Drawtober 2024: Witch

Among the many strange creatures that inhabited the Kingdom, anyone who wielded magic was looked upon with great suspicion. You may find this strange, but think of it this way: if you know your neighbor is a vampire, then you know roughly what to expect. Garlic on the windowsills and doors will keep them at bay if they are feeling truly ravenous. Even werefolk can be kept out with a well-placed silver doorknob. But a neighbor with magic? Why, there’s ten-thousand ways they could kill you and not even realize it. Spells of flame, spells of snow, spells to unwind health and bestow old age. A sorcerer has so many ways to make your life hell, and there’s not one good folk remedy to stop it all.

Ella and Peter had managed to make it out of the King’s study, and Peter graciously stole some spices and thick, juicy cuts of beef for her to bear home, whereupon her stepmother had berated her thoroughly for taking so long. For once, Ella barely heard her. She was thinking of the spellbook and the invitation and the King’s dead wife, and wondering why on earth the King would desire to marry again so quickly, and to someone he’d never met before. Ella had never seen much point in marriage—she got bossed around enough already, and thus a husband seemed excessive. But apparently other women found it charming. However, that charm usually only came after at least a few months of courtship. How many women—or, rather, eager mamas—would give that up for a chance to marry their daughter to the King?

Most of them, as it turned out. Two weeks after Ella’s misadventure in the palace, a heavy letter arrived at the house, addressed to her stepmother. You already know what was in it, of course.

“A ball!” the Countess du Sang crowed. “Yes, that’s just the thing to drive off the gloom of the queen’s death.”

“Mama, she only just died,” Lucinda reminded her mother. She was sitting on a low, somewhat worn settee near the hearth, embroidering a lacy black handkerchief. Ella stood dusting a series of bookshelves on the other side of the room, her ear cocked to hear what transpired.

“People die all the time, Lucinda,” her mother replied. “Life is a terminal condition. No, but this is just the thing. And on All Hallow’s Eve, of all nights! We must find a dress. We must get you ready.”

“You have no notion that I will catch the King’s eye, do you?”

“And why should you not? You are as pretty—nay, pr'ettier—than most of the girls in this Kingdom.”

“But I have no dowry.”

“What on earth would a King want with a dowry?” Ella’s stepmother demanded. “Nay, my dear, do not think of that. Come, we’re going into town. The moon is up, and the tailor is waiting.”

#

Ella stood long after her stepmother and stepsister had left, considering the invitation that lay still on the coffee table. After a time, she picked it up and examined it’s expensive writing. Her fingers left sooty smudges along the top and sides of the paper.

The invitation did not specify that only Lucinda and the Countess were invited. It very particularly said, “to all the young, unmarried ladies of the kingdom.” And Ella was, after all, an unmarried young lady. She didn’t like the idea of her stepsister—the one person who’d ever been kind to her—going into a sorcerer’s den alone. She could warn Lucinda, perhaps. But she didn’t know if she’d have the opportunity to tell her. Nor was she certain Lucinda would believe her. They no longer shared the intimacy they had when they were younger.

But if she went to the ball herself, Ella imagined she could keep an eye on Lucinda. She had to make sure her beautiful stepsister didn’t catch the King’s eye. Because regardless of dowry or status, the idea of Lucinda marrying a man with a book of spells in his desk and such a recently deceased wife made Ella’s flesh crawl (and she was 90% certain it was not because of the maggots).

Mind made up, Ella climbed the stairs to the attic and set about finding something suitable to wear. If the invitation didn’t say she couldn’t go, then go she would.

#

Were this a different sort of Cinderella story, I might have a montage here of mice industriously sewing, or even the young lady herself with needle in hand. Alas, while my dear Ella could sew, her stitches were utilitarian rather than dainty, and she was more used to using medical floss than delicate cotton thread. Instead, she found an old gown in the attic. It was several decades out of style, but it fit her just fine, and it was only a little too long. Then again, Ella didn’t much care whether she was pretty or not. She wasn’t going to catch anyone’s eye.

