No one ever seemed to think maybe it would be better all around if the mother, who probably already had some kids at home, was left to live another day and try for another child. It was simple mathematics for the witch. She raised a fist once more in threat and waved it at the farmer, but the only curse that could break through her cloud of anger tumbled out in defeat, "Consider yourself lucky I don't tell my mother what you said."
Isa spun about and picked up the towels quickly. As she was once again about to bring in the pan, her mother called from the room, "Would you get the door, dear?"
"There's no one at the..." Isa started when a small knock rapped against the door, rattling a folksy wooden sign that said, "You don't have to be evil to work here, but it helps."
The farmer gasped in amazement, and grasped his hands together while praying to one of their mud gods. As he cried out for something that spent all its time trying to impregnate women as a sea slug, Isadora shook her head. Her mother was always doing that, playing the part of a mystic, babbling on about the vapors and spirits talking to her. Not once did anyone ever think maybe she could see someone approaching the door through the window in the bedroom. Another knock punctuated the room filling with the growing sounds of heavy breathing from both the imminent mother and her husband. Isa, still loaded with towels, threw open the door to a pair of children a handful of years younger than her.
The boy seemed skittish; his hair kept flopping over in the winds as he yanked his soft face back from the warmth of the cottage. The red robes peeking out beneath his coat surprised Isa a bit, but you tended to see all sorts when you were the final choice. The girl was as different as night to the boy's day. She stood strong, but also seemed annoyed to be there, her foot barely touching the threshold lest she get pulled in.
Having measured them up, Isa said, "I'm afraid we're all out of black cohosh, but you could try eating a hell of a lot of oranges in the meantime."
"Excuse me?" the boy said. His voice was fairer than his skin, like patting a baby duck, with a strange lilt at the end of each word. And judging by the lack of anything approaching proper winter attire, probably from the Northern counties. Or a moron.
"There are a few other options you can try, but I wouldn't recommend them. Unless you really like internal bleeding," Isa said, slowly folding her arm towels to show just how very busy she was.
"I'm not here for any internal bleeding or that other stuff you mentioned...black cash," the baby duck argued back, looking to his companion, who only shrugged.
Isa smiled cruelly, "There's no need to be capricious. Accidents happen to all manner of couplings."
The dark woman threw down her arms and pointed to the baby duck who was fitting the pieces together in his mind, "What? You think he and I? Oh no, no, no."
Isa frowned, first at being wrong about the pair of teenagers not requiring something to ward off the need for a quick wedding, and second at the girl's voice. Isa spent enough time near the western front to know a Dunner's voice and far preferred it to the few Osteros who dared cross the border, but this was harsh, scratchy, like a pine tree dragged across the road. The girl sounded like she came from the Caddatch mountain ranges.
The baby duck turned an interesting shade of pink as his mind caught up with hers and he looked over at the girl, "We're not here for that...I'm not here for that," he corrected at her scowl.
"Then what do you want?" Isa started to mentally go over the list of things that were available. Doubtful they'd be needing her legendary bowel clearing prune and cumin jelly, but anything was possible.
"A witch saved my life, in return she said we should come to this cottage in three months time," the baby duck said solemnly, even bowing slightly.
Isa; however, spun on her heels and called into the back room, "MOTHER!"
The couple looked at each other, the dark ones eyebrows arching. "Get them a cup of tea and a sit. I'll be a little while," her mother's voice echoed back. She tried to sound professional but Isa could hear the smile embedded within. She enjoyed tormenting her daughter.
Isa glared at the two shuffling at the doorstep. It was just like her to keep the important things to herself. She'd spent most of her life trying to fill in the gaps her mother would conveniently forget to lay out for her. The tipping point came when they took the northeastern shift and traveled to this cottage. One day her mother simply vanished. She left no note, no instructions, just faded into the forest, leaving Isa to pick up the slack.
