Wand of the Witch (2 page)

She didn't need to dare him this time. His hunger overpowered his fear. He leaped toward the door, yanked it open, and entered the house. The sweet smells filled his nostrils. Henry and Christie inhaled deeply, sighed, and tucked in.

"Mmm mmm good," Christie said, mouth full of cookies.

"Can't talk," Henry said, stuffing cupcakes into his mouth. "Eating."

He'd eaten a pound or two of treats before he noticed the woman in the room.

At her sight, he started and gasped, crumbs falling from his mouth. He nudged Christie, who gasped and froze.

Henry wasn't sure if the woman had been there the whole time, or had suddenly appeared. His first thought was:
The witch!
Only... this woman didn't look like a witch. Witches were old, warty crones; everybody knew that. This woman was young and beautiful. She had long blond hair, green eyes, and red lips. She wore black robes and held a thin, whorled horn; it looked like a unicorn's horn.

"Hello, children," the woman said. "Welcome to my home. I am Madrila."

Guiltily, Henry placed down the cupcake he held. He wiped crumbs off his face and shirt.

"Hello," he said awkwardly. "I'm sorry, ma'am. I... I mean, we... didn't know anyone lived here. We smelled the candies, and they smelled so good, that...." His tongue felt heavy. The woman watched him, and he didn't know how to continue. He finished by saying, "We'll be on our way now."

Madrila watched him for a moment longer, eyes cold. Then she laughed, and all the ice left her.

"Oh, but you are welcome here, children!" she said. "I laid out these candies to bring you here. I love little children. I wish they could all eat my candies."

Christie reached for a cookie on the table, hesitated, and looked up at Madrila. The young woman laughed.

"Eat it!" she said. "Eat it, young Christie. Eat to your heart's content."

Christie looked at Henry, her eyes large and uncertain. Henry looked back, not sure what to do. He remembered the stories of Jeremy Cobbler, how a witch turned him into a toad and caged him. But... surely those were only stories. Surely this young, beautiful woman could not be a witch. The treats were so good, and his hunger wouldn't leave him.

He bit into a candy.

His teeth ached and he spat it out.

"Ouch!" he said.

The candy in his hand had turned to stone. It was nothing but a pebble. Christie also cried in dismay. She spat out a second pebble. Suddenly Henry saw that all the treats were actually made of stone—the cookies, the cupcakes, the candies, nothing but rocks. His stomach ached. It felt like stones filled his belly. He wrapped his arms around him, moaning. Christie also moaned and doubled over.

"Ahh," said Madrila, standing before them. "You see, there
is
that little thing. When you eat stones, you get tummy aches."

As the siblings moaned and clutched their bellies, Madrila laughed. Henry looked up. Through the mist of pain, he saw Madrila's green eyes blaze, cruel and calculating.

"You're a witch," he whispered.

She nodded and pointed the unicorn's horn at Christie.

"And this is what happens to greedy, piggy little children," Madrila said.

She uttered strange words in a harsh tongue. A bolt of light shot from the unicorn's horn. The light slammed into Christie.

"No!" Henry cried. He wanted to attack the witch, or to run to Christie, but couldn't move; the stones in his belly wouldn't let him. He watched in horror as lightning raced across Christie. Smoke rose from her. She screamed.

"Henry!" she cried. "Henry, run!"

But he could not. He could not leave her. Christie began to spin. She fell to all four. Sparks and steam rose from her. Her skin turned pink, and her hands morphed into trotters. A coiling tail sprouted from her. The sparks died and the smoke wafted away. A small, pink piglet stood in a pile of Christie's clothes. It squealed.

Henry grabbed a stone from the table and lobbed it at Madrila. He missed. The witch laughed and pointed her wand at him. She repeated her spell.

Light blasted Henry. Pain filled him. A year ago, Matt the blacksmith's son had punched him. This felt like ten such punches. He fell to his knees and light spun around him. Smoke rose. He felt caught in a maelstrom. He tried to scream, but only a piggish squeal left his throat. He held his hands before him, watching in terror as they became trotters.

When finally the magic died, he looked up and saw Madrila looming above him, ten times taller than before. He could see himself reflected in her shiny leather boot. He too was a piglet.

He turned and ran for the door.

Madrila was too fast. She scooped him up and held him tight. He squealed and struggled, but couldn't free himself. Christie ran too and almost reached the door. Madrila caught her leg at the last instant and yanked her up.

