Enchanted Forests (4 page)

Lindy held a finger to her lips, amazed at her good fortune,

then pointed right across the way, to where Becka the Beech

lived. "That one. Right there. That bitch has been blocking my

sunlight my entire life, and her roots take most of the water,

too!"

The woodcutter polished his ax, looking at the beech tree.

"Are you certain? As I said, I take my responsibilities as a

woodcutter seriously, and I would not want to take any tree that

did not absolutely have to go."

"Oh, she has to go all right," Lindy said. "That bitch thinks

she's the Queen of the Forest, when all she is is a sun-hog and

a breeding ground for bark beetles and woodpeckers. The forest

would be a lot better off without her."

The woodcutter sharpened his ax, looking at Becka the Beech

bitch. "Are you certain? It is an old tree, certainly, but I am not

certain that should be the one I cut down-..."

Lindy paused, thinking of how much easier her life would be

without Becka blocking all her sunlight and taking all her water.

"I'll give you three wishes...."

28                  Kevin Andrew Murpny

"Three wishes?" said the woodcutter. "Well, if you feel that

strongly about it, I suppose she has to go...."

Witch Margot kicked up her heels and danced with the cat.

" 'Oh, today I plot. tomorrow I scheme/The next I realize my

dream! And that will be good and better than good/With wood

nymphs stacked as kindling wood!' "

"Meow!" shrieked Mehitabel. "Meow!"

'That's right, Mehitabel. All those nasty wood nymphs

who've crossed us will be gone, and we'll be rich in the bar-

gain!" The mice and rats played the fiddle, and the toads played

the mandolin, and teaching them that had been more of trick than

she liked to think about. But it was worth it for moments like

this.

" 'Oh, today we dance, tomorrow we drink/Get piss blind

drunk till we can't think! For each revenge we get a wish! Get

what we want ..." Witch Margot paused, trying to think of a

good rhyme.

"Meow! Meow!" cried Mehitabel, dancing the Mazurka.

"Yes!" said Witch Margot. " 'And cream and fish!' We'll have

it all, Mehitabel!"

Margot hitched up her skirts and danced round the kitchen

once more. Blessed be the day she'd bought those books from

the magic peddler! Who ever would have thought they'd hold

such lore and knowledge, or explain the way of the world so

well and clearly? "Wonderful!" she exclaimed, dancing over to

the lectern and giving a reverent pat to the Deutsche Volks-

marchen and the Collected Works of Hans Christian Andersen.

"Lovely, lovely, lovely books! And you, the most precious of all

my darlings!" she cried, picking up and kissing the Folktale Mo-

tif Index. "Oh, I wish I had all the books in your bibliography!"

Witch Margot paused, but no library suddenly appeared.

She shrugged and laughed. "Ah well, Mehitabel. We'll get

them soon enough. 'Oh, today we dance/Tomorrow we bake/

Have lots of beer—' "

"Meow!" shrieked Mehitabel.

"'—and fish," Margot translated and nodded in agreement,

"and cake!' Blessed be the peddler and the day he sold me my

books!"

She cackled with glee, dancing around holding her prized

Folktale Motif Index over her head, altogether too caught up in

her good fortune to notice the mockingbird and squirrel peeking

through the tear in the thatch.

"I'LL GIVE YOU THREE WISHES.         29

Conrad stood up, polishing his ax. Three wishes, in advance

... He smiled, remembering what the witch had told him to wish

for. "For my first wish. I wish to live a long, healthy life."

"It is done," said the wood nymph, clinging to her linden tree

like a harlot on a lamppost

Conrad suddenly felt very, very healthy and the wart on his

thumb dropped off onto the ground.

For the second wish, the witch said he could wish for any-

thing, except to be handsome: "I also wish to be strong. Incred-

ibly strong. Even stronger than Emhardt the Blacksmith."

Conrad felt all his muscles swell up and the laces on his jerkin

stretched tight and then popped. He looked down at his bulging

arms and chest, though this was rather hard, since his clothes

were now much too small and he didn't seem to have a neck

anymore, at least not one that was smaller than his head. But he

certainly felt strong.

