Once in a small village there lived an old woman, she had lived on the outskirts of the village with an old black cat. The old woman only visited the village once a month for supplies and food.
Everyone in the village when to the same church,everyone except the old woman. The women of the village gossiped about the little old woman who lived by herself. The women often joked that the old woman was a witch because she looked aged and wicked.The children thought the old woman was a monster.The older of the children would tell the younger ones of stories of fright and fear about the old woman.They would tell the younger ones that she would bake them into a loaf of bread and eat them or feed them to the creatures she had made and that she turns people into animals if they anger her.A boy once claimed that his father saw the witch turn a man into a cat. The boy’s father told the village but no one believed him. It is said that no one can live on the outskirts because of all the trees that surrounded the village. Trees covered the area, you would have to climb the tallest tree in the forest to even see the small village.In the forest there were strange plants and creatures that roamed about. The old woman collected herbs and flowers to make oils and perfumes, but the village people believed that the herbs were really for potions and poison. One afternoon a few of the children from the village found a beautiful patch of flowers. The flowers were a midnight blue color and the stem was black and covered with thorns.The children were amazed by the beauty and tried to pick the flowers, so they could show their parents what pretty flowers they had found in the forest. An older boy by the age of ten tried to pick one but failed to do so. After the attempt to pick a flower, a misty cloud of purple fell upon them. One by one, all of the children fell to the forest floor.They were not sick nor were they tried but the aroma the flowers gave off made them fall ill.As the aroma grew, the flowers died.They had lost their elegance and their youthful feel. The mist slowly faded away and the children’s face started to shift.Decomposition of the children had begun. From full and hopeful faces to paper thin skin and teeth turn black, it’s almost as if the children were returning to the earth.Slowly their ribcages fell into their spines,skin transforms to moss and hair becomes grass.After all the bodies have returned to the earth, a new patch of flowers began to grow.Black roses with red stems. The old woman picks only two roses and says, “Those poor,pitiful fools. If only they knew that the stories and rumors were true.”