Healing from the Otherside - Witches in Fiction 2016

Healing from the Otherside

“It’s all falling apart,” she whispered in my ear. 

I looked around, trying to find her, but all I could see was decay.  The trees were dying, dried up skeletons of their former selves.  There were fruits and vegetables rotting on the vines.  Grass was turning brown, while the ponds and rivers shriveled up as I watched, leaving their residents gasping and searching for refuge.  The heat of the sun seemed to grow more intense with every moment and the wind, which had been blowing gently across my skin, became still as death.

“It shouldn’t be this way,” she said.  Her voice was quiet and a bit shaky.  I stood quite still for a moment, before I realized it had come from behind me.  I turned, very slowly, to see who had been speaking.

She stood a few feet away, looking pale and worn.  Her hair flowed to her knees, the color of a raven’s wing with sparks of auburn floating throughout.  Her eyes were a clear, crystal blue and her skin was smooth and as light as cream.  She was tall and stood strong as if rooted to the earth. 

“What happened here?” I asked.  I took a small step towards her and glanced around again. 

“They’re killing us.”  She whispered it so quietly, so sadly.  She had changed when I looked back at her.  Her hair white and limp, her skin had taken on a grey tinge and wrinkled.  She seemed to float just above the ground and tears flowing from her tired eyes.

“Who?” I asked, although I wasn’t sure why.  I already knew who had done this.  I already knew why.

I closed my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath.  As I slowly breathed out, I opened my eyes and saw a living world.  The world I’d just seen, the woman I’d seen, was gone. 

I walked around a bit, marveling at the soft green grass beneath my feet, the breeze blowing across my skin.  I listened to the bees moving through the flowers and the birds singing in the trees.  Wandering to a tree, I sat underneath and leaned back.  I could feel the rough bark against my back and closed my eyes to listen.

After a few minutes, I felt a shift in the air.  A thrumming began in the tree I leaned against, like the beat of a heart.  When I opened my eyes, the world had shifted back to decay.  

“Grandmother, what can we do?” I asked her.  I reached for her hand, but it just went through to the ground.  

She gently placed her hand over mine, just a hint of space between, and said, “Your world is dying.  Things look normal from the outside, but inside it is rotting away.  When your world dies, ours does, too.  All the hate, the ugly words and uglier thoughts.  Each one creates more of the same, until everyone and everything is rotting inside. “

Her gaze roamed over the land in front of us, “I know you feel it, the pain and fear.  But, my darling girl, you can change this.  You just have to remember the words.  Remember and you heal not only yourself, your world, but mine too.”

I looked into her eyes, so like my own, and saw a hint of hope.  “Remember,” she said as she slowly faded away.

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This is my entry for Magaly's Witches in Fiction 2016.   

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love & blessings

~*~