Micro Monday - April 14, 2025
The Good Witch
Happy Monday! Here’s your weekly microfiction.
The Good Witch
Agnes wasn’t a witch when they led her to the pyre, but she caught on quick enough. While the reverend bent to start the blaze, she and the Devil came to an agreement.
“All this and more,” the Devil promised, “if you only give me your soul.”
“Take it,” Agnes said. “If I didn’t have a soul, they would have never tried to burn me in the first place.”
As the last of the flames died down, Agnes shook free of the blackened ropes and walked to the edge of the stage. The crowd watched in fearful silence, unsure what to do next. They’d already called her a witch, a sinner, a whore, and everything else they could think of. Burning her had exhausted the limits of their narrow imaginations.
“Right,” Agnes said, addressing the crowd. “From now on, there are going to be some changes around here.”
And there were.
From then on, people tipped their hats toward each other in the street. If they disagreed with one another, they kept it civil, and never resorted to insults or fighting. People minded their business. People minded their manners. And no one ever did an unkind thing or said an unkind word without apologizing for it soon after.
Not with a witch in town.
Agnes, for her part, kept to herself. She healed the sick sometimes, and said a word or two over the corn during a bad year, but not much else in the way of witchcraft. To her, the best part of being a witch was being left alone when you wanted to be alone - or else walking wherever you pleased when you felt like going for a walk. She stayed up late into the night, talking to all manner of beasts, and learned the hidden paths through the woods that you could only discover by moonlight.
And at the end of her long life, she sat in bed and waited to see which kind of angel they would send for her.
Lovely!