Night presses heavy against the windows, and sleep does not come. Your chest heaves in shallow gasps, your pulse thrums in your temples, and the cold cuts beneath your skin as if it knows your fear. Sweat beads across your forehead, trickles down your neck, mingling with the chill that refuses to leave. You are trembling, weak, and the room tilts around you like a ship caught in storm currents. You try to call for Margaret, to feel her hand against yours, to anchor yourself in something steady—but your throat burns, your words fail.
When you open your eyes, the room is dark, the candlelight guttering low, casting long, trembling shadows across the walls. And there she is.
She stands at the edge of your bed, impossibly tall and impossibly still. A witch. Her cloak is black as a winter sea, hem frayed, sleeves trailing like smoke. Her hair glints faintly silver in the candlelight, and her eyes—unblinking—pierce you through the darkness. You are rooted to the bed, trembling, certain for a moment that you are seeing the remnants of fevered nightmares.
Margaret lies beside you, silent, eyes wide and glazed. She does not stir. Her hand rests on the sheets, as though tethered to you, yet unable to act. The sight of her immobilizes you almost as much as the woman before you.
The witch lifts a small bowl from the floor, tilting it slightly toward you. Inside lie two mushrooms. One pale, luminous as moonlight on water; the other darker, russet and almost sinister in its curve. Her fingers, long and thin, pluck the pale one first, holding it aloft.
“You’ve been poisoned,” she says, her voice low, smooth, and certain. “Only one of these will save you.” She sets the pale mushroom before you. Then she takes the dark one from the bowl, showing it as well, holding it between thumb and forefinger like a blade.
Your hands shake, and you do not move. “Why?” you manage to whisper, the words ragged.
She smiles, thin and cruel, a blade of a smile. “Revenge,” she says. “For Hyacint. For his death. You would have lived otherwise, unchecked. But the world does not permit your triumphs today.”
You curl inward, your strength slipping, muscles failing. “Why… why give me a chance at all?” you whisper. The sound is almost a groan.
“Because,” she says, her voice cutting like a knife, “you would rather have died than endure this life.”
The air seems to tighten around you. Your limbs grow heavier by the second. Sweat cools on your skin, your teeth chatter, and a strange buzzing rises in your ears. You feel your knees buckle. You collapse halfway onto the floor, but your eyes remain fixed on the mushrooms.
Margaret remains beside you, pale and silent. Her presence is a tether, yet she is trapped in something beyond speech, beyond will. You reach a trembling hand toward the pale mushroom, then pause, staring at the darker one. One feels like survival, like light; the other, perhaps death—or something worse. You do not know what kind of life awaits.
The witch steps closer, and the candlelight glances off her eyes, sharp as frost. “Choose,” she says. “Time is your enemy, and death is patient. One will let you live; one will let you die. But know this: the living path is not mercy. It is suffering. It is knowing everything, bearing everything, and still existing. Can you endure it?”
Your body shivers, and tears stream down your face. Fear gnaws at your chest. You feel the crow inside you, thrashing against ribs, wings beating a rhythm of dread. You feel its presence like a shadow, telling you that your choice is already a judgment.
You think of Margaret. Silent beside you, her beauty like a lantern in the darkness, her pulse quiet. If you live, she survives too. If you fail—if you choose wrongly—her life may end here, in this chamber, with you helpless. You taste the salt of tears and the salt of the sea in your mouth.
“Which is life?” you whisper, voice weak as the night air. “Which is death? And what kind of life will it be?”
The witch crouches slightly, tilting her head as though considering your weakness. “The pale one,” she says. “It looks like life because it preserves your body. But your spirit… your peace… that is not guaranteed. Life is not free from vengeance, from loss, from shadows that follow. The dark one… well, it is simpler. Nothing waits, nothing aches. Only silence.”
You collapse fully onto the bed now, shivering, your vision swimming. The pale mushroom glows faintly, a heartbeat in the gloom, while the dark one seems to drink in the shadows. You try to stand, but your knees fail. You grope toward Margaret, needing her touch, her voice—but she remains still.
“Why…” you croak, “…why let me live, only to suffer?”
The witch smiles again, cruel and final. “Because the world is not kind. Because you would have chosen the path of anger, revenge, and ruin. You are given a chance to endure, to carry the weight of what has been stolen and what you have lost. You are weak now, but you could rise. If you choose life.”
Your body trembles violently. The cold of your skin contrasts with the fever of your mind. You can feel your heart slowing, the edges of consciousness fraying. Every second stretches to an eternity. You close your eyes, the crow thrumming within you, wings scraping ribs, talons digging into your chest.
You hear nothing but your own ragged breathing and the soft pulse of the mushroom’s light. Pale. Alive. Or dark. Endless. Silent.
You cry out, but no sound escapes your throat. “Why…?” you whisper again, more to yourself than to anyone else. “Why give me a choice… now… when I am so small… so weak… so mortal?”
The witch tilts her head, her face now almost comforting in its impossibility. “Because death is easy. Life… life is the trial. And you… you are a creature who has not yet learned to endure. You would have died of grief, of desire, of fear. Now, you may choose to live, if you can.”
You stare at the mushrooms, each one heavy with meaning you cannot bear. The pale mushroom hums, faintly, like a pulse, like a living thing breathing at the edge of the night. The dark one sits, patient, unmoving, indifferent. Life. Death. Or perhaps… a life that is neither, a shadowed existence, a trial of the body and soul.
Your limbs no longer obey fully. The candlelight wavers. Margaret remains beside you, her warmth a faint anchor, her eyes uncomprehending, trapped in a silence you cannot penetrate.
The witch steps back. “Time wanes,” she says. “Your strength leaves you. The choice is yours — the burden of it, the consequence of it. One will preserve your body and condemn your soul. The other will release you from the torment you seek to flee, just to bury in a greater one. Which will you take?”
You reach with trembling hands, fingers brushing the stem of the pale mushroom. The glow pulses under your touch. You feel it as warmth, as life, as a promise. But the warmth is uncertain, the life is uncertain. And the crow inside you whispers: What kind of life is this, when the world still bleeds?
Your head swims, and your knees buckle further. Sweat chills on your skin. You hear the faint slap of the sea against the pier, the distant cry of gulls, the whisper of wind through the northern windows. The night feels eternal, the choice unbearable.
And yet, your fingers close around the mushroom. Your body quakes, your chest burns, your mind wavers between clarity and oblivion.
You lift it to your lips.
The witch’s eyes glint. Margaret stirs slightly, murmuring without waking.
The world tilts, and you taste the pulse of life—or something very like it—on your tongue.
The crow thrums within you, wings beating, a shadow, a sentinel, a herald of consequence.
You cannot see the road ahead. You cannot know what awaits. Only that you are choosing. Only that life, fragile and uncertain, waits for your decision.
You swallow.
And in the darkness, the northern wind whistles against the walls, carrying the scent of the sea, the memory of Moravice, and the weight of inevitability.
…..
You pick the pale mushroom, feeling its faint warmth pulse under your fingers.
…..
You pick the dark mushroom, its cold, weighty form sending a shiver through your body.
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