Mother Knows Best: A Tale of the Old Witch

by Serena Valentino

  “You were supposed to be those witches! You don’t think I’ve heard the stories about you? Things you did while I slept! You think you can hide who you’ve become from me? It wasn’t hard to put all the gossip together! Triplet witches. Terrorizing little girls! Your treachery is legendary! And now you’re telling me you’ve made a mistake with the Dragon Witch? The Dragon Witch who destroyed the entire Fairylands? Who are you really?”

  Lucinda’s rage was starting to mount. “We are your sisters! We love you! Now stop this nonsense!” But Gothel was still in hysterics. She wanted answers. She was determined to find that the odd sisters had betrayed her in some way.

  “Tell me how Circe died! Tell me what happened to her! In one letter, you say she was lost. In another she died. Now you say you have her back! Tell me the truth!” Gothel’s face was splotchy and red, and her eyes were swollen from crying.

  “Gothel, I will tell you, but you have to calm down and really listen to me. She was killed when Maleficent destroyed the Fairylands.” It looked as if it hurt Lucinda to say it aloud, like the words ripped at her heart.

  Gothel’s eyes widened. “The same Maleficent you’re trying to help now? She killed your sister and you’re trying to help her? By Hades you’re either lying to me or you’re more foolish than I thought! Either way, you couldn’t possibly care for me if you’re willing to betray me for the witch that killed your sister.”

  “It wasn’t her fault! She doesn’t even know she did it! We’ve never told her. It would kill Maleficent if she knew!” screamed Ruby.

  “We love her, Gothel! She was just a girl when it happened. She’s like a daughter to us!” said Martha.

  “What happened to the Dragon Witch? What went so terribly wrong?” asked Gothel, genuinely curious.

  “She gave too much of herself away to create a daughter, and now she is left with nothing. Nothing but the worst parts of herself. And it’s our fault! We didn’t take things into account. We didn’t factor that there were three of us to make Circe and only one of her to make Aurora. We’re hoping the flower can heal her, make her whole again.”

  “And you shared this spell with her because you wanted to help, is that correct?” asked Gothel, becoming more hurt and disgusted with every answer she received.

  “Yes, we did. But it went horribly wrong. She is more alone than ever,” said Lucinda.

  “You are vile witches who destroy everything you touch. You’ve used me, killed my sisters, destroyed my lands, and now you’ve ruined the Dragon Witch’s life as well!” spat Gothel.

  “We want to make it right. Please, let us use the flower,” begged Ruby.

  “No! I need it! I’m going to find a way to heal my sisters! You’re right! I’m tired of sitting around waiting for you to help me. I need to help myself!”

  “Yes! When we come back, we will help you find a way to save your sisters. We promise, just as soon as we’ve helped Maleficent!”

  “Fine, bring me with you! It’s my flower and if you’re going to use it, I want to be there to make sure it’s protected.”

  The sisters looked at each other, stupefied. “That’s not possible. You don’t have any powers. It would be dangerous for you,” said Lucinda, clearly tired of the conversation.

  “Then do the spell that makes me your real sister, and we will use the flower to heal the Dragon Witch. And then we will heal my sisters together.” Gothel was desperate. She knew the odd sisters were powerful witches and there really wasn’t anything she could do to keep them from taking the flower.

  “If you knew how magic worked, Gothel, you’d understand we can’t do that. Not all at once, at any rate. There must be time between powerful spells.”

  Gothel looked down at the floor. She saw little bits of red cloth from Ruby’s skirt scattered on the tiles, and she thought of blood. And then she remembered: she had no choice. She couldn’t let the witches take the flower from her. It was her only source of magic, her only chance to save her sisters. She said the words and wished with all her being they would help and guide her.

  “Then I call upon the old gods and the new. Bring life to the dead, and give me my due!”

  “What are you doing, Gothel?” said Martha, worried by hearing her say an incantation.

  But Lucinda laughed. “Oh, look, Sisters. Gothel thinks she’s doing a spell!”

  Martha and Ruby joined in Lucinda’s laughter, and it grew so loud the teacups started to rattle on their shelf, and the cake tin was vibrating on the counter, threatening to fall on the floor again.

