Three Witch Tales

by Ruth Chew

  As soon as it was cool, Sandy took the Witch’s cookie upstairs. She put it on the dresser in Lisa’s room, beside the snowsuit.

  Sandy and Janet whispered together for hours after they went to bed. They slept late next morning.

  Janet woke first. She sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. The sunlight was streaming through the tall bay windows in Sandy’s room.

  Mrs. James looked into the room. “Good morning, Janet. Your mother telephoned, and I told her you were still asleep. She and your father have to go to a wedding today. I told her you could spend the day with Sandy.”

  Sandy was awake now. She jumped out of bed and gave her mother a hug. “That’s great!” she said. She noticed that her mother was holding the snowsuit. “Did you sew on the button?”

  Mrs. James held up the snowsuit. “Yes, doesn’t it look nice? Just imagine, the man who sold it to me rang the bell this morning. I thought he wanted the button back, but he only wanted to be sure I’d sewn it onto something. I showed him the snowsuit. He was so pleased that he insisted on giving me a basket of apples. Poor man, I’m sure there’s something wrong with him.”

  Sandy pulled off her pajamas and started to dress. “Apples! Where are they, Mother?”

  “In the kitchen. I was tempted to eat one, but I think I’ll make a pie and maybe some applesauce for the baby. You’ll see the apples when you get your breakfast. Make yourself some waffles. I have batter ready in a pitcher on the kitchen table. And the waffle iron is hot.” Mrs. James went down the hall to the baby’s room.

  The girls dressed in a hurry and ran downstairs. The basket of apples was on the kitchen floor.

  “What’s the matter, Sandy?” Janet asked. “Why are you so excited?” She picked up one of the apples and smelled it. “M-m-m.”

  Sandy snatched the apple away from her and threw it back into the basket. “Are you out of your mind, Janet? Don’t you remember what these apples did to us? And my mother wants to feed them to the baby!”

  Janet looked at her. “You mean,” she said, “they’re the Witch’s apples?”

  “Of course,” Sandy said. “Don’t you recognize the basket? Help me, Janet.” Sandy took one side of the basket and Janet held the other. Together they managed to carry the heavy basket to the hall closet. Sandy shoved it behind the vacuum cleaner and threw her last year’s coat over it. “I’ll have to get it out of here later,” she whispered, “but this ought to do for now.”

  Janet quietly closed the closet door. The girls went back to the kitchen to eat breakfast.

  “Betsy’s right,” Janet said. “Silas is a nuisance.” She opened the waffle iron.

  Sandy poured the batter into the iron. “We’d better go to see the Witch before he does anything else.”

  The waffles were delicious. It seemed a shame to have to eat them in such a hurry, but neither Sandy nor Janet wanted to be around when Mrs. James started to look for the apples. They finished breakfast and stacked their dishes in the dishwasher. Then they put on their jackets.

  Sandy called upstairs, “It’s a lovely day, Mother. We’re going out.”

  “Have fun,” Mrs. James said.

  “I wonder what Silas will think when he sees Betsy,” Janet said. “Your mother showed him the cookie button sewn to the snowsuit.”

  “Why didn’t he see Betsy when she went home last night?” Sandy wanted to know.

  Sandy and Janet crossed Church Avenue and walked down the street toward the old house.

  “Do you think we should knock on the front door or sneak in by the back window?” Janet asked.

  “I don’t think anybody ever uses that front door,” Sandy said.

  The girls crossed three more streets and headed down the long block where the Witch’s house stood.

  “Sandy!” Janet gasped. “Look!”

  Sandy couldn’t believe her eyes. There must have been a terrible fire last night. Where the old house had been was only a blackened ruin. The brick chimneys were still standing, but not much else was left of the house. A few charred boards were all that was left of the walls. The weeds had been trampled flat by the firemen. Broken panes of glass from the windows littered the ground. Still hanging from its hook was the great iron pot.

  Sandy had an awful thought. “Betsy must have been asleep in the house.”

  “I know,” Janet said in a low voice.

