by Holly Grant
In a synchronized, fluid, horrible motion, each and every pub-goer snaked their hand into their cloak. Each and every pub-goer withdrew from their cloak a long, sharp silver wand.
“Crumbs,” Anastasia whispered. “Witches.”
In a trice, in a twinkling, in a jiffy (that is to say, very quickly), things went all squidgy.
The bespectacled witch nearest the Dreadfuls swooped forth with her wand raised. The wand traced a silver arc through the gloom and toward Anastasia.
A yellow umbrella flashed in front of Anastasia’s eyes. The umbrella whacked the wand aside in a parry. In fact, the umbrella knocked the wand out of the old lady’s hand entirely. The silver spike clattered to the floor.
Gus crouched, brolly aloft, en garde.
“Myrtle!” cried the second elderly witch, stooping to pick up the wand before planting herself stoutly between the Dreadfuls and the rest of the pub. “What’s gotten into you? Attacking children, for goodness’ sake!”
“Children!” Myrtle sputtered. “Nonsense—they’re Morflings!”
“They most certainly are not,” the second witch declared. “Explain how two Morflings would materialize out of thin air.”
Two Morflings? Anastasia twisted her head, looking for Ollie. Where was he?
“They didn’t materialize,” a man sitting at the bar shouted scornfully. “They probably came in here as shadows or spiders or what have you and shifted back into snivel-nosed little brats.”
“Fully dressed?” the witch demanded.
“Oh, Moona, what does it matter how they got here?” Myrtle squawked. “Now give me my wand and get out of the way.”
Angry protests ricocheted around the tiny pub, and the crowd rustled and inched closer.
“You ’eard Myrtle,” slurred a man with a round red nose. “Give ’er back the wand and let’s squarsh those Merflings—I mean, Morvings—”
“You’re drunk, Bill,” Moona snapped. “You’re all drunk, and you’re wound up from the chili festival, and you’re acting very silly. And shame on you all for scaring my wee godchildren half to death!”
“Godchildren?” echoed Myrtle. Anastasia and Gus exchanged a bewildered glance.
“Yes, godchildren! They’re here to visit me.” Moona swiveled back to glare at Anastasia and Gus. “Very naughty of you it was, sneaking into the pub! I’ve a good mind to send you both back home to your mother. Now march yourselves straight out of here this instant.” She grabbed Anastasia’s shoulders and spun her around.
Now that Anastasia’s peepers had adjusted to the gloom, she saw a silver doorknob jutting right from the middle of the wood paneling. She could not, however, discern a door.
“Go on,” Moona urged.
Anastasia twisted the knob and yanked, and a section of the wall hinged inward.
“You still have my wand, Moona!” Myrtle yelled.
“And I’m not giving it back until you’ve sobered up!” The witch shoved Anastasia and Gus, and they tumbled out of the pub and into a thicket of green ferns. The fronds of these ferns arced above their heads, so they could not see what lay beyond.
Perhaps you have seen adventure films in which explorers must whack their way through dense jungle growth with machetes. The Dreadfuls did not have a machete, but Gus did have the yellow umbrella, and with it he whacked at the foliage. WHACK! WHACK! The fronds bent aside, and the two Morflings burst through the thicket and beheld, for the first time, the greater wilderness into which Calixto Swift’s magic had spirited them.
Before them sprawled a forest of gargantuan trees. The trunks of these goliaths were as broad as lighthouses and seemed to stretch as tall as skyscrapers. Anastasia’s gaze traveled along the moss-fuzzed bark, up some three hundred feet, all the way to the leafy canopy above. She goggled at this greeny-gray ceiling until Gus grabbed her hand to yank her into a run. However, Anastasia’s feet did not patter forth into the emerald forest. Her galosh snared in a tangle of ivy, and she thudded to the wet forest floor, landing heavily on her satchel.
SMASH! Crunch-tinkle-tinkle!
“Oh no.” Gus’s eyes rounded in horror. “Was that—”
Anastasia shifted to her knees and unbuttoned her satchel. A swirl of snowflakes puffed out into the green-glowing light, twinkled, and evaporated. Anastasia peered down at the shards of glass spiking the satchel’s belly, her heart sinking.
“Is it broken?” Gus asked.
Anastasia swallowed hard and nodded.
