The Tale of the Bramble Berry Bruja
Long ago there was a young healer named Elinor.
Her mother taught her how to read the language of leaves and roots and how to tell which could heal…and which could kill.
One day, while walking along the Black Water River with a friend from a nearby village, Elinor felt herself drawn from the path.
They found themselves at the edge of the Bramble Berry Woods, in front of an archway of black bramble vines. Several crows perched on the thorns above, watching with glossy, knowing eyes.
Her friend, not sensing the danger, reached out and plucked a vibrant, red berry. The vines came alive with a swiftness that defied understanding, scattering the crows with their raucous caws to the skies above. The vines coiled around her friend like chains, thorns pressing dangerously close to his throat.
With a cry, Elinor thrust her palms against the vines. A thorn pierced her skin — pain first, then awe. The forest came alive inside her. Suddenly she felt the scurry of beetles under leaves, bramble roots drinking from hidden springs, claws of crows gripping the thorns.
And then she heard the brambles whisper: “He has taken what is not his.”
“It was an accident,” she begged. “He didn’t know.”
The vines flexed, as if considering, then asked: “Will you take his place?”
Her friend’s eyes were wide with terror. Elinor met his gaze, steady and sure, “yes,” she promised.
The vines released him. He staggered forward, gasping, “No, Ellie!” But she gripped his hand, her eyes distant, her voice no longer her own:
Her eyes cleared. She spoke gently, though her voice trembled: “Please warn the village. Tell them to stay away… and that they must find a new healer.” For the first time, she seemed to grasp what she had given up.
She let his hand slip free and turned before his pleading eyes could sway her. A sigh of relief escaped as she heard his frantic retreat, his voice breaking as he called her name again and again — until the vines hushed his voice, closing the path behind him.
Before her, a mossy green trail unfurled. She stepped forward, the brambles enclosing her in their embrace.
At its end stood a ramshackle watermill on the dark riverbank. From the outside, it seemed ready to collapse, but within, it was wondrous: shelves of books, jars of rare seeds, exotic plants she had only dreamed of. Her chest swelled with wonder.
On the kitchen table sat a basket filled with mushrooms, herbs and the berries that had sealed her fate. She touched them with reverence. She knew instinctively that she would spend her life guarding the berries and vines, learning their secrets — turning poison into healing and perhaps to things yet unknown.
Reaching with her mind into the brambles, a faint breeze stirred across her skin, she felt the crows — her crows — waiting above. She sensed the darker places too, where bones lay hidden, thieves previously judged unworthy, lost in endless thorn mazes, left to the berries they had once tried to steal.
But she also felt paths she could open, for those the brambles deemed worthy. With a steady breath, she settled into her fate. This place was where she was meant to be and had been waiting for her for a very long time.
From that day forward, Elinor was no more.
She was the Bramble Berry Bruja.
