The forest was deep and silent. Silent in the busy, noisy way that wasn’t in fact quiet, but rather lacked the empty noise of other humans.
Caro took a deep breath, hitched her pack, and continued on along the faded memory of a track. This was why she was here, on foot, travelling across the country. The rustlings and chirpings of the creatures, the rich scent of loam in the air; these refreshed her, these were life.
And here in the half shadows of the trees were the real treasures. There, a clump of mushrooms – gills safely brown, that would be dinner. There, some mint – growing wild by the stream. Here, the soft roots of the fern, to roast in the fire. Some early strawberries; small, yes, but also sweet. The forest did not have butter and bread – of the normal sort, anyway – but Caro spared a snort for all those who’d told her she’d starve.
She gathered the leaves of a wild mustard into her pack, and a fallen branch from an oak – she’d carve that by the fire tonight, so as to have something to trade at the next village, alongside her herbs. They assumed she had magic, to survive out here on her own; the magic belonged to the bounty of the everyday forest, plain in front of them if they only had the eyes to see it.
‘My feet are bare, my heart is full,
My coat is warm, of salvaged wool.
Why need I steel, when I have bone?
You call me Witch, you call me Crone,
Because I choose to walk alone –
Yet have I not, riches greater,
than thee upon the Throne?’
Even her song barely disturbed the forest. When the witch-hunters came through later, looking for her, there was no sign that she had ever passed that way.