“Anastasia! Gus!” Ollie tripped across the carpet of vines and leaves toward them. “Am I glad to see you! I was afraid you hadn’t come through! Why didn’t you answer me? I’ve been calling and calling!”
“We didn’t hear you,” Gus said. “We were in that witch pub—”
“Witch pub?” Ollie interrupted. “What witch pub?”
“The one right there—”
But the witch pub was gone. The thicket whence Anastasia and Gus had stumbled petticoated not a pub but an enormous tree.
“It was right there!” Anastasia said. “It vanished—or it somehow turned into a tree!”
“It always was a tree,” declared the witch Moona, straightening her sunny yellow raincoat as she emerged from the ferns. Spotting Ollie, she let out a sigh. “Blue blazes! Now there are three of you?”
“Stay back!” Gus brandished the umbrella.
Moona huffed in exasperation. “Perhaps you bested Myrtle with that bumbershoot, my dear, but she’s half-blind and full of Toadstool Cider. I’m not.” She whisked her silver wand from her pocket and wriggled it. The umbrella’s yellow canopy sprang open, and the handle tugged free from Gus’s grip. The Dreadfuls stared as the brolly floated up, up, up and disappeared into the treetops like an escaped helium balloon.
“Just like Mary Poppins’s umbrella!” Ollie gasped.
“Well, sure,” Moona said. “She was a witch, you know. But let’s get down to brass tacks: it won’t be too long before that lot in the pub follows us out here. If you don’t want Myrtle and the rest of those drunks chasing you down and poking you full of holes or worse, you’d best behave like nice little witch godchildren and follow me.”
“Witch godchildren?” Ollie exclaimed.
“Better to be three witch godchildren than three Morflings trespassing through witch woods, don’t you think?” Moona said.
“Witch woods?” Ollie quailed.
Anastasia’s thoughts whizzed. The Dreadfuls could not travel through Calixto’s snow globe back to Dinkledorf. They were in the middle of a strange wilderness, and that wilderness was full of witches. Should they try to flee? She could shift into a bat and fly, and Ollie could umbrate and do a Shadow flit. If they were to escape, morphing would be their best option.
However, Gus couldn’t morph.
Besides, she had come here to find Nicodemus, not dash away at the first glimpse of a witch. And this witch, Miss Moona, had protected them in the pub. But—
“Why are you helping us?” Anastasia asked.
“Oh well, killing children isn’t my cup of tea.” The witch’s crinkly face brightened. “Speaking of tea, it’s just about teatime! Hurry up, now. We don’t want to be late.” She turned and marched off into the ivy and moss.
“I’m not going anywhere with a witch,” Ollie muttered. “And I’m certainly not drinking witch tea! Let’s go—”
“Where?” Anastasia whispered. “The Cavepearl Palace snow globe is broken, Ollie. We’re stuck here, and we don’t know where here is—just that it’s crawling with witches. Besides, we’re still on a Mission of Life-and-Death Importance!”
She kicked away the leafy creeper and scrambled after the old woman. Gus and Ollie exchanged an anxious glance before hurrying to follow.
Over hill, over dale, through mist, and through ferns they footslogged, sweaty and panting and chilled, until at last the witch halted in front of one of the colossal trees.
“Well, here we are,” Moona said. She grabbed a knobbly bulge in the bark and yanked it,
and a round door swung out from the trunk. When closed, the door had blended perfectly into the grooved bark. It was practically invisible. But it was open now, and the witch ducked into the tree and crooked her finger into the universal hand gesture for Come closer, my pretties.
THE HOLLOW INSIDE the witch’s tree was cool and dark and smelled of earth and…cake? Anastasia scrunched her eyelids, peering into the gloom. The chamber was round, of course, like a room in a tower or lighthouse. At the center of the chamber squatted a metal stove, and in the guts of this stove crackled a merry fire. The orange glow glinted off hundreds of glass jars and bottles lining the curving walls of the redwood’s belly.
“Let’s see,” the witch said. “I think you need a nice cup of tea after that nasty scene back there. And how about cake? Would you like a smidgen of cake, my dears?” She whisked the lid from a big cake platter. The platter was bare excepting some brown crumbs and a long, wicked knife. Moona seized the knife and brandished it, glaring. Anastasia gasped. Ollie gasped. Gus gasped. So did the witch.
