Witches

Saragun Verse: Moonfog Madrone (part one)

1

Moonfog Madrone the Enchanted Tree

Wakes every morn for an hour at three

His branches like arms do mischief make

And mischief like weather his neighbors take

2

A poser Spruce rose up from the earth

“Scu-reew you Moonfog and your magic mirth;

You’re twisted like a crone all haggard and bent;

The best of your sap already spent.”

3

Moonfog Madrone woke at three

And listened to what the Spruce told his leaves

“Silly fool spoke when he thought I was asleep;

Forgiveness is divine but not root deep.”

4

A Spruce stump greeted the morning sun

O! Moonfog Madrone what hast thou done?

And the village was thoroughly amazed

By a rain of toothpicks lasting three days.

Saragun Verse: Witch Field

i

There was a lovely field up for sale

Greed over beauty often prevails

Yet came a Witch who cast a spell

And the field vanished behind a veil

ii

It is still where it was of course

But now resides in dimension twenty four

It is now as safe as a field should be

For Pheasants and lives born of green

iii

Money cannot rise above

The standard hubbub of sniff and grub

Tis a wormy, diseased and phallic thing

A reverse parasite to whom the host clings

iv

Therefore the field is no longer for sale

The realtor may as well peddle pain in hell

For the world is never ugly at peace

In silent repose we are free to dream

The Oz Exception: Part Twenty-Two

“As Team GOAT walked through the Witch’s dark castle, uninhabited save for a mouthy Flying Weasel named Penrose, an invisible voice, like that of an unnecessarily hushed golf announcer, who is a hundred yards from the green, spoke incredibly long, needlessly italicized sentences (such as this one) about their doings…”

“That winged Rodent bit of this and that, keeps tailing us?” Beezer said, noticing Penrose’s androgynous shadow cast by torchlight, falling on the stone floor.

“The wee critter got sucked into the gravity of yer behind,” Barkevious said, using his go to insult when he’s unable to think up better.

“You excel at a shit attitude, brother,” said Beezer.

“Hooray for me,” Barkevious said, doing a sarcastic little dance. “I’m number one at behaving like number two.”

Daisy hoof stomped the floor. “Quiet! The readers can’t hear GOAT’s backstory.

“Ah damn, that again,” said the italicized invisible voice. “Anyhoo, GOAT goes inside stories to help out protagonists who are hard against it all. For instance, they entered an old Twilight Zone episode and gave a character who had tragically broken his glasses to an ironic conclusion a new pair, and once they ‘went’ inside a film called The Valley of Gwangi, and actually kidnapped the Dinosaur lead and bring him to Saragun Springs–but his name is Juan G. due to copyright issues….”

“In fact, the crew turned a corner and found Juan Gee guarding a room from which familiar voices flowed…”

“’Who goes there?’ In his transfer to Sargun Springs, Juan reduced in size from being a thirty-foot tall Allosaurus to about five-ten. Still nearly two yards of Thunder Lizard is a lot to suddenly behold when you round a corner in a dark castle. The wind was howling outside and flashes of lightning illuminated the walls through openings in the ceiling.“

“Daisy stopped and looked up in the general diterction that the invisible voice was coming from and said, ‘Are you sayinly saying it’s a darkly dark and stormily stormy night?’”

“The wind sighed and poured herself another drink.”

End part twenty-two

The Oz Exception: Part Fifteen

The ugsome plot development required the assembly of a team to venture into the Enchanted Wood to retrieve Gwen and John–even though Gwen was sending smiling selfies taken with various Hobgoblins and such low persons.

I handpicked five, since Oz fans neglect to count Toto in the “Big Four.” Apparently they consider him an extension of Dorothy. We hold no such prejudices.

Thus Beezer, Barkevious, Professor Moriarty, Peety and Daisy were gathered in my office. I was about to explain the seamless details of my plan, but, as always, anarchy fomented and took over.

It began well enough:

“I’ll be Dorothy,” said Daisy, who had donned a gingham dress because she recently discovered method acting. It worked out because no one else wanted to wear a dress.

“Peety, you’re a natural for the Scarecrow,” I said as quickly as possible because I didn’t want to give him time to think about the mindless aspect of the role. And Barkevious, who had gotten into the sugar and was mindlessly yipping and prancing, was selected as Toto because of the close resemblance.

The hell began when I assigned the Tin Man role to the Professor. I thought he would be perfect, being the heartless little Feline son of a bitch he is.

But, no, Beezer wanted that part. He thought being the Cowardly Lion was beneath him; and the Prof (from here “Promo”) objected because he is a Cat and that is what Cats do, and the concept of being afraid of anything was something he could, or should I say, would not accept.

An ugsome plot development indeed, which led to Dorothy, Toto, the Scarecrow and two goddamn Tin Men headed off into the Wood.

Unlike swank fantasy worlds such as Narnia, Hundred Acre Wood or Oz, we are a poverty row realm (our pending claim on 16 Psyche withstanding). So instead of a yellow brick road we rolled a sheet of marigold linoleum that had passed through the vortex ages before.  We pretended it was the real deal.

