The witch lived alone in the shadow of the forest. Her cottage, with its crooked door and moss-covered shingles, was perched at the edge of a still, green pond with an overgrown orchard beyond. Only an ancient stone wall protected them—the cottage, the pond, and the apple trees—from being consumed by the wild wood.

 

The witch's name was Sibylle, though none seemed to remember. Like all women, she had once been young and beautiful—this too, had been forgotten, and so, to most, she was simply the witch who lived alone in her garden, too close to the wood and too far from the village. 

 

Though some in the village claimed that it had once been a wonder, full of the most delicious vegetables and the most nourishing herbs, Sibylle's garden had grown tangled and perilous. Poisonous, folks would say, to any who tried to eat from it. The orchard, too, was gnarled and neglected. The apples, once celebrated for the sweetness of their cider, were brown and mottled and fell to rot beneath the trees each autumn. In the center of the pond was an island, forbidden to all but the witch herself. A tall, gray stone stood as though it had grown there, veiled by a snarl of deadly nightshade.

 

The season's first frost laced the ground on the morning when Sibylle found the man in her orchard. He lay near the crumbling wall, unconscious, one half-eaten apple in his filthy hand and three cores littering the ground beside him. His sunken cheeks were wet, sticky with the apples' toxic juice.

 

She considered leaving him to the frost and the wolves. She cared very little for men, and most knew better than to trespass. But his look suggested he'd come from far away, and one couldn't tell on sight that her orchard was poisonous. "I suppose it can't be helped," she muttered to herself as she knelt to grasp beneath his armpits. 

 

She dragged him back to her cottage, startled by how very little he weighed.

 

She bathed his starving body and made him a bed by the fire. She nursed him with bone broth and wild herbs she'd collected in the forest. By the first snow, death was no longer his constant companion, and the witch had forgotten to resent his quiet presence in her home. She had wood and food, and though she had not planned for a guest, neither would go hungry. 

 

He was not a young man, but neither was he as old as Sibylle first thought. When he was well enough to sit up, and to speak, she learned that his name was Anselm and that, as she had suspected, he'd come from far away.

 

Later, once some strength had returned to his limbs, Anselm did what he could to be useful. At first, he struggled just to sweep the hearth, but by midwinter, he was chopping wood and breaking the ice in the well to draw water. Sibylle enjoyed the help, though she was loathe to say so.

 

As they both carried firewood from the yard to the house one day, she explained to him the only thing he needed to know: that nothing growing on her land could be eaten, be it fruit from the orchard or the wild onions and carrots near the edge of the pond.

 

"So, it was the apples that made me ill."

 

She nodded. "You were nearly beyond my help," she told him.

 

Little by little, during those short, dark days, they became less guarded. Sibylle discovered that Anselm had come from an austere life in a monastery near the sea in the north. He'd been left with the monks as a boy, and it was the only home he'd known. "Except it was not a real life," he explained once. "Not for me."

 

Bit by bit, as Anselm asked questions and Sibylle forgot her reluctance to answer, he pieced together her story—the story of a man who had come, but not to stay. The story of a summer child who'd laughed and climbed and given her mother apple-sticky kisses. The story of an early-spring fever and a tiny grave dug into earth softened only by a mother's tears. 

 

He looked at the blighted orchard and her thorny, toxic garden, and understanding crept over his features. 

"The stone on the island," he said, gazing across the pond's surface to where the lonely pillar of rock stood. "What is it?"

 

"Never go there," the witch said and looked away.

 

Then, one morning in early spring, the man disappeared. He was gone for three days. When he returned with bundles of budding tree branches, the witch discovered she was glad; he'd become her companion. 

 

"I labored in an orchard to buy these," he said, carefully grafting the new branches to her craggy old trees with linen, mud, and sap. "These branches have not been poisoned by loneliness and grief. Perhaps they will grow good apples."

 

The branches bloomed and the blossoms swelled, until each tree was covered with tiny, growing fruit. 

 

Then, in summer, Anselm disappeared again. This time he was gone for a week. When he returned, hauling a cart full of stones, the witch was glad; he'd become her friend. 

 

"I labored at a quarry to buy these," he said, and spent the next month repairing the ruined wall. "A thing needs to be tended, cared for. If left alone too long, it forgets its purpose, its very self."  

 

Soon the wall stood strong, once more protecting them from the wild chaos of the forest. The apples on the new branches grew plump and green. Sibylle rowed onto the pond in her little boat. Standing before the stone, she remembered the daughter she had buried there. At times, she spoke to the child, other times she wept, and sometimes she did no more than try to clear the tangle of weeds that engulfed the unadorned rock. 

 

Autumn came, and they worked together to harvest the new apples. For the first time in ages, Sibylle looked forward to pressing them into cider. "Will they be safe?" she asked, eyeing the fruit critically.

 

Anslem only shrugged, smiling softly. "I suppose we shall see."

 

The next day he disappeared once again. This time the witch waited two, then three weeks. She pressed the apples without him and had her first drink of their sweet cider. It was sharp and bright on her tongue, not poison at all, but perfect. 

 

Except he was not there to share it.

 

Four weeks had passed when he finally returned, this time with only a small chisel and hammer. Despite her worry, the witch was glad. He'd become her love.

 

"I studied with a stone carver to learn this," Anslem told her, but she was not listening. 

 

Instead, she wrapped her arms around him, running a hand along the greying bristles of his beard, and she kissed him. This time, she was sure, he would stay.

 

But when Sibylle woke the next morning, she was alone. She hurried outside, her heart in her throat, in time to find Anslem climbing out of the little boat. 

 

"What have you done?" In all the months he'd been with her, he had respected her wish. Not once had he ventured to her daughter's island. She'd believed he would not. "Why were you there?"

 

Anselm shook his head gently and took her hand. He settled her into the boat, and rowed her across the still, green water to the tiny isle. He held her hand as they climbed up the mossy bank to where the tall stone loomed.

 

He'd removed every vine of nightshade, though the echoes of their latching roots left scars on the newly-exposed stone. Raw and white, carved into the mottled surface was now a single word: beloved. 

 

"Her legacy should be love, not blight and not poison, my sweet witch," Anselm told her, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "She would not want your magic to be held prisoner by your grief."

 

Sibylle fell to her knees and her tears flowed. For once, they did not scorch the delicate moss, they did not coax toxic plants from the soil. Instead, a tendril crept from the earth, a bud that opened into a tiny white bloom.