“It wasn’t real! It was false and ugly.”
“Love is always thus,” the hag observed with a dismissive shrug.
“It isn’t good enough!” Columbine protested. “I gave you food and warmth and all you do is trick and deceive!”
“The food was not thine to give!”
“The bruises I’ll get from Mistress Slab will pay for it and more! Malinda would not have treated me so…”
“I am not Malinda!!” the witch reminded her hotly. “The lover’s heart is a region unmapped by me! I do not deal in longings and gladful ever-afters. Seek out that wingless Fairy Godmother in her cottage, deep in Hunter’s Chase, if thou wouldst procure a philtre to turn a prince’s head, but ask it not of me! Venom and curses and ill deeds are all I know.”
She was about to lift the basket on to her back again when she paused and gave Columbine a sidelong look.
“And yet,” she murmured, “there is one gift I could grant unto thee. A present more useful than the way to a Jack’s heart.”
“What could you give me?” the girl asked sceptically.
Haxxentrot tapped the wicker lid. It creaked open and a Bogey Boy’s white face appeared beneath.
“Jub,” the witch ordered. “Fetch me the timbrel.”
The face vanished and the lid closed once more. A moment later, a small hand appeared, clasping a tambourine. Haxxentrot took it and rattled it in front of her with a flourish.
“What use is that?” Columbine asked.
“Patience provides every answer,” the witch answered tetchily. She placed the tambourine on the table then sorted through a leather pouch hanging at her waist.
“Here,” she said, removing a small velvet bag and emptying it.
Columbine uttered a cry of disgust at the thing that fell on to the instrument’s circle of taut parchment. It was a human ear, dried and blackened and scabbed with old blood.
“What horror is this?” the girl demanded.
Haxxentrot’s crabbed mouth broke into a depraved grin. “’Tis the only relic of Sir Lucius Pandemian left above ground or uneaten by wolf, gore toad, marsh snake and battle crow,” she explained. “A valiant questing knight was he. Most courageous in Mooncaster.”
“I’ve never heard tell of him.”
“Hast thou not? How easy the denizens of Mooncaster forget. How my hatred festers for them anew. ’Twas many long years past, when the Dawn Prince’s exile was still fresh in mind. The Realm was plagued by countless terrors, dreader fiends than they who abide in the dark forests today. One such was the Lamia. She harried cattle and carried off infants in her claws, devouring them in the ivy-choked ruins of the Black Keep, nigh to mine own tower.”
Haxxentrot snorted with displeasure and her face became more twisted with rancour than usual.
“A noisesome neighbour was she,” she grumbled. “Entry to the vault, wherein she slept during the hours of day, was granted only by the tolling of a great bronze bell high above. This bell couldst not ring lest she commanded it. Three deafening clangs and the marble cover stone would slide aside. Then out she would fly – on webbed wings. Never was so deafening a clamour as that bell heard in the land. Deathknelly the peasants named it, in their usual vulgar fashion. When its fearsome voice shook the night clouds, they would flee to their homes, cowering till they heard it resound again ere dawn when all was clear.”
Columbine cleared her throat and held up her hand to interrupt. “How does that lead to this foul object?” she asked, grimacing at the severed ear.
“’Twas Sir Lucius who pursued the Lamia back to the forest one rain-lashed night,” Haxxentrot said. “His spear pierced her side and she did drop the latest child victim from her claws. Bellowing in pain and fury, she swooped upon the knight, seizing his horse by the head and bearing both beast and he aloft. Over field and treetop she carried them and all the while he hewed and grappled with her, fending off her blows and fangs till his shield shattered. And so he raised his sword for one final thrust, but she cast his mount from her grasp and horse and rider fell from the sky. At the very entrance to the Black Keep they came crashing. The steed burst on the forest floor, but he fared a little better. Though one eye was torn from his head and his body was slashed by twig and talon, still he lived. He saw the Lamia come screeching down to rend his limbs and feed on his noble flesh, but luck had not yet deserted Sir Lucius. In that very instant, as his death seemed writ and certain, the sun pushed above the eastern hills. The Lamia screamed and rushed to the safe darkness of her lair. The mighty bell clanged direct over the brave knight’s head and his ears bled. Marble grated back in place and the vault was closed. Then Sir Lucius knew what must be done.”
The witch paused and regarded the blackened lump of skin with almost tender eyes.
“Wounded, ripped and broken, driven half mad by the bone-jarring sound, he climbed the ruined keep – up to the lofty pillars where the monstrous bell did hang. Without its voice, the tomb could ne’er open again so he reached into Deathknelly’s mouth and removed its tongue. Yet the thing was so grievous heavy and he so beaten, he could not bear the weight and so he toppled.”
Haxxentrot took up the ear and held it close as she inspected and stroked it.
“I found him there, late that day, crushed ’neath the bronze bell tongue. Already the forest creatures had been at him. They are such busy, eager workers. This I took in token of a brave man, the best in this putrid Kingdom. He had rid me of a rival scourge and for that I was grateful. The Lamia has ne’er been heard of since. The sealed vault became her tomb.”
Her voice faltered and she stared at the gruesome souvenir intently.
Columbine shuddered. “And you think I would want that as a gift?” she muttered incredulously. “Are you as mad as you are ugly?”
The witch did not answer, but put the hideous thing to her withered lips and kissed it. Then, before Columbine could prevent her, the crone lunged forward, pressed the ear against the girl’s shoulder and rolled it in the Jockey’s still glistening blood. She called out strange words, picked up the tambourine and slammed the two together.
At once the hearths erupted. Torrents of green and purple fire exploded into the kitchen. The flames whooshed and roared about Haxxentrot and Columbine and fiery stars went zinging about the room, ricocheting off pots and plates. One struck a large glazed jug and it shattered into dust. Another shot into the salt sack and the precious grains came streaming out. The air screamed. The witch spun around shrieking an incantation. Columbine yelled for her life. The coppers shivered on their hooks. Tables juddered across the floor as the flagstones trembled beneath them and the big basket quaked as the Bogey Boys rocked with wild laughter within.
Then, abruptly, it was over. The fireplaces crackled cheerfully once more and the kitchen was as normal as ever.
Shaken and afraid, Columbine stumbled away from the witch.
“Begone, foul hag!” she cried. “Leave now, before I call the Punchinello Guards.”
Haxxentrot gave a throaty cackle. “I am done here, my pretty pie-giver,” she said. “Here is the magickal gift thou didst demand of Haxxentrot.”
She held out her aged hands and presented the tambourine. Columbine stared down at it.
“It cannot be!” the girl exclaimed.
“And yet thine own eyes say it is so,” the witch replied. “They tell no lies this time.”
In the centre of the drumhead, where moments ago there had been only blank parchment, there was now a human ear. The two were fused together, with no visible seam. The ear was no longer black and shrivelled, but the