kimurho

Good witch. Bad witch.

I'd like to say that there's no such thing; that's there only witch, but the truth is that anything a being can do can be twisted for selfish and immoral purposes. Even the craft. But not even necromancy is inherently bad. Death is not bad, no more than birth is good. They are both aspect of living.

In one land, they say that would-be witches undergo an ordeal to attain their powers. They begin wearing a white cloak, to indicate their novice status. At the end of the ordeal, the cloak is red or black. Red witches deal with death, disease, and damage. Black witches with life and healing.

They say it, but I'm not sure I believe it. Mother Amary, my mistress in the craft, taught that witchcraft is balance. It's the point between light and shadow, life and death, mortal and fae. All of life is balance. If the balance shifts, it is the responsibility of the witch to restore it.

For example, there was a man who invariably had good luck at the expense of his nearest neighbour. He dammed a spring in his lands that dried up the flow of water to his neighbor. His cattle flourished while his neighbour's sickened. His harvests overflowed the barns, but his neighbour's barely served to keep body and soul together.

After seven years, the rich man's luck turned. The stream diverted to flow into the neighbour's land, drying up the pond he'd created. His cattle got loose and fell victim to a wolf's hunger. His barn burned to the ground, with all the harvest within. He argued that the neighbour had sabotaged him.

In a way, he had. He came to me for help with his string of bad luck and I determined that the first man had obtained a luck charm from somewhere, from Faerie, ultimately; one that spooled off another's luck. The first man had set the charm so that he profited off the second. I found the charm and removed it, replacing it with one that returned the balance of luck to where it belonged.

Was my charm a curse? To the first man, it definitely was. To the second, however, it was a blessing.

Was it evil? Or good? Neither. It was balance.

And the fae charm; was that curse? Again, to the second man, in deed and intent. To the first, again, it was a blessing.

Was the fae charm evil? Not really. Immoral, definitely. It stole the rath of the second man for the benefit of the first, but theft is not evil in and of itself.

That is not to say that there is no evil in the world. Evil is the province of the priest; not the village witch.

I am making preparations to be away for the week or more it will take to travel to Rivermark town to see Maigret Black's grandson. So far, I have visited two of the three hamlets for which I am responsible - Oakdon and Rockbottom.

The bees of Oakdon have agreed to help guard the bounds. A couple of swarms hived off at my request, increasing the coverage. Bees hate goblins. They attack as soon as the creatures approach. Maybe goblins smell like wasps? I don't know. But I do know that if any raiders managed to breach the bounds, my bees will be there to stop them.

Dis agreed, reluctantly, to keep watch at Rockbottom. Rock gnomes are solitary creatures and a scatter of five or ten make Rockbottom home. That's too crowded for my little boulder.

In both communities, I visited the sick and afflicted, leaving potions and remedies as needed. I maintain a couple of curses and one or two blessings in both that I need to check periodically to ensure that they don't warp into something else.

I'm leaving Smitham for last. I want to learn more about Maigret Black, her family and, most importantly, her son the trader and his wife.

The blacksmith's wife came to see me today. Maigret, her name is. Maigret Black. An important woman hereabouts, and not only because of her husband. The bees warned me she was coming but even so I barely had time to get ready. It's not a good idea for one of the villagers to see me when I'm not expecting company. No one expects a witch to look like the person next door, although they'd be surprised at how many of us there are living seemingly ordinary lives next door.

But I am an official witch and that means I need to look the part.

The reason she almost caught me unawares was the speed with which she came. She must have been almost running to lag the bees so shortly. For that matter, I was surprised that she was there at all, she'd left on a visit to her son in Rivermark town only a few days before.

Turns out, that was the reason for her haste. All was not well at her son's home. She told me that her grandson, a lad of three years age, was under an evil eye and she wanted me to go remove it.

Well, as flattering as that may be, I told her I couldn't. Rivermark town is not in my territory. There's a witch or wizard there in town to whom she should appeal; the one responsible for Rivermark.

I'm a village witch, not a town witch or a wizard. I like being a village witch. I have three hamlets for which I oversee the balance; Smitham, Rockbottom and Oakdon. I have help; the bees, Brunie, and Dis. And Pishek, of course. My cat. I can't even envision what sort of helpers a town witch would employ.

Maigret Black told me that her daughter-in-law wouldn't even consider the idea of bringing in a witch to help and her son ... Maigret's son, that is ... isn't at home at this time to insist. He's off on a trading trip which was why Maigret had decided to visit; to help out in his absence.

According to Maigret, her daughter-in-law ... Sheena ... had called in a doctor who told her that the boy had the falling sickness, for which there is no cure. He suggested that she tie the lad to his cot to keep him from harm.

What kind of advice is that?

The best thing ... the only thing ... that can be done is for Maigret herself to go to the local authorities for help. She's the lad's father's mother, that gives her the right, the power and the authority to insist, even over the boy's mother.

That's what I told her and then I sent her off.

But I don't feel so very happy with myself at the moment. The poor lad.

