Mother Knows Best: A Tale of the Old Witch

by Serena Valentino

  “After Mother is gone, we can do things our own way, Gothel.”

  “That’s true. Maybe. Can we decide how to handle it when the time comes? Together?”

  Hazel smiled. “All right, then. We’ll decide together.”

  Gothel, Primrose, and Hazel were standing outside the conservatory, holding hands and waiting for their mother to come out to tell them it was time for the ceremony. There was a chill in the air that made them shiver and huddle close together. The sky resembled black cellophane with tiny pinholes of light, and the moon was a thin shining crescent. None of it looked quite real. It was like a paper cutout. It was too perfect to have such a remarkable witch’s moon on that night. The perfect moon for that sort of magic. And there was something inexplicable in the air. The dead woods felt different to the witches on that night, but they couldn’t figure out how.

  “The woods feel alive,” said Hazel. “Somehow they feel alive.”

  “The woods are alive, my dear Hazel.”

  Manea came out to greet her daughters. She had artfully arranged her hair in a high elaborate configuration of large curls and golden rapunzel flowers. It had been many years since the sister witches had seen their mother so formally dressed. She wore a golden floor-length empire-waisted gown with long full sleeves that shimmered in the light, and her skin also glowed, like she had bathed in rapunzel flower dust. She didn’t look at all like the mother they knew. She looked younger, and somehow more majestic than they had ever seen her.

  “You’ve always felt so much—too much, in fact. It’s the singular aspect about you that has always caused me trepidation, but I see now it will work in your favor. Always trust your feelings, Hazel. They are your guides. You feel the vibrations of the world around you. You feel the emotions of others more profoundly than anyone else I’ve met, even with only a small amount of my blood within you. You even feel the dead.”

  “The dead?” Primrose looked around nervously, trying to find the dead, but all she could see was endless darkness.

  “Yes, my dear child. The dead.” Manea took her gaze from her bewildered daughters and looked toward the dense part of the forest, where her creatures were waiting for her. “Come, my love, and bring my children forth so they may behold the future queens of the dead!”

  The tall grotesquerie Manea had called her love stepped out of the shadows as if walking through a pitch-black curtain of night. His trousers and long coat hung on his lanky skeletal body like rags, and the leathery skin stretched over his skull glistened in the light from the open conservatory door. He was surrounded by innumerable skeletal creatures, their numbers stretching for miles into the densest parts of the forest. They were silent, morose creatures, standing almost entirely still, waiting for instructions from their leader. The lanky creature raised his hand, motioning to the skeletal minions to make a pathway, parting the sea of skeletons down the center. The witches couldn’t see what was making its way toward them, but they could hear something. It was a choir of little whimpers, the chattering of tiny voices, their pitch full of fear and muffled by sobs.

  “Come! Come, my little ones. Welcome. Behold your future queens!” To the young witches’ horror, they saw what was coming out of the darkness: the children from the village.

  The children slowly made their way through the sea of skeletons while huddled around a ghastly woman with putrid skin that was deeply bruised. The poor woman had a vacant, terrified look on her face, her bulbous eyes darting around, taking in the scene. She didn’t seem to notice the horrified children huddled around her, or their tiny hands grasping at her, trying to hold on to her.

  “What’s wrong with the children’s eyes?” wondered Primrose, her voice barely a whisper.

  The children’s eyes were covered in what looked like dried tar. It was black, shiny, and set into the hollows of their eye sockets. The young witches had never seen anything so horrifying. The sight of the poor children, with their fresh wounds and bruised little bodies, broke their hearts.

  “Is this woman…are these children…are they from the village? You…killed them?” asked Primrose, trembling and fumbling her words.

  “Calm yourself, Daughter. They would be even more terrified if they could see,” said Manea offhandedly.

  “You’re a monster!” sneered Primrose, looking at her mother with utter contempt.

  “What would you have me do? All of our creatures must be in attendance. They must be bound to you.”

  “They are not creatures! They’re children! Children you killed! And now you’re parading them around for your amusement. It’s disgusting! I won’t have anything to do with it,” yelled Primrose.

  “This is our life, Primrose! Stop being weak! You will take the blood, and you will help your sisters uphold our traditions. And you will never leave the dead woods! Do you understand? I do not want to hear another word from you, not one—not until it’s time to recite your portion of the ceremony!”

