Milk teeth

Why are you planting his teeth in the garden?

The evil sorceress retired upon her marriage, devoting herself to her husband and his land in the Valley. After their first year together, she quickened with a son. As she swelled and curved, her husband forgot she had once ruled a land of darkness and ravening monsters. When their boy came roaring into the world with a mouthful of precocious teeth, the sorceress forgot as well.

The boy spent his milk years in the garden with his mother. He toddled behind her as she cut herbs, healed bug-battered bushes, and collected precious seeds. He pulled on tender tomato plants and stuffed himself with strawberries. He grew tall, strong, and even somewhat useful.

When his baby teeth fell out, the sorceress planted them in a row in front of their cabin.

“Why are you planting my teeth?” he asked through a gummy, bloody grin.

The sorceress replied, but the boy didn’t hear her answer. He was running to greet his father, who had a doe over one shoulder and a bow over the other.

---

The boy began spending his days in the woods with his father, learning to stalk and kill. The sorceress passed her days alone, tending the garden and storing vegetables for winter. She dreamed of a time when her life had been rougher and more vital. When kingdoms rose and fell at her command. When monsters roared and picked men from their teeth.

She began working a little magic here and there to amuse herself. Nothing fancy, just simple, homey spells to make their cabin cleaner and more comfortable. Her husband praised her industry and advised their son to marry a hard-working woman like his mother. Her son inhaled his venison stew, wiped his mouth, and asked for more.

One day, out of pure boredom, she turned their cabin into an old Castilian castle. When her husband emerged from the woods with a wild boar, he took one look at the dragon-filled moat and serpentine turrets, and fled into the forest with their son. The sorceress sighed. She turned the castle back into a cabin and skinned the boar her husband had dropped. Her husband and son returned for a sullen dinner. No one said anything about what had happened.

After the boy had gone to bed, her husband grabbed her arm. “Don’t turn his head with your foolishness. I’m teaching him to hunt and fight like a real, human man.”

The sorceress vaguely recalled killing insolent wretches. Her husband released her arm, yelping in pain.

---

War came to the Valley. The sorceress remembered war. It smelled like pine pitch and vomit and burning shit. She wanted to flee, but her husband vowed to defend his land. “We are not leaving. These woods have been in my family for fifty generations. Our blood has nourished the soil. I can protect us from any stray marauders.”

Her son, now sixteen, glowed with anticipation. “And I can help you! I’m old enough to wield a staff.”

Her husband smiled with fatherly pride. “Yes, you are.”

That very night, a band of deserters found their cabin and began tearing up the garden like a litter of piglets. The sorceress cursed softly. Her husband and son leaped from their beds and gathered their weapons. While they strapped on big sticks and small knives, she slipped outside and whispered a single word to her son’s milk teeth still nestled in the earth.

Grow.

Huge, ivory monsters with red eyes, wet, gaping mouths, and pink, prehensile tails exploded from the earth. After rubbing dirt from their faces with giant, crablike claws, they plucked the deserters like dandelions. They popped off their heads, drank their blood, and crushed their bones into the ground. Once sated, the monsters shrank back into teeth and slowly melted away.

The sorceress turned to see her husband and son standing behind her, one frowning and the other wild-eyed and alert. She put her arm around her husband and hissed in his ear.

“He’s my son, too.”