The first 100 years were the worst. This was the era where I had to watch all of my friends and family die. It was not fun at all, but at least I never had kids. I can't imagine how hard that would have been. I suppose I still can have kids now, but why would I? I know what will end up happening. I always use a condom now, no matter what. Parents, you want to make sure your kids are having safe sex? Tell them that if they end up pregnant or getting a girl pregnant, they will have to watch their child die. That will scare them into wearing every condom in the world.

It wasn't until about 500 years until I finally decided to talk to the witch again. I was still kinda upset, but enough time has passed where I figured I should let the past be the past. Was I going to just stay angry at her forever? Literally, forever? I didn't want that hate weighing on my heart. I decided to forgive. And she seemed to be remorseful. It is lonely to be immortal, as I have spent the last half a century realizing.

We get together and chat. She baked a pie. It is raspberry which I hate, but I keep it to myself. She is making an effort to apologize. She tells me how she has been alive for about 4700 years. The hardships of being a witch. Brooms just aren't what they used to be. She misses pointy hats which have gone out of style. Also, she is the last of her kind. Apparently a small meteor smashed into the earth and wiped out all the witches out. Either that or they evolved into birds. She doesn't remember.

I'm finally about to leave when I notice a shelf of potions. One of them is labeled "Immortality Antidote." I stare at it. And as I stare at it, I can feel her staring at me. I look over at her, fury behind my eyes. She looks back at me scared. Worried. Caught.

I grab it as she begs me to stop. She warns me that it won't do what I think it will. It is a fate worse than the immortality that she has already cursed me with. I don't care. I'm sick of living forever. Music has gotten so bad. There are like 10,000 Marvel movies. Enough! I'm done. I pop open the cork and chug the potion.

A meteor hits the earth and crashes into me. Either that or I turn into a bird. I don't remember.

After a period of silence, I said. "Have I told you, I hate you?"

"You tell me every year," The witch retorted.

We were sitting on a fishing boat - not a massive one, but big enough to easily carry us and our fishing rods. The colonists here in their floating houses hadn't named the planet yet; they'd been here for six years, and names came and went as did the people, finding it to be a dull world of water and fish. Now it was just a fishing outpost.

"In fact, you've been telling me for the past six-million years," The witch continued. "You need to get a better hobby."

I shrugged. "I actually like doing it. One day, you'll find a way to undo what you've done." I patted her on the back a little harder than I used to. "I believe in you."

She didn't say anything to that. For the first two-hundred years it had been Hell, watching my loved ones come and go, rot away into the earth, until mankind began to step out toward the rest of the Solar System. By then, I had learnt that attachments only caused grief of the worst kind.

It had been night time that I set my family house ablaze, watching as my last link to my normal life crashed to the ground. I vanished before the fire service had arrived.

"I think I have something," The witch said, reeling back the string. Indeed she had gotten something. A blue fish the size of a human arm burst from the water, its purple and green fins flapping frantically. The witch threw it into the empty bucket. "And then you'll kill me, I suppose, once I've found a way?"

"Yes," I said calmly, watching the fish flap around helplessly, imagining it was the witch that had stolen everything from me. Once again, I suppressed any indication my blood was boiling. "And then I'll watch you die."

The Witch of Weirwoods

“Tea?” the witch said, moving about her little thatch-roofed stone cottage, gathering a kettle and the ingredients to brew. “Can’t have a talk without tea, can we? What would my neighbors think?” She laughed as though she’d made a great joke. “Oh dear me, I haven’t any neighbors, have I?”

Shriva could only wonder at the eccentric woman and the letter she’d sent inviting her to tea. She was nothing like the stories said to expect. Rather than bent with age and a face made hideous by warts and hairy moles, she was quite lovely, in an ageless sort of way. Long golden tresses fell in waves down her back, and blue eyes sparkled like glass in the firelight. She wore a stout woolen dress slashed with cream across the breast with just a bit of simple embroidery on the shoulders and moved with a motherly grace that put Shriva at ease.

“Shriva is such a lovely name,” the witch said, bustling about various cabinets and over to the stone hearth, where she hung the kettle on a hook over the flames. “Your mother named you well, Shriva. A lovely woman, she was.”

Shriva blinked.

