I need to get out of class, before my hand gets any bigger, before I get big and my head goes through the ceiling. Everyone’s looking at Mrs. Drummond and Arithmetic. I want to ask Mrs. Drummond if I can be excused, but before I do that I see the Woods Man outside, the one that got scared when I shrunk Matt. He’s standing by the fence that cuts the school off from the trees. He looks like he never left the woods, with his brown ripped jacket and his dirty pants that don’t cover his legs. And he has no shoes, which is weird because nobody walks in the woods without shoes, but maybe he lives in the woods and that’s what you do when you live there. I know I don’t wear shoes at home.
Mommy always says to stay away from weird people, and I know I should tell Mrs. Drummond about the Woods Man, but I don’t. I know if I say, Look, it’s the Woods Man, everybody will ask how I know he’s the Woods Man, and I won’t want to tell them how I know it’s him because I scared him when Matt turned small, so I’ll have to lie, and because I’ll lie Becca and Chrissy will know something’s wrong and think I like the Woods Man and they’ll sing Lucy and the Woods Man, sitting in a tree.
But it isn’t just that. The man isn’t just dressed weird, he looks wrong. He is wrong. His arms are as long as the fence and his fingers are as big as posts and his legs look crooked and too thin to carry him. The Woods Man sees me looking and pulls his right arm all the way back into his body and waves at me. I think he’s magic, like me, and he wants me to know that.
I ask Mrs. Drummond to use the washroom.
“Careful not to fall down a rabbit hole!” Bobby tells me.
“That’s enough,” Mrs. Drummond says. “Lucy, please be quick. There’s a…a special meeting in the gymnasium in fifteen minutes.”
I hate walking down the hallway when there’s magic. The blue walls stretch like an inside sky and the ceiling is clouds and I’m a witch with a too-big hand and it’s like the washroom is on another planet because it takes forever for me to walk to it and outside there’s a Woods Man, a Magic Man, and he’s—
Todd. He’s Todd with the Sin Drum, like me.
Somehow, I’m at the washroom, so I go in a stall, close the door, pull my feet up on the toilet, and hide. Todd is the Woods Man. The magic has brought us together, like Matt and Gulliver. He was there all along. He saw what happened to Matt and he wanted to help, but like me he was scared, and he didn’t want to get shrunk so he ran. But now he’s showing me his magic. He heard what people think about Matt and he came looking for me.
Mommy must have known, and Mr. Gardner too, that Todd isn’t a young witch like me, that he’s old. Maybe he kept secrets and got old too fast. That’s why they didn’t want me to meet him. But they don’t know he’s the only one who can help. I can’t fix anything by myself, and I can’t bring my terrarium to class for Show and Tell and say, My name is Lucy, and I am a witch, and this is Matt and Gulliver, and this is a terrarium and not a fishbowl.
I’m bigger than a house and I’m moving through the schoolyard and my giant feet go boom boom boom. No one from the school is following me, and they couldn’t catch me even if they wanted to – they aren’t witches.
Todd, the Woods Man, the Magic Man, is still next to the fence. He sees me coming and goes back into the woods. The fence down there is made to keep out mice, not girls as big as trees, and it’s easy for me to go over it. In the woods I walk through the leaves and the tops of some of the trees come up to my eyes.
Todd coughs somewhere down there. His arm goes all the way up to me through the branches, and it’s like a spider arm. It grabs my hand and squeezes tight.
There’s magic in his hand – it feels like when I put my knife into the toaster and my hair stuck on ends and Mommy screamed. All around me the trees grow tall and I get small, back down to Lucy-size. Todd is bigger than I am, and he squeezes my hand. He really is magic. He has to be. His arms and legs and other bits of him grow big and small, big and small.
“I’m the River Street Witch,” I tell him. I know not to talk to strangers, but we aren’t really strangers, and we’re both magic, and we’re in this together.
“And I’m the Witch of the Woods,” he says. I know he means his name is Todd, but I didn’t say my name is Lucy because we’re witches and that’s what matters right now. Kids aren’t supposed to call adults by their first name anyway, so the Witch of the Woods works.
