The Wide Eyed Witch

By Kaun Oveurst

Growing up in Dawempiin we had always heard the stories of witches, hags, werewolves, and all other manner of evil creatures that supposedly lurked in the darkness of the Owl-wood. “Be a good boy or else the Wide Eyed Witch will come to take you away and eat you!” my mother would always tell me. Myself and the other children assumed they were just scary stories to keep us in line. That is, until Seit disappeared one day.
There was always a group of us that went in together. Myself, Seit, Lutsó, and Tunhe. We had gone to explore as usual, when Seit noticed an owl had begun following us. Just watching as we played, and none of us thought much of it. It wasn’t even beginning to get dark yet when Seit declared he was feeling ill and wanted to go home. We thought it was a bit strange but didn’t press and told him to go on ahead, we were going to stay out as long as we could.
By the time we got back Myrica had just set off to sleep for the night, and our mothers had dinner waiting for us. It wasn’t until the next morning that Iis, Seit’s mother, came knocking on our door asking if we knew where he was. I told her that we thought he wandered back home early and that he told us he was feeling sick. Of course all of us were told we weren’t to go back into the woods that day. Of course we didn’t listen either.
A group of adults had set off for Lighthaven to ask the paladins for help, but it would be a full tenday until they returned, 6 at best if they are quick. We, however, thought we had trained ourselves so well that we decided to go after Seit ourselves. Armed with our wooden swords, we set off at high noon. Tunhe had an uneasy feeling the whole time. Meanwhile Lutsó and I felt there was nothing to worry about and went full speed ahead. Then we spotted the owl again. Or rather, it spotted us.
With Seit gone and his past nagging of the owl following us, we recalled the stories of the Wide Eyed Witch, Arabella, and her many owl familiars. We knew it had to be her, and in our minds we chased the owl down. But thinking back, it must have been leading us all there on purpose. Before we knew it, the forest opened up into a small grove. One by one, more and more owls appeared, surrounding us in the tree line. Before us in the middle of the clearing was a small pool, and lying face up inside of it was Seit.
We tried to rush to his side but the owls just kept swooping down at us, trying to keep us away. From where we were we could at least see that he was covered in pustules, his very skin rotting away as he gasped for breath. Just as we started to near the pool, a figure emerged from the tree line. A tall, slender woman, with a head full of brown and black feathers and eyes as white as snow. She looked at us, smiled, and made her way to Seit. We couldn’t move. Whether it was our own fear that numbed our bodies or a spell from the witch that kept us from reacting I'm not sure. She knelt down, poured some kind of horrible potion into his mouth, and waved her hand at us.
In the blink of an eye we were outside the forest, and the sun was setting yet again. We weren’t sure what had happened. We knew we had to go back but just as we we’re about to head back in; our mothers were there behind us grabbing us by the collar and dragging us home, yelling about how they had been looking for us worried sick all day. We tried to tell them about everything but they wouldn’t listen. I barely slept even an hour that night, thinking about what we had seen. The next day at dawn we snuck out of our homes before our mothers could wake, but before we could even get to the forest, there he was. There stood Seit right at the edge of the village.
We couldn’t believe our eyes, we had just seen him in the talons of Tah, barely alive. Yet here he was, not a wound in sight. We ran to him to welcome our friend home and ask what happened, but he had no recollection. He didn’t remember anything about any kind of witch or laying, dying in a pool in the forest. His last memory was feeling sick, following the owl towards the edge of the woods, and then standing in front of the village.
While we were happy he was home, and that physically he seemed fine, but something seemed off. We weren’t sure what it was, and we couldn’t tell if it was good or bad, but he just seemed vaguely different. Either way we pulled him back home to his mother, banging at the door. After a tear filled happy reunion, the adults sent word to our fathers who shouldn’t have even made it to the city yet.
Even many years later, we still aren’t quite sure what we saw, or how all of us came out alive and unscathed. Or why and how Seit escaped. But one thing was certain, the fairy tales from our mothers surely weren’t just fairy tales anymore.

Type

Text, Literature