Caleb had to ignore a lot of voices in his head when he left for the forest.
They spoke in the voices of his village. The elder’s cautionary warnings of wanton women who drifted between places and bewitched naive folk. The tavern-master and his wife, swapping gossip of spotting black magic between the trees while out checking their hare traps. The voice of his mother, hard-headed and practical, telling him to never speak of such foul spiel between her walls, for that was how demons crossed the threshold and burrowed their way into their homes and heads. Go and ask the Lord God to cleanse you of these whirlwind thoughts, these prideful temptations, and while you’re at it, son, get yourself to the carpenter’s and ask him if he needs a boy. Tell him your leg isn’t so bad, she said, tell him it’s just the change in weather making you crooked- even though she knew, as well as anyone in the village, that Caleb had limped like that since the day he took his first steps.
And he heard these voices, bouncing around his mind, echoing each of his own thoughts, and he ignored them. That wasn’t like Caleb; most had said he was a good boy, from a good God-fearing family, an unfortunate boy, maybe, what with the crooked leg, but a good boy all the same. Maybe he’d end up as a farmhand, or make a decent tarvern’s boy, or maybe he’d try his hand at smithing, provided he got a little more brawn on him. After all, no one wanted to say out loud that scrawny little Caleb wasn’t meant to survive the winter as a babe, and now that he had, people just weren’t sure what to do with him.
To hell with them all, Caleb thought, wincing a little at the blasphemy; even though it was only in his mind, he still felt the sharp sting of his mother’s mixing-spoon across the back of his legs. Caleb wasn’t scared and he wasn’t going to turn back, not now. He was no farmhand, no blacksmith’s boy- he’d heard rumours, see. A band of travelers, loud, bawdy bards passing through to the city, riding in from the north, who stayed a night and disappeared into the woods soon after. They spoke of the witch, the Copse-Wood Witch, ashen-haired and angel-like in appearance. The travelers had likened her to Delilah; a beautiful woman with a black heart. Caleb strained his ears over the tavern’s chatter as they spoke of ways to appease her, and get her to make a deal. She didn’t take copper nor silver- she liked bodies, the younger the better, for her stew. Failing that, she would take herbs of poison or certain parts of animals, the eyes, the toes, fingers and toes. Failure to barter with her meant certain death- she was not known for patience.
Caleb had little to offer. He had no bodies; he had considered it, of course. In his darkest moments, when the rest of his family were sleeping and he was sure his thoughts were his own, he thought of what he could do to gain the babe as an offering. The first time he considered it, he knew that if God was listening, he would be struck down the next day, struck by plague or some such. No such consequence came to him, and so his thoughts became darker, and more frequent.
Dilly and Jeremiah had just had a new babe, a bouncing, writing little thing, and he had pondered whether to take it to the witch. However, after some consideration, he put it out of his mind. He didn’t have the stomach to kidnap anything, let alone a child- his stomach lurched every time he had to empty a rat or hard trap of a screeching, wriggling animal. The thought of the babe being added to a scalding soup pot did unnerve him a little. He doubted he would be able to compose himself enough to hand over the child. Moreover, the babe was rarely away from Dilly’s breast, and Caleb doubted he could flee before he was discovered.
Caleb had little to offer of plants and animals; the only thing he could think to offer were a few herbs, scavenged up from the forest on his way. His ambling pace left him a certain perception to see things others missed. As such, he could stop to take in the plants and other bits of forage. He was used to this; his mother was no herbalist, no healer, and didn’t pick and prepare her herbs too often for fear of being seen as dabbling in the occult. However, she had shown Caleb, in the days when his siblings were out hunting or playing rough, what some herbs could be used for; a bit of marigold for his siblings’ scraped knees; nettle tea for when his father’s joints seized up in the winter; finely chopped mullein for a nasty bout of coughing. Caleb studied these little herbs with fascination, so much so that his mother scolded him for showing too much of an interest.
