The Making of a Wicked Witch by Nicole Lim
The witch rests stiff on the bench outside her cottage in the thickest part of the woods, indifferent to the battle between the fresh air and the cloying stench of moldy gingerbread. A snow-white bird flutters onto the crutch in her frozen grip. The witch doesn’t stir. When the first notes of the bird’s song rise to her ears, a close observer may spot that the ears prick up. The bird sings to the witch, telling her of the pale sunlight softening the stiff blades of grass, tickling the shy crocus buds into bloom, and teasing butterflies and honeybees out of the shadows of winter. The witch, too, thaws under the vibrations of the warbling bird, but the rays are still too sickly to loosen the hold of the damp tentacles of melancholy that ooze from the bottomless well deep within her.
***
Years ago, when the witch was not yet as old as the hills, her eyes not yet red, and she could still walk without leaning on a crutch, she busied herself with baking goods that she could sell in the town beyond the great forest. One day, when she was humming soothingly into the dough of a cinnamon bun, a rap on the door shattered her trance. She froze, her fingers sinking into the dough, a note half-hummed hanging from her lip. Chirping birds, whispering trees, and the snuffling of a curious squirrel nearby were all she could detect.
The rapping renewed. Living in the thickest part of the woods, the witch rarely had visitors, especially so close to market day. Enticed by curiosity, she wiped her fingers sticky with dough against her apron as she stepped through the gloaming towards the door.
Squinting into the dying winter sunlight, she pulled the door wide but saw no one standing there. Peering around, her ears just caught the beating wings of a stork as its shadow melted over the treetops. Her eyes snapped to her feet, where she spied a swaddled bundle, inches away from the tips of her slippers.
The witch inclined her head, scanning for any human sounds. Surely this delivery was not for her.
“Wah! Waah! WAAAAAAAAH!” Angry howls emanated in plumes from the bundle, while the figure’s tail end wiggled like a glow-worm calling a mate. The witch gingerly extended a finger to widen the aperture at the top of the bundle, revealing a toothless mouth, puckering up to launch the next cry. The witch snatched the bundle, holding it out at eye level. Stunned by the sudden elevation, the baby snapped its mouth shut. Its eyes flew open. They regarded each other gravely.
***
Sitting on her bench, the witch, now as old as the hills, her eyes burnt red, and her hand gripping a crutch, surfaces from the torpor that has chained her to the bench. The swollen memory of the baby’s storm-gray eyes pierces her melancholy, and the velveteen feel of the girl’s tiny fingers grasping the witch’s pinky tugs at her heart.
That day on the doorstep, the possessiveness of that gesture had shattered the witch’s heart.
“I don’t suppose you know your own name, do you?”
With a burble of content from the baby, shards of the witch’s heart began to reassemble.
“Oh, you little one, who left you here? Just come in and stay with me. No harm will come to you. You will be my Griselda.”
So mumbling, she carried the baby into her cottage.
***
The witch stirs, and the bird ceases its song, turning its attention to preening its glossy white feathers. Her bones creak with the effort from the years-long inertia. The witch cracks from her cage, as Griselda had so many years ago.
As soon as she could stand, Griselda refused to stay strapped to the witch’s back. Instead, she teetered and stumbled over stones and roots in the great forest, the witch’s heart lurching after her until Griselda collapsed into the witch’s shielding arms.
Market days were even more exhausting for the witch as she juggled serving pastries, returning change, and snatching the girl out of harm’s way as Griselda darted between people’s legs, heedless of horses’ hoofs, wagon wheels, and open flames.
When Griselda could stir mixtures without plastering batter on the walls, the witch apprenticed her. When the girl wished to live in a cookie house, they transformed the cozy cottage into a warmly spiced gingerbread house, whose fragrance infused every scrap of fabric and mote of dust.
The gingerbread house was Griselda’s first dream. While the witch foraged for berries, Griselda peeled off pieces of bark, plucked stems of clover, and dug out lengths of chicory root as she hunted for fresh scents and aromas, mixing and playing with flavors, texture, and temperature. Working hand-in-hand, the witch hovered over Griselda’s every step, ready to correct.
Yet, over time, the girl slipped out of the witch’s controlling grip, deaf to all advice and allergic to any suggestion. Frustrated, all the witch could do was pick flaws, grumble about the mess, and bang pots and pans in disapproval.
