The Witches #15

‘I’m five and I know mother and Sap are somewhat close by, but they’re out of sight. Even though Begonia isn’t born yet, in the dream I know about her - I‘m cleaning a dusty shelf and I know that by the time I’m done she’ll be back and we’ll get to play. I think our roles are reversed and I’m the little sister, waiting as she’s off on errands. So I wait and I clean and then the door opens and its my grandmother… I never met her, she was the queen before Sap. But she walks in and she smiles before leading me through the shop to a door that doesn’t exist.

‘Only we few know the secrets of this door and the creatures that lie beyond,’ she says, and we walk through.

It’s a garden, sheltered and quiet, a place instantly familiar and yet I have no memory of this place that is so beautiful and timeless. A part of me wants to stay in that spot forever, to freeze in time so I can take everything in, but the dream keeps moving and grandmama leads me deeper and deeper into the space. I can hear birds flitting in the soft branches overhead and the deeper I go the safer I feel.

We round a huge tree and there before us stand two beautiful creatures, a mother and a baby basking in the sunlight.

Their appearance seems to shift as we watch, tails that of a lion one moment and a snake the next, wings of bat and bird and dragonfly. When they notice us I think they will flee, but I am the one who hesitates. The baby runs at me and twines around my legs while the adult goes to grandmama and greets her affectionately, nuzzling her arm with soft purrs and chirrups.

‘You’ve been chosen,’ the baby chimera at my feet says, although it never speaks. ‘We’re to take care of each other.’

‘I’m Daisy,’ I say, bending down to stroke it.

‘I can’t wait to meet you.’

‘But we’re meeting right now,’ I say, and it laughs in delight and then… I wake up.’

‘That sounds like fate to me,’ Lilac muses after a thoughtful silence. ‘A prophecy, of sorts. It isn’t my field, but I know a little.’

‘That’s what Clover- what my mother says, but I just don’t understand it. I don’t-‘

‘Maybe you don’t have to,’ Tulip suggests, shuffling closer so she can watch the sleeping chimera, at its most peaceful since she found it in Daphne’s room. ‘Maybe you just have to let it happen.’

‘I… but I can’t take her - she’s not mine, I couldn’t-’

‘You can.’ Daphne looked at the settled creature and smiled. ‘I think she knows she’s home.’

‘I feel like I already know her,’ Daisy admitted, watching as the chimera raised a sleepy head and yawned. ‘Ophelia. Welcome.’

And, sitting on the floor with these witches she had heard about for years, with a chimera on her lap, in her favourite place in the world, Daisy too felt like she was home.

And a voice on one else heard said, ‘Daisy. Welcome.’

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