I'd never met anyone that raises mandrakes before.

Over breakfast one morning at a festival, a couple that do just that were telling a group of us about the process. It's very interesting. Where they live, it's too cold for the mandrakes to over-winter in the ground, so they dig them up every fall and keep them in boxes of sand through the winter. Then in the spring they replant them.

The advantage of all this exhuming and replanting, of course, being that they get to know each of the roots individually, maybe shape them a little, and photograph the mandrakes as they grow. Did we want to see the pictures?

Did we ever.

So there we are, oohing and aahing as the photos circulate. For all the world as if we were looking at pictures of someone's grandchildren: beaming grandparents, admiring circle. Witches and mandrakes.

It was one of those sublime moments in Witchdom—we've all had them—when you can only look over your own shoulder, watch us do what we do, and smile.

 

My people. I think I'll keep 'em.