The fog snagged briefly on the wind twisted Cyprus trees before the trees reluctantly let the fog drift in-land across Sharp Park and disolve into the hills. Two waking ravens landed on the trees and in the brightening dark of the dawn, they watched me walking along the berm watching the waves reach up, claw at the berm and relax again into the sea. The breeze was light, the air clean, fresh, refreshing. It was quiet, monochrome, solitary and I was happy. Then I turned and I saw a shadow in the fog and I saw the shadow resolve itself into a dark figure impassively, implacably nearing me.
It was the Witch of Sharp Park.
I had encountered the Witch many times and she always left me unsettled and upset for the day. Out of habit or self-protection, I turned to watch another wave grab at the berm, avoiding her eyes as she passed. In a few seconds I dared a glance to assure we would pass untouched and she was gone, disappeared. Where she should have been was a raven. The raven glared at me with his yellow unblinking eyes and then he flew with the breeze into the fog and disappeared heading for the hills. I noticed the two ravens in the trees were still watching me.
Where was the Witch? I turned and she wasn't behind me. I looked into the park and she was not to be seen. I walked over to the inland edge of the berm and peered over. She wasn't there. I looked back to the ocean and she wasn't there. She had not had the time to disappear into the fog, to turn away from me or to pass me.
She must have shape-shifted and, as a raven, she flew away from me. Well, I didn't really believe that but I could think of no other explanation. And I was to find out that this was the last time I was to see her.
For almost two years the Witch had occasionally appeared at dawn in the fog approaching me from the bottom of the bare hills at Mori Point. And she appeared only at dawn, only in the fog, only in that part of the berm. And while she came from the direction of Mori Point, she seemed to come from nowhere.
The first time I saw her, short and sturdy, with a gray tunic … or was it black … her head hidden in a cowl, I said good morning. She continued past me silently, as if I wasn't there, staring with unblinking eyes. Eyes that seemed not to see anything … or maybe saw through objects. An old woman, mouth turned downward, not angry, just cold, worn but not tired, emotionless. As if dead but determined. I imagined she had no one, nothing but the fog. No where to go but no reason to delay getting there. I sensed she had a message but the message wasn't for me. I doubt if it was for anyone.
I was creeped out and I laughingly told myself she must be a witch. For a couple subsequent encounters I again tried to make friendly eye contact but not only did she not respond but I began to feel physically turned back by her.
She was probably just homeless, harmless. But after weeks and months of her passing me silently, unseeing, as if I did not exist, she became a real witch in my mind. I did not want to see her and every time I did, I felt increasingly unsettled. And then, in front of me, as I watched, she shape shifted and disappeared from my life.
For the next couple of weeks I would stop where she had disappeared, puzzled. I looked for a possible route that could have quickly hidden her from my sight, but it wasn't possible for her to disappear from that spot. There was no where to go, nowhere to hide. Yet she had disappeared. As the weeks became months and I realized she was gone, my unlikely shape shifting possibility became my reality.
Then a few years later on another foggy dawn, I encountered a dog walking deliberately along the berm in the same place the Witch had disappeared. Of course, I had seen many dogs on the berm but they were always leashed or accompanied by a person. This was the first and only dog I ever saw running loose on the berm. Without stopping, the dog looked over at me briefly and disappeared.
Like that. In one step the dog had gone over the edge of the berm. In the same place the Witch had disappeared. I walked over and to my shock, I saw a faint path leading downward. A path but not the dog. There are many paths down the berm but I had never seen this path before. The dog knew of this path. And this was how the Witch had disappeared. I now knew she hadn't shape shifted. She had just walked down the path, just walked away. She might not even have been a witch. I felt better.
At least until the next day when I stopped to examine that path again. I could not find it. It had been faint, but I knew exactly where it was. Or had been. And now I couldn't find it. Over the next couple of years I looked for that faint path again and again, under all lighting conditions, all weather conditions. I could not find it and I never saw anyone, any dog, any animal use any path in that area. That path did not exist.
Had the Witch shaped shifted again? As a dog, had she shown me how she had disappeared? If she had used the path to disappear, why did she shape shift into the raven? How did the dog, or the Witch, make that path appear? And disappear? Was she … the raven, the dog … gone for good?
I needed an explanation. I decided that I needed to do fewer drugs. But then, I hadn't used any hallucinogens for about 25 years.
So I'm left with a shape shifting witch who maybe has left me.