Once

Forty Two

Elle scrambled backwards, crashing hard over an old wooden chest. Pain exploded in the back of her head as she fell, stunned, against the wall.

Of all the things that had appeared out of the stories so far, the witch was by far the worst. Worse than the bear, worse than the wolf, worse than the giant. Worse than all of them put together.

The witch moved silently toward her through the gloom, seeming to glide rather than walk, its feet barely brushing the floor. Immediately in Elle's head the witch was an it, not a she. In shape it vaguely resembled a human woman, but there was nothing remotely human about it. It was, in every sense, a monster.

"Elle, run!" Sellan's voice rang out through the low, claustrophobic room.

Elle couldn't run. She couldn't move. She was frozen to the spot, pinned back against the wall, her eyes averted sideways away from that hideous creature that was now hanging over her.

"What's the matter, little mouse?" Its voice was thin and hideous, shrill as the scream of a rusted saw slicing through metal. But the worst part of all was that she could hear the faintest trace of another voice in there. It was a voice she barely remembered, a voice she only recalled putting on a different voice - imitating the shrieking hideous voice of a witch. But she knew whose voice it was even without knowing how. It was the voice of her mum.

She told herself it was just more of the magic - some awful curse or spell causing her to hear something in that voice that wasn't really there. There was no trace of her mum, of her real mum, in the voice of that awful monster. Even so, she heard it - and it shook her right down to her bones.

She remembered David saying that morning that the magic was playing with them. Playing a cruel sort of trick, as if this were all part of some sick practical joke. She thought that must be true here, with some lost part of her mum she barely remembered shrilly cackling at her out of the mouth of this evil witch.

The thought made her angry. Her blood that had been running cold suddenly ran hot and acidic in her veins. Just like with the wolf, and with the giant: her fear was tinged with a sudden surge of seething rage.

With a defiant jut of her chin she pointed her face toward the witch.

It was more horrible than she had thought just from that first glance. It was thin and emaciated as a skeleton, all pointed and jagged bones with long sinewy skin pulled tightly over them, like a chicken carcass mauled by a hungry dog. A black dress, peeling away to shreds and tatters, hung on it like rotting curtains in the window of a decrepit mansion. It was barefoot, on dead grey feet with black toenails curling over every toe.

Elle forced her eyes up to the witch's face last of all. The sight of it curled her stomach almost as much as the hot stench of gingerbread filling her nose. A face like a rotten apple, sunken, shrivelled, a domed white scalp with wisps of pure white hair hanging off it. Eyes that were almost completely red, except for their irises, which were jet black. A wide crooked mouth with twin rows of rotting yellow teeth. Teeth that were sharp and jagged - a mouth full of splintered knives.

Sharp teeth - teeth for ripping apart little children...

In one horribly smooth movement the witch loomed forward once again until she was inches from Elle's face. She should have smelled revolting, Elle thought. She should have smelled like this room - old and rotten, cold as a corpse. All Elle could smell was the sweet sickening smell of gingerbread.

"Elle!" Maggie screamed.

Hearing her name pulled Elle out of her frozen terror at the sight of that repulsive face. She scrabbled sideways along the wall, ducking swiftly in the direction of Maggie and Sellan. The witch made another swift move and barred her way. A long clawed hand shot out into the wall right by Elle's head, the fingers sinking a few inches into the wall. It's gingerbread, Elle thought. These walls are made of gingerbread. But they weren't a minute ago, right? A minute ago they were cold grey plaster - she remembered the spots of black mould by the stairs.