  Primrose said nothing. Disgusted and horrified, she just looked at her mother as the dead children cried even harder at the sound of Manea’s angry voice.

  “Not another word, Primrose! Or I will truly make these children suffer!”

  Primrose’s anger and revulsion writhed within her, but she choked down her words.

  “Direct your anger there, Primrose!” Manea pointed her bony finger at the woman standing with the children and gave her a wrathful look. “If she had agreed to the terms, these children wouldn’t be here! She wanted to be with her precious dead so desperately! To surround herself by death! Well, now she shall be! Forever! These children’s blood is on her hands! Not mine!”

  The dead woman flinched, grasping the hand of a little girl in a tattered bloodstained dress and pulling her closer, as if the blind child could shield her from the queen’s wrath.

  “Mother, please, stop!” pleaded Hazel.

  Manea whipped her head around like a deadly viper to look at Hazel.

  “Do you think I like ending the lives of children and bringing them here? It’s unnatural to end a life so young. They find it so much harder to transition and to accept that they have passed. I’ve covered their eyes to make it easier for them, Hazel.”

  “Mother, they’re in pain. They’re suffering.”

  Manea looked to the lanky skeletal creature. “My love, does it hurt to be dead?”

  “No, my queen, not anymore.”

  “See! They will be fine! Now calm down. After the ceremony, the children will be put in their graves and won’t be woken until their transition, which is the usual custom, barring special circumstances like our ceremony.”

  “Will they know they’re in their graves? Will they be in pain?”

  “No, Hazel, my flower, they won’t. However, since this woman would rather see the little ones dead than agree to the terms, she will be granted no peace.”

  The woman let out a howling guttural moan, causing the children to cry out.

  “Silence!” Manea flicked her hand toward the woman, filling her mouth with a thick putrid tar. The woman tried to call out again, but it only made her choke and gasp for breath. “Stop your infernal screaming, woman!”

  “Gothel, make her stop!” Primrose pleaded with her sister. Gothel stood frozen, hard as stone, watching the scene, watching her mother to see what she would do.

  Hazel took Primrose’s hand in hers and gripped it tight. “Primrose, please. Stop talking. If you don’t stop these theatrics, Mother is going to do something terrible to those children.” Primrose didn’t seem to hear her sister; her gaze was still locked on her mother. Hazel took her by the shoulders, shaking her slightly. “Prim! Listen to me! I promise you, promise you, Prim, everything will be okay.”

  Primrose shook with anger and fear and whispered, “How can you say that? Nothing is ever going to be okay ever again!”

  Hazel looked into Primrose’s eyes. “Do you trust me?”

  “I do.”

  “Then, please, Primrose, trust me now. I promise you e
verything will be fine,” Hazel said just as a blinding golden light erupted around them.

  Hazel wondered if her little sister Primrose was right. She wondered if anything would ever be okay again.

  The brilliant golden light erupted from the conservatory, illuminating the dead forest. It was more impressive even than the legendary Lighthouse of the Gods. It could be seen well beyond the boundaries of the dead woods, and it struck fear into the hearts of the villagers nearby.

  The young witches stood in the center of the room, before their mother. They were surrounded by peering skeletal faces looking in on them from outside the conservatory. The witches had never seen their forest so animated, so alive, and they had never seen their mother looking quite so dignified in all their years with her.

  Manea’s skin was glowing in the light of the flowers as she reached for her small sickle knife hanging from her belt on a long silver chain. She sliced open her hand, cutting it deeply. The blood dripped down her long bone-thin arm onto her golden dress as her daughters looked at her with fear and wonder.

  “My daughters! From this night forth, and upon my passing, those who languish in the woods will be bound to you by my blood!”

  Manea pushed her hair back from her face, smearing blood onto her forehead and into her hair. She raised her hands, opening the skylight to reveal the inky black sky with tiny silver pinholes of light. “Girls, give me your hands.” The young witches reached out their trembling hands, exposing their palms. “Put your hands together,” their mother snapped. The witches quickly did as their mother said, moving their hands together, each slightly overlapping the other—and before they could react, their mother sliced open their palms in one quick unceremonious slash. Primrose screamed and jerked her hand away, clutching it to her chest, smearing blood on her bodice.

