You have to be careful with witches. They are sensitive about that type of behaviour and do not look kindly upon potential trespassers. But I knew that and therefore had put a good foot of unfettered light between her shadow and my boots.
   

Now I also knew – because I had been told – that it is not necessarily a good idea to argue with witches. If they said you had stepped on their shadow, why then you must have had. Perhaps only in your dreams but somewhere, somehow, you had. There was just no contradiction possible.
  

But my mother always says that I never pay attention to what I am told and in that instance I must admit – reluctantly - that she was right.

The old scowling biddy in front of me was obviously blind; there was just NO WAY I could have stepped on her shadow. Not even in intention and goodness knows I was tempted so, being the contrary creature I am.

So I opened my big mouth and said something like
    “Don’t be daft! I am not”.
    Or words to that effect.

Yeah. I know. It does sound bad, doesn’t it? I saw you cringe right now, I did.

Well, if that's any comfort to you, I also realised the enormity of it as soon as I heard – nay: felt – the words leave my tongue. Which I bit most viciously but – alas – too late to eat back the offensive terminology and tone.
I was in deep trouble.

But you know what? The darnedest thing happened: Here I was, sweating profusely, trying to control my bowels – keep them from dissolving and embarrassing me even further – but she did not even bothered with me.
She just left, as if all this was of no importance whatsoever, with that off-hand gesture one might do if throwing salt over their left shoulder to protect themselves against the evil eye. See what I mean?
For the briefest moment, I really felt like she had tossed me out of her mind and life completely. Neat, eh?

I had not even had the time to feel relieved.
There and then, I'd been transformed into a tree.

Now what type of curse is that, you ask?
Well, I can tell you: It's a pretty wicked one.
First you can't move or speak any more, which does reduce terribly your chances to try and change back into your usual self. And there could be no explaining to your Mum what you got yourself into this time. Plus you are stuck in the same position forever. I don't know if you have tried to remain static for a while, with your arms open, but if you have, you'll know that this is extremely hard work. And as a tree, you can't even sweat to cool off. It's like being condemned to a life of cramps you can't shake off or of backaches you can't get massages for. It's like carrying the whole sky on your shoulders. Even the lightest low cruising cloud is heavy weight and I can not begin to tell you what it was like to have birds on my branches, I swear. These sparrows are made of lead behind those fluffy feathers and they weigh TONS. In particular when they perch at the tip of the branches. And the pears!

Ah yes, because I haven't told you yet. It turned out I was a pear tree. I had nice flowers and all at first but, come autumn, those little fluffy things had mutated into enormous heavy lumps of flesh. Then kids started to climb on my branches to get at them, breaking plenty on the way. And having limbs broken is not a nice feeling, in case you'd wondered. It did lighten the burden somehow but it was all traumatic nevertheless.

Winter started to settle in – a nasty business as I couldn't even shiver – and I still did not know if and how I could change back, let alone when.

Would the witch relent? Maybe she'd forgotten me completely.

I had seen my Mum passing by my spot calling in anguish and it had really hurt not to be able to tell her I was there. I had cried then, big tears of sap coming from goodness knows where, but I soon learned to avoid that after hearing a farmer saying that I must be diseased and that maybe they'd better chop me up for wood. That soon sobered me up. I'd kept incredibly quiet and cheerful after this.

Then winter was dusting my branches with frost and snow – more weight to carry. Now I felt quite forlorn, despondent and needing company very badly. This is probably why, when the owl showed up and asked – nicely – if it could take shelter and rest on one of my branches, I felt generous and let it.
There was something else too: no other bird had ever spoken to me before. They'd whistle, chirp, chirrup, lilt, peep, trill, tweedle, tweet, twitter, warble or even purl but speak? Never.
So I tried and thought some words, asking the creature how come it could speak where the other birds did not?
And the wondrous thing is that it replied.

Told me that it was only the ghost of an owl – haven't I noticed that it did not weigh on my branch? I had not but admitted that it was true – and as such could communicate with all living creatures by thoughts, in particular with those who were under enchantment or curse, as I was.

Cool! I didn't know that birds could have ghosts too. Oh, but they could if they had been the victim of murder most foul and this one had been unlucky enough to be crucified on a barn door to ward off evil eye. Humans thought living owls brought ill fortune and trees thought bird ghosts were bad luck.
Now it was telling me! How come nobody had warned me about this?

The owl just frowned and told me the other trees had shouted warnings in their own language but since I was technically a human, I could not hear them. And besides, this evil eye business was all rubbish and I should not let it bother me.

In fact, since I had so graciously – if unwittingly - offered a supplicant shelter, it would tell me how I could get back to my human form.
And it did.

Now you'll have to realise that getting out of a curse is an unusually tricky business not to mention risky. But what the owl then told me was a work of art in that domain: it was simply impossible. That bitch of a witch had cursed me good and long, no question.
The “trick” was presumably straight forward: My shadow JUST needed to be overshadowed by that of a snowflake.
It's the “just” that killed me. “Understatement” doesn't even begin to cover the problem!
How could a single snowflake's shadow cover mine?

