down to the shady groves (caos | hilda & sabrina)

[fiachairecht]

down to the shady groves. chilling adventures of sabrina, hilda & sabrina. hilda tells her niece a bedtime story and plans for the future. 1k words, rated t. for theuncertainhour in worldbuildingex 2019.

The first tree of the Greendale Wood did not know that was its name, when it first peered above the soil on a day when the sky was bronze and the sun was high. It would, in fact, not know any name at all for nearly a thousand years.

Aunt Hilda, Sabrina would usually interrupt here, can I go see the old tree? Is it still here?

Patience, darling, Hilda would reply as she made the sparks from the safety-charmed candle at Sabrina's bedside dance like branches in the air by the walls. Things that old are more felt than seen.

The first witch came to the Greendale Wood before the wood itself was named. The first tree did not know the word for witch, then, and they were not sure that the witch herself did. But they knew that she was different, and they knew that she was a friend, and that was enough. The witch brought water in the form of her tears, and the tree brought food in the form of its leaves, and for a very long time they were happy together.

Aunt Hilda, Sabrina would usually interrupt here, Aunt Hilda, was that witch you? Were you happy with the trees before you thought they were scary?

Patience, darling, Hilda would reply as the leaves of Greendale's perpetual autumn slipped through the cracks under the windowpane. I never said I was afraid.

The woods grew. More and more knots of green climbed towards the sun, and it was not long before they grew tired of reaching only for the sky and began to twist: to grow inwards and outwards, to grow towards each other, to mimic the shapes that their friends the clouds made.

The woods grew into a heart, although they did not know that word either and, in fact, had never seen a heart before. When they finally did — well, that's not a very nice part of the story.

Aunt Hilda, Sabrina would usually interrupt here, Aunt Hilda, why you always say that, and you never say the not nice part? Aunt Zelda tells me I'm not nice all the time.

Oh, darling, Hilda would reply as the old hunger stirred deep in her belly, blood moving sluggishly through her veins like sap, she doesn't mean it. And that's not the same thing, not at all.

It was the one hundredth witch that named the first tree, and the name that she chose was sgithich, because it reminded her of the hawthorn trees the she played around as a child, across the ocean. It was after that naming that the relationship between the woods — which by now knew that they were something more than a simple collection of trees — and the witches became something that every tree, and every witch, knew before they were even born.

You see, names are tricky things at the best of times, and even more slippery in the mouths of witches, especially those who are just starting to understand their power, as this hundredth witch was. Before she named the first tree sgithich, it was indeed a hawthorn tree, one that was special for its age, and not much beyond that. The tree wrote memories inside itself, in a language it had not yet learned how to share with other trees, and that was all.

Aunt Hilda, Sabrina would usually interrupt here, Aunt Hilda, why was the tree lonely when there were witches? Why didn't they just talk like we do?

Patience, darling, Hilda would reply as the long wood-fingered hands of the hundredth, or the five hundredth, or maybe even the first tree began to move through the wood on the edges of flowering vines. You couldn't speak when you were first alive, either.

When a witch speaks a name, especially a witch who was as well-versed in matters of life and death as this hundredth witch was, an entirely new sort of life starts to pay attention. And when she spoke the name sgithich she gave the first tree not only a name, but the start of language.

All sorts of things changed after that. The first tree wanted to repay the witch for her gift, and it passed that message along to all the others. A forest is, after all, its own entity just as much as every tree within it belongs to itself — and, yes, that is the same thing, a little bit, as what your Aunt Zelda means when she talks about the responsibility we witches have to our covens. We're better together, we really are.

So the trees taught the witches about the seasons, and the berries they could eat and the places where the earth was weak and hungry and would be grateful for gifts. New seeds, usually, but sometimes — well, sometimes there were mortals needed being taught a lesson, or a witch or warlock who wanted to lead the others down a ... different path. In that way, they looked out for each other.

Aunt Hilda, Sabrina would usually interrupt here, sleepy and slow with her eyes drifting shut, Aunt Hilda, why would witches do that?

Patience, darling, Hilda would reply with a voice hollowed out with the echoes of all the Spellman witches that came before her. That's one thing about being a witch that I hope you never have to learn.

The world moved on, of course. We got things like cities and cars and paved roads and mortal eyes, and it became harder for the witches and the trees both. They fought, a little bit — great battles, with spells and yew trees walking and all sorts of chaos. But the first tree, and the first witch, and the hundredth — they had all been alive, and even the ones who fought knew they were fighting for the life that had brought the wood and the witches together.

We hid behind our own walls, let the men build new types of churches for us to worship the Dark Lord and give thanks to him that we persisted. And we — we lost the trees, a little bit, but we can't lose their memory, or their magic, or what they know about us when we were young.

Aunt Hilda, Sabrina would usually interrupt here, but she would be fast asleep before she even knew what she wanted her next question to be.

One day we'll find out what's still in those woods, pet. I wonder, sometimes, what you could bring down with one little match. I think you're just that brave.