by H C Turk
Mother was delighted to take me into Jonsway and prove her humanity with my presence, for one of the countless sinning misconceptions is that witches cannot conceive, that we are constructed by Satan from natural elements—perhaps pine cones and toad droppings. Such is the comprehension of sinners, their ignorance understandable in that they are more concerned with inventing new rules for city living rather than learning ancient truths of Earth. The sinners’ religions teach all of God’s moral bases, but witches remain a mystery, known to be real yet unknown. In truth, great God has created all, Satan but a manipulator of the evil God supplies so that His people may choose themselves or His righteousness.
Though I seem to recall my first visit to Jonsway, in truth my thoughts are a compilation of years of journeys; for although Mother necessarily carried me at first, clearly I recall the sensation of stepping upon a path made solid with flat stones. The failure of my memory and my experience to correspond is due not only to my youth during those early visits, but also from the very strangeness of a town never fully accepted. Though Mother offered forewarning of the site, I was too young to understand prior to experience.
Although we lived near enough Jonsway to ever smell the township, Mother and I distinguished individual odors as we approached in our Sunday attire. Soon I comprehended that this increasing intensity signified countless sinners and a vast source of their odd products. Evident at once were the artificial aspects of the upcoming land, for nothing done by the sinners seemed natural. The regular trail that turned to a packed dirt road was surprising enough, but a pasture where cattle were held in check by wooden fences was stunning, my first sight and hearing of a horse-drawn cart a horror. Initially I could not believe that the lumbering construction was from our Earth. Then I was struck by this usage of animals as tools, as though sinners considered themselves the creators of these beasts, thus having a special privilege to control them. This notion departed after I discovered that sinners intended to control every part of the natural world for their own unnatural benefit. God created people, but only sinners could make a privy.
Mother at my side remained calm. Though apprehensive, I had little common fear, for the whole of my mind and senses were filled with a barrage of accosting surprises. At first, I had no idea of my own position in this new land, whether the sinners or controlled animals cared about me or would respond to my presence. I only held my mother’s hand most firmly, allowing the sinners and their products to engulf me.
As the buildings increased in number and size, the trail changed to a street made of stones laid with careful symmetry. Then came sinning women walking toward us. Burdened with sacks, they scarcely noticed the approaching pair, for evidently Mother and I were their peers. The notion that I was the same as these sinners struck me painfully, for the women’s odor seemed spoiled—human, but rancid. And though mother had said not to fear exposure in that we would not tarry in Jonsway; nevertheless, any perceptive person childish or mature can sense many terrible things in a brief duration. My next moment of terror came with an approaching wagon, which brought the abnormality of men.
The first was baseborn, unusual because he wore breeches instead of skirts, though the man was virtually comforting because his smell and sight seemed more animal than sinner. He seemed a small bear, with even more hair on his face than Mother! Later I saw more social men able to afford ale who therefore stank additionally, men consuming tobacco who therefore stank incredibly, landowning males dressed with tall, useless hats and glossy shoes, and a surfeit of vests and buttons. Their wives were even more extreme, the true odors of these “ladies” hidden by ghastly lotions and powders, their bodies’ normal shapes modified by hoop petticoats as though their hips should imitate a bush draped with laundry, shiny stones strung around their necks and hands, some of these females so social as to cover their heads with wigs like jumbled moss, hats or scarves applied above this. Then my experience worsened.
