“Better let me ring the doorbell, then,” I said. “Just in case she takes one look at you and gets the broom to shoo you away.”
“Very funny,” he said.
We did walk up the path with a fair bit of trepidation, though, not sure what to expect. Would she turn us away at once, before hearing us out? As far as I knew, she was my one and only hope to getting my heart back hale and (pardon the pun) hearty.
If this failed, what then? Sylvester, Cornelius and I would either have to creep back to our kingdom and brave the king’s wrath, or live out our lives in exile.
The closer we got, the more impressed I was with the cottage. It appeared freshly painted, and the front step, although bowed in the middle and worn shiny with years of use, was spotless. The door was painted red, with a large iron knocker near the top. Someone took great care of the place.
“Ready?” I said to Sylvester, letting my hand hover over the knocker.
He nodded.
I knocked, and I heard its hollowclock-clocksound echo through the cottage. Something squawked, a bird of some kind, and then I heard footsteps, and a voice that was probably telling the squawking thing to be quiet.
The door opened, and an attractive, round-cheeked, middle-aged woman stood wiping her hands on a red apron and looking at us with a brightly inquiring look. I had never seen anyone less witchlike.
“Yes?” she said.
I was taken a little aback, I have to say. It was clear that very few people came out here, but the woman was looking at us with her head cocked a little to one side and a polite smile on her face, as if she was used to fending off door-to-door salespeople and traveling preachers every morning when she was in the midst of her baking.
Add to that, Sylvester and I weren’t the most usual-looking people. Especially if you took into account his odd manner of dress.
She was still waiting for a reply, and so I stumbled out, “Er, we were told to talk to you. About a spell. Are you the Weftwitch?”
“I am,” she said. Her bright eyes flicked past me to Sylvester.
“Feeling a bit queasy, are we?” she said to him, and chuckled. “My little forest doesn’t usually agree with your kind.”
Sylvester did still look pretty green.
“I don’t usually see anyone accompanying them, though,” she said to me, looking me up and down. “No, you’re something quite different altogether.”
“I’m not a magic-worker, if that’s what you mean,” I said.
“Indeed not,” she agreed, her small, shrewd eyes piercing me. “Well, I suppose you had better come inside.”
She clapped her hands together, releasing a small puff of flour from beneath her nails, and nudged at something at foot-level. I saw an extremely fat and extremely well-feathered hen hop back with an offended rattle of wings.
“Sorry,” she said. “Come in.”
I stepped over the threshold, which, if the old stories were true, meant that I was under the witch’s power now. I didn’t feel like I was under anyone’s power, however.
The cottage looked like any other cozy, well-kept house back in my village and made me feel at home—even down to the chickens that swarmed around my feet and huffed along to keep up with my stride.
Sylvester followed more cautiously, picking his way through the birds with his bare feet, wrinkling his nose when one of them brushed up against his legs.
“They’re just chickens,” said the woman. “They won’t bite.”
Sylvester hissed through his teeth as one of them investigated his toes.
“They will give you a hell of a peck, I’ll say that,” added the woman.
We were in her kitchen. A large iron stove took up almost half the room, with dozens of mysterious drawers and knobs and whistling, wheezing parts.
A large orange cat was asleep on part of it, his tail and one leg hanging down dangerously close to a little window through which showed an open flame. His tail twitched lazily back and forth, like the pendulum of a clock, narrowly escaping singeing each time. I wondered what Cornelius would have made of him.
What little was left of the kitchen after the stove had filled it up contained a kitchen table with four chairs pulled up to it, and washed flagstones, and a very ordinary collection of household objects in one corner: brooms, buckets, a dustpan and brush, a roll of netting, and assorted walking sticks. Nothing that seemed at all magical or exceptional.