“I don’t even have to wonder,” she huffed, “who gobbled the last piece of cake and didn’t even clear away the dishes! Most inconsiderate! Very bad manners!”
“Wh-who was it?” Ollie stammered, eyes glued to the knife.
“Why,” the witch said, “it was me. I wish I wouldn’t do these things. But”—she beamed at them—“I suppose nobody’s perfect.” She set the knife down on the table and hunkered down to rummage through a basket by the front door. “Ah!” She yanked out a pair of battered leather gloves and a spade.
“What are those for?” Anastasia asked, her thoughts flitting back to the little graves lining the gardens of Prim and Prudence Snodgrass.
The witch looked surprised. “I’m going to get you some cake, of course.” She pulled on the gloves. “I won’t be but a minute. I have a lovely chocolate cake that’s been growing all week.” She picked up the cake platter and bustled out the front door.
“Growing all week?” Gus echoed.
“I’m not eating witch cake, and neither should you,” Ollie said stoutly. “Haven’t you read Hansel and Gretel?”
“Do you think she’s really trying to help us?” Gus asked.
Anastasia’s eyebrows crinkled. “She did stop the pub witches from sticking us with their wands.”
“Witches don’t help Morfolk,” Ollie hissed. “She brought us back here to murder us in private! That way, she doesn’t have to share any of her nice Morfling dinner.”
“But do witches really eat children?” Anastasia asked.
“Hansel and Gretel,” Ollie intoned. “Snow White. Remember? The evil witch queen wanted to eat Snow White’s heart.”
“Ollie, those are just stories,” Gus protested.
“No, they aren’t! Remember what Mr. Winkler told us about Little Red Riding Hood? And what that witch just said about Mary Poppins?” Ollie argued. “Fairy tales are real, and witches in fairy tales always try to eat children! Maybe these witches want to gobble our hearts—or livers—”
“Oh my goodness, no!” the witch exclaimed, stooping into the tree kitchen. On her platter trembled an enormous cake frosted thickly with chocolate and stuck all over with beautiful pink sugar roses.
“Nobody wants to eat your livers!” the witch cried, scandalized. “I can’t believe you’d even think such a thing! Witches aren’t cannibals, you know!” She shoved the cake into Anastasia’s arms. “Of course, the witches out there would kill you on the spot if they knew you were Morflings. But nobody would try to eat you. How repulsive! Now, take that cake upstairs to the parlor, and I’ll be up with tea in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.” She gestured at a staircase curling along the curved wall.
Anastasia lugged the cake up to the darkened second story, and Ollie and Gus tagged after her. Two lamps with stained-glass shades beamed ruby-toned glow onto a hodgepodge of overstuffed chairs loaded with embroidered pillows. Crocheted doilies lurked like spiderwebs along the bookshelves, and framed photographs bedecked little lace-shrouded tables. It was a jumbled room, but that jumble did not seem to include a Silver Chest. Anastasia thumped the cake down onto a coffee table.
“Do you think that cake is poisoned?” Gus whispered.
“Why does she keep her cake pantry outside?” Ollie asked.
“It isn’t a cake pantry, dear,” Moona chuckled, wheezing up the stairs with a tea tray. Upon the tray rattled a flowered teapot and china cups and a creamer and sugar dish. “It’s a cake garden. Like everything else, the best cakes come right from the earth.”
“But doesn’t the cake get all covered with dirt?” Ollie protested.
“Tsk! A little dirt won’t hurt you,” Moona replied. “Go on, now, sit down. Make yourselves comfy.”
The Dreadfuls cautiously lowered their rumps onto the witch’s furniture. The cushions were so deep and squishy that the chairs nearly swallowed them whole. It was very comfortable, but Anastasia was again reminded of fairy tales in which witches picnicked upon children.
Moona busied herself with pouring tea and slicing cake and passing these provisions round to the Dreadfuls. “And I didn’t poison a single thing on this tray,” she reassured them. “Believe me: if I wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t have to use poison. But I don’t want to kill you, so you needn’t worry, anyway. As I said, I disapprove of killing children.” She looked up from the sugar bowl, and her crinkled face softened. “Oh my. Scared right out of your wits, aren’t you? Poor little mites. But why on earth did you sneak into a witch pub? How did you find the Stinky Toad, anyway?”
Anastasia clamped her jaw. She wasn’t about to divulge the details of the Dreadfuls’ great mission to a witch!
