Some stories get told and retold, but never get rightly said in the telling and re-telling.
This story’s been told and retold–in both cases by men. Why men think they can tell a story about witches and houses and shoes I’ll never understand. But their versions have gone on long enough and spread far enough, and it’s time a woman told the story–a woman who’s a witch and knows which is which in this story about witches.
And this is a story about witches–about two witches in particular: one called good and the other called wicked. And while much has been said about these witches, what people don’t know from the stories men have told is that these two witches loved one another, and their love was good and their love was wicked.
So let me start again, in the way all stories start, in that once upon a time…
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Once upon a time, in a faraway universe, a world was born in the way that most worlds are born: that is, from the conflict and strife between gods and beasts. Legends tell of a Dragon of Time and a Unicorn of Space, and the war they fought for reasons long lost. Eons passed and constellations withered as the Dragon and the Unicorn danced their lethal dance–until, at last, in a final cataclysmic charge, they rushed at each other, Unicorn horn against Dragon fire. In the energies unleashed by the violence of their deaths, a world was born and a gate was born. The world was named Oz. The gate had no name.
Oz had no people; at least not at first. Its native races were sentient beasts–“Animals” that could think and talk and ponder and dream. But the nameless gate was a celestial door, and it opened at times and seasons beyond the Animals’ ken. From these openings came the eventual peoples of Oz: the Gillikinese, the Munchkins, the Quadlings, the Winkies; all of them alien races blown into the land of Beasts.
But not all that came through the Gate were good to Oz or good for Oz. Legends spoke of dreadful monsters and demonic beings and other creatures too horrendous for words. During these times, when the Gate brought evil, the founding spirits of Oz would reawaken to protect their world. That is, the Dragon and the Unicorn would return to Oz in forms unknown, and battle the menace until the danger had passed.
As time passed and Oz grew older, so did the legend of the Avatars of the Beasts. During darkling ages, the races of Oz knew to expect the return of the Dragon and the return of the Unicorn. But as in any world, beings will arise that crave power at any cost, and in Oz, these beings sought to exploit the powers of the Avatars at the times that they emerged. To protect the Avatars and the future of Oz, a race of guardians eventually evolved who called themselves the Keepers of the Myth. Their sole task was to ensure that whenever the reincarnations occurred, the Avatars would be able to fulfill their task and restore the balance of their disordered world.
All this, at least, is what the legends say, and as everyone knows, legends are not to be trusted. So let us leave these myths and legends of old behind and go to stories of the present age instead. And so our real story begins…