Once upon a time, in a faraway kingdom, a small village sat in between a castle and a thicket of trees. The village was very simple, and was not composed of very much. The houses huddled close to one another in haphazard clusters, and it was in this roundabout manner that the cobbler lived by the butcher, the tailor by the woodcutter, and the witch by the baker.
Of all these pairs, the witch and the baker was certainly the oddest, but the two coexisted peacefully. If the witch thought the baker was a bit daft, she did not let on, and though the baker might have had cause to be slightly fearful of the witch and her abilities, he was careful to hide his feelings. It was in this way that the two lived, and when the witch gave birth to a daughter, and the baker's new wife to a son, nobody expected that the two new beings would in any way affect the careful relationship between the two households. Little did they know that the two infants would later be responsible for several large events to come.
But that is later, far in the future, and right now we are talking about the witch and the baker and their children. The witch's daughter was a charmingly chubby little girl, with dark eyes and a small button nose. She adored her mother, and followed her around like a baby duckling, her clumsy stumble echoing the witch's graceful strides. The child's quiet giggles could often be heard over the wall of her mother's garden. The baker's son had brown hair and a wide smile. He was quiet, and spent his days reading books in the shade of the lone tree planted in the corner of his father's land. He'd read until the scent of fresh bread wafted from the kitchen window and his mother called him in for dinner.
Years passed, and the witch's daughter grew to be tall and slender. Her black hair grew down to her waist and her nose tipped slightly upwards at the end, just like her mother's. She had a wonderful sense of humor, and laughed frequently.
"Do you ever tire of laughing so often?" The witch once asked her daughter quizzically.
The girl, who had been giggling at an oddly shaped fruit, fell silent. She looked at her mother, bemused.
"But Momma, it's so fun!" And, glancing at the strawberry again, she burst into laughter once more.
She had an energetic personality and spoke in a direct manner. She was very impatient.
"Momma, why isn't the potion turning blue yet? Does it need more fennel?"
"No, you added the right amount. Wait just a little longer, darling, it takes time-" But the girl had already emptied the rest of the fennel into the pot and hovered frantically over the bubbling mess she had created.
The two women lived together contently, but occasionally, the daughter wondered if this was all there was. Would she always live with her mother, tending to the garden and creating hazardous potions? Wasn't there, she supposed, something more out there? If there was, she wondered, why didn't it come to her? She didn't dwell much on the thought, but it irked her that others were experiencing more than she.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the garden wall, the baker's son seemed to sprout overnight, surpassing his mother and father in height. His skinny frame was stretched like thick dough, his shoulders widened to support heavy sacks of flour, and his legs grew from thin stalks of wheat to be as sturdy as the rolling pins his father used. Although he didn't enjoy baking as much as he did reading, he knew that before long, it would be his duty to continue the family craft.
"You're coming along quite well, son," The baker patted the boy on the shoulder. "You'll be a perfectly good baker when the time comes."
The boy turned his head from the kitchen window.
"What did you say, Father?"
"Daydreaming, as always." The baker sighed. "Never mind."
The young lad often dreamed about exploring the land, and seeing the many sights he had read of. But, he reminded himself, that was neither here nor there, and the boy resigned himself to a life of normalcy, solitude, and yeast.
Such was the case of the unusual pair. The girl was bright and impatient, while the lad was quiet and wistful. The two lived side by side, one tired of waiting, and the other wanting to wait. Although each knew of the other, the witch's daughter and the baker's son did not meet until their seventeenth year, on the third day of the royal festival.
There lived a king in the castle on the border of the village, and it was a longstanding tradition within the kingdom to host a festival during the ruling king's birthday. Townfolk from all across the land visited, and vendors lined their booths along the roads. That year, the witch attended all three days of the festival, and while her daughter tagged along for the first two, she elected to stay home on the last. The witch, having met some promising herb traders, reminded her child to be careful of strangers, and left the house shortly after sunrise on the third day of the festival.
