Weyward

by Emilia Hart

Squash it!” “I’m not going to squash it, Graham,” said Violet. “It has as much right to exist as you or I do. And look, it’s so pretty. The wings are rather like crystals, don’t you think?”

A cloud of dust rises from the floor with each step, as if in greeting.

A crow. The bright bead of its eye follows her as she recoils. She doesn’t like birds, with their flapping wings and sharp beaks. Has avoided them since childhood.

The physician spoke with confidence. He was a man, after all. He had no reason to think he would not be believed.

I dreamed of my mother, on that final night. Her last in this world.

I learned my mother had made me with a man and pulled me from her like a root from the earth.

She hadn’t expected love—if this was what she felt—to be so similar to fear.

We never thought of ourselves as witches, my mother and I. For this was a word invented by men, a word that brings power to those who speak it, not those it describes. A word that builds gallows and pyres, turns breathing women into corpses.

A great many things look different from a distance. Truth is like ugliness: you need to be close to see it.

Things will be different for her daughter. She’ll make sure of it. And that means she has to be brave.

“As we know, our womenfolk in particular are at great risk from the devil’s temptation, being weak in both mind and spirit.

“Everything is made out of magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us.”

She smiles at the thought of her daughter nestled inside. Though part of her wishes she could stay for longer, warm and safe in her womb. Sharing everything, even the blood that beats in their veins. And yet, she can’t wait to hold her in her arms, breathe her scent, stroke her tiny fingers.

“Sight is a funny thing,” my mother used to say. “Sometimes it shows us what is before our eyes. But sometimes it shows us what has already happened, or will yet come to pass.”

The connections between and among women are the most feared, the most problematic, and the most potentially transforming force on the planet. —Adrienne Rich