Three Things

I’ve been working on a short piece of fiction speculating how villainous lackeys might be feeling the day of the deciding battle – think the Malfoys or the orcs!

‘Three Things’

My father always told me, at the end of each day, to write down three things I had learned that day in the diary that I obviously kept. Of course, that was terrible advice and when I killed him, I stood over his corpse and said ‘write that in your fucking notebook’, but today, I think, I might just do it. 

The first thing I learned was that, when you tell humans that your best friend is going to die today, they naturally turn to boundless sympathy as a first response, rather than a cruel, if sadly accurate, character assasination of her. Now, I was doubly pissed off about this lesson because it happened before dawn and I hate learning before I’ve felt the sun on my face. Not that we get much sun down here – why every coven member since Jezebel has chosen a cave system as their hideout I’ll never know – but a girl can dream. 

My hands are aching from the climb up here, but this is strangely cathartic. I think I’ll expand on this list a little, it’ll give me a break from all her morbid talk. Sidekicks, if people in the real world actually have them, get bored too, you know.

Although I try and avoid the humans, for the plain and simple reason that they take one look at me and take a collective jump back to the days of burning women for owning black cats, today, I had to go into town to grab a few things. The next few weeks might get a bit hairy and I can’t be doing without peanut butter in these trying times. So, I zipped down into town. It’s not very big, in fact it’s distinctly average in terms of human settlements – two supermarkets, one poorly serviced train station, three local weirdos and four streets that ostensibly make up ‘the centre of town’ – but it would have to do. 

I have lots of suits of armour. Down the traditional route, I have chainmail and a full suit of steel coverings. Kevlar for the more modern jobs and an extensive collection of shields compose the back wall of my wardrobe. What I never anticipated watching her dismantle Arthur’s court was that a hoodie and baseball cap might one day be the greatest form of camouflage. Somehow, my horns drew no notice as I walked through the town and, if the cashier at the mini-mart noticed the bulge under my hat, he said nothing and handed me my change. 

I don’t know how I came to talk to the woman with pink hair. Peanut butter and other groceries safely purchased, I decided to take a final stroll through the park. I was almost sad to watch the children on the swings, pushed by tired parents and babysitters. Old couples, still hand in hand, teenagers who were actually teenaged unlike yours truly, gorging on ice cream, families soaking up November’s final rays of snow, all brought me to the edge of depression. They leave us with little other option but to involve them in this – it’s unfortunate to lose the only good influence on such a degenerate species, but needs must. I walked on until I came to a bench, empty except for a pink-haired young woman, crying desperately into a tissue.

If it’s possible to roll your eyes at yourself, then that is what I did then. The woman could have been a still life of Greta, four hundred years ago, the hope physically draining out of her. I sat down tentatively beside her and, cringing for my inherently damned soul, laid a hand on her arm. 

She did a sort of sob and laugh together, snot dripping onto her shirt. I barely held back my disgust, but I managed to choke out ‘are you okay?’

People think it isn’t natural for witches to enquire after people. Greta certainly doesn’t, but I’m entirely lost as to where this came from. As if she can sense what I am, she baulks at me before answering. 

“Oh, it’s nothing.”

Curiosity got the better of me, and a small part of me relished human tears – don’t judge me, it’s practically in the job description – so I pressed on. Eventually, she split wide open. 

“It’s just,” she managed to stop crying long enough to tell me the story, “my best friend – he’s called Nick, I knew him from school, just told me he doesn’t have very long to live.” The tears started up again, staining her face splotchy red. Dread lances at my stomach. I might know how she felt. I wasn’t sure then, but I had the growing idea that I might be right. So I ran with it. 

“That’s terrible,” I found myself speaking without awareness, my mouth moving without my brain knowing what would come out. Then “I know how you feel.” Don’t say it. “My best friend.” Don’t. “Greta.” Fuck. “Is probably going to die today.”

“Today?” This was, apparently, the wrong thing to say. She collapsed into my chest, great heaving sobs leaving snot trails on my shirt until she was finally able to prise herself from my arms. With a parting shot of ‘poor thing’, she hurried off, suddenly desperate to get away from me. 

I love Greta, never mistake that. But I know what she has done and I claim no right to defend her for having a faultless character, not today, of all days. When most any human in the know hears she will probably die today, they will cheer and throw a party Jay Gatsby would be impressed by. To hear a human cry for her… I don’t know how to receive it. 

Sorry. 

Now, diary, the second thing I learned today is that it is nearly Christmas. How did I learn that, you ask? It goes hand in hand with thing two point five of my list – humans aren’t afraid of caves like they used to be. No, in fact, they slather them in fake snow and cheap nativity scenes and light them up like, well, like a Christmas tree. Of course, the surface levels of the caves have visitors all year round, but you can usually blend in by throwing on a hideous jumper and hiking boots, but this is something else. Greta’s been driving me hard these last few days and I was barely awake when I came face to face with a sticky little girl with bits of candy cane in her plaits. To her credit, she didn’t even think of cringing away from me, instead choosing to shove the remnants of the candy cane into my hand and run off, calling for her mother. 

Apparently, humans come here every day. They even have a gift shop. 

Yes, it is nearly Christmas. Nine terrible, dreary, work-filled days before billions of adults can finally drown their livers in alcohol for two days before getting back to the drudgery. Probably not my thing. 

Still, in a tacky sort of way, it is a thing of beauty. There might be no conceivable point to a fir tree coated in plastic beyond being tumbled by an escaped child, but I can’t help but wish Greta would lift her stringent ban on decoration. 

I stare down the mountainside, remembering the last time I saw the General here. The hatred in his eyes was a thing of horror of which only humans are capable, his sword desperate to taste witch blood as if he would die without it. Which he might have. 

I sigh. The centuries have been long and I have seen many friends and lovers die of old age before my first wrinkle has even appeared. Whispering a prayer for them, I know I have to go inside. The darkness of night is swiftly closing in and we have things to do – business to attend to. 

I haven’t learnt it yet, but I know what the third lesson of the day will be. This bit won’t be legible after – if there is an ‘after’ – my hands are shaking and I can’t stop my breath from hitching in my throat, but I hope some of us are around to read it. I’m fully aware that these things don’t generally come down on our side. 

If any human finds this, we’ve read all the stories. Well, I have – a lot of her dogsbodies are not linguistically gifted, but I have seen the Wicked Witches of the west and east, watched Gothel melt, felt Maleficent (nice name, by the way, I rather wish my mother had thought of it) burn. I know that, even if we look set to win, Greta will probably die at The General’s hand and her death will be far too violent and bloody to call it justice, but he will call it that anyway. 

The cold is coming. I shiver as the last dregs of the sun vanish from the rocks beneath me and I know my last lesson is about to follow. It is the way it has to be, the world demands that it be this way. But we are right. And I hope the world knows it. 

Tomorrow we fight and tomorrow we die.