The Book Witch

         He was out collecting mushrooms for his stew when he found the book witch. The mushrooms grew in the forest, gathering in clumps. They were spongy and soft and glowed in the darkness of the trees. He filled his rucksack slowly, fingers slipping over the moon-white caps, feeling beads of moisture and damp, cool earth. He was a tall man, broad-shouldered and bearded. His buttons strained to keep his shirt together.

His name was Bernard, at least that’s what his tired, sick old mother christened him before she passed. She was sixty when he was born and thus sixty when she died. Nobody called him Bernard. Everybody called him Bern, not just because it was easier, but because he had shiny, twisting scars that ran up his forearms. They were pink and angry-looking although they had healed. As a child he had fallen into the fire grate and before his father could scoop him out, the flames licked up his body and he was christened a second time.
            His father was also old when Bern was born. He was seventy-three, but he lived until he was one hundred, passing only when Bern was twenty-seven and looking for a wife. He never found one.
            Bern was tall and vast and his face was handsome, but his proximity to the woods, his ventures into the dark, twisting trees, frightened the eligible women. So, he remained unmarried but he was a favourite for bored, unsatisfied wives. And thus Bern was happy with his lot. He was popular in the tavern because he was loud and merry after a few ales and he was a notorious witch hater. People respected witch haters. Almost everyone in the village was one. Witches were ugly and warped and worst of all, they were women. And worse than even that, they were said to read books – horrible, twisted things that were sliced from the flesh of different trees and stitched together. Abominations.
 Bern, like many others, thought he had seen many witches in his lifetime. He saw them in the shadows of his bedroom as a child, he saw them lurking amongst the trees, flashes of grotesque, humped beings, always watching. And that was why Bern was always alert whilst in the woods. He often felt a prickling sensation like he was being examined from the darkness. It made him feel naked and vulnerable, and he always touched the wicked hunting knife in his belt for reassurance.

That was why that day when Bern heard the snap of a twig and the crackle of leaves, his hand instantly found his knife. He stayed still, crouched like a wolf, listening so intently his ears rang. A heavy silence fell like a stone. No birds sang. No trees stirred or whispered in the wind. He stood slowly and took a step back. A mushroom crumbled under his boot. He turned his head quickly, so fast a tendon in his neck burned. He saw nothing but the looming trees, their bark purple in the gloom, oozing sap and winged seeds that fell like snow. Another twig snapped and a pulse pounded in his throat. Another rustle. Another snap. A rabbit loped out of the undergrowth, briars threaded through its fur, nose twitching. Bern exhaled and bent down to gather his rucksack. He should go back. He was on edge now and that’s when mistakes happened. Once he had stabbed himself in the leg whilst trying to slide his knife back into the belt. He had bled so profusely he left a trail of blood through the trees and foxes had followed it right up to his front door. For a week he had eaten foxes fattened on his own blood.

At first he didn’t know what he was looking at. He had shouldered through a bristling copse of trees and emerged into a clearing. The ground was as soft as a bed, littered with brown pine needles that had decomposed into a mulch. The clearing was as round as a circle and you could see a slice of sky between the towering pines. There was a large rock in the centre and Bern often sat and ate here when he was out hunting. He had never seen anyone or anything else in here, but squirrels, so he thought of it as his clearing. But that day next to the rock lay a humped, dark figure and Bern paused, startled. It was a misshapen, twisted thing and at first he thought he was looking at a man-sized crow. But quickly he realised it wasn’t a bird or an animal but a woman. She was wrapped in an over-sized cloak, mud clinging to the long sleeves. Her hands peeped out the bottom, narrow but gnarled, clawing at the dirt. She seemed to be wounded. Her breath rattled in her chest.
Bern, although brutish in bearing, was nothing short of a gentleman when it came to damsels in distress.
“Are you OK?” he offered his hand. She took it. He noticed her hand felt cold and damp when he drew her to her feet. She immediately yelped, a raw, animal sound, and fell back onto the ground. Her leg had crumpled underneath her.
“What’s the matter?” He bent down to inspect it. It was swollen and purpling.
“I tripped on the stone and twisted it.” Bern noted her voice was odd. Scratchy and harsh like she hadn’t used it much. Her hair was lank and clumped together with bits of moss and bark and mud. Bern reached out to touch her ankle but stopped when he noticed something lying next to the woman. Something strange. He felt a sharp jolt of fear and he leapt back, nostrils flaring. The woman looked at him piteously.
“What is that?” Bern snarled. But he knew what it was. It was a book. It lay splayed open, leaking sap, spiky symbols gouged into slivers of hacked and stitched tree skin. It was an evil thing. Bern could feel that. Imagine dissecting trees, skinning them and stitching different parts of them together, then imbuing the miscreation with thoughts and plans – with what Bern could only assume were wicked spells. He fought back a sourness that rose in his throat. So, she was a witch. That much was clear.

