I found myself wondering why I was so frightened as the witch loomed close. Was it pathological? She seemed a witch to me in all senses then, a good witch, bad witch, weaver of curses, stalker of children, solver of problems, healer, black widow, conjurer, the devil’s whore who chews through mortal mates, an old maid too, young but on course to bloom into that unmarried, ungrounded, uncontrolled old crone which drove past societies to purge with fire or bind in nunneries those thorny women wedlock could not hold.
