We met in a witch’s nightmare. I brought him ale, fed the pigs, waited. Later, his chainmail glittered on the floor. He had to leave, he said, while the moon was up. ‘It’s that wound’, he said, ‘makes me wander from place to place’. ‘Show me’. It was black with sores around it like wilting petals. ‘The pain isn’t the worst’, he said. I looked deeper: little villages, houses, tiny millers, tax-collectors, washerwomen, all cursed. He groaned and fell asleep. And I fell, into the wound, to a market square, to fool-search for a fast cure, into my whole life.
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First published in TSS.
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Love this! So magical and whimsical. My favourite line is 'his chainmail glittered on the floor'
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