It has to be said that she was an affable sort of witch who
moved unnoticed among the lesser folk and never revealed her practice to the
world of mortal man. No pointed hats for her; no cloaks, broomsticks, black cats,
toads, or rotten teeth. And neither did she live in a shack hidden deep within
the dark and musty environs of the wildwood, but luxuriated in an expensive
house nestled in the suburbs of a great city, where even her cauldron was wired
into mains electricity and equipped with the latest in electronic thermostats and timer controls. It was even rumoured that she showered once a day, although
such extremes of unconventional behaviour can sometimes become exaggerated
in the telling along the way. What is widely agreed in all versions of the
story, however, is that the witch was greatly desirous of having fun wherever
fun was to be found and in whatever form it presented itself.
So what, you might ask, was the point of being a witch if
the only object of a sheltered existence was to have fun? Even the least of
mortals has fun without ever feeling the need to dabble in the dark arts. A
good question, and one that is easily answered. She also liked to be
enchanting, you see, and how can one be truly enchanting without the provision
of some object of enchantment? Objects of enchantment are the preserve of
witches and witches alone. A witch, therefore, she had to be.
And so, although having no familiars to provide solace in a
lonely and seemingly purposeless existence, she did have a pet, an enchanted
pet. It was a man, a mortal man who had fallen under her enchantment many moons
before and been quite unable to fully escape the spell. As I said, witches know
about enchantment, but mere mortal men are quite ignorant of either the means or the method.
At this point I ask
your indulgence while I make up the fire and tend to my own pet – my dear
little dog whose mouth has tasted no food in… ooh… quite a long time. There,
that’s better. Now, where was I? Oh yes, the witch’s pet.
He lived in a cellar deep below the seemingly innocuous residence
at which postmen called, and alongside which neighbours strolled and cars
cruised, all of them convinced that everything was right with the world and no
witches lurked among their tepid ranks. The cellar, of which they were
oblivious, was mostly dark; and the pet, of which they also had no knowledge,
was mostly hungry. The witch, being consumed with the relentless search for
fun, had long since ceased to consider him an object of regard, and had even gone
so far as to forget about him altogether.
So how did this mortal man survive, you may further ask,
since his mistress had consigned him to the ranks of the unremembered? Why, on
the occasional morsel that rolled under the locked door of his cellar, of course. It
happened this way:
The witch was much given to languishing in thoughts of past
rights and present romances, and people called R whose touch she pined for, and
over whom she had shed many tears. On such occasions she would take an apple
for sustenance, and then lose interest and toss it over her shoulder. The apple would roll inexorably down the steps to the
cellar, seeming to have a mind of its own and a pre-ordained destiny lurking therein. Down and down it would bounce, and along dark passages it would glide,
and down further steps it would bounce again, until it rolled under the
door where the mortal man lay sleeping the sleep of the hungry.
At that he would wake and look at the apple, now at rest and
awaiting his attention. To eat or not to eat, that was the question which
forever troubled him. For he knew, did he not, that some apples were sweet and
wholesome and would sate his hunger. But others – oh, the others – would be
laced with poison which would turn his empty stomach to a furnace of bitter
fire. But he ate them all, for hungry men take risks that better fed ones blanch at.
(And there are those who believe that the apples themselves were enchanted and he
had no choice.) And then he would either sleep the sleep of the sated or sink
to his knees in the fires of purgatory, which never killed him but only made
him anxious for the arrival of the next apple.
* * *
And that, my dearios, is about all I can tell you about the witch
and her forgotten pet. So what happened to the mortal man, I hear you clamour?
Well, no one knows, but some say he escaped and lived to tell the tale. Others say that he died
in the cellar, where his ghost now moans the moan of the perpetually hungry (for ghosts are
quite incapable of eating apples.) Yet others say that he languishes
there still, waiting for the magic star to descend from the remotest heaven and
break the spell. How would I know? I’m only the storyteller.
* * *
Explanation, if any is needed: I was bored.
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