Just when the atmosphere in the little gingerbread house threatened to detonate, Griselda would present a creation that dispelled the disgruntlement. The witch’s favorite was a treat that imparted the sweet relief of dipping your feet into a cool stream on a hot sunny day, which Griselda had created by grinding clover and hickory bark into thick creamy milk, which she then left to chill at the bottom of the stone well.
***
The witch inhales, her solitude suddenly crowded by the scents of early spring. The assault on her awareness is disorienting but only for a moment—unlike the relentless waves of defiance Griselda had launched at the witch.
Beyond the girl’s pig-headedness in the kitchen, the witch also had to countenance Griselda rising even before the sun was up to hunt for fresh ingredients farther into the great forest. Griselda would tiptoe out of the cottage with her pockets stuffed with cakes, cookies, and rolls. She’d return, caressed by the last tendrils of sunlight, exhausted and hungry, apron full of ingredients.
The first time the girl had struck out to comb the thickest parts of the wood, the witch couldn’t concentrate on her bakes. When the third batch of rolls came out soured with anxiety, she gave up baking and paced the cottage. When that made her dizzy, she stomped outside, hauled in pail after pail of water to clean the windows, shelves, and rafters of their cottage, until her hands were prunes flayed of their skin, and Griselda’s footsteps drifted near.
***
The witch cricks her stiff neck and glimpses the bite marks on the awning. Each year on her birthday, Griselda would take a bite out of the front awning, each set of teeth marks higher than the one from the year before. The witch counts the imprints, which end in a swarm of delicately iced butterflies.
For Griselda’s thirteenth birthday, the witch had spent weeks concocting a new flavor of icing to pipe onto the awning as a special treat. At a breath of Griselda’s, the butterflies would flap their wings and take off.
But her daughter rejected the ritual.
“But little one, we’ve always marked your birthday with a bite of the awning.”
“We’ve always done that. I don’t really like gingerbread anymore. I want to do something different!”
The witch flinched. The girl’s rejection sizzled on the witch’s cheeks until it exploded into a searing pain in her heart. From the rubble of her heart, the witch retaliated.
“Ungrateful goose! Go to your room!”
A door slammed, but not before an anguished “I hate you!” lanced the witch’s fury, which crumbled into shame and hurt.
***
The witch curls her toes and wriggles her fingers. How long has it been since she sat down on the bench, bereft of Griselda? Her heart stings with the resentment of the rejected at the memory of Griselda, whose knack for baking could have changed their fates.
Griselda’s natural talent had made the witch’s heart swell with pride, so when the girl stopped baking, the witch nagged, niggled, and wheedled. Griselda, however, just languished in her bed, daydreaming or chatting to a snow-white bird that would perch on her finger. Enraged by the girl’s ennui, the witch strode into her room.
“Why don’t you bake something, little one?”
“I’m bored with baking. And I don’t know what to make.”
“Why not make some of your delicious clover-hickory chilled cream? We have fresh cream from the market.”
“No, I can’t make that. We don’t have clover.”
“Why don’t you come with me to forage for more clover? There should still be plenty.”
“I don’t feel like going outside.”
“How about this? I’m going to forage for raspberries and will pick some clover while I’m out. Then we can bake together.”
“Hm-hmmm.”
Convinced of her approach, the witch set off. When she returned, the cottage was empty. Temper boiling, the witch stuffed the clover onto a shelf. As she waited for Griselda, the witch’s mood hardened.
Griselda finally returned as the sun set, buzzing from a day in town. But the witch was in no mood to hear it. Griselda’s mien shut down. Antagonized by the stony face, the witch was determined to shake the girl out of her self-centered stupor, laying out exactly what their new routine would be, the skills she would teach Griselda, and the goals the girl had to achieve.
The next morning, the witch, unnerved by a tingle of apprehension, knocked on Griselda’s door. But she received no reply. She pushed the door open. The room smelled empty, the shelves echoed bare, and the bed released no warmth. The swaddle blanket lay shredded on the floor. The witch sank to her knees, clutching scraps to her breast, and howled, her heart shattering anew.
***
Certain that the witch is fully aware again, the snow-white bird takes up a new song for the witch. Heart aflutter, the witch rises from the bench and hobbles into the kitchen.
She pauses. She will not be vulnerable again. “Oh, no. Not this time.”
As the bird’s song promised, the wind carries human scents to the witch. Two hungry children—a boy and a girl, abandoned by their father and his woman in the great forest.
“This time, I will do it differently.”
***END***