The Honey Witch

by Sydney J. Shields

what is so wrong about being a bitch? It is the closest a girl can be to a wolf.

To have survived this long, despite the world’s penchant for beautiful dead girls? Marigold has grown up surrounded by the poets who propel the narrative—how romantic to die young, unstretched, unsullied, without ever outgrowing the part of the ingenue. But what happens when the girl keeps living, when she ages proudly and defiantly, without abandoning imagination, or stories, or that secret wish to find magic wherever it hides? Well, then the poets would call her a witch.