She set the dress up on a skeleton they had lying around (don’t ask), and then continued about her days as if nothing much had changed. She didn’t think to ask the Countess permission to join them. In Ella’s mind, as she had not been told no, the answer would certainly be yes.

Meanwhile, Lucinda was rushed to and from the tailor’s almost nightly, as adjustments were made and fittings ordered. She joined a flock of other young vampires, werewolves, and goblins preparing for the ball. Even the tailor, who was himself a giant of a man with ten or so sets of arms and many helpers, found himself hard-pressed to keep up with demand.

It was after one of these visits that Ella found Lucinda quite alone in the sitting room. She expected to see her stepsister engaged with some embroidery hoop or other, but instead Lucinda had a book open in her lap. She was so absorbed in reading it that she did not hear Ella come in.

“What are you reading?”

Her stepsister jumped, her expression almost guilty. Then, she relaxed as she saw Ella.

“Oh, it’s you.”

Ella came closer. She had not had the opportunity to speak with her stepsister alone for weeks now. Lucinda was always being hauled this way and that by the Countess, and Ella was usually left alone at home. It was a rare opportunity to see Lucinda without her mother there, and Ella was going to take advantage of it.

“What are you reading?” she asked again.

If it was possible for vampires to blush, Lucinda would have done so. She clutched the book protectively, then relented her grasp with a sigh. “Please don’t tell mother,” she said, handing it over to Ella.

The title marched across the front in embossed gold letters. The Movements of the Celestial Bodies and Their Component Parts. It was an astronomy book—a comparatively new one by the looks of it. Ella cracked it open carefully, looking at the astronomical drawings and descriptions of the planets. It didn’t mean much to here, but then again, Lucinda had always loved the night sky.

“Where did you get this?” she asked. “I thought the Countess had sold most of the library books.”

“This one is new,” Lucinda said guiltily. “I bought it with my pocket money while we were out looking at dresses the other day. It’s a new publication out of the University of Veilsburg.” She hesitated, then added, “They’ve recently added a night program for—for people like me. The astronomy program there is well-suited to vampires.”

It did not take much insight for Ella to see the longing in her stepsister’s eyes. “You want to go there.”

Lucinda hesitated. “It’s impossible,” she said finally. “We could never afford it. And besides, I’m needed here. What a fit mother would have if she bought a beautiful dress for me, and I wasn’t here to wear it.”

“Then, you don’t want to go to the ball?” Ella asked, handing the book back to Lucinda.

“No, certainly not.”

“Why not tell the Countess that, then? Surely she does not want you to be miserable.”

Lucinda gave her a wry look. “My mother is many things, but compassionate is not one of them. I will go to the ball to make her happy, and I will do my best to stay well out of the King’s line of sight.”

“You don’t want him to choose you?”

“No, I do not.”

“Why not?”

“I have no interest in marriage. I never have. But, if marriage is the only way to escape this house—”

“You could always run,” Ella said. “There’s nothing stopping you.”

Lucinda smiled sadly. “If I ran, who would look after you?”

Ella opened her mouth to say that she could look after herself, thank you very much, when the sound of the door opening made both sisters sit up straight. The Countess was back early, and Ella could linger no longer.

#

The day of the ball finally arrived. Ella and her vampiric step family were up early (mid-afternoon) with preparations. Hair had to be curled coquettishly and blood had to be drunk to give a flush to the cheeks and lips. Between helping Lucinda and her stepmother, Ella had very little time to prepare herself. So it was not until quite late in the evening that she went to the attic to attend to her own gown and toilette.

It will not surprise you, dear reader, to learn that the Countess had discovered Ella’s plot, and that she had no intention of allowing her ghoulish stepdaughter to ruin the chances of her real daughter to gain the attention of the King. While Ella had been busy helping Lucinda, the Countess had done what any concerned, overbearing mother would have done for her own child. She went to the attic for just a few minutes, not long enough to be missed, and then came back down with a smile like a cat’s on her face. She said nothing to Ella.