  “I call upon the old gods and the new. Bring life to the dead, and give me my due!”

  “Gothel, this is just silly! Stop embarrassing yourself!” said Lucinda.

  The odd sisters’ house started to shake so violently it knocked their teacups and knickknacks off the shelves.

  “Sisters! Stop your laughing!” But Lucinda realized it wasn’t their laughing that was causing their house to shake. It was Gothel’s spell. The house was shaking so powerfully the windows were bursting out of their frames and the odd sisters had to hold on to each other to keep from falling.

  “Gothel! What are you doing? Stop this!”

  “I call upon the old gods and the new. Bring life to the dead, and give me my due!”

  Gothel screamed the incantation, her face transforming into something sinister. The odd sisters had never seen her like that before. She looked like an entirely different person. Focused. Confident. Queen of the dead. And utterly terrifying. It was as if she was channeling her mother.

  Gothel flicked her hand, causing the flowerpot to fly out of Ruby’s hand and into hers with such a powerful force the pot cracked in it on impact.

  “Gothel!”

  “I call upon the old gods and the new. Bring life to the dead, and give me my due.”

  Gothel pushed the hair away from her face the way her mother always had when she was about to do powerful magic. She gathered all her hate and pain and felt it surging through her body. She could actually feel it; it was like a white-hot ball in her stomach that was growing so large she could no longer contain it. She felt her hands shake and realized the rage would consume her if she didn’t release it. She reached out her hands, which looked familiar and yet other to her—they looked like her mother’s—and she released a torrent of lightning into the floor, causing the house to shake more violently than before.

  “Gothel, stop! You’re going to kill all of us!”

  The witches could see the earth outside exploding violently, bringing forth a legion of skeletal creatures that swarmed the odd sisters’ house, clambering to get through the doors and windows. The sound of their bone fingers scratching on the windows and wood was terrifying. Their awkward and broken bodies were pouring through every broken window like a plague.

  “Gothel, no! Tell them to stop!”

  “You will never have the flower!” screamed Gothel. “Never!” She stretched out her hand, grasping at the air, tightening her grip on something invisible, causing the odd sisters to fall to their knees and scream in pain as she brought her hand down in a quick motion. “Keep still, witches!”

  “Gothel, please stop this! We don’t want to hurt you!”

  Gothel laughed. “Look at poor powerless Gothel now! What was it you called me? Silly?”

  Lucinda’s face was filled with pain. She struggled against Gothel’s spell and slowly got to her feet. “Gothel! Stop this at once!” She slammed Gothel with a powerful blast, causing Gothel to fly backward through the large kitchen window and smash against the apple tree in the witches’ garden. The blast scattered the skeletons in every direction, rendering most of them to dust.

  Gothel found herself lying in the wildflowers, littered with the remains of her minions. She was covered in bruises and had deep gashes on her arms from going through the odd sisters’ kitchen window. She thought her face might be bleeding as well. She wasn’t sure. She just lay there, staring at the odd sisters’ house as it rose into the sky. She sat
up, clutching the flowerpot in one hand and flinging her other hand at the odd sisters, trying to direct lightning at them, but nothing came forth. There was no lightning. There was no magic. She watched them, with their bug-eyed expressions of astonishment, disappearing into the clouds. And from her life.

  “Gothel! Gothel! What in heavens happened?” It was Mrs. Tiddlebottom. She was tottering into the field, kicking broken bones and thick white ash as she rushed over to Gothel.

  “I don’t know, Mrs. Tiddlebottom.”

  “Here, take my arm, lady, let me see to those cuts.” She examined Gothel’s face. “I think I should call the doctor to come around the house. But I don’t know if the message boy will be by this afternoon. Maybe I’d better go into town myself.”