"It is done," said the wood nymph. "What's your third wish,

good Woodcutter?"

Conrad finished admiring himself and figuring out how to

move without his thighs rubbing together, then looked back at

the wood nymph. "Oh, that. Yes. I wish that the old lady who

gave me such good advice would get the third wish. To use how-

ever she wants." After all, Conrad thought, that was the deal, and

he knew enough of his grandmother's stories to know that you

always played straight with witches. Unless you wanted to be a

toad, and being a toad—even an incredibly strong, healthy, long-

lived one—was not something that Conrad wanted to be.

"It is done," said the wood nymph. "Are you going to go cut

down Becka's tree now? I'd really like to have some more sun-

light."

Conrad tipped his hat, getting used to the way his new mus-

cles were rubbing on each other. "Of course, good wood nymph.

I'm a man of my word, and we're agreed—the beech tree has to

go"

He walked across to where the tall beech stood and looked up.

A branch dropped down, landing beside him, and he smiled. The

linden tree had been as good as her word; the branches were

missing him. Well, time to be true to his. He inspected the trunk

of the beech for the right spot to cut, and another branch landed

beside him.

The linden was right. The beech tree was a bitch.

Conrad spat on his hands and readied his ax, but before he

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could swing, the beech's nymph stepped out of the trunk. She

was tall and grand, looking like some ancient queen, with a

crown in her hair and a mantle of squirrel skins. "Woodcutter,"

she intoned, "spare my tree and I will reward you with three

wishes!"

Conrad smiled. Dame Margot had also been right. The wood

nymphs were just giving them away.

"Sorry," he said. "I think I'll just cut down the tree."

"What is—" she began, then did a double take. "What? Doth

mine ears deceive me? Didst thou just refuse my three wishes?"

Conrad nodded. "That's right. Lot of good board feet of lum-

ber in this baby." He patted the trunk and the wood nymph

looked shocked and grabbed her bottom. "Anyway, a dwarf told

me if I cut down this tree, I'll find a golden goose inside."

"What? The dwarf lies! I have not a goose inside my trunk."

"Well, honey, you sure act like you've got something stuck up

your ass. Let's see what it is. huh?"

"But—Three wishes! I'll give you three wishes!"

Conrad shrugged his massive shoulders. "Eh, I've already had

three wishes. I think I'll go for a goose instead." He swung the

ax, and the wood nymph grabbed her ass and screamed.

Conrad swung again and again, pleased at how fast the wood-

cutting was going with his new muscles. At last the screaming

wood nymph disappeared, and the trunk gave way. "Timber!"

Conrad called and the beech tree listed over, crashing slowly to

the ground and flattening a certain small linden tree.

Conrad polished his ax. Just like Dame Margot had said. All

the witnesses taken care of, and three wishes in the bargain.

Becka the Beech tree had been right, too. There hadn't been a

golden goose stuck up her ass. However, there was an old tinder-

box lying on the edge of the stump, just the way the witch had

said, and when he looked down the hollow into the cave below,

Conrad saw the three dogs Dame Margot had also mentioned, the

ones with the eyes the size of teacups, millstones and the Round

Tower at Copenhagen, wherever that was.

Conrad took the tinderbox and looked down at the three dogs.

"Hey there! Dogs! Remember, I've got the box now, so don't go

telling anyone what happened!"

The dogs blinked, panted, and wagged their tails, and Conrad

tried to find room for the tinderbox under his arm, which was

rather hard, as there was a good deal of muscle in the way that

hadn't been there before.

Oh well, he could certainly get used to that. He set off back to

"I'LL GIVE YOU THREE WISHES.          31

Dame Margot's and wondered what, aside from walking bowleg-

ged, he could do to keep his thighs from rubbing together.

Hector the mockingbird and Prissy the squirrel hastily con-

ferred in the upper branches of one of the oaks. "Trees no

listen!" Prissy squeaked. "Just squirrel! Just bird! Trees no lis-

ten! Stupid trees! Stupid-stupid-stupid!"

