The Castaway and The Witch by Ioanna Papadopoulou

I would like to thank Ghost Orchid Press for an advance copy of this novella in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Ghost Orchid Press

Published – 23/10

Price – £9.64 paperback £2.99 ebook

After her boat capsizes, Nine-year old Nefele is washed up on the Floating Forest, an infamous mythical prison-island, holding onto her father's corpse and with little chance to survive in the wild. It appears miraculous that a herd of native elks guide her to a tree house, filled with all she needs to survive, as well as plenty of books.

As the years pass, Nefele gradually loses her identity to the secrets of the Floating Forest, but the transition is interrupted by the arrival of a second castaway. Nefele must choose between the witch she wishes to be, straight out of a fairytale, and the real, living person she actually is.

Do we think we deserve that happy ending? The easy answer is to assume we all think yes but the pain of our pasts can be what blocks us moving on in our lives. Sometimes only when we can rationalise or perhaps even ignore this issue can we possibly even see a way through the tunnel we appear to be in. This dilemma really struck me while I read Ioanna Papadopoulou’s fantasy novella The Castaway And The Witch which does an excellent job of making the reader decide on the worthiness of the character’s futures.

Nine-year-old Nefele awakens on her father’s boat to find him dead. Nothing suspicious, just died of natural causes and they are now adrift in the ocean. Her only hope is to escape to the island she can see nearby. Nefele soon realises this place is unoccupied but with a mysterious giant elk taking to her to a building where she realises that other people have lived here before. Nefele realises this Island moves through the seas and for centuries has required someone to adopt the role of The Witch harnessing the magic of the island. Slowly growing up alone Nefele realises too late how powerful she can be and the arrival of a ship’s crew throws more mysteries in the mix. Can Nefele find a life and a role she can finally be happy in.

It would so easily have made this a relaxing fairy tale but instead Papadopoulou highlight how no one in this tale is ever blameless. Initially our sympathies are naturally with a young child marooned in a truly desperate situation. Watching her learn to farm with only the records of her predecessors makes us side with her until Papadopoulou makes a situation where Nefele perhaps arrogantly decides to act like the all-powerful enchantress that she is supposed to be. The consequences and her actions are horrific and will haunt Nefele for the rest of her life. It is an act where ultimately its veryhard to say she wasn’t fully aware of what she is doing yet at the same time having lived 9 years on her own with no one to teach her how to behave should we be surprised? Nefele is a character I found myself quite conflicted about – I have sympathy for her and yet that action she tales and the way it becomes a constant reminder for the audience and Nefele herself means we can’t handwave away what she did and it can never really be undone.

A new dilemma arrives in the form of Simon a young man who arrives with some other crew and for reasons Nefele is unsure of decides to stay. A more innocent tale again would simply make this a sweet growing romance but Nefele having been shown to be capable of causing danger finds herself in a very conflicted situation both attracted and repelled that a man appears interested in her. Simon too is revealed to be a man running away from his own marriage and death of a young child. Rather than a pure of heart romance we have something much messier to explore and the way these characters circle around each other, arguing and coming to terms with one another is really interesting; bar a little slow pacing in the middle act, I was really intrigued where this tale was going. At regular intervals we get someone else’s comments telling us of Nefele’ future and we realise this tale itself may be a future island record itself so we now wonder throughout what the final outcome will be and based on the tale so far no happy ending is guaranteed.

I really liked the story challenging the concept of the fairytale ending. The idea of a magical island with a witch is indeed inspired by Circe but the unique idea that the Witch is merely a title regularly used by the women to come to the Island opens the tale to be far more than a retelling. We see through Nefele’s reading there are happy tales and tragic endings all building up the story’s potential consequences for what happens to Nefele and its very pleasing how that tension is kept up and even when Simon and Nefele do work together you may struggle to always see them as the heroes of the tale. For me this showed that often people will make themselves fit the fairytale and ignore the elements that they feel do not fit the life and roles they crave. The last line for me is fascinatingly ambiguous and leave us to decide what awaits.

This novella is very character led and I really liked the way the story makes us question are we watching the heroes or villains at work? I really appreciated the epic feel in short form it provides too. A really interesting thought provoking tale that I highly recommend.