Thus, when Ella went upstairs to get dressed herself, she discovered that her serviceable gown had been ripped to shreds. The taffeta fabric lay in fraying heaps on the floor, and the skeleton she’d been using as a mannequin had been dashed to pieces.

It took quite a lot to make Ella cry. Ghouls, like most of the undead, do not have water to spare. And Ella had learned that crying was as unwise a course of action as any where her stepmother was concerned. Looking at the gown, she felt tears building behind her eyes. With a will stronger than steel, she swallowed them down. It would be fine. Lucinda didn’t want to marry the King anyway. Really, Ella had been going to ensure something that was so supremely unlikely as to be nearly impossible. She needn’t have felt so despondent.

Closing the attic door quietly on the mess, Ella made her way back downstairs to see her stepmother and stepsister off in their coach. Lucinda looked resplendent in a dress of crimson, her dark hair coiled around her head like so many snakes. Beside her, the Countess wore a regal gown of green that Ella was quite certain cost many months of groceries to have made.

“What time will you be back?” Ella asked, almost timidly.

The Countess let out a tittering laugh. “Back? I don’t expect us to be back tonight, or perhaps even tomorrow.” She gave Ella a superior look before turning to her daughter. “You see, my sweet, I have arranged a special audience with the King. More time for you to get to know each other.”

Lucinda frowned. “Thank you, mama, but I don’t see how that should affect our getting home.”

“Well, certainly, once the King gets a look at you, he’ll ask us to stay. Hopefully in a permanent fashion.”

Alarm grew in Ella’s breast as her stepmother spoke. The Countess had such conviction on her face. And, of course, Lucinda was incredibly charming and beautiful (Ella had long thought this about her stepsister). Amongst a crowd of beautiful ladies, Lucinda might not catch the King’s attention, but set apart? When he had a chance to see how witty and intelligent she was? He might propose to her on the spot.

“Come along, Lucinda.” With a final glance at Ella, the Countess du Sang gripped her daughter’s arm and steered her down the cobbled path from their door to the waiting carriage, shrouded in black and pulled by a pair of skeletal horses. Ella watched them go, and the fear in her heart expanded into her lungs, her liver, her kidneys, and even her intestines. A premonition gripped her that if she let her stepsister go alone to the ball, she would never see her again.

“Wait!” Ella cried, hurrying down the path. “Wait, please!” But it was too late. The driver cracked his whip, the horses started forward, and the carriage was gone, bearing Lucinda away perhaps forever.

#

Ella stood staring after them for what felt like a long time. In actuality, it was only about fifteen minutes, but fifteen minutes can stretch when you are trying to make a very big decision. She needed a gown. She needed transportation. And she needed both of these things very quickly. In such dire circumstances, there was really only one person she could turn to.

And that, of course, was the Witch.

Everyone knew about the Witch. She lived alone on the edge of town, in a cottage that was alternately said to be made of candy or bones, depending upon who you asked. The Witch was an old woman with an evil eye and a spine-chilling cackle. She could make men young again and kill with a gesture. She could conjure spirits from the air and she ate children for supper—or, at least, that’s what everyone said.

Ella had seen the Witch once—only once. A stooped woman, cloaked and hooded, who walked through the town as though she meant to burn it to the ground. People got out of her way so quick they were often tripping over themselves. Ella had watched the woman with a kind of awe. What power that woman must have, she thought, to inspire such fear with her mere footsteps.

No one much trusted magic users (as I’ve said), but when in a pinch, the Witch could do almost anything. And almost anything was exactly what Ella needed right then, price be damned.

Squaring her shoulders, Ella turned up the road and began walking.

#

The Witch’s cottage emerged from the gloom like the shadow of a crow, bent and hunched. The moon rising above the place gilded it in silver, tossing slanting shadows across the thick garden that spread out before it. Ella pushed open the gate with a creak that could’ve woken the dead. She froze, looking around, but nothing moved.

Letting the gate swing shut behind her, Ella started up the garden path. The air was thick with earthy scents—nightshade and moon flower—and through her thin shoes, Ella felt the moist earth. She was nearly to the door, a dim light shining in the window beside it, when something wrapped around her ankle.

