“Where are they?”
Her hands curled inward on themselves,
becoming claws of arthritic pain. She lunged at
Mr. Longville and he shrieked, as anyone would,
and fortunately, he had phrased his scream in the
form of a question, which caused the witch to
spasm, allowing him the opportunity to throw her
aside.
She fell within reach of her hatchet. Slowly,
she curled her hand around it. The look in her
eye… it was beyond malevolence, beyond hate;
the mere touch of it on my skin made me feel
profoundly unclean. "I will feed your flesh to the
children," she said.
I was so overcome with dread that I failed
to notice that Mr. Longville had jostled one of
the lanterns, and it tipped, causing the hat veil
to catch fire.
Mr. Longville gasped and began beating the
veil against the house (to put it out, I can only
assume). But the witch's house was made of
ancient wood, and the flames leapt eagerly from
the veil to the tinder, and soon the entire house
was ablaze.
The mechanical legs seemed to limp, as if in
pain. We were perilously close to the edge of the
cliff as the house staggered, but, now, so were some
of the smaller out-buildings running alongside!
I grabbed Mr. Longville, and we jumped
from the porch onto a small hut, our combined weight collapsing it onto its side, the hut
screaming wildly.
Above us, I witnessed with no small amount of
terror as the witch caught fire. She lurched against
the railing, and the house lurched with her, the
mechanical legs buckling. The house collapsed
and fell down, over the side of the cliff, the light
from the fire burning up along the stones.
The smash at the bottom was tremendous.
The hut we were lying on quivered and then
went still, the chicken legs ceasing to kick. Every
out-building that had been running beside
the house now sat down beside us, the screams
turning to whimpers.
Mr. Longville inquired as to my well-being,
and I was about to answer, when a tiny little hand
reached through the hut's barred window and
grabbed my skirt.
I am pleased beyond all proportion to say that
it was a hand belonging to one of the missing
children!
Mr. Longville and I were able to release them
from their fallen coops easily. They were all
unharmed, but perhaps a bit shaken by their ordeal.
And would you know it, that handsome and trusty
horse had worked its way loose from the tree where
I had tied it, and joined us at the cliff to help carry
us back to the village! Noble fellow!
Mr. Longville and I returned the children
to the village. We were greeted with much
impromptu festivity, including laughing and
crying. The villagers rewarded us by hanging our
persons about with all their most powerful and
protective charms.
I was so much lost in my own thoughts, I
only slowly became aware that Mr. Longville was
speaking. Something to the effect of, "....and so, I
was wondering, if you aren't otherwise occupied,
if you would be interested in..."
I had no idea what he had asked me, but I
had agreed. Mr. Longville has managed to cause
me all sorts of trouble with his ineptitude—or,
what I first took as ineptitude—but his endless
questioning of the witch is the very reason we
were able to defeat her. There must be some word
for such a circumstance, when through a dizzying
lack of social skills, things manage to come aright.
In any case, it is that precise moment of
weakness which is to blame for my spending two
and a half hours looking at dusty old tintypes
of insect specimens at some dreary bedraggled
European museum.