Hector nodded in agreement. "Woodcutter trouble! Witch trou-

ble! Double-trouble! Double-trouble!"

"Who listen. Hector?" asked Prissy. "Who care? Just bird!

Just squirrel!"

Hector thought a moment. "King Stag?"

Prissy twitched her tail. "Why care?"

She had a point. "Fairy Boar?"

"Boar old!" said Prissy. "Boar crazy! Boar eat bad truffles!"

Hector cocked his head. "Goblins?"

Prissy twitched her tail, refusing even to comment.

Hector thought a bit more. "Know the thing!" he cried. "Find

Dwarf King!"

Prissy paused and cocked her head. "Why Dwarf King help?"

"Profit! Profit! Money-money-money! Dwarf King, triple-

trouble, money-money-money!"

"Dwarf King. Triple-trouble." Prissy twitched her tail. "Hector

smart."

Hector did a back flip. "Money-money-money."

Conrad sat with Dame Margot, divvying up the week's haul.

"Let's see, that's twenty-seven wishes, nine for you, eighteen for

me, plus you've got the tinderbox, the golden goose, and this,

whatever it's worth." He flipped the small bone he'd found in the

crook of an ash tree onto the table. It didn't look like anything

important, but it had been shut in a silver chest, so it must be

worth something.

Dame Margot picked up the bone and laughed, her voice

sounding much nicer since she'd wished herself young and was

again the maiden with flowers in her hair that he'd guessed she'd

originally been. "Oh, this," said the witch maiden. "It's a wiz-

ard's finger bone. Some of the silly old buggers hide their lives

in them, then give them to something else to guard. Usually

dragons or wood nymphs. If we snap it, the wizard will die."

Conrad shrugged his massive shoulders, finally getting used to

the heft of them. "So what do we do with it?"

Margot looked at it. "Oh, we could probably sell it back to the

32                  Kevin Andrew Murpny

wizard it belongs to, but that's more trouble than it's worth. I

know what we do with it." She whistled. "Here, Teacup! Here,

boy! We have a treat for you'"

The dog with eyes as big as teacups bounded forward and sat

down, waggling his tail. "Woof!"

Margot laughed and flipped him the bone, which he caught

and crunched happily. Somewhere, Conrad supposed, a wizard

was having a heart attack.

The golden goose honked and Margot gave it a biscuit broken

up in a bowl of water. It dabbled happily, though it looked rather

strange with the tea cozy firmly attached to its tail. "Golden

goose feathers are sticky things," Margot had said. "Once you

get stuck by their enchantment, the only thing that can loose

them is a laughing princess, and we haven't the time to get one

of those just now."

Conrad went back to counting the coins from the three chests

the dogs had brought. The coppers weren't very valuable, but the

gold and silver were worth a king's ransom.

A knock came at the door. Margot rolled her eyes. "If it's any

lost children, tell them to go away. I've moved. Children are

nothing but trouble."

Conrad nodded, going to the door of the now spacious and

pretty cottage. A terrible waste of a wish, in his opinion, but then

Margot was free to do with her wishes what she wanted-

He opened the door, and while the height was right for a pesky

child, the long white beard and the golden crown were certainly

not. It was a dwarf, and unless Conrad missed his guess, it was

then- King. On his left shoulder sat a squirrel, and on his right,

a mockingbird.

"Who is it?" Margot asked from the table.

Conrad paused. "Urn, I think it's the King of the Dwarves."

"The Rubezahl?" Margot asked. "Oh, by all means, invite him

in. He can help us count the gold."

The Dwarf King's eyes twinkled at the word and he walked in

past Conrad. "Hmph, I was wondering when you were going to

get around to that." He surveyed the cottage as Conrad shut the

door, then looked directly at the chests of gold and the goose.

"My, what a nice haul. I was given to understand that you were

dealing with wood nymph wishes. I didn't realize that they could

do gold now."

Margot smiled. "We had a bit of other good fortune."

The three dogs growled at the Dwarf King, and Margot looked