Ella shrieked. She tried to struggle free from whatever it was, but something else wrapped around her other foot. Then her legs, up her waist, around her arms. Vines, she realized. Pumpkin vines, by the look of them. She was lifted high up into the air, shrieking, as a pair of enormous gourds rolled out of the garden. Each one had an evil grin on its face, lit up from within by an eerie light, and Ella screamed all the louder as they began lowering her towards their waiting mouths.

“Erasmus! Jasper! Enough!”

At the voice, Ella found herself being released. Vines uncurled with rapidity and she fell to the earth with a crack. Her arm broke off at the elbow, her foot at the ankle, and both appendages scrambled around frantically as Ella tried to get her bearings. She felt dizzy and disoriented from the drop, and very frightened that the pumpkins might come back.

“Oh, I’m so terribly sorry. Here, let me help you.”

A hand found her shoulder. Ella looked up, squinting into the moonlight, to find a woman bent over her. The woman’s face was young, her brown hair pulled away from her face. A dusty apron lay over a wide skirt as the woman knelt, looking her over.

“Oh dear, you’ve come to pieces, haven’t you?” she sighed. “Come on. Let me get you inside and we’ll fix you right up.”

#

She must be the Witch’s servant, Ella thought as the woman bustled around the brightly-lit cottage. That was the only logical explanation.

The woman—she’d said her name was Astrid—had practically carried Ella inside, the two errant body parts hefted under her other arm. She’d set Ella down on a comfortable wicker chair near the fire and set about reattaching her missing limbs. All the while, she muttered apologies for the pumpkin guardians outside.

“They get overzealous this time of year,” she said. “They spend all growing season watching the strawberries and tomatoes take preference, so you can only imagine how excited they are to be given such an important task. By the by, you’ll have to mind that foot of yours! It’s already quite frayed around the edges, and I don’t have time to do a better patch job at the moment.”

Now, Astrid was brewing tea in the large black kettle over the fire. Ella looked around the cottage nervously, but there seemed to be no children cooking anywhere, nor bones crusted in the walls. There were bundles of herbs hanging from the rafters and books on a few shelves. A broom sat in the corner, its handle bent and gnarled, and a cat—perhaps a cat? It had a tail and cat ears—lounged on the kitchen table.

“Here we are,” Astrid said, handing Ella a cup of tea. “Chamomile, lavender, and some lemon balm.” She sat across from Ella with a smile. “What brings you here on such a night as this? I thought all the young ladies in the kingdom would be dancing the night away up at the palace.”

“You’re a young lady, and you’re not there,” Ella pointed out.

Astrid laughed. “I believe the King would take issue with a witch on his guest list. Besides, my preferences are not for Kings.”

At her words, Ella froze. “You—you’re the witch?”

Astrid nodded.

“But…but you’re so young.”

“That will change as time goes on.”

“Everyone says you’re old and ugly, though!” Ella blurted. Then, she clamped her mouth shut in mortification.

Astrid shrugged. “I can be when I want.” She stood and took a cloak from a rack on the wall, swinging it over her shoulders. Immediately, her back grew hunched and her face grew old. Swinging the cloak off again, she hung it back up and took her seat. “Sometimes it’s useful to appear as something you are not. Now, that’s enough about me. What are you doing here?”

Ella blinked. “Well, I…I need your help.”

“With what?”

Swallowing, Ella laid bare her story—her fears for her stepsister, and her knowledge of the King’s spellbook. Astrid listened with a kind of concentration that made Ella stutter with nerves. When at last she finished speaking, Astrid nodded.

“I think you are right to be nervous,” she said. “I and others like me have long suspected the King dabbled in magic. But with the death of his wife, and his eagerness for a new bride, I can’t help but fear he’s plotting some quite black magic indeed.”

“Will you help me?” Ella asked pleadingly.

Astrid hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “I will,” she said. “But for such hasty magic, I cannot promise long-lasting results.”

