5. Progress (Patreon)

This time had almost been different. She had been making her rounds, hood pulled low to avoid attention, when a woman about her age approached her—actually approached her—on the street in broad daylight. Perhaps the woman didn’t know how this was usually done. She had been so surprised at this display that she hadn’t seen the cart until it was too late. It had been rammed into her hip intentionally, of course, both to wound her and to prevent this new woman from making a fool of herself. As she dusted herself off, she wondered if it had all been an elaborate ruse. For a second there, she had thought she’d made actual progress with the people here. More fool her. The town would have to go without witchcraft for a week or two, she decided, and fled back into the woods.