  The two girls picked their way through the crushed weeds and piles of shattered glass. They stepped into what had once been the parlor. The mantelpiece had been smashed by a fireman’s ax. There was a hole in the chimney. Sandy saw something gleaming inside.

  She got down on her hands and knees and crawled into the fireplace. Reaching up, she grabbed hold of an object that was jammed up into the chimney and held in place by two spikes hammered into the bricks. Sandy tried jiggling it to get it loose, but it was wedged tight. Soot and ashes poured down on her.

  Sandy coughed and backed out of the fireplace. “There’s something hidden in the chimney, Janet. Can you reach it through the hole?”

  “I’m not tall enough,” Janet said. “Maybe if I stood on your back I could get it.”

  Sandy crouched down. “I’m filthy already,” she said. “Go ahead.” She braced herself.

  Janet stepped on Sandy’s back. She reached into the hole in the chimney. “Got it,” she said. She lifted out the object and stepped down.

  Sandy stood up and shook herself. “You weigh more than I thought.” She brushed her hair out of her eyes. “What did you fish out?”

  “A little chest,” Janet said.

  “It looks like gold.” Sandy rubbed the metal box.

  “Brass,” Janet said. She shook the chest. It rattled.

  Sandy looked around. “Let’s get away from here. Silas may be back at any time. We know he wasn’t in the house when it burned. My mother saw him this morning.”

  Janet shoved the brass chest under her jacket. “We’ll go to my house. Mom and Dad won’t be back from that wedding for hours.”

  On the way to Janet’s house they kept looking for Silas, but they didn’t see him anywhere. They walked as fast as they could. Neither of them felt like talking. Sandy was trying not to think about Betsy.

  At last they came to the red brick apartment building. When Janet unlocked her front door, the two girls went right to the frilly pink bedroom. Janet took the little brass chest out from under her jacket and put it on the bed. Then she and Sandy sat down, one on each side of the chest, to look at it.

  The chest was carved with a strange pattern of twisting, curling shapes. Sandy thought they were leaves, but they looked more like feathers to Janet. Although the brass was smooth and worn as if by long years of use, the hinges still seemed strong. There was a little keyhole, and the chest was locked.

  Sandy tried to pry it open, but the lock held firm.

  Janet went out of the room and came back with one of her mother’s hairpins. She bent one end of the hairpin into a hook and pushed it into the keyhole. “Abracadabra,” Janet said. “Open, Sesame!”

  The lock clicked and sprang open. Janet lifted the lid of the little chest.

  Inside were three buttons. One was black and shiny with a lot of little flat sides, like a diamond. The second was square. It glowed dark red and seemed to have a light far down inside it. The third was flat and round, bigger than the other two. It was milky in color and gleamed like a pearl.

  “They’re the Witch’s prize buttons!” Sandy whispered.

  “No wonder Betsy liked to collect buttons,” Janet said. “Aren’t these beautiful?”

  Sandy took the white button out of the chest and looked hard at it. She began to see things she hadn’t noticed at first. As she looked they became more and more clear. “Janet,” Sandy said, when she had been staring for some time at the button, “it’s like a little flying saucer.”

  Now Janet took a good look. At first she too saw only a round flat pearly button. Then she saw port-holes, and a door.

  Sandy held t
he button on her outstretched palm. Before she knew what was happening it rose into the air and circled the room. It came to rest again on Sandy’s hand.

  “It is a flying saucer,” Janet said.

  Sandy laid the pearly button on the bed and picked up the square red button. She looked deep into it. The little light seemed to flicker. “This one sure is spooky,” she said. “It must be magic too. I wonder what it’s good for.”

  Janet was holding the black button. The shiny sides glittered and reflected colors from everything in the room. “It hardly seems to be black at all now,” Janet said. “Maybe all this one does is change color. It’s too bad the white button is only a toy. I wish we were the right size to fly in it.”

