Words

Her hand on your cheek as she guides you down, careful to keep her claws just away from your skin. You’re so close to her, lost in the heat of her body and the smell of her delicious spicy musk. It’s almost too much as you settle onto your knees and look up at her, at the marbled purple and red of her body and the ample fullness of her breasts and the horns curling from her head far above; she’s so large, so strong. She could break you without even trying, and the thought of that always makes your heart quiver and your cheeks burn. ...

It regards you from behind the free-standing mirror, its long-beaked skull quizzically tilted; you weren’t supposed to summon it again before your half of the deal came due. But— You’re careful not to stutter as you speak, as hard as that is. “You tricked me, and I want out.” Its shoulders shake, and it takes you a few moments to realize that It is silently laughing at you. “It’s not funny!” you sputter. “The power and wealth you gave me wasn’t what I thought it would be—you wrote the contract to be unclear, and took advantage of me!” ...

It’s not HER, of course, not even one of HER acolytes; just some thing with a long-beaked mask wearing one of HER lesser aspects. But It’s still the closest you’ve ever gotten to HER, the closest you can safely get, and Its presence is intoxicating— Or maybe that’s just what you Know is inside the slim briefcase sitting on the floor next to It. It’s tapping Its pen on the table, waiting, the last drops of blood draining from the attached no-longer-sterile lancet— ...

It takes more hits to break the glass than you expected, but you always were weak, and it doesn’t help that you’re so worried about overcommitting and tearing your arm open. When it finally breaks you knock the fragments out of the frame before reaching in to unlock the door. It’s weird being here at night, when the store is quiet and dark; the soft glow of an exit sign pulses above you, reflecting off the countless shelves which line the space. The jars and vials which fill them almost to bursting shimmer like prisms in the light. ...

The doll, returning to her first witch’s home, finds it barren and empty; the sprawling gardens overgrown, elegant flowers choked out by thorny weeds, junk littering the gate and the path beyond it—the great fountain, once golden with angelblood, now full of stinking trashbags. The doll picks her way up along the path, looking around in wonder at the changes decay has wrought; at the places where she once sat and played, at the broken trees and sculptures—tools of discipline which she once shivered to see, now nothing more than rubble and ash. ...

You were taken in the night from a dream of endless roses; when you woke you looked to your hands, thinking to see the depredations of thorns. Instead of bloodstained sheets you found smooth glossy walls and a space no larger than a coffin, lit by the rhythmic pulse of a single light—a rhythm which, it soon became clear, matched the frantic beating of your heart. When the lid finally opened you came out fighting, clawing at the smooth, featureless faces of the creatures attending you. You broke half your nails on them before they moved to restrain you, and was over as soon as they did. You could no more stay their motions or escape their grip than you could still your heart or quiet your panicked breaths; so you did what you could, and slipped away from your body to watch what would happen next. ...

Warm slime puddles thickly around your legs as you kneel before her, as her body emerges from all the tiny cracks in the walls where she’d hidden herself all, welling up from the gaps in the courtyard’s paving stones and the shadows beneath rocks. A tiny piece of her even emerges from the tight tie holding your hair back, leaving a warm trail down the small of your back as it descends to return to its proper home. ...

Every so often a fuss is made about folk dolls, those odd little half-living homunculi; beings of distilled purpose and steady decay, straw and sticks and hollow gourds. People rediscover them, and wonder why they’re not in wider use. Listen for a moment and I’ll tell you 🧵 No self-respecting witch would let herself be seen to use one instead of a proper doll, and it’s easy to suppose that that’s the reason. It’s a class signifier, right? A power thing. ...

Once, long before, you wondered why the witch–your witch, now–was always covered in bruises, why her skin was forever a tapestry of slowly fading marks, all those purples and yellows hiding the warmth of her skin. Once, you wondered why. But then you died. When you were alive, you had assumed the obvious. She had never cared to cover them, to conceal them, and you couldn’t conceive of her as a being that anyone could hurt without her willing consent; so you assumed it was simply a kink that she didn’t care to keep secret. ...

It always sounds the same, that echoing chant, those pounding feet and snarling faces; look, look! See what you have done, see the crimes you have committed against Decency, against the People, against everyone who sought you out to ask for what you offered. How horrid, how criminal! How dare you. It’s almost like you wanted to be punished, to be destroyed; almost like you craved the lashing whips of You Are An Acceptable Target and the flensing knives of You Deserve Everything We Do To You. ...