THE WORD WITCH by KELLY JARVIS
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She brought him to her bed and applied a poultice of comfrey and chamomile to draw out the infection, tying the herbs in place with a clean cloth. She held the soldier in her arms and sang him the healing songs she had learned by heart. She brewed pots of soup, carefully sprinkling spices over her cauldron, spelling STRENGTH in every spoonful. She hauled buckets of clear water from the pond to bathe him. Slowly, words like TENDERNESS and FIDELITY appeared in the air between them, pulling them closer to one another like a magnetic force. She could hear the word SOULMATE in every beat of his heart. When they stood together beneath the pine trees and pledged their lives to one another, ETERNITY was written in the stars.
nce upon a time, words had saved her life. She had seen the word DANGER dancing in the flames of the fire on the night the King’s soldiers arrived to burn her village to the ground. Her tribe of healers practiced the sacred arts, but they knew little about ANNIHILATION until they saw the word form in the rivers of blood dripping from the soldiers’ swords. The word RUN rose in the dying breath of the elders. So, she ran. She ran through the night until the morning sunbeams refracted off her tears, surrounding her with crystal rainbows of HOPE. When she reached the forest clearing, she began to build a house of words. She chose sturdy beams of oak and cypress, words like FIERCE and INDEPENDENT swirled into the dark rings of their heartwood. She planted a garden where RENEWAL unfurled in blossoms each spring, and when she was lonely and frightened, she searched the horizon and recited the words she saw drifting in the clouds: ENDURE, BELIEVE, and REMEMBER.
She knew that he would leave her and return to his regiment. Although it had taken him months to recover from his wounds, the word DUTY was seared into his brow, and it glowed with increased vibrancy as he grew stronger. When he left, rain poured down from the sky and LONELINESS floated in the mist that hung near the ground. Three months later the healer was awakened from sleep by a sharp pain in her chest. DEATH drifted across her line of vision. She knew her soldier would never return.
She was terrified when, years later, a soldier approached, but the word WOUND oozed from the deep gashes that crossed his chest, and she reached out her hand to help him as her people had taught her to do. He was burning with fever and covered with dirt and blood.
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