I crashed after work today and dreamt of just after moving into an old house. I kept seeing a couple of young cats ... adolescents, not kittens ... playing in the autumn leaves of the yard. My husband never saw them. They were the colours of the leaves - brown and cream and a touch of orange, with furry pantaloons and fluffy cheeks. Great big surprised eyes.

Sometimes I saw a girl and an older, mother, cat with the two.

Then in the dream, I saw one ... named Pennypacker ... on the stoop outside the back door. I quickly opened the door, keeping my eye on the cat, but when the door was open, the cat was gone. Disappeared into thin air.

Last night my belovéd was looking at the crackers we have in the pantry for a snack - Club, Ritz, and Townhouse. He asked "What's the difference between them?" I answered (pointing) "This one is a rectangle, this one is oval and that one is round."

He chose the oval.

Also, we had a snow squall yesterday. White-out conditions, came out of a clear sunny sky to occlude the heavens.

Some people got caught in it and were out driving.

I use my husband's high school graduation commemorative glass for coffee. It holds 500 ml, is glass with the names of his graduating class on the side and is perfect for measuring the proportions of coffee to water before heating it in the microwave.

This morning, when I pulled it out of the microwave,the base remained behind.

There is a song I've been hearing for the past few weeks at work that annoys me because it sounds like it is sung by a grown woman pretending to be a cute and sexy child, asking her sugar-daddy for some special present. I couldn't quite figure out what she was asking for though. Finally, one of my colleagues listened closely and sussed it out.

"I want a hippopotamus for Christmas"*

Today, while I was outside collected carriages, I noticed a decal on the back of a van. It was a pink little girl with a great big hippopotamus on a leash. I had a laugh and went on working.

* This is NOT the version they play at the store. All the music overhead is store-brand covers. Some are pretty good.

It snowed overnight - not much, just a coating on the driveway, but this is the first time I'll be driving into work on snow; and the first time the question arose whether we'd have to shovel the drive before either of us can get out.

Last week I worked 3 hours less, it's very obvious on the paycheck.

One of the problems I have with some Portuguese is that I live in Massachusetts where final "-r" is usually left unpronounced. So I have difficulty distinguishing between "-ar" and "-a", especially, but also occasionally "-er" and "-e" and "-ir" and "-i"

Watching the weather forecast - there seems to be winter weather coming Wednesday. Coating to an inch; more toward the evening hours than the morning.

Had a family game night last night, played UNO. M dealt out the first two hands and won both. I dealt out the last two and won the first, B won the second.

Not making any insinuations, just stating the facts.

I had made plans to see my mother briefly Saturday 12/5/2021 to pass on to her some things I had promised but had not yet sent. Because my car has been giving me a low tyre pressure reading for about a week now, and is scheduled to go in for regular maintenance on Tuesday, we were taking my husband's car. Unfortunately ... or perhaps fortunately ... just as we got onto the road that leads to the interstate - before we were committed to the interstate - his car blared an alarm that something was wrong with a tyre on HIS car, so we had to turn around and go home. He's planning to take it in Monday.

My mother goes home to Florida Thursday. I'm working 6 - 2 every day this week; I'm not sure I'll have enough spoons to make the drive to the Cape after work.

I have disappointed my child. I shared a memory of when she was in college and referred to her by the masculine that she used then because that is the memory. She feels I should retroactively edit all my memories for gender but ... I have enough trouble remembering things and memory is what makes us who we are. I don't think I can. I am willing enough to refer to her as daughter going forward but ... My past and my memories are mine and I don't want to risk who I am.

This week I read three books by Karen White - The Girl on Legarre Street (finished Friday) and The Strangers on Montague Street and Return to Tradd Street (both finished Saturday; Return was an e-book because I HAD to find out what happened next).

Mercedes Lackey has another book coming out in March 2022 and Michael discovered that Michelle Sagara wrote a book about Severn from the "Cast in" series (Chronicles of Elantra) which I have requested from the library. Severn is not one of my favorite characters; I don't dislike him - which M does - but ... he's always there, in the background, as support. He fades away, I guess.

Yesterday, I finally patched the hole in the side of my ankle moccasins - not a great job but I can wear them again imho. I found both sets of Household needles and have put them someplace where I HOPE I can find them again next time I need one of the special needles. The curved ones are very useful for book making, but it was the scary long leather needles I needed this time. I discovered that the bear pattern I thought I used to make the bears for my baby sisters kids but when I compared it to an actual (uncompleted) bear, I found I am mistaken. I can't figure out what I did with the pattern. I mean, I made photocopies of EVERY pattern I used through the years and put them all together in a large three-ring binder, but I cannot find it.

Maybe I need to look through the doll patterns again. ::: sigh :::

My love and I went out yesterday to look for his Christmas presents. He is asking for new underwear and a lightweight, rain-proof jacket. We went to Walmart first to look at their boxer-briefs and walked out without anything because the selection sucked rocks. Then we went to Savers.

I didn't take any cash money with us because I didn't expect to find anything this time. We went over the the men's outerwear and there was a leather jacket, exactly the right size - the only jacket on the rack. There was a tear toward the bottom on one side - I've already patched it up because of course we got it.

He'll order the underwear from Amazon.