* Author : Lori J. Torone
* Narrator : Simon Meddings
* Host : Summer Fletcher
* Audio Producer : Peter Adrian Behravesh
*
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Originally published in Metaphorosis.
Wytchen Wood
by Lori J. Torone
A decade of shavings covered the floor of Lewys’s carpentry shop. He didn’t bother sweeping any more, although he probably should — wood without magic produces a drab dust that desiccates the throat, shrivels the lungs. He coughed and gulped from his flask, stepping back from his work. Carving the finishing scrollwork on yet another hope chest for the latest bride-to-be in town did nothing to fill his own hollowness.
“Wait for me,” she had whispered in the wytchen grove so many years ago, her berry-scented breath caressing his cheek, “I will come back to you.” She’d taken magic with her, in the wytchen dust glinting in her sunlit hair as she waved goodbye from the newly-carved wagon. She took his heart as well, but left hope in its place.
Over the years, hope had drained into loneliness, empty and aching, present in the sound of his saw’s jagged edge, the taste of his own cough-strained, stale breath, the starkness of his bedroom above the shop. No chance of a bride now, for him, in this small town where he had spurned all coy glances sent his way, waiting for his true love to return.
He wished he hadn’t waited.
Still coughing, Lewys threw open the window shutters. He gulped fresh air. Delighted cries of children entered with the breeze.
A pageant wagon creaked into the town square outside his shop, horseless, shedding curls of magic onto the cobblestones from its warped wytchen beams. Children dropped coins into a box attached to the wagon’s carriage and scrambled for seats. Eyes widening in shock, Lewys unconsciously dug his fingernails into the windowsill. The wagon’s wood was peeling, its stage floor crooked, but it was still the same one. The only one.
As the threadbare curtain opened, more wood peels and sparkling dust showered the stage from the covered wagon’s rafters, a natural emission of the enchanted wood, once cut and carved. A princess puppet slumped against a painted forest backdrop. She wore a gown the deep blush of sunset, the falling wytchen dust creating a net of crystals in her golden hair. With the clack of wooden joints, she began a light, graceful dance. A troll, lumbering in from stage right, tore a gasp from the children.
Lewys saw what the audience did not know to look for: The shadow of the puppet master’s hands weaving along the stage floor. These puppets had no strings. The wytchen wood itself conjured the play, the magic within the wagon and the carved puppets animating them, their movements directed from above by the puppet master’s hands.
After the princess outsmarted the troll, she befriended a dragon, its velvet tongue unfurling like a panting dog. Adults and children alike cheered when she saved a village from a witch.
The curtain closed; the crowd dispersed.
Lewys grabbed his jerkin and dashed outside.
The wagon’s damage looked even worse up close. Red rope secured the corners, but it was a temporary bandage for the cracked joints which exposed the wood’s inner pith.
The old puppet master emerged from behind the curtain. “Master Lewys, look how well your craft weathered the years. Although, I must admit,
