Bewitching Read Online Free PDF Page B

keep him from leaving the house. She could use no such magic on me now, for I knew how to break this simple spell. She knew me well enough to know I would never leave without Charlie. Still, Charlie sulked and sometimes ran and played and broke things. Sometimes, the witch used spells to buy his sleep, but the price was steep. As every mother (or sister) of a new babe knows, a child kept sleeping too long by day will repay this by waking at night.
    This annoyed the witch greatly because, by night, she wished to tell me the exploits of her centuries of life, of her work in the court of Henry VIII (“Had he but asked for my help, he could have had a son”), and her dalliance with someone named Vlad somewhere called Wallachia (“a cruel one, he—liked to impale people on sticks”). “Being a witch can be a curse, Kendra,” she told me, “but never forget, it is a blessing as well. Women, we are powerless, often at the mercy of a father or husband. When I lost mine, I might have been forced to take in laundry or … worse. But because of witchcraft, I survived and survived well.”
    “Kendra.” Charlie pulled at my skirt.
    “What does that boy want?” the witch snapped.
    “Not now, Charlie.”
    “But Kendra, look. Look what I found.”
    “What is it, Charlie?”
    He opened his hand and held out a black and green beetle.
    “Ugh,” the witch said. “I will turn you into a beetle if you do not watch out.”
    “He is but a child,” I said.
    Yet, I sensed the witch becoming more and more perturbed.
    Due to the witch’s trust of me, or her blackmail, I was permitted to venture outside on occasion, to gather magical herbs and flowers. It was on one such trip that I strolled past the corner of the house and heard a small voice.
    “You! Girl!”
    I started. I had heard no voice other than the witch’s and Charlie’s for weeks now.
    “Please, please, Miss! You are in grave danger. Or rather, your brother is.”
    Now I recognized the voice of the gingerbread girl, Miranda.
    I turned to face her. She was a child, close in size to my sister Sarah, who had been but ten. Her ringlets must once have been golden. Now, they were of white frosting. Unlike the other gingerbread children, whose faces were frozen, she could move and speak.
    “Danger? Why?”
    “The witch! This morning, before you woke, she was outside, gathering wood.”
    “Wood? She has no need of wood.”
    “Exactly. She has no need, for she makes her meals and warms her home by magic. She needs wood for one purpose only. The oven! Where she makes the gingerbread.”
    “But why?”
    “I know not. Perhaps it is special witch-wood, the better for baking children. All I know is, one morning she went out, gathering wood. That very afternoon, I was in the oven.”
    I shuddered. Powers, when used to cure the sick or even lighten the workload, were wonderful things. To use them otherwise was disgusting. But could I have one without the other?
    I would have to find out. But first, I had to make sure the witch didn’t bake my brother!
    I reached for Miranda’s gingerbread hand, again thinking of dear little Sarah. Had I refused to lend her my hair ribbons? Spoken a harsh word? I was sorry.
    “Thank you, little friend. Thank you for telling me. May I ask…?” I hesitated, not wanting to heap insult upon injury.
    “Ask me anything. It is lonely never to be asked anything anymore.”
    Lonely. That word again. Could it be that the world was merely a collection of lonely existences? If so, perhaps mine would not be any worse.
    To Miranda, I said, “How is it that you can speak and move, and the others cannot?”
    Her brow furrowed so much I worried it would crack. “I believe I was undercooked. ’Tis hard to believe, for the cooking was so painful that, when the witch came to check to see if I was done, I determined to be quite still. In that way, I was released from the oven half-baked. ’Course I cannot do much.”
    “I am sorry.”
    “No. ’Tis better