brightwitchbrews

[brightwitchbrews]

There crept, from beneath a sunstone leaf, a questing and curious stalk. Beflowered with daisies, and hyacinths, and speckle-hearted pansies, the stalk explores. Observes. Mimics.

It is a lonely quest, the acquisition of new faces, the disconcerting beauty of borrowed forms fluttering in the summer-silk breeze. The stalk grows, encircling boughs and roots, petals winking with star-bright dew, until it is indistinguishable from the woodland legion. Until it is all. And nothing of its own.

[brightwitchbrews]

Crystal Path ~ A solo journaling role-playing game for witchy wanderings through magical woods

Set in the world of my fantasy tales, Crystal Path is a role-playing game for the solo story-teller, offering guided journeys through the magical forests of Edenwood.

Whether you enjoy cosy foraging through dappled glades, or dark and misty paths known only to the ghosts of the woods, this game has something to offer lovers of fantasy, story craft, journaling, and gaming!

✨ Download and play free! ~ No signup needed

🔗: Crystal Path

[brightwitchbrews]

Ghost Lights

A Ghosts of Grimwood novelette about two sisters struggling to reconcile their ambitions, until a fatal mistake haunts them beyond death.

A journey through realms of myth, and a sister’s ultimate sacrifice, may be the key to a miracle of magic.

✨ Dark academia

✨ Magical academia

✨ Underworld

✨ Bittersweet

✨ Gothic alchemy vibes

✨ Close sisters

✨ Sibling rivalry

Artwork by Zack @paintcapsule

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📚 Ghost Lights

[brightwitchbrews]

The witch’s tree is a twisted, cosy thing of red wood and kept promises.

She watered it with light spooled from her own threadbare soul, coaxing home and hearth from the splinters of weary saplings.

In time, the boughs bore patchwork fruit and woollen roots, the better to darn the seams of her fractured heart.

[brightwitchbrews]

When storms come howling through your waking dreams and sleepless heart, stir your cup and watch as the lightning illuminates your landscape. Crags and steepled slopes look harsh against the blue and white horizon; revel in their teeth for that ceaseless, frigid instant, and know the edges will soften once more at daybreak.

[brightwitchbrews]

Little ghosts spill like syrup from boughs and knotted hollows, chasing songs that promise sanctuary far beneath the earth. Through cracks they slip and tumble downwards, following spiralled lines that usher souls beyond the roaring veil.

Down they fall, spinning through chasms of ragged diamond, and come to sleep amongst beds of dreams pretending to be flowers.

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✨ find more teatime tales

[brightwitchbrews]

Beneath the shadows of a bone-grey tree there is a hollow where flowers hide. Amongst this bed of spines and wary petals sleeps a fox-shaped ghoul.

If coaxed and praised and bargained with, just so, he might agree to keep your most treasured memories safe within his den.

If the ghoul is feeling especially generous, he may even relinquish them upon your return… in this life, or the next.

[brightwitchbrews]

Deep in the woods, beyond rockpools filled with the tears of ancient tides… past the logs that pretend to sleep… beyond sight, even, of the last morning star… a young princess watches the moon fall and catches glitter from the wings of moths.

She gathers this magic for potions stirred in secret cauldrons, filled with mud and river gems. Her keepers sigh, hiding smiles as she presses her work into the flowerbeds. When the roses bloom at last, they flutter with the memory of dew-kissed flight.

[brightwitchbrews]

There is a witch in the woods who speaks in autumn riddles that fizz and snap like toffeed sugar. Her words melt beneath the mind, pouring down to fill the cracks of splintered hearts and bones hollowed by trickles, rivers, oceans of grief. Her magic carries the scent of home.

[brightwitchbrews]

[brightwitchbrews]

[brightwitchbrews]

Marmalade the wood witch and her chaotic woodland companion, Marmot, enjoy a picnic overlooking the autumnal wilds of Faewood. Illustrated by Zack @paintcapsule

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About Me

Hello and welcome fellow teatime daydreamers! I'm Sarah Louise, writer, artist, and proprietor of Bright Witch ✨

I write ethereal fantasy with dark fairy tale vibes for those who enjoy a few shivers and meltingly cosy moments by the crackling hearth.

