The woods were dark at night, but daytime was no slouch either. There was enough timber between the children and the sun to build a spruce goose ten times over and have leftovers for a good midsummer bonfire.
“I’m hungry,” said Henry.
“I’m tired,” said Gertie.
“I’m cold,” said Henry.
“We’re both cold.”
“And hungry.”
“You already said hungry.”
“Well it’s worth saying twice.”
Gertie could not argue with that, for she had not the energy to spare. As a matter of fact she had so little energy to spare that she took a root to the toe and fell down and just kept falling, down a slope and over some more (very bumpy) roots and down a small hillock and into a clearing with sun so bright that she squinted and couldn’t have seen which way was up even if she hadn’t just taken a forest to the cranium.
“Gertie?” called Henry.
“Guh,” she replied.
“Gertie, Gertie sister, are you alright?” her brother inquired anxiously as he slid down to her side.
“I smell bread,” she said faintly. “That’s a stroke, right?”
“No, I think it’s typhoid,” said Henry. “Can you feel your arm? I think your arm hurts when you have a stroke.”
“My arm is fine,” said Gertie, wincing her way upright. “But I’m seeing a cottage made of baked bread, so that’s not good.”
“Oh no,” said Henry. “So am I. Well at least we’re going mad together.”
“Yes,” said Gertie. “Let’s go mad together with some of that cottage in our stomachs too.”
So they did, handful by delicious handful, dug out with speed that only increased as the nourishing crumbs made their way down from mouth to stomachs that had only taken in stream-water and a few berries, and once they started they couldn’t stop.
“A bit plain,” said Gertie, chewing carefully.
“A bit crunchy,” said Henry, flicking a flax seed loose from his incisors.
“A bit cheeky,” said the witch, “to go chewing up someone’s doorframe without so much as a word of ‘please.’”
She was most definitely a witch, crone from curly boot-toe and bandy legs to tattered head-shawl and snaggled teeth. In one hand she held a frog, in the other she held a broom that still smelled of ozone and clouds. Her eyes were fiercely young for her wrinkled face and her hands were clawed and powerful.
“Sorry?” tried Henry.
“May we?” offered Gertie. “We haven’t eaten in days.”
The witch shook her head slowly, tiny bones in her hair clattering like windchimes in a hurricane. “No, no, no. You’re doing this all wrong. My twelve-grain cottage provides many essential nutrients, but you’ll need some protein too. I’ve butter inside, that’ll help. And for pity’s sake get some water in you too: the well’s out back and unlike whatever cholera-laden pond you may have found in your wanderings I can promise it’s clear and clean. Stretch out on the lawn for a minute; I’ll bring out some blankets.”
And so Henry and Gertie spent some time in the woods being looked after while the witch called child support to investigate their stepmother and father.
In the meantime, she had other projects.
***
The nearby pond was not fit for drinking water. Henry and Gertie had been most thoroughly warned off from it many times during their few weeks at the twelve-grain cottage.
It was, however, rich in many other virtues. Chief among them were frogs.
“Mine’s biggest,” said Henry.
“Shh,” said Gertie, who was up to her ankles and poised with a pure and powerful focus that would have made a heron gawp.
“Hey are you looking?” said Henry, waving his frog. It blinked with the amphibian lack of fear and forethought typical of its clan.
“Shhh,” hissed Gertie, snakelike, one hand poised like the viper’s very tooth.
“You aren’t looking,” said Henry, and threw his frog to her, which she caught with her face. Much water and turmoil followed.
“You weren’t looking,” Henry defended himself with as they toweled themselves.
“You weren’t listening,” said Gertie. “I said ‘shh’ and then ‘shhh’ and you didn’t listen.”
“Have you found it?” asked the witch.
“This is the biggest frog in the pond!” said Henry, presenting his (recaptured, somewhat ruffled) frog proudly.
“I saw a bigger one,” said Gertie. “He screwed it up, though.”
“It wasn’t bigger. That was just the water. It was doing refrection.”
“Refraction, Henry,” said the witch.
“Yeah.”
“It looked bigger,” said Gertie, but there was a hint of hesitation in her voice. “I mean, I think it did. Sort of.”
“Biggest frog in the pond,” said Henry triumphantly.
“Fine. Whatever.”
The witch (who was an only child) looked between them. “Are you both sure?”