And she did a damn good job, keeping the villagers from burning down their own colons, the Lords from burning their own loins, and anyone from second guessing why a woman barely into her second decade was bossing them about their eating habits. "If the berries taste like someone stuck your tongue with a thousand needles, maybe you shouldn't have eaten an entire bush full." That admonition wore so much she eventually took to just torching the damn bushes herself, earning her the respect and slight fear of the villagers. No one knew what to do with a witch known for setting her own fires.
"Come in," Isa said dejectedly, and held the door open for the pair who kept a wide berth after her accusing them of being coupled off.
"Forget the shit stain in the corner," she said as the additions paused, looking around the cottage. "There's tea on the fire. Don't mind the blood. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a baby to deliver."
And, finally picking up the washbasin, which turned lukewarm with all the distractions, she joined her mother in the birthing room.
"Well, this is certainly worth it," Ciara said, rolling around in her hands the cup of tea she poured for herself.
Aldrin, seated as far from her as he could get on a two person bench just managed to drain his blush about an hour since they arrived at the witch's door, proverbial hats in hand. It took a lot of arguing with the Chancellor, the Deans, the Professors, the Associates, and some more with Ciara before they relented and begrudgingly admitted that it might be in everyone's best interest to not piss off a witch. But Medwin refused to let a single one of them follow past the road. If Aldrin was so insistent upon tossing his body onto the pyre, he would go alone.
He was a bit surprised, as he wrapped a scarf about his neck and cinched his belt tighter to catch his rusty sword, to find Ciara bundled for a climb through the arctic mountains puffing in the clearing. Everyone else had scattered for the night, pretending they had no part in this madness, while ears strained to overhear every breath.
She glanced over Aldrin silently and he smiled widely, 'thank yous' tumbling from his mouth. His beleaguered belt took that moment to give up its fight and crashed to the ground. Sheepishly, he gathered the sword up in one hand and tried to pull the belt higher. He'd have to borrow Chase's nail later to punch a new notch.
"Well," Ciara said, pointing into the forest, "let's get this over with."
Despite her reluctance and the thorough work of Lady Winter, she seemed in high spirits, even challenging Aldrin to a game of "guess what mess we're about to walk into now."
"The cottage will have no floor, just a deep pit filled with vipers."
"My father called that the parlor," Aldrin said, climbing through a deep bank, using a stripped branch for leverage.
Ciara turned to look at him, a pale light moving through the dusky grey, "You're kidding."
Aldrin laughed, "Yes, the vipers preferred the treasury house anyway."
She smiled herself, forgetting the snow working its way into her shoes and clinging to her mittens ready to melt and then freeze to ice at a moments notice.
"There!" Aldrin pointed to a puff of smoke pouring through the naked trees, glittering like the night's cloudless sky.
It was a much less interesting walk to the cottage than the last time. No assassins popped out, no stabbings, not even a bear pit. But Ciara kept pausing and glancing behind them, saying she heard something. Aldrin would shrug; all he heard was his breathing and the plop of disturbed snow, maybe the occasional rabbit pissed as hell at the humans trampling through
its cozy nest. Ciara seemed certain they were being followed but he chalked it up to perhaps a healthier paranoia after her ordeal at the castle.
No one ever got more than a few words from her about how she escaped exactly, but then most didn't want to know, feeling incredibly guilty the moment she mentioned, "So then the portcullis slammed shut and..."
"Wow, it's exactly the same as the one by Dawning," she said drawing into the clearing and looking upon the thatched 'A' that made up the bulk of a witch's home. A small extension was crashed on the side, but witches made their lives everywhere outside the bedroom. This was considered to be a large source of their magical power and why any virgin over the age of eighteen was watched with a close eye.
Aldrin felt a familiar stab of pain as the stitch in his side flared up from all the heavy climbing through snow. "What now?" he asked and cringed as soon as it was out of his mouth. He'd been trying to cut back.
But Ciara didn't notice, she was looking for a pair of chickens scratching in the snow but could only spot an elderly goat bunkered down in its small enclave. "You go up and knock on the door."