“We—we were just exploring,” Gus said.
“We were going for a hike in the woods,” Ollie piped up. “And we must have taken a wrong turn.”
“You must have taken quite a few ‘wrong turns’ to wind up in Stinking Crumpet, my boy.” A wry smile flickered on the witch’s lips. “We’re smack-dab in the middle of nowhere. Nobody wanders around here—nobody but us witches, that is.”
“Well…we’re great explorers,” Ollie floundered. “And you know how Morfolk can flit and fly.”
“Bunkum! Like I said before, if you came here that way, you’d all be in your birthday suits,” the witch said. “Where did you come from, anyway?”
The Dreadfuls lapsed into stubborn silence, staring down at the uneaten cake on their plates. The witch had taken care to make sure each child got a sugar rose. It seemed a strangely thoughtful gesture, coming from a witch.
“You all smell a bit like a cave,” the witch mused. “But my nose must be fooling me, mustn’t it? The Cavelands are halfway across the world, after all.”
Halfway across the world! Anastasia’s heart sank.
“And Morflings your age couldn’t possibly travel so far alone. Unless…are your parents nearby?” Moona leaned forward, scrutinizing them.
“Yes, and they’re probably looking for us right now,” Anastasia said. “Probably-definitely.”
“Little liar,” the old lady retorted cheerfully. “Good try, though.” She relaxed back into her chair and sipped at her tea. “Ooooh! Too hot!”
And then the witch did something astonishing. She rounded her lips, and she huffed a swirl of frost right into her teacup.
The Dreadfuls goggled, thunderstruck.
“You—you breathe frost?” Anastasia stuttered.
Moona shrugged. “Lapland breath. Runs in the family.” She took a second chamomile swig. “Ah. That’s much better.”
Anastasia let out a little squeak. “Frost breath is—is Lapland magic?”
But a scrabbling at the wall interrupted this witchy chitchat. Moona sighed. “Dear, would you mind opening the shutter?”
Anastasia put her cake on the table and, with an effort, struggled up from the love seat. The suspicions she had squelched in Calixto’s office now bubbled up into her brain. She was wobbly-kneed and woozy.
Anastasia stumbled past Ollie and Gus. She shoved the knot snarling the wood, and out it swung to reveal a round window, much like a porthole on a ship. Twilight streamed through the window, and a small, furry blur soared into the parlor and glided to land on the witch’s head.
“What’s that?” Ollie cried.
“Why!” Gus said. “It’s a flying squirrel!”
“Yes,” the witch said. “An insomniac flying squirrel. Waldo here is always fussing about in the daytime, when all of his friends are sound asleep.” She reached up to pat Waldo’s head with her forefinger. “Are you about ready for bed, love? It’s getting late.”
“Does Waldo live here?” Gus asked.
“Waldo and about thirty of his brothers and sisters,” Moona replied. “Oh! I forgot to tell you we should be quiet. They’re sleeping.” She pointed at the doily lumps clogging the chamber’s nooks and crannies. “If you hush, you’ll hear them snoring.”
Sure enough, once everyone shut their mouths and held still, tiny snores piped forth from the crocheted nests.
“Aw!” Ollie crooned, quite forgetting to be frightened.
Normally, a parlor full of squirrels would charm Anastasia, too. She adored squirrels. But dismay filled every inch of her freckled frame. If frost breath was Lapland magic—
“Ouch! Waldo!” The squirrel launched from Moona’s head and glided on his marvelous fur-flaps to the bookcase. “Right to the fairy tales,” Moona said. “He must be getting sleepy—he wants a bedtime story. As long as you’re up, dear, would you fetch that big blue book? It’s Waldo’s favorite.”
As through a fog, Anastasia crossed the tiny chamber and reached for the silver-embossed volume. Her hand froze as her gaze locked on a framed photograph perched on the shelf. Waldo chattered at her, but Anastasia barely heard him. She snatched the photo from its ledge and stared.
It was not a particularly remarkable photograph. It was the sort of picture you might spot in any household anywhere in the world. A freckled young woman with mousy-brown hair smiled up from the print. The man standing beside this young woman was smiling, too. One of his arms snugged the woman’s shoulders in a hug. With his other hand he reached to touch the woman’s full, round tummy. He was smiling, too. His entire mustache twitched with a big, silly, happy grin.