Halloween was in the air. Evening was coming noticably earlier, and now that a belated "indian summer" had passed, evenings were quite nippy. At school, Anna saw images and paper cut outs of witches dressed in black on broom sticks, witches with black cats, black spiders, white skeletons, white ghosts, orange jack-o-lantern's, black bats, and the like. The images of witches were all of old knarly ugly witches, often with bumps on their noses.

It was a scary and unsettling time. She had heard that witches didn't really exist. That was sort of reassuring except that she had also heard that in the past women had been tried for being witches. That certainly was stupid and mean if there was no such thing as witches. It made her mad just to think about it. And another thing, someone told her that there were a number of people today who believed they were witches. And apparently they didn't think witches were necessarily bad.

The dark of night was scary enough. And thoughts of evil ugly witches flying around in the sky on their broom sticks, and slinky black cats that might cross your path and give you bad luck, and voracious black bats flying around in pitch dark that might land on your head surely did not help. It was all very creepy.

Anna fell asleep that night to a mix of Halloween images she had seen over the past few days and a potpourri of feelings she had felt about them. And she had oodles of unanswered question, many of them about witches. Such as: What was a witch, anyway? And were there really any witches? And were witches bad? Just before she fell asleep, it occurred to her that it would be good to talk to Luv about her feelings and questions. He seemed to be a bear of the world.

Next thing she knew, she was in the familiar garden where she always encounterd Luv. And shortly he appeared, smiling.

"What's up?", he inquired.

"Well, I don't know where to start," said Anna, agitated and somewhat surprised at her uncertainty.

"Why don't you start with how you feel right now?" suggested Luv sensibly.

Whereupon Anna, speaking very rapidly, told him how she felt somewhat creepy and scared like something bad was, maybe, going to happen. She told him she was puzzled by a lot of things, and especially about witches.

Luv asked her what she would like to know about witches.

"Do you actually know anything about witches?", Anna challenged.

"I should think so!" said Luv. "I'm married to a witch. And I've studied sourcery, which many witches practice. Is that enough credentials to suit you?", he continued, somewhat snootily. He seemed to be somewhat peeved.

"But, Luv I didn't even know you were married. And to a witch at that. Could you, pretty please, forgive me if I seemed impertentent. And could you, pretty please, tell me about your wife and about witches."

"Well, when you put it like that, I suppose I can," said Luv, who was now grinning from ear to ear like a Cheshire cat, but didn't seem to be disappearing at all. "First off, there is no big secret about what a witch is. A witch is simply a person with a great sensitivity to and connection with natural things, especially animals and insects, but also plants and even the sun and the wind. Witches are usually, but not always women.

"Witches are certainly real. My wife, bless her heart, is a fine and very beautiful witch. And on every world I know of that has people, there are witches.

"Are witches bad? I suppose some are, but generally I think they are somewhat better people because of their connection to nature. Still there are some witches that I'd rather not deal with. Anyway, who am I to say who is good and who is bad?"

"Luv married, what a concept," thought Anna, "What a concept!". And then she awoke.

Somehow Anna now found Halloween very fun and invigorating. She no longer found it creepy. Or rather, she still found it creepy, but that just made it more enjoyable. And she knew what a witch was! Way cool!

But she wondered, how do you tell if someone is a witch?

THE END