The Near Witch

by Victoria Schwab

“Born is born. You were born the way you are.”

There is nothing here but us. Beyond the whirlwind, the world tears itself apart, whistles and blows and pushes and pulls. But just for a moment, impossibly, we two go still.

“What’s on top peels back. What’s underneath works its way up, eventually,” she says, this time adding, “If it’s angry enough.”

Sometimes the wind whispers names, perfectly clear, the way you might, on the verge of sleep, imagine you hear your own. And you never know if that sound beneath your door is only the howling of the wind, or the Near Witch, in her small stone house or in her garden, singing the hills to sleep.