Had she told the witch her name? She was sure she hadn't. Then the rest of what the witch had said hit her. “You knew my mother?” Something quickened in her chest.

“Oh yes, dear,” the witch seemed puzzled for a moment by the various tea leaves she was setting out for the water to boil. “I knew her quite well. I did.”

Shriva didn’t believe the witch. Her mother had never mentioned knowing her. All she’d ever said was that she lived in Weirwood and kept to herself, though she disagreed with her way of life. Nothing more. The rest of the town seemed to revile the witch, thinking her evil and hungry for the flesh of children.

“My mother also named me well, my dear,” the witch said with a hint of a smile quirking on full lips with a natural hue that caught the eye. “Both me and my sister. A good mother, she was. Full of love and the light of goodness that shined from her heart. I miss her so very much.”

The kettle whistled, and the witch moved to fetch it from the hearth. Shriva’s eyebrows rose when she seized the hot metal in her bare hands without so much as a yelp.

“I’m sorry to hear about your mother, ma’am,” Shriva might be the guest of a witch, but she meant to maintain her manners. “Lost my mother winter past. Blood fever. Still doesn’t seem real.”

The witch brought the kettle to the table and poured two steaming cups of tea that gave the air a pleasant scent. Shriva sipped as the storm that had threatened all day finally broke outside. The wind gusted fat raindrops against the cottage’s two little square windows and moaned through the eaves.

“Oh, I know, my dear. Blood fever, such a dreadful disease,” the witch settled across from Shriva and gazed at her over the rim of her mug. “My sister refused the tonic I offered, which would have cured that Blood Fever. Always was stubborn, my sister.”

Shriva’s mug hit the reed-strewn tile floor and rolled away.

What was this witch getting at? Was she a mad woman?

“What are you saying?” Shriva’s voice sounded distant as her head spun. This was some kind of trick. The witch was trying to trick her. But why?

“Why did you ask me here?” Shriva resisted the urge to stand and dart for the door but couldn’t stop a glance over her shoulder. “Why did you really ask me here?”

The witch set her mug down and smiled fondly. “Why, my dear,” she said. “You’re the only family I have left.”

Her eyes darted to the cup of tea on the floor, then back to Shriva. “We will be friends forever.”

I throw the stone once again. This time it bounces off the water 5 times. I whoop in victory, a childish gleam in my eyes.
"Oh my, 5 jumps?"

I turn around so fast that my head starts spinning. After all this time humanity still hasn't found a cure for iron deficiency. I pray it's not her behind me. Sadly, faith has always failed me.

There she stands. The woman I spend an eternity hating. The woman who gave me this so-called gift. Her youthful face, with not even a single wrinkle on it. Her sickly green eyes and sharp smile. The wind is blowing her hair in her face, making her look like a character from a fairy tale.

"What do you want."

Her smile widens and she shakes her head.

"I simply wanted to check on you dear. Immortality gets boring sometimes."

"Wouldn't have guessed."

If my mother was still alive she would have scolded me for being mean. But she is not here now, is she?

"Are you still holding onto that stupid grudge? It has been almost 1000 years!"

"Stupid? You ruined my life!"

The witch's smile falls and there is an annoyed look in her eyes.

"You know, if you ever tried looking at it from the good side, you would have realized that immortality has its perks. If it didn't, humanity wouldn't be trying so hard to get to it."

"Humans are clueless creatures. Each one of them has dreamed of being immortal since they were little kids. Including me. But they don't realize how absolutely awful it is."

"Oh, darling, awful is a strong word to use. It's simply... unique."

I look away and bend down to pick up another stone. The stupid witch doesn't get it. I throw the stone with all my might and instead of jumping off the surface of the lake, it sinks down. I sigh and sit down on the sand.

I hear the witch giggle behind me and a few seconds later she is right next to me on the sand.

"You know, after all this time you never told me why you chose to turn me."

I turn to her and there is a faraway look in her eyes.

"I was just lonely."

And those words surprisingly don't shock me. I can't say I didn't expect that.

"But I was dying when you came to me."

"Exactly Bianca. I was with Lady Death when she was supposed to come and get you. And I saw it in her lists. Your heart was pure and kind. So I chose to save you from her. I needed a friend and you needed saving."

She laughs humorlessly.

"At the time I didn't realize I was dooming you."

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