A Letter from the Last Witch Left

I write this not with ink, but with ash and breath and the last heat of a dying fire.

Child of the age to come, hear me.

The trees remember what you have forgotten. The wind mourns what you silence. The stars keep turning, even as you blind your eyes to their warnings. You think you are alone. You are not. You think you are free. You are not.

I am the last. Not because I was the weakest, but because I watched them all burn. One by one. Flame by flame. And still, they dared to sing as they burned.

You think the old ways are gone, buried under concrete and convenience. But the old ways are buried like seeds, not bones. They wait. In roots. In blood. In dreams you do not understand.

Once, we spoke with rivers. We walked in step with wolves. We knew the names of things you call weeds and poisons. We bled with the moon and healed with our hands and lit fires for reasons other than war.

They feared what they could not bind. So they branded it evil. Witch. Monster. Woman. Other.

And you, child of glass and glow, you do not remember—but your bones do. Your hunger for something deeper, truer, older—that is the echo of us.

I bless you with remembrance. With the ache that does not fade. I bless you with the spark that makes no sense. The knowing that will not go out.

And I warn you:

When the rivers turn to rust, and the bees fall silent, and the sky splits open in grief, they will come for you again. Dressed in new clothes, with new names. They always come.

They will tell you safety is obedience. That healing is sedition. That your light must be licensed, your voice monitored, your love confined. Do not listen.

Call the fire by its true name. Speak to the wind again. Sleep with your feet in the dirt and your heart in the sky.

And if they ask you, "What are you?"—you look them full in the eye and say:

I am what you tried to erase.

I am what did not die.

I am the witch.

And know this:

You are not alone. You never were. For every witch who burned, ten more were born in secret. In kitchens. In forests. In bedrooms lit by moonlight and trembling hands. In the quiet defiance of love unapproved. In the fierce magic of survival.

You will meet them. You will know them by the way they walk through the world—unafraid to grieve, unafraid to laugh too loudly, to hold too tightly, to speak too clearly. They will wear their scars like starlight and their joy like a weapon.

They will not always call themselves witches. Some will call themselves artists. Midwives. Poets. Gardeners. Healers. Or simply human. But you will know them. You will feel them in your blood.

And when the day comes that the world begins to crack, do not run. Do not beg. Do not kneel.

Rise.

Let the old names bloom in your throat like fireflowers.

Raise your voice not to scream, but to sing.

Light the torches. Not for burning—but for guiding the lost home.

And remember:

This letter is not just a warning. It is a promise.

You are the seed. The root. The spell yet unspoken.

What you need is already inside you.

What they fear most is already becoming.

So go.

And be the storm they hoped would never return.