Three Twisted Knots

The dreams aren’t stopping, but they are changing. I’m not always myself in them. Or I’m playing out incarnations that are so far away from my actual life that their outcomes seem irrelevant to me. Maybe that’s what it is to look at things through the dispassionate eye of the Unseelie. This one left me with a good feeling: even though the dream protagonist was definitely me, she wasn’t operating in some way that seemed to want to teach me some kind of lesson, for which I was grateful.

I woke up in the late morning with this dream completely alive in my mind, so the first thing I did was go someplace where I could write it down.

It was gonna be the best Christmas, ever. But then Jamie said, ‘Did you talk to the fucking fairies, Gwen? Did you? Because they will fuck our shit up, and then where will we be?’

And I’m all, ‘No, Jamie, I didn’t talk to no fairies: the stuff just fucking appears, and I am thinking, “Gosh, we will have a really cool storybook Christmas, just this once”. I swear, I didn’t talk to none of them. I don’t know why they follow me around’.

And then Ella gets into it, and she’s all, ‘Oh, look, little miss princess priss; the tree I put up in the car ain’t good enough for you, so you gotta go kiss up to some fairy prince, let him put his nasty tongue in your mouth or something, all so you can have hot chocolate and candy apples?’

I start to cry. ‘No, no, no! It just fucking appeared! What do you guys want me to do, burn the shit? The grass is too dry for that. Might as well eat the goddamn candy apples.’

Jamie folds his hands. ‘Fucking long-haired witch’, he says, and his voice is all hissy.

‘I ain’t no goddamn witch!’ I reply, and I’m angry now, even though I’m still crying. ‘Y’all need to get off my fucking case. It’s a few cups of hot chocolate, some cookies, and a basket of apples. Jesus fucking Christ, you’d think the world just ended.’

‘You need to keep a grip on your language and stop talking about the Lord’, Emma says, speaking of prim and prissy. ‘And I seen you looking at the witch’s house’, she adds. ‘I know you been there’.

Jamie just stares at me.

I can feel myself folding in. I know this ain’t going nowhere. ‘I ain’t been to the witch’s house’, I repeat. ‘I ain’t’.

‘You and your long yella hair’, Emma teases. ‘Someday, somebody gonna push you into a river, and then you gonna become somebody’s fiddle’.

‘I ain’t nobody’s fiddle’, I said.  And then I just stomped into the car.

Fucking fine. If that’s what they want from me, then fine. I find mum’s old scissors: they’re a bit rusty, but they’ll do, and I start chopping my hair off, crying buckets the whole time. I’m vaguely conscious of Emma and Jamie coming in and telling me they’re sorry, they didn’t mean it, they just didn’t want me to go eating fairy food and they were scared of the candy apple tree and the hot chocolate and the cookies, but I just keep on chopping.

In the end, it’s uneven, and I wrap this old Gryffindor scarf around my neck to hide the ends.

‘It don’t look that bad’, Jamie says. ‘You don’t have to be wearing that scarf. It’ll grow back in just fine. I’m sorry, Gwyn’.

I just look at him.

Emma says she’s gonna test out the candy apples to see if they’re poisoned because she’s got a strong stomach. I just shake my head. ‘After all that, you’re gonna eat the goddamn apples’, I say.

Well, fuck that. I dry my tears, go outside to the candy apple tree, and I have two apples and a parfait before the other two can follow me out of the train car, yelling all the time. I smile. ‘That tasted good’, I say. ‘Real good’.

‘And you know what?’ I add. ‘Fuck you both. I’m leaving. You just try to survive round here without me cooking and cleaning for the two of you; just try not to get picked up by the dults from the village when I’m not here to keep you safe and look like I’m twenty when I’m only fifteen. You just fucking try’.

Emma’s in tears. ‘Gwyn, you can’t go!’ she cries. ‘You done got magicked by something was in those apples! You don’t know what you’re saying!’

Jamie stares at me with his arms folded. ‘I can look twenty’, he says.

‘Fuck you, Jamie; you’re only twelve, and you’re scrawny’, Emma retorts.

But I already have my back to them. Their squabbling fades like the horizon behind me.

And that’s how I left my little brother and sister and became a witch’s apprentice. I just walked into the wood, toward the twinkling lights of the witch’s house, and I knocked on the door.

I don’t even know what happened to those two brats. And you know what? I don’t care.

Style Card:
Body: Maitreya
Head: Catwa, Destiny
Ears: Mandala, Steking Ears, Season 5
Eyes: Mesange, First Date Eyes (Omega appliers)
Skin: 7 Deadly s{K}ins, Enya, Powder NEW! (Omega face appliers, Maitreya body appliers) Body appliers available at the 7 Deadly s{K}ins Main Store!
Hair: Wasabi Pills — First four photos, Romy (Available at ULTRA!) Last four photos, Aspen (Available at The Forest!)
Jacket: DE Designs, Dana (Available at We ❤ RP!)
Jeans: Zhora Designs, High Waist Jeans Blue (Maitreya Applier)
Boots: Paper Moon, Huck Boots

Post-Apocalyptic Train Car: Death Row Designs, Post Apocalyptic Holiday Set, COMING SOON from Death Row Designs!
Tree Table, Tree Chairs, Hot Chocolate, and Cookies: Moonlight Shadow, Snack Tree Gacha (Available at Enchantment!)
Candy Apple Tree, Chair, Side Table, Candy Apple Cushion, Basket of Candy Apples, and Candy Apple Parfait: The Looking Glass, Candy Apple Tree Gacha (Available at Enchantment!)
Sparkly Grass: Happy Mood, Sweet Garden Grass
Three Ash Trees: Jian, Ash Tree (triple)
Green, Brown & Lavender Grasses: The Little Branch, Wild Grass
Twisty Tree: Rivendale, Faerie Tree
Surrounding Forest: Studio Skye, Enchanted Woods

Poses: An Lar, from Woodland, Chaos, and All That series

Spiffy photos taken with the indispensible aid of my LumiPro. I never create post-apocalyptic worlds where it’s nicer to run away and be a witch than take care of your kid brother & sister without it!