The Tree Who Was A Witch

She thought to cheer him.

" I watched Horace for a very long time before the revelation of my presence," she began in her gravelly voice. "He had a dignity often even lords lack. And a gentleness with the soil. I wondered why he had no woman living with him in that little garden house by the pond. He seemed sufficient. It is unusual for a human to seem so. Humans tend to be needy."

Mark kept walking as the Witch ran along beside him dressed in a swirl of snowflakes.

Only her eyes peeped through the shimmering mass.

"Horace was not needy," she continued. "But he did need something. I could tell by the set of his mouth. It was set too hard as though he was trying to keep words inside. What were the words I wondered."

Mark's grandmother told him Horace did not have a happy childhood. Horace had been more or less found in the garden, crying beside the old bridge. His face was bruised, his clothes torn. He was no more than fifteen. Later it was determined (although Horace claimed no memory of a life before the "finding") that he was left there by a transient couple after a brutal night. A couple who moved on without so much as dropping of their names into the minds of witnesses who saw them with the boy the day before. Horace never recovered his past. He was raised by Mark's grandparents in their off-handed way, kind but distant. Horace never took to school. He took to gardening. And so he became the gardener for his rescuers.

The Witch said she first noticed Horace ten Spring times ago. He was pruning the roses and singing

" Singing?" Mark was astonished. Horace was little given to speaking, never mind singing.

"It was an old song. I've heard it on the winds that blow across from that other island.."

The Witch took a slight bounce, scattering snowflakes everywhere. Her eyes were just the color of dulled sunshine.

"I've never heard Horace sing."

" His voice isn't so good, but he sings with a flair. Like one of those birds who won't be part of the morning choir."

"And it was then you introduced yourself?"

"Not for some months. I had to think carefully how to introduce myself. Horace was not a man to shock. The introduction had to be subtle..."

Mark could not imagine how subtle an introduction could be between a witch and a gardener. When she first appeared to Mark she came blowing down the path as a mist and knocked him over. Nothing subtle. Horace who was standing next to him nearly split a side with laughter. Mark was just getting to his feet, brushing off the dirt when the mist moved to a bench. Then he saw those eyes that caught up glints of the day.

" Is that..." Mark whispered to Horace.

" Oh yes. What else?" Horace was wiping the tears from his eyes.

" I don't think it's very amusing to flatten someone," Mark addressed the small mist cloud with the tarnished gold eyes.

"Can't take a joke?" Her voice was deep with scratches through it.

Mark frowned for a long moment before his frown stretched into a smile. They would be friends.

The introduction of the Witch to Horace took place one afternoon when Horace fell asleep under the tree of her. She rustled her branches softly and carefully, dropping leaves onto his body until he was covered in reds, yellows, and oranges. Changing shape she slipped under those leaves with a reaching hand to touch his chest, his arms, his fingers. This story was not told to him by Horace.