Curse of the Dream Witch

by Allan Stratton

  The horse grunted as if to say, Why should I?

  Leo scrambled out of the bush. ‘I’ll have you sent to the glue factory, just see if I don’t. You’ll be boiled, deboned, and tossed to the pigs.’

  The horse whinnied: I don’t think so. It turned and trotted merrily into the night.

  ‘Wait. You can’t leave me.’

  There was a distant neigh, like a laugh. Then silence.

  Leo was consumed by dread: I’m alone in the Dream Witch’s forest. He wasn’t sure where to go, but he couldn’t stay where he was. He tried to tiptoe. His armour squeaked. Two more steps and he walked into a tree. He turned to his right and tripped over a log.

  This is Olivia’s fault, Leo wept in fury. If she hadn’t run away, I’d be safe at the castle. Wait till I get my hands on her. I’ll teach her who’s boss.

  He heard a rustling over his head. Something dived at him out of the dark. A rush of feathers. It flew away.

  What was it – that owl again? Maybe. But it was something else, too.

  He wasn’t alone.

  Not ten feet away, he saw two red coals glowing in the dark. Under their glow, he saw a nose like a trunk that disappeared into the pitch black.

  ‘Can I help you?’ the stranger said.

  Leo’s throat went dry as a desert. ‘I’ve l-lost my way. I’d like to get out of these woods.’

  ‘If you’d asked for a basket of toadstools, I’d have obliged. But to escape these woods? Not tonight, I’m afraid.’ The eyes floated towards him. He saw the witch’s withered frame, her long curled fingernails, and a nose that went on forever. The owl was perched on her right shoulder.

  ‘Dream Witch.’

  ‘Clever boy.’

  ‘What do you want?’ Leo panicked. ‘My heart?’

  The Dream Witch chuckled. ‘Do you have one? Ah, but of course you do. It’s beating so fast I’m surprised it doesn’t pop out of your mouth and run away.’

  ‘P-please. L-let me go. My father, the King of Pretonia, will pay a ransom.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes,’ Leo gulped. ‘I think so.’

  ‘You think so, but you’re not sure, are you? I wouldn’t be either. Why pay gold to rescue a coward who shames his name, when a son who died on a noble quest would make the family proud?’

  Leo shuddered. ‘So what are you going to do? Grind me up and eat me?’

  The witch’s nose inhaled his terror. ‘What a splendid idea.’

  Leo threw up in his helmet.

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake, there’s no need to be disgusting,’ the witch chided. ‘Can’t I have a little fun?’ She paused. ‘The Princess Olivia and her friend have breeched my underworld. They dare to threaten my power. My spirits will destroy them, but nothing must be left to chance.’ She smiled. ‘I’d like to offer you a proposition.’

  ‘Anything, Dream Witch.’

  ‘As long as the princess has her pysanka, I can’t come near her or her party. Smash the talisman for me and I’ll give you more riches than in all your father’s treasuries. So much gold he won’t care about the missing girl. He’ll be proud of you, boy. Yes, and love you, too.’

  Leo couldn’t believe his good fortune. ‘Thank you, Dream Witch. Thank you. I’ll shatter the talisman, and get you the princess and her friend.’ He kissed her yellow fingernails. ‘Take me to them.’

  ‘Your wish is my command,’ the witch winked.

  Leo blinked. When he opened his eyes, he was standing outside the Cottage of Dreams.

  The Dream Marsh

  Olivia, Milo and Ephemia spilled out of the earthen gullet into the Dream Witch’s underworld.

  Olivia had imagined she’d find a series of vast caverns with rot dripping from rock walls and roots growing down from above. Yet the witch’s lair was something else again – a vast grey emptiness without end or beginning. Even the grey under their feet seemed to disappear into space. Olivia wondered if she was floating, but a tap of her foot found her standing on some kind of invisible floor.

  ‘So this is the witch’s dream world,’ she marvelled.

  ‘Yes,’ Milo nodded. ‘It starts in nothingness.’

  ‘Which way should we go?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Ephemia said. ‘Nowhere is everywhere: Everywhere is nowhere. The dream will lead you.’

  Olivia took a step. The greyness under her feet was slick. She grabbed onto Milo for support. The two of them skidded forward and wobbled to a stop.

  ‘It’s slippery as ice,’ she gasped.

  ‘Cold as ice, too,’ Milo said.