The owl did that weird movement they do with their head, a complete turn and back. Apparently it is their way of having fun and this little guy was laughing its head off at my expense.

“You're making this up, aren’t you?”
“Nooooo. I’m telling the truth. You can't manage it on your own of course but I can help. You see, ghosts have shadows as well...”
“No kidding! I've never seen any.”
“Seen many ghosts, have you?”
“Errr. No. Good point. Go ahead, then.”
“Thank you. So. As I was saying: ghosts have shadows too. HOWEVER, since we are ethereal, our shadows are not dark but luminous. They are also a little more substantial than we are and are sometimes used as mirrors by witches or as magnifying glasses...”
“And?”
“Ma-gni-fy-ing glas-ses.”

The owl seemed to think I should be getting a point. But pear trees are not renowned for their brains and I was cold. I tried to shrug but couldn't.
“Sorry, you've lost me.”

The owl sighed and puffed up its feathers.
“For a snowflake to cast a shadow at all, it must snow AND the sun must be shining at the same time.”
“Isn't that rare or ...?”
“Extremely. Actually, many people, including hosts of eminent scientists, would tell that it is nearly impossible. And yet, it sometimes rain with the sun being out so, in theory, it could also snow in such conditions.”
“What would a snow rainbow look like?”
“Sorry?”
“I was just wondering - what would a rainbow caused by snow look like?”
“Cold. Rainbows do not get into this. Do pay attention. When the time comes and this meteorological phenomenon happens, you must call me. I will come and place myself between a flake and you, and you will find that the shadow of that flake, through the magnifying glass of my shadow will be larger than your own.”
“You're sure? It sounds a little far fetched.”
“Curses usually are. But you don't have to believe me. Just try - you'll see for yourself.”
“And how am I supposed to call you, O My Saviour, on that fateful day?”
“Thornthrope.”
“Eh?”
“Thornthrope. My parents got a little ... errr... over the top with naming.”

I could have sworn it had blushed. Thornthrope. Now that's a lot of name. Not an easy thing to call out but... As the owl had said: most curses are far fetched.
So the ghost owl flew away and I started to wait for the impossible to happen.
Snow came all right, abundantly too, and the odd ray of sun as well, but they just did not seem to belong together.

And then one day...
It did not snow. It had however snowed aplenty the day before and all the world was covered in a thick layer of the cold powdery stuff. The sun was out and bright. It would have been ideal to warm up my wood but as there was a gelid breeze blowing its icy breath on all things. I was in a foul mood.
Suddenly I saw it happening just before what should have been my nose. The wind was swirling the unpacked snowflakes, making them dance in the sun.

“Thooornthroooope!”
The owl was there in an instant, swooping in from goodness knows where. It flew around a bit, looking for the perfect spot with respect to my shadow. It must have found it because I suddenly felt a wave of heat coming in from behind me and found myself foundering on all fours, trying to get up but unable to move because of my sore muscles.
Luckily - and oddly - enough I still had my clothes on but those had been spring items and were proving rather inadequate for this weather. However, there was nothing for it at the moment and I just lay in the snow, gasping for air in my own human lungs – they had been unused all that time and felt rusty, trying to catch a glimpse of Thornthrope.

I could not see my saviour anywhere, nor hear its voice. Maybe a human could not see the ghost of a bird? But it had said that a ghost could communicate with any living creature it wanted to. So why couldn't I hear its voice?

I struggled to my feet, hugging myself to keep warm, and scanning the scene.
Alas, all I found was a smouldering heap of ashes and feathers in the snow. The magnifying glass effect had rebound and set the poor bird on fire, burning it completely.
And I, who had never spared a thought for owls or raptors crucified on the doors of barns before that day, started to cry for that unfortunate life twice lost. Rocking over the pitiful remains, I howled and bawled against all the injustice in this world, all that greedy snappy voracious fate that cannot even spare a simple bird.
My tears must have drowned the last dying sparks because the pitiful bundle went completely dark. I took it in my hands, determined to give it a decent burial.
I took three hesitant steps and was trying to keep my balance when the weirdest and most awesome thing of all happened.

In my hands, all of the sudden, something in the ashes was moving. Peeling a sodden charred feather away, I saw the tiniest fluffy barn owl chick blinking at me with myopic eyes.

“Thornthrope!”
I swear - I think I saw it blush.

                                                                                                       ***

More about Nathalie

Nathalie Boisard-Beudin is a middle aged French woman living in Rome, Italy. She has more hobbies than spare time, alas - reading, cooking, writing, painting and photography - so hopes that her technical colleagues at the European Space Agency will soon come up with a solution to that problem by stretching the fabric of time. Either that or send her up to write about the travels and trials of the International Space Station, the way this was done for the exploratory missions of old. Clearly the woman is a dreamer.