I smelled metal, a material witches find especially obnoxious, believing it should have remained in the ground, unaltered, where great God via Satan placed it. Metal in the form of silver bowls and cutlery and wheel hoops led us past a blacksmith’s shop, then to fire. Here was one horror that disappointed. From our distance, the heat felt no worse than a summer’s day, hot stones beneath the feet, that new smell of coals nearly interesting. The flames themselves were revealed as having no solid form, as though the sun had produced a spray as do sea waves. The first significance of fire came after the smith’s. I smelled metal and paint and glues and mortar and dyes and finally burning animals. I smelled burning animals, and since witches are a type of animal, I smelled my friends of Earth burning, smelled myself burning. Beyond any anxiety I had brought into Jonsway, my perception of cooking meat was a horror beyond imagining. At once I understood the stench to signify one of Mother’s primary warnings: sinners burned animal flesh to eat it. Sinners burned living creatures for perverse consumption, and I smelled it, sensed it, experienced the evil, the terror, and could not move. I halted and prayed God to remove me from that revolting smell, which was surely direct from Hell. I ceased walking and thinking, unable to comprehend how a mere witch could experience such terror and continue living; and the world around me became oppressive and unclear as though dissolving from the evil of that smell. Nothing, nothing in my young life could have been more revolting, and for a long moment on the street as my sinner’s skin turned more colorless than usual, Mother had to convince me and my chattering teeth that neither sinner nor witch was ever eaten by these folk, that no one would leap out and set me ablaze.
After I calmed incompletely and we proceeded, I found Mother to be a liar. Ahead were two sinners smashing their mouths together, and I knew they were eating each other and that I would be next. But, no, this was a type of kissing, Mother informed me, the sinning type in which teeth and tongues are involved, and most rude for even baseborn sinners to display on public streets. And, yes, certain other sinning folk shouted toward this young pair to find some decency within themselves or be stricken by Jesus. Stricken by the loud voice they were, the pair taking their tongues and departing.
My next fear as we continued was that sinners would find me a stranger and attempt to smell my bottom. Of course, this was normal practice for witches: Mother’s nosing my hindquarters to determine my health, I examining her droppings to ascertain her mood. Noting no such activity in Jonsway, however, I lost my fear, understanding that sinners had no truck with sensitive smelling, else they would not be stuffing their noses with snuff.
The geometrics frightened me: square buildings and windows and angled carts and fences and signs. I presumed the marketplace to be the meal of a giant; but, no, sinners came in droves to purchase their foodstuffs instead of entering the forest to eat orach like any decent human. The buzzing of the sinners’ speaking and their closing doors and creaking wagons and metal cracks were accumulated sounds to nearly madden me. Jonsway’s unlimited nature was an engulfing intimidation: the buildings’ endless heights and the quantity of sinners and the countless unfathomable smells all conspired to overwhelm my senses.
Not until many visits and several years would I come to understand. Social concepts were the most difficult of the sinners’ inventions, such as their discovering a resource (fishing), which attracted more sinners who formed a village so that a government could be installed and taxes collected to allow the village to grow into a town requiring higher taxes to maintain, to pay for the constables and court system that controlled the sinners who built the town and no longer cared to pay all those taxes, so they turned to thievery and embezzlement. Mother and I avoided taxes by living outside the township, thank the good Lord, for our only social funds were coins Mother had gained so long ago that their source was forgotten, valuable to the sinners but revolting to me from being made of metal.
No more than politics were society’s polite and aesthetic portions comprehensible to me. Men wearing vulgar costumes would stand on a street corner tossing sp
heres, like fruit, into the air only to catch them and toss them up again in a circular manner certainly intended to inspire madness in any sensible observer, but no. The audience laughed and applauded. Bizarre objects created of metal and wood and the intestines of cats—yes, the intestines of harmless cats—were scraped upon by sinners and breathed upon by sinners, the resulting sound a literal mocking of nature exactly as per Mother’s judgment. Constantly proven was the intense emphasis the sinners placed upon their mouths, with their noisome music and disgusting eating habits, and worse. What witch could understand smoking? To have a fire so near one’s mouth and to suck it? Scarcely more rational were undergarments, whose ownership I avoided, though Mother in later years padded my chest to reduce the protrusions of the youth’s expanding nipples, parts not to be seen by sinners looking for God. Fine enough for a common fishwife were our Sunday dresses of linen, our daily burlap being inadequate for church, which is a social function and not a natural act as worship should be. At least services were not held in the forest where our bodies would have gone unprotected against rocks and brambles by the thin clothing, which was nonetheless adequate for sitting on smooth benches as a costumed sinner shouted, the audience itself rising on occasion to bellow en masse from a book.
