The Butcher of the Forest and Other Kinds of Magic
In Premee Mohamed’s The Butcher of the Forest, the north woods are a place no one goes—or at least no one returns from. Veris is the only one who ever has, but only once, and it was not pretty. Now the tyrant has sworn to kill her entire village if she doesn’t rescue his children. Veris isn’t magical herself, but she knows a few small tricks, and I adore the quiet intensity of her “non-magic” magic.
Let’s consider a passage soon after Veris enters the woods.
With unfeeling hands, she tightened the buckles of her satchel, unbuttoned a pocket to get her handkerchief and its tiny magics, unlaced and re-laced her boots. Then she took an enormous breath—her first really deep one of the day—and said quietly, “I have returned. I am one known to you. Please allow me safe passage to bring back those who are lost.”
First, let me explain the “tiny magics.” We learn in an earlier moment they include a piece of coal, a chestnut, and a tiny wooden boar. Veris knows they are slightly magical, but she brings them as much for their sentimental and symbolic value—the memories they hold—as anything else.
Now, look at the words she says out loud to the forest. To me, the words feel quietly magical. I think it is because they are careful, precise. Anyone who has dealt with magic knows the danger in leaving any room for interpretation.
Despite their simplicity, a bit of their power also comes from the way they are slightly odd. Consider the construction of “I am one known to you.” It would be both simpler and stronger to say, “You know me.” A copy editor would certainly suggest it. And so the slightly awkward choice strikes the ear just a bit off.
Not only is Veris’s sentence wordier than it needs to be, it’s passive. The usual reason for constructing a passive sentence—and why it’s often a bad idea—is that it can obscure agency or avoid placing blame. The famous example “mistakes were made” wiggles out of saying who made those mistakes.
Yet this sentence does tack on the agent at the end, naming “you” (the forest). It just sneaks it in the backdoor, by making “you” the object of the sentence, instead of the subject, and thus shifts responsibility for that knowing. “I’m not accusing you of knowing me; I’m merely claiming to be a person that you know.” There’s an element of meekness in saying it this way. “I would not presume to tell you about yourself, and so I would not presume to make ‘you’ the subject of my sentence.”
This hints at the power of the woods she is speaking into it. She must be respectful—or else.
But it also demonstrates the power of her words. If the woods can destroy you, aren’t your words—the ones that might prompt the magical response—just as explosive? (And this is not to victim blame. Veris does not deserve to be destroyed—no matter her words—but it’s thrilling to watch her use, or purposefully restrain, the quiet power she has.)
Let’s look now at the gestures she makes before she speaks. I’m talking about those small, ordinary actions she takes to secure not only her small tokens, but her body: tightening buckles, unbuttoning pockets, unlacing and relacing boots. They might seem only mundane, except they are nestled between magic objects and magic words—so I know they are powerful too.
They are small personal actions—insignificant and hardly noticeable—that she surely performs at least once a day, and possibly many times. That she can do them with “unfeeling” hands makes it seem even more routine, even more of a nothing. But normal motions in an abnormal time can be grounding—a type of mental magic. And a routine can also be a ritual. Our everyday actions of care matter. They hold our lives together. They can also bring us into a meditative state. Thus tiny gestures have an outsize effect on the material circumstances of our lives. (What’s your definition of magic, again?)
I also notice that they are acts of fastening and unfastening. They feel to me like small doors. Veris is after all, trying to enter—and then hoping to leave—a mysterious space that does not have a traditional doorway. This might be a symbolic opening of that non-traditional doorway. Or it might be a way to make tangible—for herself, for the reader—what is otherwise only airy and abstract. Twisting the conceptual and immaterial into something concrete and holdable is the kind of magic stories do, even nonmagical stories.
Just a moment later, Veris explains that she didn’t expect the magic words to elicit a response, that she only really said them to comfort herself. It makes me realize a different sort of magic.
I think words are always magic. I think it’s why we tell stories.
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