"Good piggies," the witch said, holding them. "Now you will meet your friend Jeremy the toad, and Anne the monkey, and all your other little friends who dared enter my home." She laughed, a cold and mirthless sound.

Henry squealed and kicked and struggled, but couldn't free himself. His heart pounded. His snout quivered. Would he stay like this forever? Would he ever see his parents again? His eyes stung. Madrila carried him and Christie to a squat, heavy door at the back of the room. When she opened the door, Henry saw a staircase plunging into darkness. He squealed louder, but Madrila only laughed.

The witch carried them downstairs into a shadowy basement. A single oil lamp hung from the ceiling. In its flickering light, Henry saw dozens of cages. One big cage held a screaming monkey. A smaller cage held a toad. Other cages held strange creatures: a thing of many eyeballs and snouts, a slimy blob, a cat with no fur, and a bat with no face. Henry's eyes stung and his belly ached to see these creatures.

"Do you like my creations?" Madrila asked. "I made them myself, molding them from nosey, greedy children. They will be your new friends."

She approached an empty cage, tossed the piglets in, and slammed the cage door shut. Henry and Christie cowered behind the bars, mewling and staring around with wide eyes.

Madrila examined them, hands on her hips. Her eyes laughed. Shadows swirled around her feet.

"Welcome," she said, "to the rest of your lives."

Henry yowled and slammed against the cage door, but couldn't free himself. Christie whimpered beside him. She tried to bite the cage bars, but couldn't nick them.

Madrila laughed. "Yes, piggies, try to escape. You cannot." She knelt and stared at them. Her eyes were green ice.

"I did not have a childhood," she said. "Did you know that? I did not get to play with friends. I did not get to eat candy. So now, you and your friends—you pampered, spoiled, piggy little children—will suffer. You will suffer like I did."

Henry cowered in the back of the cage. Christie huddled against him. He wanted to hug her, to tell her it would be all right. But how could he?

"Do you have a mother?" Madrila asked him. "Answer me, piggy."

Shivering, Henry nodded.

"I had a mother once," Madrila said. "A cruel, wicked mother. She abandoned me. She cast me out into the cold, harsh world. I had no home. Are you two siblings, piggies?"

They nodded, trembling.

"Good, good," Madrila said. "I have siblings too. But they were not cast out. They did not shiver in the cold. You might have heard of them. They are mercenaries of some infamy. They call themselves... Bullies for Bucks. An absolutely ridiculous name, if you ask me."

Henry swallowed. Yes, he had heard of the Bullies—they were heroes from a town called Burrfield nearby. He'd heard tales of them defeating the warlock Dry Bones, killing the monstrous vulture Vanderbeak, and going on many adventures. How could those heroes be related to this vile witch?

Madrila turned to leave. She crossed the basement and began climbing the stairs. After two steps, she turned and looked back over her shoulder.

"Soon you will have new friends," she said. "Soon the Bullies will join you. They grew up in warmth while I suffered... and now they will suffer too."

With that, Madrila climbed upstairs and slammed the basement door behind her. The oil lamp swung and guttered. Darkness flowed over Henry's world, full of fear, pain, and cries of horror.

Chapter Two

Extra! Extra!

One peaceful autumn, a wonderful, horrible, delightful, and dangerous invention reached Burrfield: print!

Of course, most Burrfieldians couldn't read. 5,127 people lived in the town. Only 247 of them could read, and among those, 178 couldn't read more than their own name and a few choice curse words ("bum" was especially popular and considered quite naughty at the time).

This was, perhaps, a blessing. Burrfield's print shop couldn't handle mass production yet. It took an hour to prepare a page for printing, and more often than not, the printer broke, scattering metal letters all over.

But the printmaker plowed on. His name was John Quill. "Name's Quill, like a porcupine's prickles, because I write a prickly word," he'd tell anyone who'd listen. He'd then wink. "But writing quills will soon be obsolete."

Most Burrfieldians nodded sagely at this, not fully comprehending Quill's (admittedly convoluted) jest, but sure that it was delightfully clever.

This John Quill was about thirty years old, with a thin mustache, winking eyes, and a gray cap he wore at a jaunty angle. Every day, he produced a five-page newspaper which, in a stroke of inspiration, he named
The Burrfield Gazette
. Quill served as the editor, publisher, and only reporter.

