Love and Other Wicked Things

One

Thank the earth and stars, Rhia thought as she sank to her knees in the middle of the woods on the evening of September 22, that I was lucky enough to be born a witch. 

It was a thought that crossed her mind often, but never more so than during the autumn equinox. It had been one of Rhia's favorite holidays ever since she could remember. She loved the first chill of fall that accompanied it, marking the last celebration of the warm summer days before the cold settled down for good. She loved the traditions: harvesting the last of her family's little herb garden, baking the first pumpkin pie of the season, going apple picking with her sister. 

Most of all, she loved the feast that her family held in their garden every year, where, over food and drink, the women would thank the earth for everything it had given them throughout the summer and cast spells for protection and prosperity in the upcoming winter months. 

What Rhia was doing at this moment was her own little tradition. Every autumn equinox, in the late afternoon, she would go for a walk in the woods behind her house to look for the first signs of fall. Pine cones, chestnuts, the blushing leaves that came tumbling down—she foraged them all, carefully storing them away to decorate her altar with when she got home. 

Presently, she was kneeling in the middle of the woods to pick up one of the acorns she had spotted. They weren't too easy to find because she had misjudged how early the sun was setting—she'd been scavenging long enough that her only source of light was the pale moonlight that filtered through the crowns of the trees—but Rhia didn't mind. The dark had never scared her, and she knew how to find her way around these woods even after nightfall. She could always trust the trees to tell her the way back, after all. 

Rhia pulled a small pouch out of the satchel slung over her shoulder. The earth doesn't owe us anything, her mother's voice murmured in the back of her head. We must never take too much without giving something back. 

Using her hands, Rhia dug a small pit into the soil, its texture beneath her fingertips as familiar as her own heartbeat. When she offered some seeds from her pouch, she could hear its pleased hum. "Thank you for these acorns," she softly said as she pressed the seeds into the earth. "And thank you for the summer days that have passed." 

It was only once she'd covered the seeds and spoken the spell that would ensure their survival in the winter that she placed the acorns in her satchel, taking care not to crush the orange and red leaves she had stowed away earlier.Closing the satchel, she rose to her feet. Branches snapped quietly beneath her boots as she began walking again, following the beaten path that would take her towards the house. However, before she could go back, there was one more errand left to run.

The Murmuring River was easy to find, since, as its name suggested, it called out to any close passersby with its low rumbling. Although the stream was narrow and shallow in this spot, Rhia neared it with caution, taking care not to slip. She wasn't afraid of water in general, but there was something about this river in particular that always made her feel uneasy. 

Crouching down, she fished out the jar her cousin had given her earlier from her satchel. The river soaked the sleeve of her dress when she dunked the glass in, but she didn't dare look down. When she was little, her aunt had told her a story of how she'd once seen something staring back at her from the bottom of the river. Rhia laughed about it in the daylight, but cloaked in darkness and with the hungry roar of the current in her ears, she was relieved when she sealed up the jar and could continue on her way. 

As the Murmuring River grew quieter in the distance, she had to chuckle at herself. It was silly, letting a scary story her aunt had told her as a child get to her, especially considering shewas the subject of many a scary story herself."Always acting like such a bad witch, but then you get creeped out by a stupid river," she murmured to herself. "Tristan would have a field day if he saw—"