  Suddenly all the world seemed to turn pink. Sandy didn’t know what was happening. Then she saw that she was sitting on top of a high cliff. “Get back, Janet!” Sandy scrambled away from the edge. The ground under her was soft and spongy.

  “Yipe!” Janet looked down. She crawled over to Sandy.

  The girls huddled together on the strange pink earth. They looked around. Sandy pointed. “There’s the button spaceship. Only now it’s big enough for us to get into.”

  “You mean,” Janet said, “now we’re small enough. Don’t you know we’re still on my bed? Only now we’re not much bigger than fleas.”

  It was true. The room seemed enormous. The brass chest looked as large as a house.

  Sandy still had the square button in her hand. “This changed size too,” she said, showing it to Janet.

  Janet looked at the black button. “So did this one, maybe because we’re holding them. Our clothes changed too.”

  “That’s lucky,” Sandy said. “I’m so small now I’d never be able to climb out of one of my shoes if it was its usual size.”

  Janet stood up. Her feet sank into the soft bedspread. It was difficult to walk but she made her way over to the button spaceship. “There ought to be some way to get in,” she said. “I wish I knew what it was.”

  No sooner had Janet said this than she did know. She tapped three times on the side of the white button. A door opened in the spaceship, and a ladder came down.

  “Come on, Sandy.” Janet started to climb the steps.

  Sandy put the red button into the pocket of her jeans. She struggled to her feet and walked across the bedspread to the white button spaceship. Then she followed Janet up the ladder and into the flying saucer.

  When Sandy reached the top of the ladder she stepped into the spaceship. She turned around and lifted the ladder into the flying saucer. Each step folded as Sandy pulled it up. When she was done, the ladder was a neat stack just inside the door of the ship. Sandy closed the door.

  Janet was looking out of a wide window. “This must be the windshield. There’s a stick here that looks as if it’s meant to steer the ship.”

  Two seats were placed side by side with the stick coming up from the floor between them. Janet and Sandy sat down. Janet took hold of the stick and pulled it up. The flying saucer rose into the air. When she pushed the stick forward the ship flew forward. And when she took her hand off the stick, the ship stood still. Janet practiced flying all around the room.

  “My mother loves fresh air.” Janet pointed to the window. It was open about two inches at the top. Janet steered the flying saucer through the window and out into the sunshine.

  Sandy took a turn at the stick. It was easier to steer the spaceship than to ride a bicycle. At first the girls had a hard time telling what they were looking at. Everything was so big. Sandy tried flying very high. Then things began to look more like themselves.

  “I’m beginning to know what the world is like to a mosquito,” Sandy said.

  She decided to fly home and see what was happening there. Her mother was just coming down the front steps with the baby carriage. An enormous Lisa was wearing her new snowsuit. When Mrs. James had walked to the end of the block and turned the corner, Sandy flew down toward the steps. She leveled off and steered the flying saucer through the mail slot in the front door and into the hall.

  Sandy’s father was sitting in the living room watching television. The New York Jets were playing the Green Bay Packers. Sandy knew that her father wouldn’t see or hear anything else until halftime.

  Zooming over her father’s head, Sandy flew through the house to the kitchen. There was something on the kitchen table that looked like a note. The writing was so big that Sandy flew up to the ceiling and turned the flying saucer on edge so she and Janet could look through the windshield at the note.

  Dear Sandy,

  I’ve taken Lisa to the park. Get yourself and Janet some lunch.

  Love,

  Mother

  Sandy straightened the flying saucer and brought it down to land on the tabletop. She opened the door and pushed out the ladder. It unfolded. The girls walked down the steps.

  “I smell cinnamon,” Janet said.

  Sandy saw a gigantic pan in the middle of the table. She ran over to it and looked up at the brown crust that hung over the edge of the pan far above her. “Apple pie,” she said. “My mother must have found the Witch’s apples.”

  “Yes,” Janet said. She pointed to the basket on the floor. “At least nobody seems to have eaten any yet.”

  “We’ll have to do something,” Sandy said. “But first let’s have lunch. I can’t think with an empty stomach.”

