My feet hit the tavern bar top with the same rhythmic stomps as the other patrons, but my claps echo in the ensuing silence.

I don’t have to turn toward the entrance to deduce, “They found me, didn’t they?”

I’m plucked by my waist and thrust outside so quickly that my cheek hits the wet earth before my body does.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” I mumble to the dirt speckled shiny shoes denoting my father’s men.

Wrenched out of the muck by my short leather corset strings, I much prefer the miasma of the nameless amalgamation squelching against both my cheek and under our feet to Hal’s furious heaving breaths.

“How did you get past us again, _witch_?”

I tsk. “You’re not supposed to say that word this close to the woods,” I fake whisper to the new guy.

“Bah!” The oldest man, Geoffrey, dismisses behind me, “Wives tales.”

“And when was the last time your wife was wrong?” I ask skeptically.

There’s an uncomfortable beat of silence, then, “C’mon. We’re to take you back,” Hal says, wrenching my laces tighter in his grip.

“In one piece?” I squeak, “Because you’re about to have two at this rate.”

“Insolent child,” Petyr snarls with a swish of the tavern door closing behind him. A pint in hand to take with us on what will undoubtedly be a lovely walk.

“Petyr,” I greet the old scarred brunette with a nod.

I love his little nicknames for me.

He sneers and tips his head back with a hard gulp of ale.

Geoffrey steps to my side, his remaining grey hairs stand on end as if constantly anticipating lightning nearby. He scoffs at the mix of mud and unmentionable substances smeared from my cheek down to my unladylike pant covered knees.

Whipping out a handkerchief, in true grandpa fashion, he wipes my face before he can think better of it.

“Sylvia made you soft,” I accuse quietly of his poor lovely wife. The kindest of my father’s employees, she works in the kitchens and has basically raised me.

Geoffrey would have a heart attack if I told him that she’s the one who taught me how to dance to that bar song. In fact, maybe I should tell him…

But then he grumbles a dismissal and creates space between us only a second before Hal turns our way, head jerking back at the sight of my miraculously clean face.

He barely reigns in his favorite accusation before announcing, with a raise of a finger towards the woods like a harbinger, “We’ve made camp halfway in. We’ll stay there tonight so you can sober up and not get our asses kicked further by your father.”

I shrug passively and start my way into the dark forest after them.

No complaints here, I love it in there, but I find myself admitting anyway, “I’m not drunk.”

Hal almost breaks his neck turning back to look at me, the blond strands fallen loose from the tie at his nape flail belatedly in his wake.

Petyr spits a geyser of ale and bemoans the waste.

Geoff grunts an aborted laugh.

“You’re just… like this?” Hal asks in astonishment.

I nod rapidly with a winning smile.

Petyr’s snort reverberates in his half full ale.

The men shiver as they enter the copse of trees, but I sigh in relief as if I’ve entered a warm bath.

Hal hears my pleasure & continues in his hapless attempts to destroy it. “You know what they used to do in these woods, _witch_?”

The other two men grunt as if they’ve been hit. Even the slight breeze dancing between the towers of imposing trees, thickened by the inexorable march of time, seems to hold itself like a bated breath.

“Not supposed to say that word,” I sing-song back to the audacious new guy.

He waves a lazy hand in dismissal, although his paled face indicates his last few brain cells have at least called his attention the noises of the forest hushing entirely as though they recognize a predator in their midst.

Hal swallows visibly, aware enough to know that it’s not him they fear.

Petyr drops his emptied ale flagon to bounce on the forest floor with a deafening burp.

Geoffrey grunts in his special way of encouraging us onward.

We continue our short trek in blessed silence, the sounds of the men’s horses stamping uneasily signal our proximity to camp.

I stop by the mounts first and coo comforting words while one of the men starts the fire from the accumulated brush I noted in the center of the small clearing.

I’m suddenly encouraged by my shoulders, quite violently, might I add, to sit on a fallen log before the beginnings of the dancing flame.

Hal plops himself on the other log across from the fire, elbows resting on knees, hands linked and twisting, & a frown on his face as he assesses me through angrily furrowed brows.

Petyr reclines on my right, resting back on his elbows and casually crossing his ankles upon the very forest floor he desicrated not minutes ago.

Geoffrey leans back against a tree to my left, crossing his arms and staring down at the flame as though it’s a crystal ball envisioning his future.

From his expression, it doesn’t seem like a great one.

“And why can’t I say that _word_,” Hal suddenly spits.

My groan of annoyance combines with the other men’s, but then a whisper of much needed breeze teases my nape like a caress.

I could almost swear it carried words of warning as it trailed around my ear; words I have to tilt my head to fully decipher like when eavesdropping at my father’s study door, but these easily come into clarity only a moment later:

“_Words are wasted on those who do not listen.”_

I tut in agreement with the ethereal advice, but naturally ignore it, as I’ve done my whole life. There’s a deep, indulgent, and matronly chuckle in my brain that dissipates as I decide to answer Hal anyway.

“Because this is where those accused women were hanged,” I tell the idiot.

Hal can’t seem to stop himself from snapping his face up to scan the branches as if he’ll find an innocent woman still dangling there.

“Years and years ago,” Geoffrey says roughly.

Now we’re all looking the man whose gaze hasn’t once left the flame.

“That’s right,” I voice past my suddenly dry throat.

I really should’ve gotten some ale.

“You were there,” I supply, my reminder more of an accusation.

Geoffrey turns to look at me then, almost more pained than when staring endlessly into the blinding flame.

Petyr helpfully interjects with a snore that sounds as if he’s drowning, breaking the building tension from Geoffrey’s attempt at silent conversation.

“It was _your_ family that did it though,” Hal suddenly snarls at me, “we all know there are no such thing as ‘magic women’ anyway.”

I turn to find his face distorted monstrously through the waves of heat emanating from the flame. “Why should _we_ be afraid to say it?”

I tilt my head appraisingly. “First of all, you’re the only one dumb enough to.”

Geoffrey actually chuckles openly at that one before helping me out. “And her father broke the curse that her family and all their employees deserved,” he explains sadly, working nervously at his collar as if it had tightened like a noose.

“Cursed? Seriously? How?!” Hal snaps.

The flames seem to dance higher as though fed on his fury.

Petyr wakes slightly at the ruckus with a choking snort and sleepily mumbled, “Wha’ happen?”

I stand then, conceding the wind to have been correct.

“Because my father married a _witch_,” I inform them.

Geoffrey drops his chin to his chest, sighing almost in relief, finally receiving confirmation of his suspicions that had my mother hung.

Hal’s brows meet. A bead of sweat drips down between them. His expression morphs from incredulity, to disbelief, then horror.

His accusing finger rises to point in my direction, just like all the fallen witches witnessed from weak men for generations before me.

“You _are_ a witc-,” his indictment cuts off with a shrill scream as his whole body alights in flame, one so hot that he’s instantly rendered ash.

Geoffrey’s gasp turns into a gurgle as he’s yanked up into the tree by an invisible rope around his neck.

Petyr simply stops breathing in his restored sleep.

The earth beneath him envelopes his body to fertilize the land he mistreated.

A powerful wash of cold wipes through the clearing, snuffing out the offending fire with it.

“Well, ladies,” I address the ghosts of the women and witches that my ancestors ended unjustly, “I bet we can make it back to the tavern before last call.”

A howling breeze, resembling a cheer, resounds from near the edge of the woods that encircle town.

Wow. They’re quick.

The disembodied voice of my departed Mother, High Priestess of our coven, chastises humorously once more in my ear, “Wasted words.”