Story: Waldeinsamkeit - Village Witch #8

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8th session of the solo TTRPG Village Witch, this 924 word story was inspired by the "Waldeinsamkeit (German)" square on my April 2022 Untranslatable Words Bingo Card. You can read the earlier stories for this series on the landing page for Village Witch - Edwina! 

Waldeinsamkeit

Edwina woke to the blast of sharp tuned steam whistles calling the shift change for Alpha Minerals Mining Company just before the dawn of her third day in Murkwell. She'd toppled out of bed that first morning when the whistles blew and needed a calming tonic just to get her heart settled back behind her breastbone from where it had lodged in her throat in fright. Now, the piercing alarm had her tossing back the covers and leaping towards the day.

 

As she made a simple porridge of oats, cream, and currants to break her fast she ruminated on some of the answers she'd received since her confusing arrival to the town. 

 

***

She'd met with Alderwoman Viola Brosser shortly after healing Mrs. Edith Abreo from the injuries dealt by her son's attack. The place that the teenaged boys, Loup and Renard, had dragged off Edith's reprobate son towards had in fact been the Assembly Hall Edwina was searching for, and by the time Edith was well enough to stand up off the wooden planks of the alley, she and Cherre Desmarais, had decided to follow the boys. Edwina remembered marching along with the women, one hand cupping Edith's elbow, as Cherre supported her from the other side. 

 

Five of the seven Alder’s for Murkwell had been in attendance at the Assembly Hall that afternoon, and after hearing from all sides, and in fact having several questions for Edwina herself, had tossed Alain Abreo into the town geôle for holding until a proper Queendom’s Judge could be requested to conduct a trial. Alderwoman Brosser had then asked Edwina to stay behind while dismissing the other townsfolk from the Hall, and so Edwina had met the majority of the Alder’s that afternoon, instead of just the one with whom she’d been communicating. It was a bit unsettling, having them all arrayed on one side of the heavy Alder’s table, and her on the other. Too much like an impromptu testing back at the Arcane Academy.

 

But she’d made her introductions, answered a few basic questions, and asked one of her own that she’d found very pressing since the moment she’d stepped into town; What was Alpha Mineral’s Mining Company? The Alders had several different reactions to her query. Edwina had noted how the elderly man on the end slumped back in his chair, folded his arms across his chest and looked annoyed in general, a plump middle-aged woman sort of folded down into herself, a red faced man at the other end puffed up and looked defiantly angry, the bespectacled merchant twisted his lips in distaste, all while Alderwoman Brosser had loosed a long aggrieved sigh and answered.

 

“A mistake. Probably.”

 

***

The rest of that first afternoon had continued with Alderwoman Brosser giving her a full tour of the town, the expansion area created by the mining company that had been added five years prior, and a long walk around Murkwell lake itself. 

 

During the hours they spent on their journey around the lake Viola, just Viola if she’d please, had laid out the town’s situation. They’d been a small fishing village. Content, secure, and stable, if not particularly wealthy or renowned. And five years back the Alder’s at that time had been approached by Alpha Minerals Mining Company to lease a large part of their land for kaolin mining. They’d been seduced by the promise of great prosperity for all the townsfolk into signing what came to be considered a very poor deal for the town. And Murkwell was being slowly swallowed by Alpha Minerals.

 

Viola had ended her explanations by saying, “You’re here for the town Edwina. We badly need you for the whole Summer. The Mining Company has a Trinity of their own and can fend for itself. But we’ve had a soothsayer predict a disaster sometime this summer. We don’t know when, and we don’t know what, but we don’t trust the mining company to share its Witch’s protection. We think they’d gladly let the town be wiped out for good so they can take full control.”

 

***

Edwina cleaned her bowl and stepped out onto the tiny covered back porch of the mint green stilt-house she’d been shown to after her trip around the lake with Viola. She marveled again at the unobstructed view the small cabin granted her of Murkwell lake. It was dark water, edges thick with reeds and rushes, willows, and other water loving vegetation. It was so pretty to watch the sun rising over the far Eastern edge, hear the buzz of crickets and other insects. But towards the Northern edge she could see the clear-cut area where Alpha Minerals was strip mining the shore for kaolin clay. An essential component of Eastborne porcelain, she’d never considered how the process of extracting the clay would leave such an ugly mar on the lovely landscapes of places like Murkwell lake. She doubted many others of the Queendom considered it either, when they dreamt of an ewer and basin made of fine porcelain, or of an entire set of precious Eastborne dinnerware. 

 

A pity, because while the soothsayer’s prediction had been vague and next to useless, Edwina used her time this morning to practice the Waldeinsamkeit; embracing her solitude, alone on the edge of the lake, she sank into a connectedness with Terra. As Edwina settled deep into the ecosystem around her, reaching out to determine the health of the area, she could keenly feel an imbalance, and knew too that a disaster in Murkwell was imminent. 

~~~Notes~~~

 

For anyone interested - this is the inspiration for Edwina's Stilt House in Murkwell, showing the back porch with its view out over the lake: