The Witches #8

Lilac’s room was a reflection of her self. She had never made a conscious decision to decorate it in such a way, it came together in the most utterly organic way: as she became so did it. Each small trinket had significance, represented a year or a day or a moment Lilac had lived; to anyone else it might look like a pebble, a dried leaf or a mossy twig, but to Lilac it was the first time she went to the forest alone, the moment she realised who she wanted to be, when the trees first spoke to her.

Her memories and life lay before anyone who stepped through the green door, but no one but Lilac could pick it all apart. She loved the close her eyes and turn, very slowly, and then open them again, focusing on a single thing and letting its story flood her.

The feather that had caught in her hair when she first flew. A cracked, green speckled eggshell from a nest she had flown out amidst a storm to rescue, the mother hawk frantic - Daphne had cared for the bird until the eggs hatched and the family flew off, but just before they left the mother had swooped into Lilac’s room and left behind the shell with a chirrup that sounded like thanks. There was a shell given to her by Tulip, from the beach they had holidayed on each autumn as children. An hourglass, cracked and long since empty given to her by Daph, a reminder that their time was their own.

She sometimes wondered what others saw, what stories the things she kept spoke for them; when Tulip gazed at a vase in a particular way or Daphne ran her fingers through a collection of feathers she knew she was right in thinking they all saw their own stories, each of them so different to her own.

She loved it. With every fibre of her being she loved it.

Sometimes she just lay on the floor and listened. To the world, to the house, to all the stories that surrounded her, to the tales that made up her life.

Her room was a story. A story of Lilac.

Tulip smiled as she twirled in the centre of it, breathing in deeply, hardly able to hear the sound of her sisters clanging away in the kitchen from here. Lilac’s room never failed to be peaceful, a place of escape, a place to grow and thrive for Lilac.

A place for Tulip to calmly pack for holiday because Lilac was not a natural born packer and never chose an exactly ideal mix of things, often overlooked her broom and always ended up in a ball on the floor.

Tulip laughed and began to pack.

  The Witches is a serial story, published every week on Thursday/Friday. See you then!