A more quiet but equally dishonest form of public speaking occurred on the very streets in the form of “drama.” Therein, sinners lied about their identities while conveying events that never occurred. I could not determine where this activity fit within God’s world until Mother explained that it fit within her past.
“Long ago, I lived within a grand English city of numerous large buildings and uncountable sinners. For many years, I lived peacefully within a decrepit part of this city. And I tell you, daughter, that never have I found the need to pray God to forgive me for attending dramatic readings. Well did I come to love the sound of thoughtful words joined beautifully. Therefore my speaking in this manner, which is shared by few witches. My recommendation, therefore, is this: if ever you visit London, do attend the theater.”
Smelling fondness but no humor in Mother, I turned away from her in consternation, not shame. After all, our speaking was the same.
Learning more of the sinners’ culture brought me greater consternation, and blatant shame; for were we not all creatures of Nature, if not exactly natural? Everpresent was the notion that sinners considered themselves so profound as to improve upon nature by modifying it, cutting the earth into pieces, which they moved about not for survival—simple shelter or food—but for grandiose pretensions: crops for those too lazy to feed themselves, churches for those who would learn of God by hearing the same prejudices each sermon, shops for dispensing social items needed not by people but the township, and streets to connect all these pieces so that horses could be trained to pull carriages along restricted paths, their destiny death and skinning if not moving properly, their hides tanned with a horrid acid to burn one’s nose, one’s sensibilities. The most shocking aspect of this entire process was that I wore shoes and appreciated them, thus was virtually a sinner myself.
The streets were a terror as soon as I could walk, because Jonsway was surely the true Hell of which the priest spoke falsely. What could be worse than people so alien as to hide their identities from sight and smell? How could they be considered human when all their acts were against nature? Leveling hills and digging furrows in flatland, making rounded stones square for buildings, demolishing trees to make lumber for houses and space for their placement, this latter a prime example of sinners’ perversion, which they considered an elegant solution to a problem they invented.
Mother and I were not appreciated in Jonsway, but neither were we annoyed. No children would dare approach me with the beloved crone protecting me with her presence, but on occasion they called out uncommon words I foolishly recalled. Mother explained the significance of crude epithets the day I repeated a phrase heard in Jonsway, mentioning to her that she was a bloody arse. Mother explained by calling me a sinner. My vocabulary was thereby improved by reduction.
They looked at us aghast. I learned the sinners’ horror was due to contrast, for Mother and I seemed so different. But no sinner noticed the difference more than I, exemplified by my pale hand, which Mother held as we walked, a hand like an animal washed onto shore, bleached by the saltwater and sun. A blank hand held in Mother’s fingers, her crooked joints and bulging knuckles signifying life, the thick skin and coarse hair marking her as lovable and alive. How can she bear to touch me? I thought, but did not fully understand the truth until the day we entered a clothing shop to replace my frayed church dress.
Within were manipulated materials of such an array that I could not comprehend the mass, the shop’s interior of synthetic products seemingly a condensed, enclosed version of Jonsway itself. But hoods and high-crowned hats and pattens were not the greatest unpleasantry within. The endless, intimidating goods so numbed me that I scarcely noticed the sinning proprietress, who approached so near me I was engulfed by her smell, her average sweat obscured by powders, her breath reeking of meat instead of food. Changing my attire in the shop was of scant consequence in that I was allowed to do so behind a curtain. Once dressed in my insipid finery, I presumed the ordeal to be approaching an end, but then the woman showed me the greatest horror in the sinning world by placing me before a looking glass. I saw another of their dull children, an especially bland example from glossy hair to featureless face, one of no color, no character. This creature, however, had my mother’s hand on her shoulder. Mother bent down to her and smiled, holding this blank sinner and smiling exactly as she held me, her only daughter.
Never before in either world had I found something completely unbearable. I ran from the shop, from the town. I tore the dress away and waited, nude, on a rotting stump with grubs rubbing my backside, a condition preferable to all the sinners’ false luxuries and comforts, which offered only torment. I waited for my mother, but even the clearest and firmest explanation from her did not change my understanding, because it did not change me. My face remained as weird as sinners’ ways, and my life was yet a perversion.
Chapter 2
Eaten By A Heat Creature
Several fine years of witches’ living passed before I grew enough to look into my mother’s eyes, though she was of no grand stature, crones being shorter than average sinning women. Because I grew at the same rate as sinners, my size described me as virtually a woman, for I had seen sinners of similar maturity married, occasionally with children though virtually children themselves. A witch might have the age of a shade tree before bearing a child. I learned of sinning youths not by speaking with them, but by asking Mother, for I had no desire to associate with any person who wore pantaloons or peed in a bucket. Never was I forced to speak in private with the Jonsway sinners of any age—only the occasional social greeting at church—for I was never apart from Mother, and Mother’s appearance did not encourage conversation. As for my own appearance, imagine for yourself a conventional combination of comely sinning features and you will have an idea beyond my means to describe.
Mother consistently emphasized the advantages of being able to associate with sinners, to have them know that despite her appearance, we both were of their people. Particularly this might prove valuable, she said, upon my gaining a maturity not of size, but gender, when men could perceive the sex witch in me, a condition beyond my imagination. Thus, I was instructed in the ways of sinners, practicing social discourse for use on Sundays, mouthing pleasantries of weather to my fellow parishioners. Beyond this, I saw no purpose in learning to speak politely and curtsy. Since Mother was known as a widowed commoner of the wilderness, she and I were not expected to have a full understanding of town politics, town gossip. Attending church was proof of our normalcy, especially since Mother sang hymns louder than any sinner, praising Jesus to the skies she was certain he had never passed through, unable to understand what a man strung to a stake like a witch had to do with the world’s salvation.
One Sunday, I was split from Mother by sinners who had planned against us. All were respected women, their husbands leaders of the alien community. The pack’s doyenne, one Sarah Vidgeon, had observed me for years, occasionally speaking with me in her Sabbatical politeness, though she had always seemed terrified, doubtless due to my companion. Typical of sinners near Mother was a fear seen in their tightened eyes, smelled in their perspiration attempting to escape the restraints of camouflage perfume, this human stress not hidden to witches. Their fear, however, did not allay mine. Sinners, after all, were never burned by witches.
Amazed we were at being thwarted in our escape from church, for never before had the parishioners been eager to speak with us so personally; for as Mother was drawn in one direction, I was pressed in the opposite, Mrs. Hughbert being so bold as to touch Mother’s shoulder! I was a more comfortable prospect, for the women were not afraid to touch a lovely girl as opposed to her…unlovely…mother.
Lady Vidgeon and her cohorts stood with us witches outside the church building in the worn grass trampled by the sinning mass each week. From behind, I heard the women babble on to Mother about all sorts of vital enterprises—from insurance practices to lotteries—of interest to no witch, though Mother feigned delight. Doubtless, Mother was amused to see the sinners squirm beyond her grasp as she reached to touch their arms with their own ladylike gestures of crippled wrists and weak fingers. And though they retreated, the ladies had to continue with their neighborliness, for they would not abandon their plan.
I could smell Vidgeon’s pity. I could sense how relieved she was that her part was to deal with me, so relieved that she took extra pains to grasp my shoulder and touch my hair as though a sinner baby’s grandmum. But she was not aware of my response. The lady did not sense that she made me ill, for after the first moment’s shock dissolved, after I found that the most dangerous activity would be speaking, I became repulsed by the strange form of stiff crinoline and brocade before me. The tidy curls sagging beneath her commode as well as the powder dulling her skin chilled me and I could not look to her, staring fearfully over the sinner’s shoulder when she sought my gaze. Though too old to flee on this occasion, I would have preferred to sit on a dead log with bugs crawling on my naked backside rather than have the sinner speak to me with her teeth so even, like brickwork. Like mine.