Three Things Challenge #MM90: The Hallowed Huff and the Handy Witch

Three Things Challenge #MM90

The three words today are:
HANDY
HALLOWED
HUFF

The Hallowed Huff and the Handy Witch

In the mist-veiled glen of Everdusk, where twilight clung to the trees like silver cobwebs and time walked backwards on certain days, there lived a witch known only as Handy. No one remembered her true name, and no one dared ask. Her hands were said to fix what the world forgot—broken memories, fading magic, hearts shattered by grief. She did not speak much, but when she did, the forest listened.

She lived in a crooked cottage wrapped in ivy, where potions brewed themselves and the chimney puffed with spells instead of smoke. Handy was not young, nor old—she simply was. And she was needed.

But something stirred beyond the vale. A Hallowed Huff, ancient and bitter, had awoken beneath the roots of the Hollowing Tree. It was not a creature of flesh, but of cursed breath—a spirit of judgment that rose when the balance of magic and memory tilted too far. It sighed through the land like winter wind, stealing colors, names, and warmth. Villagers forgot their stories. Stars blinked out of the sky.

The Huff had no form, only sound: a deep exhalation laced with sorrow and warning. The last time it woke, three centuries were lost to silence.

One morning, Handy found her reflection missing from the mirror. That was how she knew: the Huff had noticed her. It wanted her gone, or forgotten.

But Handy, for all her quietness, was not one to vanish.

She ventured into the Hollowing Tree, her boots crunching on roots that whispered, “Turn back.” She brought only a satchel, a bell with no clapper, and a single blue flame cupped in her palm. Inside her heart, she carried every broken story she’d ever mended.

At the tree’s heart, the Huff awaited, a swirling breath of ash and echo. It sighed at her—low, long, eternal.

But Handy, with fingers calloused from magic, reached into her satchel and took out the bell. She did not need a clapper.

Instead, she whispered a name into the hollow of the bell: her own. The name she hadn’t spoken in a thousand years. The one the world forgot.

The bell sang—not in sound, but in memory. The Huff paused.

She raised the blue flame and fed it every sorrow she’d ever stitched back together, every tale she’d saved, every love she’d held and let go. The flame became a blaze, not to burn, but to remember.

And the Huff, for the first time, inhaled.

It tasted her truth. It tasted balance. And it wept—not in rain, but in petals of light that fell over Everdusk for seven days and seven nights.

The Huff returned to slumber, deeper than ever.

And Handy?

She walked back through the glen with no shadow behind her—only stories. Wherever she passed, the wind whispered her name again.

And those who listened?
They never forgot.

Thank-you for reading.

Much Love and Light,

Brenda Marie