“Once there was, and once there was not…”
That is how the old stories start, isn’t it? Once there was, and once there was not a village far, far away, just over that ridge there, that bordered a forest as old as time and older than sin, and in that forest was a little house the color of brick and old blood in which there lived a witch…
What? Yes, dear, I know that’s a run-on sentence. It’s an old woman’s right to ramble. Hush, now, and let your old Baba think. Where was I? Oh, right…
…in which there lived a witch…
As witches go, the villagers didn’t *think* she was a bad one, but they weren’t sure, and one can really never be too careful when dealing with uncertainties like that, can we? After all, her house looked more or less normal, and she hadn’t actually eaten anyone, that they were aware of, and her cats seemed nice, as did the odd man who lived with her, but her garden had a tendency to grow things with berries that looked too much like eyes looking back at you, and fruits that were just a little too strangely colored to be quite right, and then there were the poppets….There was a rhyme about them, though no one knew where it came from.
“Poppet of bramble, branch, and twine
Face like moonlight, and voice of chime…”
Damn, I can’t remember the rest of it. Something about flattering them and asking them not to steal things that were yours, like your name, or your shadow or something like that. Don’t get old, kids, your memory gets to being fuzzy and you forget things at the most inopportune times…
The poppets were odd little things. They should have been much more disturbing then they were, but they had a certain whimsical charm to them I’m told. Well, at least as long as the sun was out and you knew there were other folks around. I wouldn’t swear that they were as charming when the sun went down, and I don’t want to find out for sure. Like the rhyme goes, they were odd little figures, human-like, cobbled together of sticks and bits of brambles and leaves, held together with fine twine, with heads of bleached linen and faces that were drawn onto the fabric. The witch had placed them around the property, gathered in little groups in the trees and on the fences and you would swear they were watching you when walked by, whispering and chattering among themselves, with voices that sounded like those tiny little wind-chimes you see at the flower shops. No one ever saw them move, but they were rarely where you saw them last, even if only a few moments had passed.
Some things it’s just best not to think about…
Some folks swore they heard the poppets chiming in the village in the middle of the night, but everyone knows that once the sun goes down, you’d best be indoors and you never look out the windows. There are things out there in the dark that don’t need to be met, and it’s best to just let some things be.
What was that, my dear? Ah, yes. So it is. I’m sorry, my children, but I’m told that it’s time for your old Baba to take her old bones to bed. It’s getting late, and you should run along home before the sun goes down. Remember to close the curtains, and if you hear the chimes, it’s probably just those little metal chimes from the flower shop blowing around in the breeze…
* * * * * *
No, I have absolutely not been staring at the tangled vines outside the window, and thinking how much they looked like little people sometimes and wondering if I could remember how to make little dolls from sticks and string like I did when I was a kid. Why do you ask?