The Broken Needles

THE BROKEN NEEDLES

  by

  Arch DeNight

  ***

  PUBLISHED BY:

  The Broken Needles

  Copyright © 2013 by Arch DeNight

  Your support and respect for the property of this author is deeply appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to person, living or dead, places, or events is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination.

  ***

  This short story is dedicated to My Home. My Pink Bunny. The only one who always supports all my dreams and ideas, no matter how brief and incomplete they are. This is for you, Dear.

  ***

  THE BROKEN NEEDLES

  by Arch DeNight

  The time had come. She had fully grown into a woman. The blood on her sheet the night before had proven that. Now, they should tell her everything. They must teach her about the truth. Yes. The truth. Something they had been hiding from her for thirteen years.

  “Child, are you ready?” the old woman asked.

  The girl nodded. She did not know why her grandmothers seemed so serious that evening. Yes. The girl. They might have considered her a woman. But, her appearance was still that of a girl. But, appearance could fool people. They must tell her everything tonight—or all they had built this long would shatter like a castle of sand on a windy day.

  “Come quickly, then,” said Granny Mo.

  Her wrinkled hands was shaken because of... What exactly? Was that fear? Was it anxiety? Was that an anticipation of whatever reaction her granddaughter would later show? She was not sure herself.

  “Yes, Granny.”

  The girl said nothing as they walked hand in hand out of the old shack. The night was young, but it was clear that the moon was in all its glory. They were half through the woods when the girl started wondering.

  “Granny Mo,” she asked in a whisper.

  She did not know for sure why she voiced her thought in a whisper. There were only the two of them there. Maybe it was because she felt like that was not true. Somewhere in the deep of the woods, someone might be watching them. Pairs of eyes might be hidden behind the bushels, following their every movement. They might be wolves’. They might also be ghosts’. She was still thirteen after all—and all the townsmen had told her scary tales like that whenever she came to buy some goods.

  “Granny Mo!” she repeated her calling a bit louder.

  “What is it, Child?”

  “Where’s Granny Hilda?”

  “She’s at the Circle, right at the center of the woods, waiting for us, Child.”

  “Why would she wait for us there? What are we going to do there, Granny Mo?”

  There was silence. Her granny did not answer her questions immediately. She hesitated to give the real one, so she tried to give the best answer she could mutter.

  “You’ll know when we get there, Child.”

  Child. In a usual day,—or night—Emily would love to be called that way. But, she knew that was not a usual one. There was a shiver down her spine, and it was not from the cold night air. So, she swallowed her other question back down her throat. But, the question kept lingering in her mind.

  Would something bad happen tonight?

  Hand in hand, they kept walking in silence. The moon was right above their heads when they finally reached the circular clearing in the middle of the woods. On a normal day,—or night—the clearing would be empty. There would only be green grasses under their feet, surrounded by tall trees. But, she was right. It was not a normal one. Not at all.

  There were nine small squares drawn by fire in the center of the Circle. In each of the squares, there was a vine-like plant. Dark green tendrils were spiraling up to the night sky, moving in an ancient rythm along with the fire—as if worshipping the full moon. But, instead of roots, there were feet, and instead of flowers, there were faces. Yes. They were lifeless, but it was clear that they were human faces. Human limbs, intestines, hearts, and other organs were scattered here and there in the spiraling vines. But, there was no blood. There was only fluorescent blue light engulfing them in between the fire.

  “What...is...that?”

  Emily was terrified. She knew that her grandmothers were witches. The townsmen would not stop talking about that whenever she walked by. But, she had already knew even long before that. She had seen her grandmothers making smelly brews in their black old cauldrons. She had watched them growing plants overnight. She had secretly taken a peek at their midnight broomstick rides a few times behind closed curtains. But, she had never witnessed anything so grotesque before.

  “What is that!?” she repeated her questions louder in fear.

  Granny Hilda, who was standing near the vines, chanting mantras in ancient tongue, moved her gaze towards the girl. She smiled as if the thing in question was just an extinct orchid. Then, she gave her explanation calmly.

  “That, My Child, is your past, your present, and your future.”

  There was terror in Emily’s eyes. She did not understand anything her grandmother had said. She did not want to understand.

  “Come, Child. Let us explain everything to you.”

  Granny Mo put her hand around the girl, trying to move her closer to the vines. But, the girls resisted. She stood still like a statue that was made of stone. So, the old witch let her go and walked by herself, then turned around to face the young child.

  “Don’t you ever wonder who your father was?” she asked.

  “Or your mom?” Granny Hilda chimed in.

  “Haven’t you been asking yourself about how you came into our hand, Child?”

  “Or how we both said to be your grandmas although it’s clear that Granny Mo and I aren’t related by blood?”

  Emily swallowed hard. Yes, indeed. She had been asking all those questions all this time. But, she was satisfied with any answer they gave her—or at least, she tried to be.

  “You said my parents died in a robbery,” she recalled the answers, “And you said that Granny Mo dyed her hair black and straightened it with an iron so no one would mistaken you as twins... Because yours, Granny Hilda, is brown and curly. That’s what you said.”

  “Well, My Child,” Granny Hilda smiled as if it was not a big deal, “It was all a lie.”

  A LIE!

  “The truth is, Granny Hilda and I... Well,... We’re not related. Not by blood at least.”

  “As you must have known, Granny Mo and I are witches!”

  “Yes,... We are.”

  “But, we’re not just regular witches.”

  “No, we are not... We are part of The Broken Needles Community. You know what that is, Child?”

  Emily shook her head.

  “We’re... We’re witches that fix things, Child.”

  “Oww... Granny Mo was being humble. We don’t fix things. We fix human!”

  “Well,... What your Granny meant was... We can heal any wound—no matter how severe it was—by simply stitching it closed.”