This was Burrfield's first newspaper. It might, Quill would brag, be the first newspaper in the kingdom. As far as he knew, his invention was unique—the ability to print words onto a page, not scribe them.

This garnered a lot of interest in Burrfield, whose citizens very much wished to appear worldly. After all, it was a small, quiet town where not much happened. In fact, barely anything had happened here for years, and Quill soon became a local hero. Every morning, he'd kickstart his machine, which would grunt and creak and moan, and begin stamping out papers. Townfolk would gather around the print shop, watching with wide eyes, as if witnessing magic. Most believed it
was
magic; they thought the print machine a mythical, living beast. One child named it "Printy" and swore that he saw it one night ramble into the field, where it ate three cows before returning home to sleep.

In the first few days, Quill wrote about mundane topics. He reported about whose crops were eaten by crows. He talked about the weather. He wrote about the local kickball teams, who played in Burrfield Square a couple times a week. Everything Quill reported was common knowledge—indeed, Quill knew about these events because
everybody
in Burrfield knew about them.

Still, that did not stop
The Burrfield Gazette
from selling like hotcakes (much to the frustration of the hotcake seller, whose shop was next door). The first day, every person who could read—even those who could read only their names and "bum"—bought a copy. The second day, even people who couldn't read bought a copy, just to brag about owning a
Burrfield Gazette
. Within two weeks, it seemed that every person in Burrfield was buying the morning paper. They were found at kitchen tables, inns, outhouses, park benches, and the bottom of pets' cages.

Quill had to hire three kids to help him print so many papers, and had two more kids come in on Sundays, to help print the double-length weekend edition. Owning a
Burrfield Gazette
was the thing to do. At mornings, everybody wanted to be seen sitting on a bench or boulder, leafing through a copy. Peasants who couldn't read a word to save their lives suddenly appeared at local teashops, leafing through Sunday editions of the
Gazette
, scratching their chins while holding the paper upside down.

John Quill soon became Burrfield's most prominent, respected citizen. Maidens batted their eyelashes at him. Men bought him beers. Dogs licked him and cats rubbed against his legs. When he wasn't printing his paper, he'd walk around with his skinny chest thrust out, his chin raised, a thin smile across his lips and his gray cap at its usual, jaunty angle.

Quill was walking around town one autumn day, when Jamie Thistle, fifteen years old, saw him. Quill gave her a smile, tipped his hat, and walked on, a gaggle of maidens following him.

"Look at that phony," Jamie muttered to her older brother, a beefy youth named Scruff. The two were sitting on a town bench, eating walnuts from a pouch. "Today he wrote about Robby Brewer's cat giving birth to a litter of dogs. And people believe it!"

Scruff's eyes widened. "Cat puppies! Did he say what color they are?"

Jamie kicked her large, lumbering brother. She was something of a runt—she stood five feet only on her tiptoes, and weighed one-hundred pounds only if she donned her armor. Scruff, meanwhile, stood close to seven feet tall, and was wider than the town's largest wheelbarrow. Still Jamie kicked him, and he winced.

"Scruff," she said, "the whole thing is rubbish. I mean, yesterday he wrote that Jeremy Greenfield was raising a cow with two heads... and two bodies. Two days ago, he wrote that a rare griffin was spotted on a tree—born with the body of a bird!"

Scruff gasped. "Monsters! Let's go see them."

"Scruff!" She kicked him again.

He yelped and shrugged. "What? Look, Jamie. He might write nonsense, but... people like reading it.
I
like reading it. And I, for one, am happy Quill is famous."

Jamie leaped to her feet. "How could you be happy? The man either reports what everybody knows, or makes up stuff. And yet everybody buys his newspaper and buys his stories. How could you be happy?"

"Because for once, we're not the famous ones in town."

He was right, Jamie had to admit. For a year now, Scruff, Jamie, and the other Bullies had been the most famous, discussed people in town. Since their amazing adventure a year ago, Burrfield wouldn't stop talking about them. People talked about the monsters they slew; the dark magic their brother Neev cast; the demon they brought back from their quest, a creature of fire and sin; and about the spiderling Scruff married, a purple spirit of the forest. Indeed, it seemed that for the past year, Burrfield talked about nothing but the legendary Bullies for Bucks.