  They were much too small to open the refrigerator, but one of the kitchen cabinet doors was open a crack. They climbed back into the flying saucer and flew into the cabinet.

  All the cereal and cracker boxes were closed tight, and the lid was on the jar of peanut butter.

  “There are nuts in a bowl on the table,” Sandy said.

  Janet steered the flying saucer out of the cabinet and into the bowl. The girls again got out of the ship. They climbed across the nuts until they found an almond with a cracked shell. Sandy and Janet made their way through the crack. It was like walking into a dark cave and nibbling on a rock.

  “Now I know why mosquitoes eat people,” Sandy said.

  The girls picked their way out of the shell. Sandy looked across the wide table. On the other side of the pie she saw something yellow.

  “Back into the spaceship, Janet,” Sandy said. She started to sing, “You must never put bananas in the refrigerator.”

  Even tunneling through the skin of a banana was hard work for Janet and Sandy. They finally managed to tear a hole in one end. Now they could reach in and scoop out handfuls of the soft fruit. It was messy but they were hungry.

  “I never ate so much banana in my life,” said Janet after a while. “Now that I think of it, I never did like bananas very much.”

  “Don’t complain, Janet.” Sandy licked her fingers. “It’s food. And anyway, you’re my guest. You should be polite about what I serve you for lunch.”

  Janet wiped her hands on the smooth outside of the banana. “I’ve had enough,” she said.

  Just then the doorbell rang.

  The Jets were trying for a touchdown. Mr. James never heard the doorbell.

  The girls climbed back into the spaceship and flew to the front door. Sandy’s father didn’t look up. He was too busy watching the television.

  Sandy was driving. She flew low and looked out of the mail slot. “I don’t see anybody, Janet. They must have gone away.” She steered the button spaceship through the slot and out into the open air.

  They were flying over the front stoop when the flying saucer gave a jerk and stopped still. Sandy pushed the stick forward, but the spaceship stayed where it was. Suddenly it rose up higher. Again it stopped.

  “Something’s wrong, Janet,” Sandy said. “I can’t control it.”

  “Here. Let me take over.” Janet grabbed the stick and shifted the flying saucer into reverse. It jiggled. Janet moved the stick back and forth. “It’s just stuck,” she said. Then the spaceship tipped on its side.

  Sandy had a sudden, awful thought. “It’s as if
an invisible giant was holding the white button,” she said. “Oh, Janet, do you suppose Silas could have kept one of the Witch’s apples and eaten it?”

  Janet stopped trying to drive the flying saucer. “We know Silas wanted to get his hands on the buttons. Remember what a mess he made in the old house when he was looking for them. Now we really are in trouble.” Janet took the black button out of her pocket and rubbed it nervously.

  Sandy bared her teeth like a tiger. “I feel more and more like a mosquito. If only I could see Silas I’d pick a tender spot and bite.”

  Janet turned the black button over and over in her hand. “I wish we could see what’s holding us,” she said.

  As soon as she said this the side port-holes of the flying saucer became dark. Something was covering them. Sandy ran to see what it was.

  “Fingers,” she said. “I can see lines like a huge fingerprint.” Sandy came back to her seat beside Janet. She didn’t talk about biting anymore now that she’d seen the big fingers. She remembered what can happen to a mosquito.

  Neither of the girls wanted to talk now.

  All at once the flying saucer was lifted even higher. Sandy and Janet looked through the windshield at an enormous greeny-blue eye.

  “Witch Betsy!” Sandy gasped.

  “She’s alive,” Janet said. “And she wants her buttons back.”

  Sandy pulled the square red button out of the pocket of her jeans. She looked at it. Deep inside the button the little light flickered. “This button is so small now that I don’t think Betsy could even see it,” Sandy said. “And she couldn’t hear our voices no matter how loud we screamed. Anyway she has the door of the spaceship jammed shut with her finger. What shall we do?”

  Sandy heard a strange hollow voice. It seemed to come from far far down in the red button. “Use the Wishing Button, stupid,” the voice said.