  “It is considered illegal now, but in the old days, we also stitch up a child!”

  “Well, we... We collected broken body parts from... From dead people and... We grew them along with these Healing Flame Vines, Child.”

  “And when they had finally ripen, we picked the parts and stitched them together, rubbed them with some Rebirth Ointments and...voila! One baby human was born!”

  “We, then, give them to couples who were barren, Child... Couples who were unable to have children in more traditional ways... We gave them away for free—although some of them insisted on giving us a chunk of land or goods.”

  “You see that what we did was really nice, right? Yeah, we were sweet like that! But, everything changed after those male pri
ests came from the Mainland!”

  “Well,... They preached that what we did was unnatural. They said we broke the law of God by doing that... Anyone who would like to follow the path of God should stop asking us for a baby. They should just pray to God and be content with what they have.”

  “Eversince those stinky preachers came, people stopped asking us for help. They didn’t even want us to heal their wounds anymore! They said that we were great sinners and they did not want to be part of us. Towns were built far from our woods and no one wanted to come and see us. We lost our jobs. We lost our people. All because of that arrogant priests!”

  “Although we’ve never hurt anyone, people started to hate us. No one wants to be a witch—especially a Broken Needles witch—now. None. Although witches could live longer than most human, we would eventually die, too... This and the fact that no one new wants to join in makes the community shrunk rapidly. Now, there were only a handful of us—all of whom are very old already. Then, Granny Hilda... Well,... She came up with an idea.”

  “Yes, I did! If we can’t stitch up a baby for them, why don’t we stitch up one for us? We coud raise the baby together, and when she hits puberty, she would be ready to be taught everything she needed to be a Broken Needles witch!”

  “Yes, Child... That’s exactly what we did... We stitched up a baby... And raised her together for thirteen years...”

  “And the baby is you!”

  Emily did not know what she should think or say after hearing all those words. Her head felt heavy on her shoulders. However big the fear she had before, it was no match to the terror she felt right at that moment.

  She did not know how or when, but she started shrieking. She started crying and hysterically howling and running away all at the same time. She knew she was different. She knew her grandmothers were odd. But, she never thought of it the way they had just told her.

  She knew the truth now. She had neither a father nor a mother. They did not die in a robbery because they had never even existed in this world. She was born from the hands of two Broken Needles witches who claimed to be her grandmothers and raised her to make her one of them. She was formed from broken organs found in human corpses that was grown together with some weird magical plants. She was not a normal girl. She was not even human. So... What exactly was she?

  Emily kept on shrieking and running away wildly. She did not know where she was heading. She did not care anyway. But, her grandmothers did care. No matter how they conceived her, no matter what their goal was, they were her grandmothers after all. They raised her for thirteen years as their own—with tender loving care and all that.

  “EMILY!”

  Granny Mo shouted her name while running in a direction she was not so sure about. The night is old. The dawn would break out soon—and that would not be the only thing that would be broken if they could not find her.

  “We need to find her soon, Hilda!” Granny Mo said in panic.

  “I know, I know. I’ve told you to bring your broomstick along, didn’t I?”

  ‘Well, how was I supposed to remember that!? Just in case you haven’t notice, I am old now, okay!? I forget things easily! I was very nervous about tonight, too, anyway! Why the heck didn’t you bring your own with you?”

  “Well, just in case you haven’t notice, I am already old, too, okay!?”

  They tried to run wherever Emily’s shrieking sound was heard. But, they could not do that anymore. The shrieking had suddenly stopped.

  Granny Hilda took her wand out of thin air, mumbled a mantra, and touched her ears with the tip of the wand. Granny Mo snapped her fingers twice and her wand came out of nowhere. She, then, did the same thing Granny Hilda did. They were still running, and at the same time, they were trying to listen more carefully to any sound. But, even with the aid of their ancient mantra, they could not hear anything related to Emily. Nope. Nothing at all.

  “Hold! Magicae Clypeum!!”

  An invisible barrier was formed when Granny Hilda waved her wand. At the same time, Granny Mo ran into it and slammed back onto the ground because of the magic force. A trickle of blood came down her chin.

  “What the heck was that for, Hilda!?”

  Granny Hilda did not give her any answer immediately. She just stood still. Her eyes were squinted as she peered down into the darkness.

  “Well,... I guess we’re too late. Again.”

  Right after she said that, the dawn broke. Sun rays came from the east, shining on what appeared to be a ravine right in front of her. Granny Mo stood up and came closer only to see their girl’s body parts scattered around the rocks down below. There were no blood—only some fluorescent blue liquid. When the sun rays reached the bottom of the valley, whatever was Emily turned into pile of sand. Not long after, the wind came and blew her away into the endless river that streamed down into the sea.

  “Yep,” Granny Mo shook her head, “We’re late. Again. For the fourth times.”

  “Yeah,” Granny Hilda turned around and waved her wand to heal the wound near Granny Mo’s mouth, “My bad.”

  “It took us six full moons to grow the right parts, and thirteen years to raise a fully grown woman, only to end up as a mess down there,” Granny Mo turned around and started walking, “Maybe this time we should try to stitch up a boy.”

  “Why? A boy can’t be a Broken Needles witch!” said Granny Hilda while making her wand disappear in thin air.

  “True. But, they could be more courageous when we revealed the truth,” Granny Mo did the same thing and took Granny Hilda’s wrinkled hand, “And he would probably be able to entice a town girl into joining The Community.”

  “But,... What if he turns out to be gay?”

  “Well, we’ll think about that later, okay?”

  With that, the two witches walked home, hand in hand.

  ###

  Thanks for taking the time to read this short story. I will be very happy if you would like to take a moment to leave a comment at the site where you download this work of fiction. If you have anything in mind about this work, please don’t hesitate to contact me through [email protected]

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