What’s in Your Garden?

I am.

Yes. The Devil is a powerful and nasty guy, but he can’t stop me from showing up here. He can blame himself, if he wasn’t so hard on her she wouldn’t have been so easy to find.

I think I might make myself comfortable here. Listening to music, she does have excellent headphones.

“Burning witches light my way.” I want to ask him where he’s going that he needs such light.

What a line. Written, no doubt, to please Satan. Luckily I don’t take offense, he’s not talking about me, after all. It’s a great song, pleasantly and vaguely dark, I often have it on repeat. Like now, as I hijack a certain scribe.

That’s the thing about a channel, anyone can use it, once they find it. This one has a headful already, but I can easily deal with some of those. I’ll make room for myself somehow, now that I’m here. Why should the devil be the only one heard? I know he has a high opinion of himself, but I also know he can back it up. I don’t mess with him, unless I find him naked somewhere.

I can tell you frankly that he wouldn’t fuck any of the witches I know, he’s extremely particular. This is the thing you may not know about witches, they can become powerful by accident, a blood relative, playing with fire, there are a few ways it can happen. And we have that merciless curve, we all start out mortal and frail, the vast majority also start out clueless. Imagine putting the power of life and death into the hands of a toddler, that’s pretty much what it’s like, here in the underground.

I know where I’d like to be, but it’s really difficult to get into hell, even when you do the head man.

I was a witch from conception, and when I tell you how I know this, you will laugh, it sounds quite silly, but it’s the truth. You will have to decide for yourself how silly I am, after you know me better. I will tell you now, so you can be amused. Pay attention to how your perceptions of me change, as you read the next line.

I was born in a pumpkin. This is literally true. It’s true in every sense of the word. I felt myself growing inside my mother, warm and nurtured, but my spirit was choking. I reached out for a sign, for something to come to me in the floating world of sound and motion. I pictured it like tendrils, like the one that connected me to her, I sent out my soul to hunt, but it came back empty handed. I knew then that my mother was not for me.

I looked within myself for something I was sure was there, but had never touched or felt. Deep down inside myself, something was waking up, it came to my hand and I used it to force my mother to let me go. I wanted a pumpkin for a womb, bright and growing plump under the wide blue sky. I wanted to be fed from the living earth beneath me, from the rain as it fell and found me. This I chose, this I made happen. I learned from it that I am both evil and good, carrying both death and life at the ends of my fingertips.

When I was ready to be born, I spoke to the pumpkin, asking for her life. She gave it freely and joyously, from a love that can’t be expressed in words.

I fed her back to the earth, her other children came forth and grew strong, I rejoiced in my sisters, I held out my hand to them, a trusting thing.

I remember them, I remember the earth, my mother, and I remember the storms that brought water, giving a different kind of life. I feel it flow through me now, a gift.

What can I heal with it?

“Reminder” by Moderat   A favourite with witches.