The Witch's Boy

A word is a magic thing. It holds the essence of an object or idea and pins it to the world. A word can set a universe in motion.

Not every story is true. And sometimes the things that were wicked become the things that save us, and the things that were good doom us to misery and pain.

Yet was a powerful word, Ned decided. Very powerful indeed.

There is no freedom without wholeness, no hope unless the thing that has been broken is restored.

Yet, Áine decided, was a terrible word. A terrible word, indeed.

Sister Witch didn’t truck with hoping. Hoping was irrational, impractical, and imprecise. Sister Witch was a solver.

The strongest trees on the mountain are the short, gnarled jacks. They let themselves bow and twist, and they live. They survive snowstorms and avalanches and wind. Those

But as the years passed, Ned's silence grew and grew. It pressed upon his face and his body. It leaked into the house and spread outward into the yard. His silence had weight. It had substance and presence and teeth.

And sometimes the things that were wicked become the things that save us, and the things that were good doom us to misery and pain. We lift our eyes to the heavens, but we live on the ground.

The wrong boy, the village said. The wrong boy, the world said. Year after year after year. And Ned believed it.

Forgiveness, Ned’s mother told him, is a remarkable thing, especially when a man forgives himself.

When you have no chance of reclaiming your past and no hope of claiming your future, all that is left is now.

A word, after all, is a kind of magic. It locks the substance of a thing in sound or symbol, and affixes it to the ear, or paper, or stone. Words call the world into being. That’s power indeed. And Ned was not a powerful boy.

Father,” it said on the side facing up…“The sea!” the note said. “The sea!” It was not signed, and said nothing of where he was going or when he would be back or why he must leave. Still, Ned’s father knew all the same. The sea meant I love you. The sea meant I will one day return. The sea meant I must find the world and hold the world and live in the world. And I must love the world….As much as I love you.

selfishness is the root of tyranny. That selfishness is a sin.

It is with a pure heart that I humbly ask your assistance.