There were once two lovers who were forbidden by their families to see each other. Every
night, while their families slept, the lovers met in the woods outside of town. They did
not know they were being watched.
A witch lived in the woods. She watched the lovers meet day after day and heard them
talk of their love for one another, of how they longed to always be together there in the
woods, never to be separated again. The witch came up with a plan.
The lovers were scared when the witch first appeared. But when she told them she
knew a way they could be together forever they listened.
The two lovers gave themselves willingly to the witch and to the woods. The witch
turned the lovers into trees: tiny saplings at first but soon they were the tallest trees in
the woodland that grew vast around them. The two trees grew so close together that their
roots crossed under the ground, their branches twisted into knots, pulling their trunks
into one gnarled mass, until no one could tell where one tree ended and the other began.
Over time, the witch’s kind intention was forgotten but her actions were not. They
became as twisted in the telling as the branches of the lovers’ trees.
The townspeople warned their children not to disobey their parents, lest the witch
turned them into trees too. But even these tales faded with the years. As the trees grew
larger people talked less and less of the lovers who disappeared. The witch became
nothing more than a scary story whispered over campfires and the two intertwined trees
became only trees. But the lovers never forgot what the witch had done for them and the
witch never stopped caring for the two large oak trees deep in the woods.
One day, a boy came to the woods. He loved a local girl and to show his love, he
promised to carve their initials into the bark of the lovers’ trees. He did not believe the
old story he had been told of the lovers and the witch.
The boy pressed his knife to the fused trunk of the ancient trees but before he could
break the lovers’ wooden skin a scream rattled the leaves all around him. The boy fell back
and was caught in the vines of the ivy that protected the trees. The boy’s feet searched for
purchase on the soil below but the vines only wound tighter around his arms, his legs,
crushing his chest. He pulled one hand free just as the witch appeared between him and
the trees. The boy lashed out at the witch, drawing blood with his knife.
At the drop of the witch’s blood, the two old trees groaned into animation. Their
branches snapped as they reached out to grab the boy. They dragged him down into the
dirt, among the moss and mud, until he was buried far beneath their roots.
The lovers had learned to protect themselves. It was their turn to protect the witch.
THE WITCH AND THE WOODS
Flash fiction by Anastasia Gammon
Illustration by Denise Gallagher