The Inner Atmosphere

(photo by Tomohide Ikeya)


There is a slow shift in the atmosphere inside me. I can feel it day by day expanding, spreading. I can smell it.
I am pregnant again.
If I can smell it, so can they. It doesn't make me happy, but it doesn't sadden me either. Love sometimes does things like that and even witches obey to the laws of nature, not that the Congregation will see it this way. Soon, they will come swarming around me like flies with their judgements and decisions that I will have to obey or else...the witches are coming to take it away.

"Whatever is done, is done." I say to myself and go on to pick the herbs of the day: Parsley, Ginger, Feverfew, Rosemary, Sage, Queen Anne's lace seeds, Mugwort, Pennyroyal, Angelica, Rue, Tansy, Juniper root.  Even they feel the change within me for they fall on my hand without touching them.
"Thank you." I mutter and put them in my pocket with a smile. Slowly, I walk inside the house and close the door behind me hoping it will keep the smell from spreading any further.
I live alone and I always liked it this way. Occasionally, company arrives, usually involuntarily, sometimes unexpectedly, stays a little while, rarely more than a while, and then it always departs, always painfully, never to arrive quite the same again. The older I get, the less it comes my way.

No, this is not proper way of the witch, but I am old enough to decide for myself and young enough to have the power to convince them I won't have it any other way.

But this is different, what is done, cannot be undone.


By the end of the third moon the air changed. It came cold and demanding, scattering all familiar scents including my own. Apparently, the clean-up had begun.
By noon the following day the house was surrounded by dark-clad women all veiled in black and white. Upon seeing me the witches whipped off their coverings to reveal satyr-sized penises pointing to the sky.
"What is this?" My voice rose above the wind.
Myrth floated up and gliding in the air stood gracefully in front of me. In the wink of an eye she raised her hand and slapped me on the face with all the force she could muster.

(Demon. Mikhail Vrubel)




"With a Daemon! Of all the warmbloods and coldbloods of this world you let a Daemon roger your arse! YOU SLUT!" she shouted and her hand rose again. This time I caught it in the air and held it there.
"It wasn't my arse Mother, as you can see from the outcome. And yes, it was a daemon, and if you don't like it you can take your penises and shove them up your arses!" I shouted looking out at odd assortment of witches and genitalia.
"We came to take the creature away. You already have a son, no witch can ever have another, especially from a Daemon."
"You are early. First, I should give birth to him and then you can take him away."
"That cannot be. This boy will not be born, I will not have a daemon bearing my name roaming the Earth."
"What are you planning to do then. Mother?" I said and the baby inside me twitched.

The women formed a circle around us and they started to sing. They spread their arms and their fingers lit. Witch-fire spread on their arms and head. Their heads flaming torches, filled the air with a stench so unbearable I had to keep my breath locked inside my lungs..the daemon in me didn't like that.
Their voices rose above the smoke keeping my thoughts from forming, blocking my focus.

The daemon wept. A single tear, like a cut of a razor trickled down his face and scalding hot fell inside the small drum my belly had become.

"How dare you mock me like this?" I whispered. "How dare you defy me?"

My inner atmosphere shifted once more.

Tears welled-up behind my eyelids and fell on my face. Me and the daemon were weeping, though for different reasons; he, from fear of dying, me, from a deadly anger that had slept for so long, it had forgotten its nature.
I could feel their spell wrapping around my baby, shaking it, burning it to death. I started to shake while their words pierced my skin, like a woman possessed. I felt terribly alone.

I spread my arms and allowed the tears to fall. They fell from my eyes and mouth, my ears and nose. The salty water burnt my mouth and my eyes as it started to rise. My hair turned to cold, sea-water, which rose above the witches' heads in a fierce cyclone. My arms turned to waves, huge and dementing, calling the icy, northern wind, calling the rain. Thunder roared and lightning flashed over their mad faces.

"Stop it! Stop it now!" my mother's voice a drowned whisper.

I rose all the way to the roof and called it. I asked for it to come and cleanse us all from this madness..and it obeyed as before.

"No, don't do it Hydra.." my mother pleaded inside my head.
"You should have thought of that before you decided to steal what is mine. The daemon IS mine." I said and turned my head around to face the house.

"RUN!" My mother shouted and the witches took flight. Only Mother stood her ground facing me and It.

The wave, like a giant snake coiled and rose high above the roof, dark and cold. It rolled and turned in the rain, accumulating water, the white light of the witch-storm cutting it in half now and then. I rose high above it. I commanded it. The daemon inside me tossed and turned in a delightful anticipation!

"Release..." I muttered and the wave came crushing down breaking the house in two, washing over my mother, it mated with the storm and pulled the witches back with its icy tentacles.
The storm was alive, water trickled down their lungs, filling them, lifting them off the ground, extinguishing their fires for ever.
The boy spread his tiny body and closed his eyes falling into a dreamless sleep.

"He bears my name and not yours. The daemons will come for him when it is time and not before.....Enough."  I whispered.

My arms touched my belly and the water lifted and pulled back. My inner atmosphere settled again as did my feet on the moist ground.  The house went back into place and I yawned.

"If I see you in twenty years from now, it will be too soon." I said and walked inside.