  ‘Of course!’ Olivia exclaimed. ‘We’re standing on ice. Ice as grey as the marsh when it freezes in winter.’

  A chill swept around them. Their toes went numb. Their breaths misted. With each breath the mist spread in waves, filling the dream-marsh with an icy fog.

  Ephemia snuggled at Olivia’s neck. ‘Move or you’ll freeze to death.’

  Olivia remembered watching from her turret as villagers glided across the frozen marsh on wooden skates. How she’d wished to be with them, making pirouettes and figures of eight. She tried to mimic what she’d seen, but when she pushed forward, her feet slipped out from under her.

  Milo reached down and gave her a hand. Olivia tried to pull herself up but toppled him over instead.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Not to worry,’ Milo said. ‘Roll onto your knees, plant a foot, then push up with your hands.’

  He tried to show her how – he’d done it a million times – but this time, he couldn’t find his balance. He tumbled back down. He tried again. And again and again. Olivia too. No use. Each time, they ended up smack on their backs.

  Olivia’s teeth chattered. ‘What do we do?’

  ‘Crawl,’ Ephemia ordered.

  They inched forward on hands and knees: their fingers white with cold; their nails blue. A wind whipped up against them. Pellets of icy mist stung their cheeks. They slid backwards.

  Through the gusts, Olivia heard the voice of a little girl: Help me.

  ‘I hear a child,’ Olivia hollered over the wind.

  ‘You’re imagining things,’ Milo hollered back. ‘The children are in the witch’s lair.’

  ‘No. There’s one nearby. Maybe she escaped.’

  Help me. Help me.

  The voice was coming from below. Olivia looked down. The ice was covered with sleet. She rubbed it clear.

  Through wisps of fog, a little girl’s face stared up at her from under the frozen sheet; her head was in a pocket of air where the ice was thin. The child was near death, her skin a bluish-grey, her long hair spread out in the frigid water. She scratched at the surface from below: Help me.

  ‘She’s here, under the ice,’ Olivia shouted. ‘We have to break it. We have to save her.’

  ‘No,’ Ephemia shrieked.

  ‘What do you mean, no?’ Olivia whirled her head to Milo. ‘Milo, help me!’

  But Milo’s eyes were wide with terror. He pointed towards the child. Olivia looked back and saw what her friends saw: The little girl’s fingers weren’t fingers. They were claws. Claws attached to tentacles with suckers the size of plates.

  Olivia screamed.

  The beast threw off its disguise. Its little-girl mouth stretched wide, as it rolled its lips over its forehead and down past its shoulders, revealing a brain sack with a single bulbous eye and a fierce beak. The tentacles swirled in the gelid water as the creature beat and clawed at the underside of the ice.

  The surface cracked.

  ‘Ephemia, save us!’ Olivia cried. ‘Cast a spell!’

  ‘I’ll only make things worse.’

  ‘They can’t get worse!’

  True, Ephemia thought. For the first time since Olivia’s birth, she rummaged her memory for a spell: ‘Amnibitor Imnabatar Praxit!’

  And things got worse. The brain sack ballooned. The tentacles swelled. A rubbery limb broke through and shot high in the air. It slapped down by Olivia’s head, splitting the surfa
ce of the ice.

  Ephemia tried to fix things. ‘Omnobiter Nimtarbiter Traxip!’

  And worse. The creature multiplied into three beasts, each larger than the first. Their tentacles smashed the ice field into chunks. Olivia and Milo found themselves on a slab that bobbed in the swells as the creatures thrashed below. All around, massive cubes of ice upended. Wedges splintered and cast adrift.

  The largest creature wrapped a tentacle around a corner of their slab, and pulled down with its suckers. The ice-raft tilted. Milo and Olivia grabbed the upper edge. The monster raised its head. Olivia lost her grip. She slid towards its open beak.

  ‘Nimnobiter Traxibiter Bixit!’ Ephemia squealed.

  A giant umbrella, twenty-feet long, shot down through the fog. Its shaft speared the creature’s eye. With a howl, the beast ripped out the missile, flung it across the pitching slab, and plunged back into the marsh.

  ‘A parasol? Really?’ Olivia demanded.

  ‘With my luck it could have been a feather. Be happy you’re alive.’

  ‘But not for long,’ Milo exclaimed.

  On either side, the remaining beasts emerged from the mists. Their tentacles swept the ice in search of their prey.

  ‘I’ve got it! The parasol!’ Olivia shouted. ‘Ephemia, you’re a genius after all.’

