1. The witch only celebrated palindromic birthdays. 101 was her favourite so far. She didn’t consider the single digit years to truly count. Even the two digit ones seemed a little suspect, but she forgave them simply because otherwise she’d have had none before today.
2. An exodus of dolls at dawn. Crawling, walking, tottering, skittering. Past the cherry tree and the swing and the well and the hollow and the copse and the abandoned boat.
3. Not for the witch a present given. Instead, from her a promise extracted. Cackles of glee, watched by eyes wide in terror.
4. Up above, the crows circled above the hill like vultures. In the trees all around squirrels whispered secrets to each other like sentient social media accounts. And down below, cats patrolled the woods like, well, cats. Anything that moved was pounced upon with the utmost glee. Prisoners subsequently released purely so they could be caught again, tormented some more.
5. On their return, the children couldn’t help but notice the way the doll’s dresses were covered in jam, the way their lips were smeared with icing, crumbs speckling their hair like dirt. No amount of questions would make the dolls admit where it was they had been, nor what it was they had done, why it was their eyes were tinged with so much shame.
6. All they would say was that it was done now. There was no turning back.
7. “What does that even mean?!” Claire said loudly.
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Notes:
1. Written on May 17th and 18th, 2022, and also a little bit extra on October 7th, 2022
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