“It just needs to be for tonight. Just for the ball.”

“Very well.” Astrid stood and took a tall, pointed hat from a shelf. Placing it on her head, she gestured to the door. “Come with me, and let us see what magic I can make for you.”

#

Astrid brought Ella to the back of her garden, where a stone circle lay. The two pumpkins—Erasmus and Jasper—rolled after, bumping anxiously at their mistress’s legs. The witch shooed them away, glancing around her garden with a considering expression.

“Right,” she said. “Coachmen and horses first.”

From her garden, she fetched a set of six black mice. Taking a wand from her pocket, she spoke words that made Ella’s ears pop and the air around them crackled. Moments later, six jet-black steeds with red eyes stood in the garden, nickering softly.

Three lizards were next—a coachman and footmen. And then came the coach.

“Oh, come now, Erasmus,” Astrid said. “You want to apologize? This is how you do it.”

“What are you doing to him?” Ella asked as the pumpkin rolled forward. She felt a little sorry for him as he came to a guilty stop in front of Astrid. He had just been doing his job, after all.

“I’m going to transform him,” Astrid said, “just as I have these others. He’s rather coach-shaped, I think.” She waved her wand again, and Erasmus grew. His orange sides expanded, groaning with the effort. Vines snapped and coiled, becoming wheels. His enormous face grew to windows and a door—a fearsome set, to be sure. And that golden light inside became golden candles, flickering in the darkness.

“Right,” Astrid said, turning back to Ella. “In you get!”

Ella blinked at her. “But—but I’m—I’m not dressed for the occasion.”

The witch blinked. “What do people normally wear to these sorts of things? You’re wearing a dress, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but it’s nowhere near nice enough.”

“What does nice enough have to do with it? You’ll be sweating through the fabric in no time.”

“It’s tradition. And ghouls don’t sweat. We just stink.”

The witch frowned, and Ella rather belatedly realized that Astrid had no basis for comparison. She’d never had cause to attend a fancy party—she’d practically said so herself.

“Here, wait a moment,” Ella said before hurrying inside and snatching one of the books off the witch’s shelf. It was a book of fairy tales (but not Grimm’s fairy tales, of course: we aren’t getting that meta here). She thumbed through it until she came to an illustration of a woman in a ballgown. Hefting the book in her arms, she brought it to Astrid.

“Like this,” she said.

The witch studied it for a moment, then nodded. “All right. I understand. But you’ll need something to keep you cool in that ballroom—even if you don’t sweat, it will be horribly warm in there.” She took a few steps back and raised her wand.

Ghouls, as I’ve said, don’t feel things to the same extent that we do. But as the witch’s magic touched her, wrapping itself around her like a lover’s caress, Ella felt it. Cold and bright, blue and silver, the kind of magic that only comes on moonlit nights in winter. The magic of frost, of the north wind, of the Aurora Borealis flickering above. It twirled her in its own delicate dance, and Ella laughed, spinning in place. The magic worked its way all the way up to her hair and down to her toes, and by the time it was done, Ella was encased in a gown of frost. Icy skirts sparkled around her waist, and a frosty crown tickled over her brows. Her long hair had been done up just as her stepsister’s had been, pinned in place with snowflakes, and as she lifted her skirts, she saw delicate shoes there made of frost and studded over with tiny, gem-like stars.

“There,” the witch said contentedly. “That should keep you cool and help with the smell. And you do look quite lovely.” She drew a hand over her forehead. “Given the relative heat displacement, I imagine this should last until about midnight or so. Perhaps a little longer.” She gestured to the carriage and its attendants. “If you wouldn’t mind bringing them back when you’re done, I’d appreciate it. Enchanted pumpkins do not grow on trees.”

Ella looked down at herself and over to the coach. It had been a very long time since she had felt so beautiful. Swallowing down her emotion, she looked at Astrid.

“Thank you,” she said, putting as much feeling into the words as she dared.

“Never thank a witch. We might hold it against you,” Astrid said with a mocking smile. “Now, off with you! You’ve got a sister to save.”