  Manea put a large silver bowl on the floor to catch Hazel’s and Gothel’s blood. There it mingled with Manea’s. “Primrose, you must mingle your blood with ours.”

  Primrose cried silently, clutching her hand. “I can’t, Mother, I can’t!”

  Manea grabbed Primrose’s hand and squeezed it over the bowl, mingling Primrose’s blood with Gothel’s, Hazel’s, and her own. “Now stand back!” she said, picking up the bowl.

  Manea raised the bowl above her head, offering it to the sky. The blood exploded, filling the air with crimson luminescence, and drifted up through the skylight and into the clouds, turning them and the stars a deep bloodred that glistened like tiny fragments of rubies.

  Manea set down the bowl and stretched out her long bony fingers, her hands shaking with her power as lightning exploded from her fingertips, causing the clouds to burst and rain blood on the dead woods, the witches, and her skeletal minions.

  “With this blood, the dead are now bound to us all. The four of us. Forever!”

  Primrose screamed again, falling to the floor, and wept uncontrollably, violently shaking with each sob. “I can’t do this! I can’t.”

  Gothel picked up her sister and held her tightly in her arms. “Prim! Calm down, please.”

  Primrose looked terrified, her face speckled with blood. “I’m sorry, Gothel, I can’t do this! I thought I could. I tried. I promise.”

  “Silence!” Manea roughly took Primrose by the hair with one hand and covered her mouth with her bleeding hand. “You will take my blood!” screamed Manea as Primrose flailed, trying to fight off her mother. Manea was too strong; she forced Primrose to the ground, still pressing her bleeding hand over Primrose’s open mouth, muffling her screams as Primrose kicked, trying to get her mother off her. Gothel and Hazel stood, paralyzed with fear, as they watched their sister convulse, trying to wriggle out from under their mother while spitting blood into her face.

  Manea stood up and wiped her face, looking down on her daughter, splayed on the floor. “You think I don’t know your heart, Primrose? Look at you! Too weak to even take my blood! You’re pathetic! Even your sisters see your flaws. Even they considered letting you leave the dead woods, because they know you would only be a hindrance to them! Well, I will save them the heartbreak of seeing you leave!” Manea stretched out her long spindly hands, clutching at the air, squeezing something within them. Primrose started to cough, grasping at her throat. Gothel couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

  Her mother was killing Primrose.

  “Mother, stop!” screamed Hazel. Manea flicked her hand in Hazel’s direction, sending her careering across the room and through one of the conservatory windows, the glass shattering and mixing with Hazel’s blood. “Hazel!” Gothel didn’t know which sister to run to, Hazel or Primrose. She felt helpless and afraid.

  Primrose is dying. Her face was turning purple, her eyes large and bulbous. She was on the edge of death, somewhere between there and the mists. Gothel didn’t know how to stop her mother. She hadn’t taken the blood. She had no powers. And then she remembered. The flowers. Mother’s treasures! She seized one of the oil lamps that hung on hooks around the room, and screamed at her mother.

  “Mother, stop! Stop or I will burn it all down!”

  Manea stopped dead. She looked up from Primrose and saw Gothel standing in the center of the flowers, holding the oil lamp. “Gothel, no! You’ll kill us all! Put down the lamp!”

  “Not until you let Primrose go!”

  “Take her!” said Manea, tossing Primrose onto the floor in a bloody heap. “Take your pathetic excuse for a sister! I don’t want her!” Manea stepped away from Primrose. “Take her out of here now before I change my mind and kill you all! Get out of here! Now!”

  Gothel rushed to her sister and tried to rouse her. “Prim, can you walk? Let’s get out of here!”

  Primrose got up, wobbly on her feet, and let her sister guide her out of the conservatory to where Hazel was lying on the ground. Manea stood stark still, waiting and watching from the conservatory window to see what Gothel would do.

  “Hazel, are you okay?” Gothel helped the bloodied and bruised Hazel to her feet, all the while keeping an eye on her mother. “Don’t you move, Mother! Or I will do it!” Gothel said in her most commanding voice.