"Oh, right." Aldrin stood tall, causing his belt to slip again, but he caught it with his hand and walked triumphantly to the door.
Knock Knock Knock.
He waited, putting all manner of the horrors witches inflicted upon those they found disagreeable, or just un-agreeable, or if they were in a really foul mood, out of his mind. Still no one answered. He glanced back to Ciara, who inched one foot onto the stone step. She motioned to try again.
A bit more delicately, he tapped his knuckles against the freshly painted blue door. If there wasn't a witch at home what were they supposed to do? Did simply coming fulfill their part of the bargain?
As he was about to turn back to Ciara and suggest they make a very hasty exit back into the forest, the door opened and a woman looked up at him, her eyes squinting either from the lack of light or because she was about to turn him into a toad.
This witch's features were so delicate you'd expect to only haul them out once a year for Soulday feast to eat a chicken stuffed inside a pheasant then stuffed into a bear. (It had been a strange hunt that day). Most would expect a witch living in the woods with a nose so tiny it nearly vanished, to be as thin as a reed, her hunger to match her evil; but she was "pleasingly plump" as those who wished to ever have sex again would say.
Her eyes swooped out at the edges like a silhouette of a bird. But the most striking feature was her bone white hair, sliced short and spiking from her head like a startled hedgehog. That it was on top of a face that still had some baby fat on it made it all the more surprising.
By the time they made it inside the cabin, Aldrin was suffering a case of fresh deja-vu. Chairs, tables, wall decorations were identical in shape and placement. Even the same slightly stained teakettle sat upon the rocky half circular hearth in the middle of the room, boiling away. Though the pot of blood was new.
And as their host vanished into the bedroom where Aldrin spent almost a week fighting off infection and trying to stitch back together his side, the two of them looked around a bit, growing ever more uneasy at the unknown familiarity of it all. Without saying a word they'd both gotten a cup of tea and took to the bench, staring forward.
Ciara shifted beside Aldrin and tried to wave away the downwind scent of the pig farmer who settled in the last remaining chair and kept unweaving the possible basket in his hand. It was hard to tell what it had been at this point. He also kept lightly touching his jaw and jumping to his feet every time the witch came out of the bedroom, dumping out her old blood and replacing it with boiled water.
Strange noises crashed and shrieked from the bedroom, but when there was a witch about it was best to not inquire lest you got pulled into the donkey sacrifice orgy yourself. Aldrin stared down at his tea, long since cold, and some of the dregs looked a bit familiar. He pushed his finger into it, and mashing some around could just about make out an upright lizard holding a sword. That seemed wrong somehow.
Then, out of the room a deadly silence. The pig farmer knotted what remained of his hat into his hand and gripped it tightly. Even Ciara and Aldrin, uncertain what was going on scooted to the edge of the bench, their ears straining to overhear.
A cry. Small at first, but growing stronger, like it just had the greatest injustice the world could offer up dumped into its tiny lap. The pig farmer jumped up all smiles, pacing about the room, wishing he could light something on fire, then thinking the better of it. The three waited, staring expectantly at the door. Any moment now, someone dressed in heavenly white will come out baring the infant to the world. A minute passed, then another. The crying petered out to a soothing accepting of this new world, but still the door remained firmly shut.
Finally, the wood cracked and their witch stepped out, her apron coated in after birth, carrying the final load to be boiled away before disposal. She closed the door tightly and walked past the new father, carefully dumping the placenta and other gore the human body is so fond of into her pot.
The farmer rose up and slammed her on the shoulder. Aldrin was on his feet before he knew it, but the witch didn't need the assistance of a boy who couldn't keep his belt on. She turned slowly and glared at the man who shirked under the narrowing pale eyes. "What?"
"Is it a..." the farmer paused, rethinking his approach, "is they alive? Both of them?"
The witch nodded softly to herself, as if she won some battle Aldrin couldn't see, "Yes, both your wife and daughter are resting comfortably."