Bern was filled with a hot, sick disgust and he didn’t hesitate to stamp his boot down on her exposed ankle. She screamed and a flock of birds shot out from the pines, also shrieking.
“That hurt,” she gasped, shaking.
“It was meant to. You’re a filthy witch!” Bern growled. The reproach in the witch’s swampy eyes turned to fear.
He reached down and grabbed her by the arm, shuddering at her touch. She stank like peat and something wet, perhaps algae; pond scum that had been left out in the sun to smell of death and rot. He hauled her through the trees and she squirmed feebly, kicking out. She even began to cry, gasping wretchedly with fright.
When they emerged from the trees, she fought harder. Bern encircled her with both arms, grunting with effort. It wasn’t long before the sounds of the struggle reached the villagers. They came out from their cottages, still holding knitting needles and skinning knives. The witch fell silent at their approach, dropping to her knees, almost yanking Bern’s arm from his socket.
“What’s this, Bern, lad?” said the butcher, holding his boning knife.
“Who’s this?” the baker asked, clutching a thick rolling pin, still dusty with flour.
“Did it come from the forest?” asked Bern’s latest conquest, the wife of the tavern owner. She held a flagon by its handle.
“It’s a witch,” Bern said, breathing hard.
The villagers shrank back, their looks of polite concern hardening to fear and hatred.
“How can you be sure?” asked the candle maker. He passed his wax pot from hand to hand, frightened.
Bern felt his insides squirm with disgust. “She had a book,” he spat.
A low murmur rippled through the crowd, as quick and quiet as wind running through long grass.
“What shall we do with her?” asked the blacksmith, already tightening his grip on his tongs.
“Kill her. What else? She murders and eats children! OUR children!” the tavern owner’s wife shrieked. There was an angry waspish buzz of assent.
The witch, who was pale and frantic, her shoulders rising rapidly, cried out, “I don’t kill your children! I don’t eat people!” Her confusion was almost believable, Bern thought.
“You do! You bleed them like meat and you make soup with the blood, you pickle their eyes like onions, and you eat their little fingers and their precious little toes,” the baker’s wife said tearfully.
“You ate my son,” boomed the blacksmith. There was another round of ferocious nodding. This was known. The blacksmith had wept over many flagons of ale on many late nights. He had never got on with his son. The rumour was that the boy liked to put on his mother’s dresses and this, of course, was a great source of shame. Half the time the boy was beaten black and blue by his father. But the child didn’t deserve to be eaten by witches. That was the general consensus.
“I didn’t!” the witch gasped. “I wouldn’t!” Tears leaked from her muddy eyes, winding through the dirt on her cheeks.
“Liar!” the blacksmith’s wife hissed, her eyes also bright and hot.
“I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t,” the witch whispered curling into herself like a wood louse.
“You murdered our children. My girls!” wailed the old maid who lived in the furthest cottage from the woods. Many years ago, over a succession of six summers, witches had stolen in through the nursery window and taken her babies from the cradle, all six of them. And yes, the babies had driven her mad half the night with their screaming and the maid had torn most of her hair out, and it never grew back, but they were still only babies. She never got to see her girls grow.
“I never,” the witch moaned quietly. Bern grabbed a hunk of her hair and yanked her head back, tearing a clump from her scalp. He threw it to the ground and she screamed as the villagers advanced upon her. With bellowing cries of rage and hurt and fear, they tore her apart, limb from limb, blood spattering the ground, their tools, their distorted faces. A flagon was smashed into her face, breaking her nose. A pair of tongs twisted her ear off. A rolling pin shattered her skull. They plucked the eyes from her head with grasping, twisted hands and trampled them underfoot. They bit her cheeks like they were apples, tearing at flesh and skin. The villagers screamed and screamed as they hit and punched and slit and ripped the witch to shreds. The witch had long stopped screaming. She had long stopped breathing, thinking, existing. The villagers were one homogenous mass. A pulsing, hump-backed beast, slobbering and howling. Finally, they stopped. They stepped back, unable to recognise each other as they were sheathed in wet, hot blood.
            Panting Bern and the butcher and the baker and the old maid took what little was left of the witch and hauled her into Bern’s cottage. They deboned her and trimmed off the lean fat, hanging reels of her skin up to dry. Bern prepared the stew, chopping mushrooms, still dripping with blood. They threw the witch’s bones to the dogs who snapped and fought over them. A cleaned finger bone was given to a child who sucked it absently, watching with wide eyes as they worked; hacking and sawing and salting.
            Then they cooked the book witch until she was tender. And they served her amongst the villagers, each receiving a bowl of hearty witch stew. They ate in silence – the only sounds were chewing and the snap of gristle between teeth. But for the most part, the witch was succulent and soft, her meat as sweet as chestnut flesh. After they ate, the men went into the woods to retrieve the book. They gasped as they entered the clearing and saw the poor, wounded creature, created from the slaughtered trees. They wrapped it up gently in the witch’s blood-soaked cape and took it back to the village where they buried it in the small cemetery, standing respectfully around the grave. Heads were bowed and hands were clasped over their full stomachs. The woods were still watching.

The End