The witch's daughter, who had by now grown into a young woman of seventeen years, sat at the kitchen table, peacefully eating her breakfast salad of lettuce, kale, and tomatoes. She looked out the window and watched her mother's silhouette fade into the distance. Her gaze drifted to the sundial in the garden, and she stood reluctantly, carrying her dishes to the sink. It was time to water the garden.
As any proper witch should know, a garden is an essential part of a magical home. The quality of one's garden determines the quality of one's lifestyle. The witch, well aware of that fact, had gone above and beyond the normal standards of planting. Within the plot of dirt she was allotted, she had carefully planted the seeds of a plethora of vegetation. In the witch's garden, the everyday plant mixed with the exotic. Stalks of celery rose alongside trees of poisonous apples, and sprouts of watercress grew by a small stream, surrounded by enchanted pumpkins. The disarray was chaotic, but beautiful, and only the witch and her daughter knew how to properly navigate through the green flora.
As the witch's daughter picked her way through the vines and bushes, she was careful not to step on any stray leaves or fruits. She carried a watering can, gently tipping it so that water fell onto the soil.
"Mother doesn't even use these," she muttered to herself, hiking up her skirt before stepping over a particularly large bush of blueberries. "Why does she grow so many plants if she does not have any use for them?"
As she approached the fruit trees, she heard a man humming on the other side of the stone wall that bordered the garden. It must be the baker from next door, she thought as she strode past some asparagus sprouts. She glanced at the wall, and noticed a spot of red hanging above the baker's garden. It was a poison apple, dangling from an overextended branch of its tree. If it dropped, she mused to herself, the apple would land in the baker's land, and the baker and his family would not know about its magic.
She paused in her watering and looked at the apple tree.
The baker's son was reading a thick text about giants, when something thumped him on the head.
"Ow!" he exclaimed, setting the book aside. He looked around him, and noticed a bright red apple lolling on the ground. He reached toward it, but paused when he heard a voice.
"Don't touch it!" A shrill voice called. "Don't eat the apple!"
The young man looked about. Where was the voice coming from?
"Who are you?"
"Have you eaten the apple? Am I too late?" The girl sounded rather panicked.
"No, I haven't touched it. Where are you?"
"I'm over the stone wall. I live next to you."
"Oh," he straightened up from his crouch, though she could not possibly see him. "You must be the witch."
He thought she was the witch?
"No," she said, miffed. "I'm the witch's daughter. My mother is out at the festival."
"Oh, of course," the baker's voice drifted over the garden wall. "My apologies."
She watched the top of his head rotate about as he tried to figure out where she was.
"Now, don't eat that apple," she counseled him. "It's poisonous. Keep it away from your wife and son. In fact, you'd best give it back to me. It will do you no good."
"I have no wife nor son," he said, amused. "I am the baker's son."
"Oh," she paused. "I'm sorry, I thought-"
"We've committed the same crime; all is forgiven. How am I to return the apple to you?"
She hesitated.
"I suppose I shall come around to your house and fetch it. Wait one moment please."
He made a noise of assent, and she set about climbing down the tree of poisonous apples.
The baker's son had only reentered the house when he heard two knocks upon the front door. He hurriedly made his way through the kitchen to the small sitting room, and looked through the small hole drilled through the wood. A pair of dark eyes stared at him. Flustered, he pulled back and opened the door.
This was the baker's son? A young man as tall as herself stood before her. His brown eyes bore into hers as she took in the sight of a person her mother had often warned her of. He had a sturdy build, she supposed, with lean arms and large feet. His face was pale and his palms were smudged not with flour, as she had expected, but ink. He held out the apple to her.
"Here," She didn't take it.
"So you're the baker's son," she mused. He straightened.
"Yes," he said. "I am. And you're the witch's daughter?"
The witch's daughter rolled her hazel eyes. "Of course I am," she snapped. She tossed her black hair over her shoulder and paused, looking behind him.
"The Giant Step Upon Mankind?" she inquired. He looked back. The book he had been reading lay scuffed upon the floor. He must have dropped it in his mad rush to the door.
