C-TWT-009
Barista: Rachel Rosethorn
Date: Feb-3-2020
Receipt: C-TWT-009
Subject: Witches
I did not mean to hum. It just slipped out from between my… gums… from between my gums? I’m too tired to rhyme—though I doubt ████ cares much today, anyway.
A lullaby. One from Germany. Taught to me in a cramped candlelit room that always smelled of dried lavender and melted wax. Matron ██████… she sang it once as she stirred her tea. Said it was older than cities, older than stories, older than the Universe itself. I mostly remembered it, though my German may be rusty.
I used to hum it when I couldn’t sleep. When I couldn’t shut out the thoughts… the heartache. I hadn’t thought of it in years, to be honest. But today, walking through these too-green hills, I caught myself humming it again. Low. Soft. A comfort, nothing more.
But the █████ hummed it back.
Not loudly. Not mockingly. Like a whisper from the ████. The same melody, a half-beat behind me. Like the land was remembering it with me. I stopped, of course. Thought maybe it was the wind. Or some sort of Otherworldly █████. Or maybe just my mind playing tricks on me. But it echoed one more time, then faded. Like it had been real, just briefly. It echoed back not in German… not in English… but I think Gaelic? It would be fitting here, I suppose. Matron ██████… she was always strange. She is strange. She is—was?—the ████. Somehow. And now we’re in her █████.
I think I’ll hum something else tomorrow. Just in case the █████ decide to sing with me again.
Der ████ steigt auf, so kalt, so rund,
Er zieht das Meer vom tiefen Grund.
Und mit den Wellen reißt er sacht
Die Sterne fort durch dunkle Nacht.
Hoch glänzt █████, hell und fein,
Doch Gier macht ███████ so klein.
████, der Krieger, rot vor zorn,
Verloren in dem ewig Dorn.
██████, einst grün und klar,
Jetzt leer, geplündert, kahl und starr.
██████ lauert, tief und blau,
Still wie ein Grab, doch kalt wie Tau.
Klein █████ schläft im letzten Kreis,
Ein Schatten, stumm, doch still und heiß.
Doch mitten drin, im alten licht,
Liegt eine ████████, die Geschichten spricht.
Sie ruht im ██████, alt und wahr,
Wo alles einst begonnen war.
Decaffeinate Receipt
"Der Feuerdieb."
Poetry Trivia | 1 Word