  Gothel was heartened by Mrs. Tiddlebottom’s concern. “I’m sure I will be fine under your expert care, Mrs. T. Let’s not bother the doctor.” Gothel could see Mrs. Tiddlebottom eyeing her; she couldn’t tell if Mrs. Tiddlebottom was looking at the cuts or noticing that her face was younger now. She wasn’t even sure herself how young she looked. She clutched the flowerpot as they went into the kitchen, where she was instructed to sit down. “Put that plant down, Gothel, and let me look at you!” Mrs. Tiddlebottom went to a pantry to find her tinctures and cotton strips. She soaked one of the cotton strips in a deep reddish-brown liquid and held it in her fingers, hesitating. “I’m sorry, lady, but this is going to hurt.”

  Mrs. Tiddlebottom was by no means a gossip, but her sister was. It wasn’t long before the entire town heard about the strange happenings at Lady Gothel’s. After the odd sisters left, Gothel had sequestered herself in her library, and Mrs. Tiddlebottom was at her wit’s end trying to get Gothel to come out for her meals, or for any reason at all. Mrs. Tiddlebottom confided her concerns to her sister, who in turn told the most notorious gossip in town. And before she knew it, Mrs. Tiddlebottom had a full-blown situation on her hands.

  “Lady Gothel! Please come out. We have a situation.” Gothel opened the door to her library. “What is it?” she asked. Her hair was wild, and her face was smudged with red and purple powder.

  “Oh! Look at you, Lady Gothel, sorry to disturb you!”

  “And look at you, Mrs. T. You’re wearing spectacles!”

  Mrs. Tiddlebottom blushed. “Yes, my sister got them for me. Speaking of my sister, lady, well, you see, she came by today.” Mrs. Tiddlebottom was clearly distressed, and she was having trouble arriving at the point.

  “Yes, you said there was a situation?” asked Gothel as patiently as she could. She wondered how she must look. Her hands were stained with magical powders, and she hadn’t changed her clothes in more days than she could count.

  “My lady, would you please come into the kitchen with me? Conversations like this are always better over a cup of tea.”

  “So I have been told.” Gothel laughed. She remembered the odd sisters saying something very much along those lines. “Of course, Mrs. T. Let’s go into the kitchen.”

  In the kitchen Mrs. Tiddlebottom held out a chair for Gothel. “Here you go, my lady, sit.” Gothel wished the old woman would just get on with it, but she reminded herself to be patient with her. She realized her cook was rather distressed.

  “Here, Mrs. T. It looks as if you should sit down. You look peaked. I’ll go get the tea.” Gothel went to the cupboard and pulled out two teacups and the teapot that matched. It was a set from her home in the dead woods. “Hmmm…there’s only five cups. What happened to the sixth?” she asked absentmindedly.

  Mrs. Tiddlebottom looked up. “What’s that, lady?”

  Gothel realized she hadn’t meant to say that aloud. “I’m sorry, I just noticed there were only five cups to this set. There used to be six. Never mind. I’m sorry, you had something important to tell me?”

  Mrs. Tiddlebottom got up to see what set Gothel was talking about. “Oh yes, the Samhain set. The silver ones with the black skulls painted on them. Your sister Ruby said she broke one when she was having her tea in the garden.”

  Gothel wondered if that was true. She was, in fact, almost sure Ruby or one of Ruby’s sisters had actually stolen the cup. Come to think if it, there were quite a few little things from around the house that are missing. “Never mind, Mrs. T. Sit down and tell me what the matter is.”

  “There’s no other way than to say it straight out, lady,” she said, clearly trying to be brave.

  “Well, you know that is what I prefer. Please continue.”

  “Yes. Well, it seems the kingdom has sent soldiers here to find some flower they think once belonged to the queen of the dead.”

  “What? What will become of my sisters?” Gothel was panicked. How am I going to get my sisters’ bodies out of here?

  “Your sisters, lady?”

  “Never mind. We have to leave!” said Gothel, running into her library and grabbing her mother’s most important books.

  “Lady Gothel, stop! What is it?” called Mrs. Tiddlebottom, tottering after her. “What’s the matter?”

  “What is it? What is it? Mrs. T! Soldiers are coming here to destroy my home! They think I am the queen of the dead! They’re going to burn this place down! I suggest you pack anything you have of value this moment!”