“You…uh. You’re—” I say, looking at our hands. He’s an adult, and magic, and I need his help, but he’s really smelly and covered in dirt so I try to think of a nice way to say he needs a bath. “—very dusty.”
“Best way to do magic.”
I never even thought of that. It makes sense, I guess. Mommy always wants me to take baths, even when I don’t need to, so maybe water or baths block the magic a bit. “I have a lot to learn.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I need to bring Matt back. He…he’s in my terrarium. With Gulliver.”
Todd nods, because of course he knows. “I can help with that,” he says, smiling, and even though I stay the same I can feel my heart growing big in my chest. I’ve told my secret, I don’t need to become old. I’m so happy I feel like I’m floating, and I have to look down to make sure I’m not.
There are ants near my feet, and it’s like they’re all staring at me. It must be the magic. I know ants listen to their queen, and I could be their queen if I learn to work the magic, once I fix Matt. Maybe Matt will realize he liked being small, and he will stay with me and the ants and we’ll have adventures with Gulliver and Todd. I want to tell Todd, but he’s better at magic than me, he already knows what I want to say, and he pulls me down. We’re both getting small, going farther and farther away from the trees and the branches and the sky. We’re down with the leaves and the dirt and the ants, and Todd grabs me by the waist and sits me in front of him on an ant, and together we go deeper into the woods where he’ll teach me how to be a real witch.
THE RISE OF THE CRIMSON QUEEN
Linda DeMeulemeester
“Only three,” said the funny looking kid who’d been locked in the coal bin.
He’d somehow crawled into the cellar during the night. Aggie heard him scratching at the door and rattling the latch. “Let me out,” he’d moaned.
When she set him free, they stared at each other face-to-face. Aggie had never seen anyone quite like him. He was as small as a toddler, with long coal-smudged white ears and a soot-covered waistcoat. When she reached out to touch his droopy ear, he bit her hand and ran away clutching two fistfuls of coal to his chest.
“Dirty, rotten thing,” cried Aggie, holding her thumb.
“Only three,” he called back.
Aggie and Mommy were driving back from the swimming pool. Rain beat against their windshield and hammered like pellets on the car roof. The windshield wipers pounded a rhythm until Aggie felt her heart match its beat. The old-car smell mingled with stale cigarette smoke, making her feel sick.
“Daddy and I are divorcing,” Mommy said.
When they got home, Mommy let them eat in front of the television. Daddy would never have let them do that.
Two nights before, like other nights, Daddy had come home from work and everybody had to be quiet. Aggie hated quiet. After dinner they could sit without noise or fidgeting while Daddy sat on the couch and sipped his beer. He always fell asleep watching hockey and one of them, usually Tricia, would turn on cartoons. Then Davy would switch the channel to an action show. Aggie didn’t much care what was on TV. She just wanted them not to argue. They always argued. Daddy would wake up and send them all to bed.
The next night, Aggie had played with her father’s tools. He accused Davy. Davy was too afraid to defend himself. Aggie was too scared to confess. Davy got a spanking.
That’s when Aggie wished her father would go away, so she wouldn’t have to worry about being quiet or good anymore.
Aggie only had one so-called friend on the block, and she didn’t like her much. Her cousin Jane lived next d
oor and was two years older and bossed Aggie around. She was tall, skinny and blonde, and Aggie thought they looked stupid together because she was short, dark and plump.
“Come to my house after school.”
Jane never asked, she told. Aggie had to wait outside the school for her for an extra half hour. The wind bit into Aggie’s ankles and scraped her lips raw. She yanked her skirt as close to her knee socks as she could.
Jane cried all the way home, saying her hands were cold. Aggie didn’t think a seventh grader who blubbered had any right to boss her.
The next day, when Jane wanted her to stay outside in the biting cold and wait for her, Aggie shook her head and went straight home. But as Aggie walked down the steps of the school, she saw Jane plastered against the window making a fist at her. Jane had her ways. Aggie was afraid to go to school the next morning.
She wished her cousin’s family would go away.
