Once Upon a Witch's Death: The Tale of the One Thousand Tears of Novel Volume 1: Joy Meg Raspberry Has a Year to Live was written by Saka.

On her seventeenth birthday, the apprentice witch Meg learns that she only has one year left to live. Her teacher, the long-lived witch Faust, explains that the only way to undo the death curse is to collect tears of joy and grow the seed of life. To find them, Meg will have to leave the sheltered life she's always known and head out into the world. There will be meetings, partings, and friendships aplenty, and of course many tears. Meg will learn the most important lessons for a witch are bright, sweet, and somewhat heart wrenching.