‘In the Mirrordeep, you will face your true self,’ the witch had said.
So she descended into that matte black lake, and not a ripple appeared at her passage. Down through the dark and cold that slicked her skin as she drifted ever lower.
Slowly, darkness gave way to light. At the bottom of the Mirrordeep, in glassy water on a bed of crystalline sand, she found a cat with fur in rainbow hues, curled and wet and alone.
She took it into her arms. It huddled against her chest and she kicked back up to the surface.
When she breached, the witch nodded. ‘Good,’ said the witch. ‘You will need a companion for what comes next. The life of a witch is not easy.’
She looked down at the cat in her arms. It blinked up at her, scraggly and shivering, and she held it closer.
‘So this … is me?’
‘We are all of us made of many parts,’ the witch replied. ‘But you’ll learn that soon enough.’
—
Another microfiction. Image by StockSnap from Pixabay.