Bewitching (6 page)

“We want no treats from you, Madam,” I said. “Our last treat got us trapped here.”

The witch winked at me. She was dressed in what must have been her finest, a green satin gown with a purple feathered hat. “Ah, you will like this treat then, for you will be untrapped. Free. It is a fine morning. We will have a walk in the woods. Get up.”

I did not want to go. Thoughts of all that could go wrong flew around me like so many blackbirds. I wished that I could stay right there. Or, better yet, since I was already wishing the impossible, I wished I could turn back the strangling hands of time, not a day, not a week, but two years, to before our capture, before all the death, before the wretched plague. Had we only known! I wished to be a girl of twelve, concerned only with my weaving and whether I was being given more than my fair share of chores.

But I was a witch, not a genie. My life, once lived, could not unlive itself.

I stood. “That does sound fun. Come, Charlie.” I tugged at his arm, and slowly, he rose.

The path we walked was covered in pine needles, but clear of grass and weeds. The witch had walked this way often; once, at least, for each child-picket in her fence. I squeezed Charlie’s hand. Several times he tried to break away, but I tightened my grip. Not yet. I only hoped I was correct in anticipating a better opportunity. Pine trees marched on all sides of us, like threatening guards. Finally, we reached a clearing. I knew it by the smell of gingerbread. Gingerbread and something else. Seared flesh. I thought of little Miranda and the others. Would that there were a spell to quell my emotions, silence my thoughts. There was none, only my own talent for artifice. “So this it is?” I asked the witch, smiling.

“Indeed, it is, love.”

I turned to Charlie. “This is where she makes the gingerbread.”

The oven, made of black iron, was the size of our lean-to at home. The door had a lock upon it. Charlie’s eyes widened, but he said nothing.

“Perhaps you should stand over there, Charlie.” I pointed to a spot far away.

“No!” The witch grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “I need him beside me.”

“Of course.” I laughed. “How silly of me.”

“A bit too silly.”

“I apologize.” I made my face pretty. “Will you teach me how to do it, Mother?”

“Of course.” The witch gestured toward the oven. “Perhaps you and your dear brother could crawl inside and light it.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Me and Charlie? Light the oven?” In a tree high above, a crow sang its homely song. I looked up. When I finally found it, I noticed its feathers were not solid black, as I had been used to thinking, but rather reflected purple and green. As I watched, its song changed from its usual caw to a different tune, one Mother had sung:

Dear love, call in the light;

Or else, you’ll burn me quite!

Burn! Was I delirious? Or was this bird warning me away? I needed no such warning, but perhaps the bird was suggesting a strategy by reminding me of Mother.

Or perhaps it was Mother?

“Indeed,” I said to the witch. “I wish to help, but I cannot light the oven.”

“Cannot? Of course you can.” The witch grabbed my elbow. “You are a big girl and must be able to accomplish such work.”

I shook my head. “I cannot. My sister Sadie always did it. I never learned.”

“You will learn now.” The witch pulled me toward the oven. Charlie followed along. I could not let go of him, else the witch would surely throw him inside alone.

Above, the bird sang:

My bonny lass, she smileth;

When she my heart beguileth
.

Beguile.

“Please.” The tears in my eyes were real. “Please, Mother, I am afraid of the fire. I was burned once as a girl. You are so much wiser. I know you can show me how to do it.”

“Silly girl!” The witch reached for the oven door. “Any fool could do it.”

“Then I am less than a fool, for I cannot. Please, show me. We shall be together many years, forever. If you show me now, I will do it many times henceforth.”

The witch sighed but said, “You need only take a stick, make fire as I have shown you, then light the wood inside.” She plucked a branch from the tree. “Crawl in, and do it.”

Now, the crow flew down from its perch. It circled around, singing the refrain:

Fa la la la la la la la la

It dove at the witch’s head.

“Oh! Horrible creature!” With the hand that didn’t clutch my wrist, the witch battled the crow. This gave me an idea. I let go of Charlie’s wrist and nodded at him to run.

Yet he did not move. Why did he not? The witch was engrossed in fighting off the swooping, singing bird. He could escape.

He waited for me, I realized.

The oven door was fully open now, and I said to the witch, “Perhaps if you made the fire, I could light the oven.”

“Oh, of all…” Yet she obliged, waving the stick in the air. It burst into flame. As she did this, the bird swooped again, causing her to duck and stumble. “Oh!”

Only then did Charlie move out from behind me. With both hands freed, he shoved the distracted witch through the oven door. The flame inside had not lit, but as she was propelled into the oven, her skirt caught, glorious red and orange. She shrieked, “I’m on fire! I’m on fire! Kendra, help me!”

I stood, frozen, until Charlie stomped on my foot. Then I flew toward the oven door. The witch turned back, clawing at me, but it was too late. Her hands, even her face, were melting before my eyes like butter. I slammed the door and threw my back against it. Charlie locked it. All the while, the witch’s screams echoed through the silent wood. Black smoke belched from the sides of the oven door.

