tea & cookies
for Violet
In a quaint cottage in a forest not far away, lived a young witch.
Every morning she tended the garden surrounding her home. It overflowed the picket fence, full of flowers and herbs and roots.
And every afternoon she would hang and dry her herbs, and would crush and blend her herbs into fine teas, humming sweetly all the while.
And every evening she would crawl into bed, piled high with colored quilts smelling of earth and herbs, and dreamt of a lovely woman kneading and baking soft bread.
And she would cry softly in her bed.
At the end of each week, the young witch packed a bag of her fine teas and headed into town for market day. Many people would come to buy her magical tea—old women with aches and pains, young women with broken hearts. The sick, the needy, the rich, and the religious bought her teas and thanked her for her great service.
One day, a pregnant woman smelling of fresh warm bread came asking for a special kind of tea to make her baby strong.
The young witch said, “It is yours for free, if only you would adopt me.”
But the woman smiled sadly and said, “Sweet child. We have hardly room for this little one.”
She walked away with tears in her eyes, and the young witch slept dreamlessly that night.
The next week, the young witch was setting up her stall in the market square when she noticed a new arrival: a little girl standing alone holding three shiny cookie cutters. She waved them and cried out to passersby, but everyone ignored her.
So the young witch left her stall and asked the little girl, “What are you selling these for?”
“Three pence, miss,” she said. “They’re the last I have of Mum, but I have to eat.”
Without a thought the witch asked, “Would you like it if I took care of you?”
The little girl hugged her tightly and together they walked back to the cottage.
They lived peacefully there. The witch taught the girl of herbs and roots, and the girl taught her new friend to bake. Everyday they had tea and cookies and hummed sweetly together.
THE END.