  Quickly, she and Milo cupped themselves inside the giant handle and undid the mighty clasp.

  A snippet of wind caught the inside of the umbrella. The fabric ballooned open; its broad canopy was like a giant sail. It propelled them across the marsh. Holding on for dear life, Olivia and Milo’s heels skimmed over the water, skipping from one ice chunk to the next.

  The creatures gave chase, their tentacles flying through the air.

  Dead ahead, a barge of ice bobbed up from below.

  ‘We’re going to crash!’ Olivia cried, as rubbery limbs slapped at their heels.

  ‘No we’re not,’ Milo exclaimed, ‘Jump!’

  They leapt together, bouncing onto the wedge. In a blink, they skied up and over the top. For a moment, they swayed, suspended in the air, the umbrella a giant parachute.

  Slimy suckers flew through the fog around them. The end of a tentacle whipped around Olivia’s left boot. The creature tightened its grip. The umbrella careened in the wind.

  ‘It’s got me,’ Olivia said. ‘Ephemia, Milo, save yourselves. I’m letting go.’

  ‘No, don’t give up,’ Milo shouted. ‘That’s what the Dream Witch wants you to do.’ He shinnied up the handle. ‘Grab my leg.’

  Olivia clutched Milo’s knee. He shimmied higher, pulling her with him. The creature’s grip held tight to the leather boot. But Olivia’s foot slipped up the inside. She kicked it free.

  Released from the creature’s pull, the umbrella shot high in the air current. Soon the friends were sailing far above the fog. By the time it cleared, they were ages from the marsh.

  The wind calmed to a gentle breeze. The umbrella floated down. Stretching to the horizon, Olivia, Milo and Ephemia saw gardens lusher than any courtyard with flowers high as houses.

  ‘It looks like heaven,’ Olivia marvelled.

  ‘A heaven made in hell,’ Ephemia murmured darkly.

  The umbrella landed on top of a peony bush the size of an oak tree. Olivia and Milo climbed down its mighty branches.

  ‘So there you are!’ came a voice from a patch of bluebells. Olivia whirled around. A sword scythed through the thicket of stems. A young man stepped forward. ‘I’ve come to save you.’

  Oh no, Olivia thought.

  It was Leo.

  An Unexpected Encounter

  Olivia looked Leo in the eye. ‘I don’t need saving, and certainly not by the likes of you.’

  ‘In fact, she needs saving from you,’ said Ephemia.

  Leo’s eyes bulged. ‘It talks.’

  The spunky mouse puffed up her chest. ‘It has a name and the name is Ephemia. I can do more than talk, too, in case you’ve forgotten.’

  Leo raised a boot. ‘Another word and I’ll squish you.’

  Milo picked up a pebble the size of a rock. ‘Stay where you are.’

  ‘Who are you to tell me what to do?’

  ‘The best aim in the county. Take another step and I’ll bop you.’

  ‘So you’re Olivia’s knight in not-so-shiny armour, are you?’ Leo sneered. ‘Little Sir Corn Cob?’

  ‘He’s a friend,’ Olivia said. ‘Treat him with respect.’

  ‘Oh, of course,’ Leo mocked. ‘How else to treat a peasant who broke into your chamber to steal you for the Dream Witch?’ He looked back at Milo. ‘How much is the witch paying you to betray the princess? What’s your reward?’

  ‘We might ask the same of you,’ Ephemia declared.

  ‘I’m a prince,’ Leo said. ‘I get what I want and always will. I don’t need rewards.’

  ‘How many others came with you?’ Milo demanded. ‘Where are they?’

  ‘It’s none of your business, but I came alone.’

  ‘You? Alone?’ Olivia frowned. ‘That’s hard to believe.’

  ‘How dare you question my valour? I’m Crown Prince of Pretonia!’

  ‘Yes, and you run from castle ghosts,’ Ephemia laughed. She put on her phantom voice, ‘’Tis I, Weaselkins, the Headless Hunchback of Horning!’

  ‘That was you?’ Leo flashed his sword.

  Milo gripped his rock.

  ‘Enough,’ Olivia exclaimed. ‘This is no time to fight. The witch’s world can turn upside down in a second. So – both of you – put down your weapons. Now.’

  The boys looked from Olivia to each other and back again. Then, wary as foxes, they disarmed.

  ‘Now, Leo, the truth,’ Olivia said. ‘Where are your troops?’