"Yes," he replied. "It's about giants, you see, and their tendencies to-"
"Step on mankind?" she finished wryly.
"Exactly."
Her freckled nose wrinkled. "It's a rather thick book," she observed.
"Yes, but very interesting. It explains how giants manage to live in the sky and how their communities work. Many live alone with their mates, but some form small groups and live together in huge castles." He explained, his hands moving quickly while he talked, shaping his words out of thin air.
The witch's daughter was watching him with an odd look in her eyes.
"Perhaps when you're done with the book, you could lend it to me?" she inquired after some hesitation.
He started with surprise. He had never lent a book to anybody before. But he supposed it would be all right. After all, she did live right next door. It wasn't as if she could run off with it.
"Of course," he said, after a pause. "Please be careful with it, though,"
She looked at him, surprised. "You're giving it to me now?"
"I've already read it many times," he assured her. "I have plenty others to reread." He turned and picked up the volume. He held it out to her, with the poison apple atop of it. She took both from him carefully.
"Thank you very much," she said sincerely.
"It is nothing," he replied politely. "But, if I may ask, how exactly did the apple come to fall on my head?"
She looked at the apple, then blushed.
"I was watering the garden, and I saw the apple hanging over your yard. I thought it would be bad if the apple dropped into your land and if you or your family ate it, not knowing what it was…well. So I climbed the apple tree, but when I reached the branch it hung from, it began to shake, and the apple fell before I reached it." She said the words in a rush, as if saying them faster would make them disappear.
He chuckled softly to himself, imagining her tall frame folded amidst a tree, and felt a warm glow at the thought that a witch's daughter would climb a tree to save the life of strangers. Perhaps, he thought to himself, Father was wrong about the neighbors.
"Thank you," the baker's son said in an odd tone. "For climbing a tree to save our lives."
She looked at him strangely. "Well, it's what anybody would do, right?" She stepped away from the door, and turned around.
"Goodbye, now," she sang from over her shoulder. "And thank you for the book! I shall return it as soon as I finish!"
The baker's son smiled and lifted a hand in goodbye.
As she walked down the path to the baker's door, the girl looked at the heavy volume in her hand, and thought to herself that Momma might have been wrong about the humans next door.
She was at the door to her house when he called out to her from the porch of his.
"Hey!" She turned.
"Aren't you going to apologize for my head?" He grinned, pointing at the bump from the apple.
She rolled her eyes. "Next time, perhaps," she said, and entered the dark of her home.
Thus was the first meeting of the baker's son and the witch's daughter, brief as it may have been. The baker's son, after retreating inside his home, did not immediately know what to do. He ended up selecting another book, Bears and Their Sweet Dispositions, to read. This time, however, he remained inside the house. Reading in the yard, he decided, was far too eventful. However, he needn't have worried about running into the girl again. The witch's daughter, upon entering her house, immediately began reading The Giant Step Upon Mankind, the likes of which she had never before seen, as her mother strictly forbid books of any kind. She did not move from her place at the kitchen table until it was almost time for her mother to return home. It was then that she finished watering the garden, and hid The Giant Step Upon Mankind under her mattress.
The witch returned shortly before dusk, and by then, her daughter was preparing a vegetable stew in the kitchen. The door opened, and the girl turned from the stove with a smile on her face.
"Momma," she cried. "You're back! You'll never guess what-"
"Darling" the witch interrupted. "I have very important news."
"As do I…" the girl trailed off at the solemn look upon the witch's face. "But, you first."
"I went to the festival today to purchase some very important seeds today, do you remember? I bartered with those traders the first and second day of the festival, and today, I finally got what I needed."
"Oh?" the girl inquired. "What did you get?"
"Beans, darling," the witch's eyes gleamed. "Beans."
"Beans?" the girl wrinkled her nose.
"Not just any beans," she withdrew a velvet sack from her cloak. "Magic beans."
"What do they do, Momma?" But the witch did not answer as she strode past her daughter through the kitchen, and into the garden.
