The Little Witch in the Big City

A Short Story 

Art by me

“A witch ought never to be frightened in the darkest forest, Granny Weatherwax had once told her, because she should be sure in her soul that the most terrifying thing in the forest was her.”~ Terry Pratchett

The little witch had grown up with that quote. She had lived by that quote, even graduating at the top of her class from Baba Yaga's Black Forest Academy for Young Witches. She had been so sure of how her life was going to go. Build a cottage deep in the forest, wait for young maidens and dashing heroes to come through looking for magical favours, commune with nature, paint with all the colours of the wind... it was just what was done.

So what, then, was she doing stepping off of a subway train in the middle of a large metropolis?



She had moved here for a change of pace. Everyone back in the Enchanted Forest thought it was for a girl, and maybe on some level it was, but in reality she just couldn't keep doing what was expected of her. After all, what was the point of being a witch if not to take one's power into one's own hands? Witches were never the types to do what others wanted. That's why they were witches and not princesses trapped in towers and arranged marriages.

Besides, was this city so different from the Enchanted Forest?

She could tap into the energies of street lights, traffic lights, the tangles of power lines or the wire work embedded in the concrete, the pulse of the city as never-ending to her as the forest or the cosmos.

And that wasn't all, the young witch realised. Entire possibilities were opening up to her.

Instead of potions mixed from lake waters and tree saps, she could become a regular customer at the local coffee shop until the barista knew her name and order, infusing the energy that regularity into the drinks themselves to ensure a smooth day.

She could pausing at florist displays to communicate with the small fresh spirits living in the cultivated potted gift plants, their energies foreign in the space. She could meet eyes with the pigeons and squirrels and, yes, even the rats who braved the city streets, feeling a kinship of survival under such unnatural conditions.

She could meditate on public transit, on busses subway trains, connecting to the power that sustained them, and the thousands of people on and off. That, she thought, took just as much skill as meditating under a stately old pine tree. Didn't it?

She could use chalk to draw sigils on the sidewalks. She could use the flow of traffic to send energies in her spells.

There were energies here. There were spirits here. There were crossroads here - crossroads everywhere. Why didn't all witches live in cities, she wondered?

She stared up at the apartment building in awe, at the graffiti tags on the side, the vibrant colours their own kind of magic.

"Get the hell out of the street!" Some random man yelled at her. "Crazy witch!"

She smiled at him, murmuring a charm under her breath - "because you were so very rude, upon your suit a bird will poo." And sure enough, just a few minutes later...

"Damn pigeons!" the angry man cursed, wiping the mess off his shoulder furiously. The little witch giggled.

Yes, she was going to like it here.

-Nym-