Waste Not, Want Not

A Witchy Tale

Photo by Matthew Sichkaruk on Unsplash

October winds carry chilled tidings over the lake’s murky waters, promising a hard winter. Lillian stands on the shore, a colorful shawl wrapped tightly around her diminutive frame, face tilted upward, eyes closed in contemplative silence. Her tawny, yellowish-brown cheeks are no longer etched with worry lines but smooth, serene in the knowledge that another snow season will pass by without hardship.

Faint scents of daffodil and sweet grass drift in on a light breeze, confirming the enchantment has worked. Thank the goddess. Lillian’s offering has been accepted. All will be well. Sighing in relief, she turns on graceful feet and heads back to her lakeside cabin.

There are no roads leading to her secluded shelter. No beaten paths, no dirt trails, nothing connecting the cabin to the tainted cities and cacophonous towns of the outside world. Her home is surrounded on three sides by a maple forest and faces the lake. Yet there are signs of life. A clean, bearskin rug lies at the cabin’s threshold, fragrant herbs hang from bits of twine, and perhaps most telling, only a few fresh fallen leaves litter the front steps.

Pausing to lay a hand on the moss-covered log above her door, Lillian mutters another prayer of gratitude and steps inside.

“The goddess has granted safe passage through the winter,” Lillian says, hanging her shawl on a wooden peg beside the hearth. “Isn’t that wonderful?”

A muscular man dressed in overalls sits slumped in a high-backed chair at a modest table in front of the hearth where a small fire burns, filling the room with cozy heat. His vacant gaze stares at nothing. Lillian quickly kisses his bearded cheek, then removes the wooden bowl before him.

“Let me wash this for you,” she tells him, her tone warm and appreciative. “I’ll bring us another.”

Humming, she moves into the kitchen and empties the bowl’s poisonous contents before pulling down a cluster of herbs wrapped in yellow and pink ribbons hanging beneath the window. Once green and supple, the tiny wreath is now brown and brittle, but that’s fine. She’ll make a fresh one next year to lure the next man or woman into her land.

Lillian had to admit he was a fine-looking specimen. She’d been pleasantly surprised to find him knocking on the door. “Oh my!” She’d exclaimed, taking in his broad shoulders and square jaw. “Aren’t you a beautiful thing? What awful sin has brought such a magnificent creature calling to humble home?”

They all had their dark secrets, and this one was no exception. He’d been a lumberjack, evidenced by the rather large axe he’d been carrying over one shoulder, its curved blade stained crimson along its sharpened edges. The bloody shreds of some poor woman’s blouse had been stuffed into one of his pockets, balled up like a handkerchief. It seemed her visitor enjoyed cutting down more than just trees.

Now singing softly to herself, Lillian sets a much larger bowl before him, this one carved with runes both archaic and arcane, and readies the sacrificial knife. Waste not, want not, her mother had always said. She goes to work. The human body offers so many useful spell ingredients.