
A Thought Experiment
Were there witches of our kind—people of the old ways—in the Thirteen Colonies?
Objectively speaking, probably not. (Still: a circle of thirteen stars, you say.)
But say there were. For the sake of story, let us just say that there were.
What would they have been like, those witches of the Revolution?
Fleeing the witch-hunts, we came. Seeking the freedom She promised our people, we came.
Forests like we had never seen before: vast, unending. And in them...Him, Him of Hoof and Horn. Him Whom we know too well to fear, already here. (Is He not everywhere?) Here and waiting. Waiting for His people.
“You shall be free,” He told us.
Here in the woods of the “New” World, we were.
What were we like, then, our people? How did we live? Did we know of others of our kind? Did out-folk talk of witchcraft also reassure—"There are others of us!"—as well as put on us the old fear?
How did we fare with those who were here before us? Were we, being ourselves an old folk, thereby the better able to know, to listen, to learn?
Did we not learn the New Land? Did we not learn the plants and animals, the ways and names?
Did we not learn the new ways, along with the old?
When Revolution came, where did we stand? What role, then, did we play?