The farmer sighed happily, grateful that the growing cloud of despair dispersed. But the witch wasn't done with him. She turned and rising to nearly a full sixty one inches, poked him in the chest, "But she nearly wasn't. Neither of them were. Think of that the next time you leave your wife in such a state before seeking help."
He nodded, trying to fight back a blubber building in his throat. "Go on home," the witch said, "you can see them tomorrow or perhaps the day after. It will be a time before your wife is fully herself again."
The farmer nodded, wiping his nose with the final remnants of his hat. "Yes, I'm so sorry, thank you. Thank you. I just, I'll go and thank you." The man babbled that constant refrain as he scuttled out the door, continuing it down the road until he got to his house, and in the harsh light of his domain forgot why he even cared. It was just a daughter.
The witch wiped her hands on her apron and stuck one out to Aldrin. He barely batted an eye before taking it and giving it a good shake. Something told him it was a test but he had no idea if he passed or not. "I'm Isadora. You can call me Isa if you must, but never Issy."
"Why not?" Aldrin asked, trying to ignore the sticky something clinging to his palms.
"The last person to call me that wound up at the bottom of the lake," she said proudly.
"You killed him?" Aldrin wiped his hand on his robes, earning a small chuckle from the witch.
"No, he was just a lousy swimmer."
He pointed back to himself, "I'm Aldrin, and this is Ciara." She rose and waved her fingers meekly at the specter covered in blood.
"Call me See-ya and you'll wind up at the bottom of a lake," she said, not entirely good-naturedly. Aldrin blinked at that threat, mentally counting every time he shortened her name and wondered if all of the lakes were frozen by now.
But Isadora simply laughed, a hollow one with no mirth, "Then it's a good thing I am a competent swimmer. But you're not here for me."
"We're not?" Aldrin asked, his small grasp of certainty slipping through his fingers.
"No, I have very little use for a couple of green teenagers on their first grand adventure in poorly fitting clothes," Isa snickered looking down upon the ever growing gap between Aldrin's robes and the floor.
Ciara started to object, but the witch looked upon her with all the power a woman raised to cower full grown men could. "You're here to humor the whims of my scheming mother."
"Your mother?" Aldrin said, utter c
onfusion taking its final hold.
"Can you do any other tricks?" Isa asked the parroting boy.
Ciara glared but Aldrin confessed, "I can bend my thumb back like this," and he demonstrated, getting a small shudder out of the witch as his digit touched his wrist.
"Mother!"
The door opened and a familiar sight appeared, a small bundle wrapped in her towering arms. Aldrin tried to stand up on his tiptoes to see the baby's face but was greeted by a stack of towels, some mostly clean. Isa theatrically sighed as the familiar witch dumped her load into the girl's arms.
"Alive, I see," her voice was far more honey than he remembered. But the best he could pull from his brain as he lay across that table bleeding his intestines all over her fine china was flashes of black curly hair and a grim smile hovering over his face, occasionally pulling back his eyelids. He'd assumed the vision was Ciara, or perhaps his own dying brain screaming out at him. It would explain why he kept thinking that night a black bird was cooking sausages in the corner using, of all things, a spoon.
She picked up the boy's hand and raised it, slipping her fingers around his wrist; then, slumping down slightly, peered into his eyes. "None too worse for the road, and even a bit taller."
Ciara coughed lightly, pulling the witch's attention from her patient. The yellow eyes snapped over to her and she frowned slightly, "Be careful who you follow, girl. The dark path is the hardest to follow."
Aldrin glanced to Isadora who was shaking her head and muttering under her breath about flagrantly vague predictions and why not just say "Lo the sun rises but it is the darkest before the dawn in bed." Ciara; however, seemed spooked and glanced behind her towards the still sealed door.
"I asked you to come and you came," the witch said quietly, turning away from the pair to where the farmer left a pair of coins and a small flask of whiskey. She weighed the coin in her hands and tossed one to her daughter, who caught it expertly. "I prefer it when they cooperate. It's much less messy," the witch smiled, her bright teeth failing to illuminate her face.
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