You cannot guess what spells I have cast, what poisons I have gathered to protect myself against you, how your power may rebound upon your head. Who knows that is in me? Will you find out?

A moment passed, and I looked at her stained hands on the table before me.“And? Are you going to tell me? How goes your witchery?”She smiled her inward smile. “You were right. It is mostly will. Will and work.

Little by little I began to listen better: to the sap moving in the plants, to the blood in my veins. I learned to understand my own intention, to prune and to add, to feel where the power gathered and speak the right words to draw it to its height. That was the moment I lived for, when it all came clear at last and the spell could sing with its pure note, for me and me alone.

For sixteen years, I had been holding up the sky, and he had not noticed. I should have forced him to go with me to pick those plants that saved his life. I should have made him to stand over the stove while I spoke the words of power. He should understand all I had carried in silence, all that I had done for his safekeeping.

I was a golden witch, who had no past at all.