I stood there a long time, feeling the heat on my back, until the witch’s shrieks waned, and I knew she was dead. I touched my eyes then, and found I was crying. Then I was wracked with sobs. I did not speak, nor did Charlie. Finally, there was silence but for the cawing of the crow above. I glanced up. It flew down and perched upon my shoulder, singing:

When she her sweet eye turneth;

Oh, how my heart it burneth!

Fa la la la la la la la la!

I was shaking, but I stroked its head. “Yes. Yes. You are a good bird.”

I remembered the crow at Lucinda’s house, the day I’d saved Charlie. Probably just a coincidence.

I turned to Charlie. “Why did you not run?”

He gestured toward his mouth, and I realized he still could not speak. Quickly, I uttered the words to the counterspell. He said, “Had I run, the witch would have cooked you.”

“Not true. ’Twas I who persuaded her to light the fire.”

“But ’twas I who stuffed her into the oven.”

I sighed. “I suppose. But, Charlie, if ever again I tell you to run, you must run.” I had a premonition, as I had stood with my back to the oven, of the difficulties that lay ahead for a witch like me. “Promise, Charlie.”

“I will protect you.”

“No. You will protect yourself first. Promise.”

Finally, reluctantly, he agreed.

With nowhere else to go, we trudged back to the witch’s house. When we arrived, the sun was high in the sky, the better to see the change that had occurred.

“Where is the picket fence?” Charlie asked.

A smile spread across my face as I now fully believed that the witch was dead and gone. “The children, they are free. They are free!”

“Girl?” A small voice came from behind the house.

I knew that voice. “Miranda?” I ran to her. She was a sweet little thing, with red-gold curls and freckles.

“You … you killed her?”

“Charlie and I did. And now you can go home, to your mother.”

“All the others have left already, but I, I wanted to thank you.”

I embraced her. “You will be safe?”

“I think so.”

“Then you should leave.” I broke off a bit of gingerbread from the windowsill. “Here. For your trip.”

And then, she left.

Charlie and I, with nowhere else to go, entered the gingerbread house. We were free! We were alive. The house was on fine, farmable land, and I knew that we would leave behind our dismal past, build a real house, and live happily for many years to come.

E
PILOGUE

Or a few days, in any case. For, you see, one of the escaped children ran straight to the next village with his tale of a gingerbread house and the witch who resided there. Of course, the constable would not believe such a wild story … until it was corroborated by a second, a third, a tenth child. Perhaps little Miranda tried to tell them what had truly happened, but her voice was too small, and too late.

They showed up in a pack, with nooses. I knew there would be no trial, least of all a fair one. I only thanked Providence they had not brought torches.

“Run!” I told Charlie. “Do not look back, and if anyone asks, tell them only that you escaped an evil witch who would have baked you into gingerbread. Do not mention your sister. They will not believe you. Or they will think you a wizard too.”

This time, he listened. At least, I think he did, for he left. They came moments later.

They hanged me. It hurt, but I did not die. The next morning, as the sun rose, I felt a crow, pecking, pecking at the rope around my neck.

And that was how I came to leave England. The bird turned out to be my friend, Lucinda. She advised me to travel. I did, first to Scotland (where I met the witches who had inspired Shakespeare’s
Macbeth
), later to Spain and Italy, Greece, and eventually France, where I lived many years. Lucinda showed me how I too might change to a bird to escape, a useful skill.

I never saw Charlie again.

That’s another thing about witches.

We are often lonely.

And so, to alleviate my loneliness and to honor the vow I made in the gingerbread house, I’ve made it my life’s work to help people. There are many who do so, using their own special talents for reading, baking, or envelope stuffing. I try to use my own talent for witchcraft. Unfortunately, as you might have noticed in this story of the gingerbread children, using my talent sometimes backfires. Actually, my failures kind of outnumber my successes. Over the years, I’ve been banished from more countries than most people ever see. For this reason, I have learned to choose my victims—er, people I help—carefully.

It’s hard for me to make friends. People don’t, I am surprised to say, usually like me, and those who do tend to grow old and die. I haven’t had a real friend in many years.

I can change my looks at will. I’ve used magic to stay young and pretty, the way other people use Botox, and I’ve found it easiest to stay in school as much as possible. I don’t need school, of course. I can make the necessities of life from thin air, and after all these years, the curriculum is a bit dull. (Can you imagine taking Algebra Two more than once?) This is particularly true of history, as I’ve lived it. It irks me how often the books get it wrong, and reading Shakespeare is dull when one has seen it performed in the great theaters of Europe (though, for reasons I will perhaps explain later, I was unable to see the great Sarah Bernhardt when she was in France). Even the people are, for the most part, boring. The school queen who thinks she’s one of a kind would be surprised to learn she is one of a million, and bullies have plagued every generation. But teenagers make good companions. Absorbed as they are in their own worries, they tend not to notice me much.

And, occasionally, I find, if not a friend, a deserving (or not so deserving) soul who needs my magical assistance. Or correction.

Like now. There is a girl named Emma. She lives in Miami, and I’ve had my eye on her for quite a while. She’s had some problems involving a member of her family, her stepsister. I’d like to help her out, but first, I have to decide if she’s worth the risk.

Her story? Well, here it is.

Part One

Lisette and Emma

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