Together my partner, Zack @paintcapsule, and I bring the magic of my stories to life in both digital and natural media art.

Website | Patreon | Art Prints

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Stories

Marmalade's Love Potion

A cosy cottagecore romance with witches, ethereal forests, and ghosts that creep amongst the shadows...

Sequestered in the wilds of ethereal Faewood, Princess Penelope has spent her life yearning for love and home. Long abandoned by family and shunned by her peers, Penelope’s hopes are waning.

An unexpected invitation to the Dark Moon Ball may be her last chance to win the love of her dreams. Desperate for a fairy tale, Penelope beseeches a witch to ensure her happily ever after.

Instead, she is spelled into the path of ancient horrors, enchanting strangers with dangerous secrets, and hard truths at odds with her desires. Raising ghosts of the past that threaten more than she dreamed, Penelope must choose between the love she craves, and the path she is fated for.

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The Ghosts of Grimwood

A series of vivid dark fantasy novelettes exploring the spectral secrets of a haunted realm...

These hour-long tales offer thrilling adventures within the realm of Grimwood Village and its bordering forest, the Darkwood. These short reads explore the spectral mysteries and haunting secrets of the Grimwood realm, perfect for a teatime daydream.

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The Adventures of Marmot & Marmalade

A collection of tiny tales for cosy teatime reading...

Marmalade is a mysterious wood witch who dwells in a hollow red tree deep in the wilds of Faewood.

Her companion (and self-appointed apprentice), Marmot, is a chaotic woodland critter with a penchant for mischief and mossy baked goods.

Together they confront the dangers of the forest, learn new magics, share tea by the hearthside, and find a sense of family that stands the test of time.

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Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoy your time in this cosy pocket-sized realm ✨

love & daydreams, Bright Witch

[brightwitchbrews]

A cold breeze rustled through the garden and Penelope lingered a moment to breathe in the scent of dewdrop flowers, ripe sugar pips, and freshly-cut treacle clovers. She loved their small garden, with its humble winter crop dusted with newly fallen snow. Though the cottage was fenced along the east and west borders, the garden sprawled half-wild into the Faewood beyond the cottage boundaries.

📚 Read: Marmalade's Love Potion

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Image sources

[brightwitchbrews]

The forest’s heartbeat no longer threatened to overwhelm her. The violence of it was tempered by memories of spring flowers and unfurling seeds, of egg shells breaking to release winged life, of leaves falling to nourish fallow earth.

✨ Read stories | Art prints

[brightwitchbrews]

Today's WIP - Marmalade's Love Potion

The forest’s heartbeat no longer threatened to overwhelm her. The violence of it was tempered by memories of spring flowers and unfurling seeds, of egg shells breaking to release winged life, of leaves falling to nourish fallow earth.

This balance of new life and sharpened teeth, of fragility and hardened decay, she would carry with her as she walked the path that had been laid, obscured, at her feet.

Chapter 19 ~ A Carriage Awaits

Read chapters free | Patreon

[brightwitchbrews]

Autumn Smile ~ A work in progress

Today's writing WIP: In Sweetwood there is a myth of a monster which devours children through a grin made from children's lost teeth. Parents will go to all lengths to make sure their children's teeth are destroyed.

Yet there are some who don't take the legends seriously... Those who make games of old fairy tales... ~~~

The stone pestle cracked the tooth in half, straight down the middle. Tessy gripped it in her small hands and brought it down again with a crunch on the small white canine. Chips scattered, cradled within the grey mortar.

Everyone clapped with wild cheer and Tessy passed the pestle to her grinning mother, who ground the tooth to shards and dust.

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Prompt given to me by @paintcapsule

[brightwitchbrews]

I know adverbs are controversial, but "said softly" means something different than "whispered" and this is the hill I will die on.