“Yeah!”
“Okay.”
“All right then. Now, watch carefully.”
And the witch put the frog in her cauldron and snapped her fingers and clicked her heels and clucked her tongue and squinted her youthful eyes into the brew.
“Too much widdershins,” she muttered. “Can you two whistle three times and dance a little?”
“What kind of dance?”
“Oh, anything will do.”
Gertie did the hokey pokey. Henry did the Macarena. The witch reached into the cauldron and felt around.
“Aha!” she exclaimed in triumph, and then extracted a slightly larger frog. “Oho? Uhm.”
“You said it would be a prince,” said Gertie.
“Maybe it was the Hokey Pokey,” suggested Henry. “That’s not a real dance.”
“And this wasn’t the real biggest frog. I told you it wasn’t.”
“Jerk.”
“Moron.”
“Children, please,” said the witch.
“Twit.”
“Dolt.”
“Children, PLEASE,” said the witch, clasping both hands over the frog.
“Dumbass!”
“Shit-for-brains!”
“Children, please please PLEASE step outside for a moment,” said the witch, whose hands were now shining through with an eerie translucent glow that made their teeth ache. “I think he’s going supercritical. Jump in the well and use the water as a shield for a little until I say it’s safe, alright? You can breathe through reeds.”
The two children did as they were told; although Henry did get made fun of by Gertie for how much shorter his reed was than her reed and that he would turn into a frog because of it. When the witch finally called them back in there was still no prince, but the slightly larger frog had become dog-sized.
“He’s stable now,” said the witch, “but I don’t think we can release him back into the pond. You two okay with keeping track of him?”
The frog attempted to eat Henry’s foot.
“I love him,” said Gertie.
And so it was.
***
Henry and Gertie had never been to a real castle before. Of course, they’d never lived with a witch before either, but this was almost as interesting. They’d never seen so many crenellations. Or a princess, for that matter.
“Now Henry, you can only help with this if you do exactly as I say, alright?” said the witch.
Henry nodded.
“Good boy. Now, pass me the tincture.”
Henry passed the witch the little jar of tincture, a single tiny drop of which made the princess’s leg as soft and woolly and fuzzy-feeling as a sheep.
“Now pass me the scissors.”
Henry passed the witch her shears, which gently slid through the flesh of the princess without spilling a drop of blood.
“Now pass me my awl.”
Henry passed the witch her awl, which bored a neat little hole into the marrow of the princess’s leg.
“Now pass me the grub.”
Henry passed the witch her little bone-grub, which would crawl inside the leg and eat away all the foulness and leave the healthy marrow and let the princess’s blood run sweet and clear again.”
“Now pass me my thread and needle.”
Henry picked up the thread and picked up the needle and pricked his finger and then fell asleep. He woke up to a noseful of smelling salts and a lot of sneezing.
“Sorry, Henry – I meant the OTHER needle. That one’s a sedative,” said the witch sheepishly.
“Actually, do you have a spare?” asked the princess, who had been taking notes on her operation. “I’ve had awful insomnia for years.”
“Not this one; it’s too powerful,” said the witch. “But do you have anything to hand? I could whip up a little overnighter.”
And so it was that the princess’s sewing machine was bewitched and every evening she pricked her finger upon it and she and the whole castle had a nice refreshing eight hours of deep comfortable sleep with gentle dreams.
Henry was smug about helping with it, but Gertie was not to be taunted. She’d had the best time of her life counting battlements.
***
Gertie opened the door and met the mob.
“Hello,” she said to the mob.
“Hello,” said the mob. They were wielding torches. Someone had rigged up a little model of a witch and was waving it around on a stick. “Is the witch home? We’ve got a bonfire rigged up.”
“Let me ask,” said Gertie. And she shut the door bit her knuckles a little and then went off to find the witch.
“Oh yes,” she said, putting down the loaf of twelve-grain bread that Henry had (mostly) not burned at all. “It’s about that time of year. Well, let’s get a move on. You don’t want to feel left out, do you?”
So Henry and Gertie had a lovely midsummer bonfire with marshmallows and suspicious meat products in buns and lots and lots of cold cider. The witch did the fireworks. And if nobody involved lived happily EVER after, they at least spent most of their time pretty cheerful and content, which is good enough for anybody.