That night, nestled with Tricia in their tiny bedroom, Aggie kept waking up with the same bad dream that hot smoke scorched her nose and throat raw. When she got up to get a drink of water, she heard her mother crying behind her bedroom door just like she heard her every night since Daddy left. She wished she didn’t have to hear Mommy cry. After her trip to the bathroom, Aggie heard the whoop-whoop of the sirens race down her street. From her window, she saw fire trucks parked by Jane’s house, and their red lights bathed her room in blood. Smoke billowed from next door.
Aggie and her sister and brother ran downstairs with their mother and out the door to watch their cousin’s house burn down. Mommy sobbed harder and in front of everybody on the whole block. Aunt Sheila didn’t look that sad that her house was on fire. Jane managed a nasty smirk as she huddled under a blanket.
Shivering in her pyjamas, the heat that rushed to her face burned as bright as the flames that leaped from Jane’s house to her own rooftop. Now Aggie’s house was in flames.
After the fire, Aggie and Jane’s families went away all right, but the kids were farmed out among other aunts and uncles. Mommy needed a rest and was staying with Aunt Diane in another city. Aggie didn’t hear Mommy cry anymore. Only…
It was a bad time to run out of wishes.
“Why can’t Trisha or Davy stay here with us?” Aggie helped Jane unfold the hideaway in their Granny Perkin’s battered, wine-coloured couch.
“I couldn’t put up with anyone that needs a lot of watching,” Granny said, her cigarette dangling from her mouth as she managed to simultaneously smoke, talk and drink her coffee. “And I didn’t want to take in anyone old enough to be mouthy.” Saying this, Granny glared at Jane. “But I only had two choices now, didn’t I?”
“I won’t be here long,” said Jane. “We had house insurance. We’re getting a new house built. I’ll get my own room, a real one.”
“Not soon enough for me,” muttered Granny, and she shuffled to the kitchen in her quilted slippers and stained housedress to pour more coffee.
“You’ll be here forever,” Jane whispered to Aggie behind their granny’s back. “’Cause your dad ran off and your mom’s gone nuts because you had no insurance on the house. Your family’s lost everything. Now, I’m your boss.”
Jane smirked. She made a fist and waved it in front of Aggie’s face. “I’ll take the bed. You sleep on the couch cushions.”
That night as Aggie tried to distribute her weight on the two cushions, her bottom sagged between the break until she abandoned the cushions and curled up on the threadbare carpet. The carpet smelled faintly of cat pee, which was still better than the cushions that radiated mildew and cigarette smoke. She wished she was in her own bedroom listening to Trisha’s soft breaths. That’s when it occurred to Aggie.
She had to find that funny-looking rabbit kid, whom she realized wasn’t really a person at all, but something closer to an it. Not the it that lurks in closets at night, and not the kind of it that delivers Easter eggs either. She needed more wishes.
It was Granny Perkins who gave her the idea. When Jane was taking a bath and Aggie was blissfully free of her, she found an old record player and records in Granny’s closet. Granny had finished her first whiskey of the night and was more agreeable. She showed Aggie how to play records.
When Aggie put the third record on Granny’s portable, it played a Bing Crosby song over and over as he crooned about high hopes and ants moving plants. She spun until she was dizzy and stumbled backwards around the living room, until she knocked over a pewter ashtray stand and it smashed down with a wallop. The glass ashtray shattered.
“That’s enough nonsense,” snapped Granny, who’d finished her third whiskey by this time. She raked the playing arm over the record. Aggie’s teeth ached from the needle’s scratching sound.
“See what happens when you run around widdershins,” said Granny Perkins. “The faeries can see you, and they cause accidents.” She handed Aggie a dented metal dustpan and a whisk broom.
“What’s widdershins?” asked Aggie.
“Ass backwards,” Granny mumbled, rolling her cigarette over her tongue. “Contrary, like asking questions when you should be cleaning up this mess.”
As Aggie swept the ashes and glass shards into the pan, she plotted.
On Saturday morning, when Granny was sleeping it off upstairs, Aggie washed up the breakfast dishes. Jane sat in the living room munching on her third piece of cinnamon toast as she watched cartoons. Jane didn’t notice her slip out the kitchen door.