  The three sisters stood there for what felt like an eternity, just looking at their mother. Gothel had to wonder how the three of them looked, standing there. Did they look afraid? Did her mother think she was brave? Whatever her mother thought was not betrayed by the stone expression on her face. I think she is more afraid than we are.

  “You have to kill her,” Hazel said under her breath.

  “You have to!” said Primrose, still clutching her bruised throat.

  “Silence, you wretched vipers!” said Manea, sending Hazel and Primrose flying with her magic and smashing them against a tree, splintering it into bits.

  “Mother, stop! Please don’t kill us!”

  Manea’s face utterly changed. She looked like an animal trying to make out a strange noise. “Kill you, Gothel? Never! I could never hurt you! Haven’t you been listening to me? Haven’t you read it in my journals? To hurt you would be like hurting myself! I could never hurt you, even if I wanted to!”

  “Then please leave my sisters alone. Please! Don’t hurt them anymore!”

  “Sisters?” Manea laughed. “Ha! They’re nothing to you, Gothel! Hazel had promise. I wanted her to be your companion in magic. I wanted her to be your guide, to help you feel, because your heart is too much like mine. Too black. Hazel would be able to help you in matters of the heart. And Primrose, well, I thought she would be a welcome distraction from your studies, something to break the monotony and toiling, but that’s all they are to you, Gothel! You, Gothel, you are mine!”

  “Then please don’t break my heart. Please don’t kill them!” screamed Gothel.

  “It’s too late. Primrose will never agree to stay in the dead woods, and Hazel will talk you into letting her leave, putting our home in danger. Putting everything at risk! I can’t let that happen. I can’t let them destroy everything my family has created and cultivated here. Everything t
hat will someday belong to you! I’m sorry, my darling, but they have to die.”

  “No, Mother! You have to die!” Gothel hurled the lamp into the conservatory, setting the rapunzel aflame.

  “Gothel! What have you done?” Manea created a protective shield around herself so the flames couldn’t touch her. “Gothel! No! Save the rapunzel!” Manea screamed as she started to wither and age and crumble to dust. She screamed in pain as the rapunzel burned. “Gothel! Save the rapunzel!”

  The flames overtook the conservatory. Gothel snatched up one of the rapunzel flowers before the conservatory started to collapse, as her mother turned to dust, crumbling before her eyes. Gothel watched in horror as her mother withered into a dry husk and disintegrated.

  “Gothel! Please help me!” screamed her mother right before her face fell to dust.

  I killed her. I killed her! Gothel’s head was spinning. She couldn’t believe she had done this. She wanted to take it back. She wanted to try to reason with her. Give her a chance. But it was too late. Everything was destroyed. Everything was in ruins.

  Sisters!

  Gothel ran from the burning conservatory into the dead woods. She ran past the blood-soaked legion of the dead into the trees, searching for her sisters, calling out their names, panicked her mother had killed them. “Primrose! Hazel? Where are you?” She begged the morose skeletal creatures to help her find them and was answered with vacant looks. “Have you seen my sisters?” The skeletons just stared, showing no sign they even noticed their mistress had died. Where is Jacob? she thought. “Jacob! Primrose! Hazel!” She screamed again and again as she ran into the darkness with only the light of the flower and the burning conservatory in the distance to guide her.

  Gothel stood alone on the balcony off the library overlooking the destroyed conservatory. It was still smoldering, sending tiny wisps of smoke into the air. It was a cold morning, and the tops of the dead trees were obscured in a heavy mist and choked with gray smoke and ash. The forest was silent and still, as the dead woods always were, but that day it seemed even more unnatural than usual. Gothel couldn’t shake the horrible vision of her mother dying. No matter how hard she tried to banish the vile images, she couldn’t help seeing her mother cry out in pain as her face became dust. It was the worst thing she had ever witnessed. I did that to her. I killed my own mother. She couldn’t imagine what that must have felt like, and it sent a horrible feeling throughout her entire body. She felt sick and trapped within herself, as if she would never escape the feeling of dread and guilt. She wanted to go to the burnt structure and find her mother’s remains—she wanted to put them somewhere safe—but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She was afraid. She had no idea what to do now. She and Hazel hadn’t taken her mother’s blood. Only Primrose was given it. By force. Gothel wasn’t given her mother’s magic. She was defenseless. They were alone. And it was up to Gothel to make sure they were taken care of.