  ‘Back at the castle probably,’ Leo said. ‘I led some cavalry into the forest. But when we reached the witch’s cottage, we were attacked by demons. My men abandoned me. I hid behind the door of teeth.’

  ‘And got swallowed into this underworld,’ Olivia said.

  ‘Yes,’ Leo nodded. ‘I’ve no idea where I’ve been or how I got here. Things came at me out of nowhere. Then I heard your voices. And here I am.’

  ‘So, you are a liar. You didn’t show up to save the princess,’ Milo scoffed.

  Leo hung his head. He hoped it passed for shame, for he realised that if he was going to destroy Olivia’s pysanka he had to gain their trust. And there’s nothing like truth with a dash of guile to grease the wheels of treachery.

  ‘It’s true,’ Leo choked. ‘I’m no hero. I’m a coward. A bully. A miserable failure.’ With great effort, he squeezed out a tear.

  Olivia’s heart melted on cue. ‘Please don’t cry.’

  ‘Why not?’ Leo helped himself to a sniffle and sank onto a giant mushroom cap. ‘I was raised to be King of Pretonia: A warrior, hard and cruel. Well, now I have my reward. I’m alone, without a friend in the world. I don’t deserve any. In fact, I don’t deserve to live. Ask anyone. Even my father.’ He broke into sobs. To his surprise, some of them were real.

  Milo turned away in embarrassment.

  Ephemia wiped her eyes with her tail. ‘You poor, poor boy.’

  Olivia ran and knelt by the prince; his stink was overwhelming, but it wasn’t the time to be unkind. ‘We didn’t get off to a good start,’ she said. ‘But I know what it’s like to feel trapped in a life that isn’t your own.’

  ‘You understand?’

  Olivia struggled to find the right words. ‘Deep inside, I know you can’t be nearly as horrible as you seem.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Leo wept. ‘So, you forgive me?’

  ‘What else can I do?’

  Leo kissed her hand.

  Olivia wiped it on the back of her coat and turned to Ephemia and Milo. ‘What do you say? Prince Leo needs our help and can help us in return. Can we let bygones be bygones?’

  ‘Of course,’ Ephemia said. ‘As long as we keep our eyes open.’

  ‘Milo?’

  Milo wanted
to spit. Instead, he shrugged. ‘Sure. Why not? He’s got a sword at least.’

  ‘Good,’ Olivia said. So now –’

  But before she could ask which way they should go, the company heard a delicate whirr in the air over by a stand of tulips. Then silence.

  ‘What was it?’ she whispered. ‘What is it?’

  Leo frowned. ‘There’s nothing there but those flowers.’

  ‘But I heard something.’

  ‘So did I,’ Ephemia said.

  Olivia squinted hard, but whatever it was seemed invisible.

  Milo glanced at Leo. ‘Shall we take a look?’

  Leo shook his head so fast it nearly flew off his shoulders. ‘If there’s something there, we should leave it alone.’

  ‘Whatever it is, it’s watching us,’ Olivia said. ‘I can feel it.’

  ‘I feel it too,’ Milo nodded. He took a step towards the tulips. ‘Who’s there?’

  Whatever it was stayed still.

  ‘You three stay here,’ Milo said. ‘I’m going to investigate.’

  ‘Let me,’ Ephemia offered. ‘I’m smaller.’

  Milo shook his head. ‘You need to protect Olivia.’

  ‘Oh really? I’m not a baby,’ Olivia shot back. ‘If there’s danger, I need to take my share.’

  ‘There’s enough danger here for all of us,’ Milo said. ‘This one’s on me.’

  ‘Yes, this one’s on him,’ Leo agreed, and dived under the mushroom cap.

  ‘So much for brave Pretonian princes,’ Ephemia muttered.

  Milo picked up his rock and approached the giant tulips. Thick, green leaves thrust out of the ground, rising halfway up the mighty stalks before collapsing backwards under their own weight. Dewdrops the size of bowling balls clung to their surface. Towering above the leaves, massive cups of red petals perched at the tips of the stalks, every tip a perfect lookout.

  Milo peered up at the flower heads, searching for a sign of the unseen presence. Nothing: every petal was perfectly in place. His neck prickled. Whatever was spying on him wasn’t watching from above. It was over by a leaf to his right.

  Two droplets on the leaf caught his eye. At a glance, they looked like all the others, each as big as his head. But instead of being clear, they were a pale green.