  “Lady, calm down, please! Listen to me. I have an idea. Now, I don’t want to know anything about what you have down in that cellar, or your library, or what you get up to with those sisters of yours, but I do know you’re a good girl. You’ve always been very kind to me, and you don’t deserve to lose your home. It seems to me all they want is that flower. If we give them the flower without a fuss, I think they will take it without much kerfuffle. We can plant it outside, pretend we never even knew it was there,” said Mrs. Tiddlebottom with a resolve that surprised Gothel. “Better yet, why don’t you steal yourself away down in that cellar when they come? I will pretend to be the lady of the house and let them find the flower without a fuss.”

  “No, Mrs. Tiddlebottom! I can’t give them the flower!” Gothel snatched the flowerpot in her hands and squeezed it tightly. “I can’t give it up! I can’t!”

  “I don’t think we have a choice, lady.” Mrs. Tiddlebottom put out her hand. “Now give it to me, and I will put it out in that field with the others.”

  “There has to be another way.” But Gothel was worried the old woman was right. “I don’t understand why they need it! They destroyed my home taking the last one! I thought the Queen was healed!”

  “The queen is ill again. Her pregnancy caused her to relapse.”

  “But they have a flower! Why do they need another?”

  “Well, she’s eaten the other one, hasn’t she?”

  “Bloody fools!” Gothel was incensed.

  She felt trapped. She couldn’t just leave with the flower. The soldiers might find her sisters in the cellar. They might find them there anyway, even if Mrs. Tiddlebottom gave them the flower willingly. Gothel didn’t know what to do. She wanted to run. She wanted to pack the old woman and her sisters on a wagon and leave, but she knew they would eventually find her. They would hunt her down as long as she had the flower in her possession, burning every home she ever made for herself. Maybe she should have let the odd sisters take the flower. At least then it would have been safe. Mrs. Tiddlebottom was right. There was no other choice.

  “You’re right, of course. We will let them find the flower,” she said, pushing the flowerpot toward the old woman.

  “You’d better get down to the cellar now, lady! Don’t make a peep!”

  “Now?” asked Gothel, looking out the window to see if she could see the soldiers coming. “Are they coming right now?”

  “Yes, my lady. Please. Now go!”

  “Are you sure you’re going to be okay dealing with this on your own?” Gothel was squinting, trying to see down the road. “Do you have time to get the flower in the field before they arrive?”

  “I do! Now don’t you worry yourself over old Mrs. Tiddlebottom. I can handle any soldiers that c
ome knocking on this door! Believe me! Now off with you!”

  “Thank you, Mrs. T!”

  “Get down there and don’t come out until I come for you!” said Mrs. Tiddlebottom with a quick kiss on Gothel’s cheek. “Down you go! Off with you!”

  Gothel went into the cellar. She hadn’t been down there since she’d first moved to the house, when she had frantically searched for her mother’s blood. Gold coins were scattered all over the floor, and the chests were open, just as she had left them. And her sisters’ coffins were there, just as they had been since they’d moved in. She hadn’t seen her sisters’ bodies since she left the dead woods. She was afraid to look at them, afraid they had started to decay. Afraid to see their faces.

  Afraid they would wake up and accuse her of failing them.

  She crept up on their coffins, like she was trying not to wake her sleeping sisters, and opened the lids. The sleeping beauties were side by side, still as lovely as ever. Still young, still fair, but dreadfully pale. It was as if all the color had been leached from their bodies. Even Primrose’s beautiful red hair had turned white. They looked like ghosts made of opaque glass. Like fragile replicas of the sisters she loved. The oddest feeling came over her. It was as if her sisters were there but not there. She couldn’t express it any better. To see them there but not feel them was the most disturbing thing she’d ever experienced. Her heart broke as if it was breaking for every loss she had ever had right there in that moment, and she thought she might die from the pain of it. She missed her sisters so much. She should have been trying to find a way to resurrect them all that time. It had been years since she woke up in the dead woods from her long slumber, and she chided herself for not having spent the time trying to find a way to bring them back. And if those wretched odd sisters hadn’t made me sleep for hundreds of years, I might have brought them back by now!

  So many years wasted.

  “Oh, my poor sisters, I am so sorry. I promise I will find a way to bring you back.”