The Night the Witch Stopped Waiting”

They said she haunted the forest long before the village ever existed. Some said that she had walked the earth for centuries, untouched by time. Others believed she was already dead, a wandering spirit wearing the memory of a woman's face. But the truth was far simpler, and far sadder: she was waiting.

And year after year, she would make that wordless pilgrimage to the heart of the forest, as autumn deepened and the pumpkins began to ripen like embers. Her crooked hat brushed against the low branches, and her long silver hair flowed behind her like a thin mist. The leaves on the forest floor knew the sound of her footsteps. The treetops bent to her, their leaves rustling softly, as if acknowledging the presence of an old friend.

To the villagers, she was just "The Witch of the Hollow."

To the forest, however, she was something much, much older—its last surviving witness.

That evening, the fog hung low, stretching its pale fingers across the soil. Candles flickered between the pumpkins, casting a trembling glow on her aging face. Wrinkles etched across her skin had formed a map of one lifetime spent in grief and silence. Her eyes, sunken yet piercing, held the weight of so many memories. In them lived storms, seasons, and something unspoken-something waiting to be forgiven.

She stood among the pumpkins, her hands clasped gently before her. She looked as though she had been carved from moonlight and sorrow.

Tonight was the night.

The villagers never comprehended why she would come back to this place each year. They made guesses-curses, rituals, unholy gatherings-but nobody ever dared come close enough to know the truth. They had long forgotten that she was once one of them.

She had been the village healer a hundred years before. People knocked on her door at dawn, carrying the sick in their arms and pleading with her. And she would always help. Her remedies smelled of rosemary and wild honey. Her smile was warm enough to reassure even the most frightened child. Her little cottage pulsed with life, joy, and laughter.

While she sat on the stoop and watched, her husband would chop wood out in the yard, and their daughter would play among the pumpkins, pretending they were magical lanterns in some fairy kingdom. The woman's heart was quietly full as she watched her family. She would never have dreamed that a single season could take it all from her.

The sickness came like a thief at midnight. It took her daughter first. Her husband next. And when the villagers panicked, they blamed her. They said her magic had invited the darkness. They said she had angered the forest. Fear is a powerful author; it rewrites truth faster than grief.

By the time the sickness left, the village had turned its back on her.

The healer became the witch.

The woman was a warning herself.

Her name disappeared, buried beneath the rumors and fearful stories.

But she never left the forest. She had made a promise.

She returned to that very clearing, standing among the pumpkins lit by trembling candlelight, for a hundred years: coming always on that very night-the night she lost everything. Some unspoken instinct tugged her back, year after year, and whispered that her story wasn’t finished.

Tonight, the forest seemed alive.

The air hummed with something familiar.

Even the fog seemed to hold its breath.

She closed her eyes.

“If any part of you still remembers me,” she whispered into the dark, “come back tonight.”

The woods remained silent for a very long time. Long enough for her to think she had finally gone mad, long enough for despair to settle into her bones once more.

Then—as softly as anything can—the wind shifted.

A faint glow emanated between trees, floating like a wandering ember. The pumpkins flickered as if bowing to the light. The woman’s breath caught in her throat.

The glow grew stronger, swirling softly, as if molded by invisible hands. The air was filled with the sweet scent of wild roses, which happened to be her daughter's favorite flower. Her eyes went wide. The ache in her heart sharpened like a blade.

"Is it you?" she whispered.

The glow pulsed.

And in that instant—less than a heartbeat of time—she felt them. Not with her eyes, but with something deeper. Her family, warm and whole, brushing softly against the edges of her soul. A touch like sunlight on cold skin. A warmth she hadn't felt in a hundred years.

A single tear ran down her wrinkled cheek.

The glow flickered and lingered and then slowly faded back into the forest. She didn't reach for it. She didn't cry out. She simply smiled-a small, fragile smile that cracked the mask of sorrow that she had worn for decades.

She knew peace for the first time in a century. The villagers would wake up the next morning and say they saw a strange light in the forest. They would make up stories, warnings, superstitions. But none of them would know the truth. The witch wasn't waiting any more. Finally, the dawn came for her.