. It was what appeared to be a baby teacup pig.
Rapunzel gasped and jumped up and down, “Is it a pet???”
Witch Mother extended it in one hand and said, “It’s a familiar!”
Punzie’s excitement died down. “I thought you said that the familiar chooses the witch.”
“Oh, they do. We haven’t summoned the spirit yet. This is just a vessel.” She handed the pig to Rapnuzel, who rubbed noses with it and snuggled it.
“I like it like this.”
“Sure, you do now, but when it's whining for food and pissing and shitting all over this tower, you won’t.”
“Can we teach it to use a box, like a kitty cat..”
Witch Mother slammed a knife down on the nightstand and turned to her, with wrath in her eyes. “YOU have yet to even say “Thank you, Mother, for this gift that I already adore!” The pig squealed and began trying to run up Rapunzel’s chest to her shoulder. It managed to kick itself free, trying to get away from Witch Mother, and seemed to be swallowed in her hair. She could feel him moving around in it, probably trapped, she presumed.
“I’m sorry, Witch Mother. Thank you for my gift…” The woman sighed and forced a smile. “Are you okay? You left so suddenly last time.”
“Yes, well, like I told you. I have several wards. One of them came very close to escaping with a prince!” She reached into the hair, withdrew her hand, and had the piglet by the throat. “But, he couldn’t defeat me,” she said, smiling wickedly at the little pig.
“Wait… That’s… that’s a prince?”
“Not anymore it’s not. It is a pig. A greedy little pig. Can you believe, that even with a court of wives and a harem of concubines, for prestige, he dared to try to take away one of MINE?” Her grip tightened and the pig squealed.
“You’re hurting him!” Punzie cried out and reached for him, to get him safely back into her arms.
“Punzie… if we do not kill it, it cannot be replaced by a familiar spirit!”
“I don’t want a familiar, if that’s what it takes! Why can’t I just cry out to a spirit and the spirit comes?”
“Because, if you are trying to get the attention of a familiar that you want to choose you, you will need to prove that you want them. Blood always makes a clear statement.”
“I’m just fine without a statement.” She pat the pig on the back. “My apologies for Witch Mother.”
“You don’t speak for me,” Witch Mother said, grabbing the pig and stabbing through him with her dagger.
Punzie screamed and covered her mouth. The pig also screamed, and it wasn’t the pig voice it had been squealing in, but a young man’s pained scream that echoed through the tower. “How could you? How could you?” Punzie asked, unable to see past her tears, a blurry image of nothing but blood crowded her eyes.
“Who is it that summoned? Is it the Witch Mother, or the daughter?” Someone asked. She pulled up her top to wipe her eyes and cleared her vision to see a man with a pink mini afro and vitiligo standing with Witch Mother and dressed in dandy fashion. “Oh. Oh, she’s lovely! And she has a very nice embrace!” He cheered, transformed into the teacup pig and scurried over to her barefeet. He tapped on her toenails with his little hooves, crawled up her leg and rested on her shoulder.
“You’re welcome, Daughter,” Witch Mother said.
Rapunzel simply glared at her, but she also reached over to pet her new familiar. “You’re a prince killer,” she spat.
The Witch Mother smiled, “I hate to tell you this, but most witches are.” She shrugged her shoulders, “Sort of comes with the job. They’re always breaking into our properties trying to play heroes. You’ll understand someday.”
“No! I don’t want to be like you! And I don’t want to be like my mother, either!”
With fury in her eyes, Witch Mother collected her things and once she reached the window, she said, “Well, let’s see how you fare without boons from either of us.”