Now, though, he was free to explore as he liked. He had left under the cover of the dark, scurried out while his mother and siblings slept and his father drank. He was quiet, so quiet as he could make himself, concealing even the breaths he took. He knew if he was caught, if his plan was revealed, he risked a severe beating, to be shut up in the church never to be released, Perhaps they would drag him in front of a magistrate in the city and have him hanged. Either way, he would be locked away, looked upon in disgust, and beaten regularly, and often. When he finally made it some ways from the village, the breath he took out felt like he had finally emerged from deep water.
He couldn’t see much from the light of the moon, only the shambling black outline of the thickets of trees, with their crooked branches, but he could just about pick out some sage, a bundle of nettles which blistered his hands red raw, some fragrant wild rosemary. It wasn’t much to offer, but it was an offering.
As he ventured deeper into the forest, Caleb began to see new herbs, herbs he hadn’t seen before, of rich scarlets and deep violets, flowers that flowed and spilled out of the ground. There was less birdsong to be heard, only the faint sound of an owl crooning its night song. He was particularly struck by a flower of cream and black, that smelled like his father’s upturned stomach after a night of drinking. He picked this to add to his offerings.
He must have been getting closer now, surely. He was just contemplating how far he had to go, when the voice came from the darkness.
“Why do you seek me out, boy?” The voice was low, and seemed to curl serpent-like through the air.
Caleb froze, unable to parse her words for a moment. Then he realised. This was her.
The witch.
“I-I’ve come looking for you.” He tried to compose his voice, to disguise the shaking in his words.
“I know this already, boy. No-one comes into this copse unless they mean to hunt me… Or to seek me out.”
“I don’t mean to do you harm.”
Then came a laugh, harsh and sharp as a needle to Caleb’s ear.
“Of course. What harm could you possibly do to me?” The voice paused, then hummed in curiousity.
“What’s that you have there, boy?”
“These are… My offerings to the Witch. To you. It isn’t much, but they have use.” Caleb wished he hadn’t said the last part. It made him sound weak.
“Ah. And what use would those be?”
“Sage, for wounds. Nettles, for aching joints in the weather’s turn. And rosemary,, and…”
His words failed him as he held out the small cream-and-black flower.
“Well?”
Caleb began to panic as he tripped over his words.
“I… I don’t know the name of this one.” He fumbled over his words.
The laugh came again, more spiteful this time.
“That is henbane. One tiny bit ends up on your tongue, and you see Hell itself, and the Devil on his fire-crowned throne.”
Caleb should have dropped the herb at that moment. He should have renounced his quest, and this blaspheming witch, and ran back to the village, hopefully with his life intact.
He didn’t. Instead, he clutched the flower and stared at it, transfixed.
“What is it you ask for, in return?” The darkness asked, suddenly solemn.
Caleb’s mouth went dry, and doubt flooded him for a moment- but he did say it, those words he’d rehearsed in his head;
“I want…” He cleared his throat and began again, louder this time, “I want to do what you do. I want to know your magic, to learn your ways. I want… To become as powerful as they say you are.”
Caleb braced himself for the pain that was inevitably going to come. The knife in the eye. His limbs, perhaps, wasting away into black rot. An army of wolves coming out to eat him.
After a few moments of eternal silence, the witch spoke again.
“Do you know what else nettles and rosemary can be used for, boy?”
Caleb, still somewhat awaiting his death, shook his head, then croaked out a tiny ‘no’.
“It can be used for protection against spirits. Against the Other that we communicate with- demons that we break our bread with. Creatures unholy.”
Caleb felt a glimmer of hope, a spark of wonder. Caution had now been thrown to the wind, and he was in the thick of it. He had no plans to back away now.
“Show-Show me.”
The witch made a satisfied sound, a low, pleased giggle.
“With pleasure. If you wish to join me, all you need to do is swallow that henbane.”
Caleb realised he had been clutching it tight in his clammy hands.
“Will it take me to Hell?”
“Why don’t you find out?” The voice was playful now, although there was a hint of sincerity.
Before he could have any second thoughts, Caleb consumed the flower while, swallowing as much as he could in one, feeling the noxious odour coat over his tongue and slip down his throat. The surrounding darkness became dense, and it wouldn’t be too long before the shadows overtook him completely, swathing him, like a newborn infant, in darkness.