The witch mumbled to herself as she wandered around the land. "Not here, not enough room, the sunset is approaching…too much sunlight over there…perhaps…ah, here it is!" she exclaimed as she stopped before several bunches of rampion. "Right next to the rapunzel," she chuckled to herself. "Perfect."
The girl, not understanding any of this muttering, stood by watching as the witch bent down and, using her hands, scooped handfuls of dirt out of the ground by the rampion. She planted six beans from the sack into the ground, then covered them with soil.
The witch stood, and turned to her daughter. "Listen to me, child, for this is very important. I have followed all the instructions and the beans have been prepared. After the sun sets tonight, the beans I have planted must never leave the garden. The beans that remain in the sack must stay in the sack. If they leave before their time, horrible things will happen to you and this village. You must promise, darling. Promise."
"I promise, Momma, but what time? Why can't they leave?" the girl asked, confused.
"I must go now, darling, but I will be back. I will return for the beans and all will be well then." A dark look entered the witch's eyes. "All will be very well when I return."
"Go?" the girl froze. "You can't mean…you're leaving?"
"Just for a while, I won't be long."
"How long, Momma? How long?"
"As long as it takes, child," the witch replied easily.
"But you can't leave," the girl argued angrily. "What about me? Take me with you."
The witch pursed her lips, considering, then dismissed it. "But somebody needs to take care of the garden, darling."
"But why must you go? Tell me why!" she begged pleadingly.
"All in due time, child," the witch replied with an edge in her voice.
"Please don't leave me," the girl's voice broke, and the witch hesitated. She looked at her daughter and relented.
"Well…perhaps I'll leave tomorrow. After all, you did go through the trouble of making stew."
The girl looked up. Perhaps her mother would change her mind after a good night's rest.
"Yes, Momma, the stew, how could I forget?" And so, mother and daughter went into the house to eat vegetable stew.
After a quiet and tense dinner, the two women prepared for bed.
"Momma," the witch's daughter asked hesitantly. "You aren't really leaving, are you?"
The witch was silent for a moment. "We'll talk in the morning, darling."
A thick silence reigned until the witch said, "Good night, darling," and the girl responded, "Good night, Momma."
They turned from each other, about to head into their separate bedrooms, when the witch suddenly called, "Darling?"
"Yes, Momma?"
"You do promise that you won't let the beans leave the garden though? Even if I do leave?"
"Momma…"
"No matter what, child, you must promise."
"All right, Momma. I promise, no matter what, that I will not let the beans in this garden ever leave our property."
"And the beans in the sack?"
"They will never leave the sack."
"Promise?"
"I promised, didn't I?"
"Right. Good night."
"Good night, Momma."
At midnight, the witch awoke in her bed. She sat up, and looked around, searching for the cause of her disturbed sleep. When all seemed well, she began to lie back down when she froze. Across her bedroom, she saw her reflection in the mirror.
The witch, contrary to the expectations of many, was very beautiful. She had thick black hair and green eyes, and a pointed chin that was rounded out by soft cheekbones and a smooth forehead. Her eyebrows were high and arched, and her nose was small, but tipped up at the end. Beauty, she knew, ran in the family. Her daughter would grow to be just as beautiful as she. But, as the witch stared at herself, she noticed little details she had missed before. The lines that ran from her nose to the corners of her mouth. The thin gray hairs that blended with the black. The skin on her cheeks that was no longer taut.
She deserved more. She deserved better.
That night, nobody slept well. The baker stared at the ceiling as he laid in bed, wondering if his son would be able to continue his line of work after he was gone. In the next room, the baker's son tossed and turned, his dreams full of angry giants, meek bears, and tall girls with long black hair. The witch did not fall asleep after waking, as her clever mind churned all through early morning. Her daughter drifted in and out of sleep, dreaming dreams of empty houses and pale hands covered in ink. Outside in the garden, six beans glowed underneath a thin layer of soil.
When the witch's daughter awoke the next morning, her mother was gone. The book hidden under her bed was forgotten as the girl discovered the sack of beans on the kitchen table, a reminder of her mother's last wish.