On the back stoop, Aggie climbed backward down the porch. She counted the backward steps to the cellar. Pears and plums that hadn’t been raked during the fall, squished under her navy sneakers, releasing rotten fruit fumes while she slid across the thick frost. Aggie reached down the furnace chute and pulled out several stray chunks of coal. She held them one by one in front of her face. “Come and get it, whatever you are,” she said before stuffing the coal in the deep pockets of her pink jacket.
Cold air nipped at her ears and nose, and Aggie shivered as she kept her backward motion out of the yard, past the blackberry canes, out into the gravel lane. Backward, she walked down the alley marvelling at how different the neighbourhood looked in this widdershins motion. Even the dilapidated garage with its crumbling tarpaper blurred almost unrecognizable against the steel November sky.
Aggie finally reached the huge field at the end of Granny’s block with its leafless chestnut trees and tall frozen grass. Behind the trees and camouflaged by the tall grass was the underground fort she and Jane had been digging since they moved in with Granny. I’ve been digging, Aggie thought, rubbing the blisters on her palms. Jane was her foreman.
The fort looked like a giant rabbit hole to Aggie. She circled the hole counter-clockwise three times before she dropped the chunks of coal inside. She propped up the hatch with a tree branch, and marched around the hole in a clockwise motion, hoping the funny-looking kid wouldn’t notice how she tied her skipping rope around the branch. Huddled behind the tree trunk, Aggie pulled her knees close to her chest for warmth and tucked her hands inside the dirty sleeves of her hooded jacket. It didn’t take long.
When Aggie heard snuffling sounds of something rooting inside the fort, she yanked the skipping rope taut. The branch pulled away and the hatch snapped shut.
“No,” screeched the giant rabbit kid.
Aggie rushed to the hatch and jumped on top, securing the only exit.
“Let me out,” it screamed. Aggie’s nostrils flared at his otherworldly scent. Butterflies battered her stomach as his nails scratched underneath, but she held her ground. “Promise me more wishes,” she demanded.
“You only get three,” the rabbit kid said. Aggie didn’t like the way his voice took on a taunting tone, reminding her of Jane. “What’s the matter, didn’t the other wishes work out so well?”
“They were okay,” said Aggie. “Only three wasn’t enough. And you can stay down there till I get more.”
“There are rules, you know.” This time he sounded less smug. “Wishes
in the hands of a child can be a nasty business. A child can be ruthless even by Wonderland’s standards.”
“Then get yourself out,” cried Aggie and she stomped on the hatch, hoping chunks of rock and dirt would rain on the creature.
“Stop that,” he bellowed. “You can’t stand there forever.”
“Are you sure?” asked Aggie. “My granny doesn’t care. Jane will miss me when she wants something, but she hates the cold and won’t come looking for me until spring.”
For a while there was silence. Aggie shivered as the sullen grey clouds thickened the sky. She waited.
“What if…”
“What?” asked Aggie, hoping she didn’t sound too curious.
“What if I make a deal with you,” the rabbit said. “I’ll give you a treasure instead of a wish.”
“A treasure?” asked Aggie.
“I can do magic with the coal and turn it into a valuable gem.”
Aggie considered his offer. Her teacher had said that coal buried under great pressure for a very long time turned into diamonds. She’d given that endeavour her best effort, filling a pit with pieces of coal, damping down rocks, dirt and leaves over the coal, hopping on the pile every day for months. But when she dug up the coal, it was still black, sooty chunks of rock.
With some trepidation, she stepped off the hatch and watched as he poked up his long ears and then his white head. He crawled out of the hole, clutching his pieces of coal.
“Why do you need coal?”
“We’ve run out of treasure,” the rabbit complained. “And we have to keep paying more to the Jabberwock.”
“Why?” asked Aggie.
“We’re disorganized, I suppose,” he said in disgust. His nose twitched. “We find it hard to stand up to him.” He pulled out a long-frozen stalk of grass and strung it around a piece of coal. Then he covered it completely with his white paws.
For a moment, as if the sun had peeked from the clouds and lit up the sky, a queer green light seeped from his fists and spilled out. When he unfolded his hands, a glittering gem the size of Aggie’s palm hung from a delicate chain of pale gold. Aggie gasped. The necklace would be worth a fortune, and she could afford to buy Granny Perkin’s house and let Trisha and Davy move in, and somehow get rid of Jane and Granny.
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