Cinders and Sparrows

by Stefan Bachmann

IT was the first day of autumn when I came to Blackbird Castle, the trees copper and green, pumpkins growing along the ditch by the side of the road, a moon like a lidded silver eye already visible in the evening sky—in short, an excellent day for a witch to return to her ancestral home.

“No,” I said, but what I meant was “I hope to be, very soon.”

and so there were grand bits, and fancy bits, and ancient, pagan, strange bits, all sewn up with copious amounts of black ivy.

Outside, the trees were just turning rich shades of russet and bronze, their leaves escaping their anchors and swirling in the air. Light flooded through the great mullioned windows, warm and golden, like apple cider.

this was less a dress and more a means of conveyance, which you could ride in like an automobile.

Some rooms had groves of mushrooms growing between the tiles, watered by little pewter pipes, and in one gallery, a staircase ran upside down across the ceiling.

diamond-paned window. Shrouds of ivy grew against the glass, turning the light green and slithering, as if we were underwater.

They’ll call anyone a witch who doesn’t do as she’s told and has a fondness for graveyards and talking to cats.

“A philosopher,” said Mrs. Cantanker, stalking across the study, black heels clicking, ruby silks whispering around her ankles, “is one who attempts to capture the truths of the universe so precisely that they become too confusing to understand. A novelist is one who attempts to capture the truths of the universe in such a roundabout way that they become obvious to anyone who reads them.”

My eyes traveled along the toothy contours of the castle, up its spires, to the forest of chimneys sprouting from its many-angled scalp.

I stood in my soggy stockings, scribbling away in my notebook and hoping to die, or at least to faint.

“I’m not sure I’m cut out to be a crow. I’ve always felt I should be a well-pruned topiary. Yet here we are.”

That night I lay in my sea of feather beds, the lace like the froth of waves on the shore, the pillows like clouds scudding across the sky, and me floating in the center of it all, my arms outstretched, my eyes closed.

Winter crept slowly through Pragast Wood, prowling around the castle, reaching frosty fingers between the thick velvet drapes, chilling our feet when we woke in the morning and freezing our noses at night.

I had imagined a graceful descent, a tense, silent journey, but the whole thing was more of a terrifying, controlled collapse.

There was the outside of things and the inside, and I no longer believed in the outsides of things.

That’s what she said, but I didn’t have to believe her.

I felt a glow in my heart, like fire, like sunlight on autumn leaves.

“Sunlight on autumn leaves” = my Astrid

In that moment, none of it mattered. They were all words, lids for pots in a pantry. “Some things just are,” Mother had said, and in that moment, I simply was.

The woods loomed, not forbidding anymore, but rather old and sleepy, protective of the strange world they harbored.

On the table, spread between the breakfast china and the silverware, were notes and documents organizing the year ahead, spring and summer and then another autumn and another winter. It all stretched ahead of me—a long road, but I was glad to be traveling it.