“Be sure to bring back, HeXy’s…” here I faltered because HeXopatha hates brooms, “um…never mind. Good luck.”

I watched them go and poured a shot of Jack into a tankard of Faerie Ale. Strange visions bloomed in the brew…

End part fifteen

The Oz Exception: Part Fourteen

A pushspring award is a small amorphous blob of clay that has a PDQ Pilsner cap dried into it to represent the button you “pushed” that created your specific awesomeness. Everyone in Saragun Springs (including Gwen and John got one). Mine was for “Least Missed When Missing” (which I hucked into the Spring to raise not a demon, but a smallish pixie of some sort who had a terrible attitude, but did not last long).

The clay blob represents our asteroid and the bottle caps were provided by PDQ Peetie.

I received an update from Mari-Kat on my phone. She looks exactly like Kate Bush in the Wuthering Heights video for a damn good reason, which we will enter into next week. Using magic, I saw her clearly whispering into the ear of the bent over demon tethered to the Spring. Both smiled. She then produced a black tea pot into which he either filled willingly or was sucked into.

I turned to face HeXy (who was watching the event on my phone, looking over my shoulder). “How many of those teapot demons have you?”

She smiled. “It’s a lamp.”

“No, it’s a goddamn teapot.”

“Hardly,” she sniffed.

“No, easily,” I said.

This little exchange of opinions would have continued if not broken up by the arrival of the billigits, in number they are four–identical flying wee folk, about eighteen inches long, orange skinned, named mothball, weasel, pinto and flounder. The billies play many roles in the Springs, but at root they are among HeXopatha’s minions.

Two billies apiece plucked John and Gwen from the audience and flew off with them toward the Enchanted Wood. Oddly, neither protested, in fact Gwen appeared to be taking images with her phone.

“Hey! Where are your flying toadies going with our guests?”

But HeXy vanished in a puff of green smoke. I did hear “It’s a lamp, dunderhead,” from afar, but nothing else.

I sat there for a moment and counted my blessings, of which I had two. It is Saturday, thus tomorrow was the day of rest. And having newcomers to the realm hauled off by flying Wiccan minions does provide a link to the title of the story.

See you on the yellow brick road come Monday.

End part fourteen

The Oz Exception: Part Thirteen

Despite my assurances, the show continued to be disrupted by the towering demon on the horizon. And, as always, when something goes awry in the Springs, I must fix it or take an incredible amount of passive-aggressive abuse.

“I wonderly wonder who aimed the fecal ball at the Spring?” said Daisy.

“Sure would be nice if someone in charge would do something,” said John, whose consumption of Faerie Ale did little for his sense of tact.

“Oh, all right, you babies,” I said, opening the crystal ball app on my phone, which directly connected me to the Great Witch HeXopahta–and the goddam Anita Know just had to bellow out what I was doing. “Connecting to the effective HeXopatha,” she said, which caused a ripple of applause in the amphitheater.

HeXy’s face filled my screen. “Hey you,” I said, “we got another demon at the Spring–the children are acting like there’s a spider in the shower–and they aren’t willing to wait for it to go away.”

“Do you want a giant newspaper?”

“Ha, ha, you are a wit as always,” I said. “I’m thinking that someone with magic knowhow can remove it and set it outside where we can pretend that it will be happier.”

She laughed and it was so loud that she sounded incredibly close and not at her castle in the Enchanted Wood. Alas, she was sitting directly behind me. I was the last to know this and still wouldn’t have if she hadn’t tapped me on the shoulder.

“Remember writing that everyone in the Springs is present at the awards show?”

“Very amusing,” I said, turning to face her. HeXopahta is your basic Beautiful Witch, high cheekbones, raven hair and such. She changes guises every hundred and thirty years, this time she looks half Irish, half Japanese. Yes, like Renfield, but since they are never seen together it is hard to compare. But I knew that Renfield had to be nearby. I considered dispelling “the one and the same myth” right there and now–but that would have meant pushing my capacity once again, so I let it go.

“Hey, you look like–” Gwen began to say, but she detected something in HeXy’s face that suggested she should leave well enough alone.

HeXopahta finished smiling her special smile at Gwen then spoke to me. “Tell you what,” she said.

“Ah, here it comes, the big squeeze…”

“For a hundred more shares of the 16 Psyche, I might be able to help the situation out.”

Long ago, the Springs placed a claim on the metal rich asteroid P16 Psyche. As soon as we think of a way to haul it into our sky, we will all be zillionaires (we cut the pie evenly in the Springs). Since our source of wealth is neither less farcical nor more imaginary as it goes on Earth, we feel free to trade shares for favors.

“All right,” I said. “As soon as the deed is done.”

HeXy silently nodded at her apprentice Wiccan, Mari-Kat Lywd, who was seated beside her. Mari-Kat rose and vanished with a poof.

End Part Lucky Thirteen

Welcome to Saragun Springs Book Four: HeXopatha and the billigits Part Six

(Note: We have yet to reach the era in which the witch and her little minions have standardized the spellings of their names–LA)

Where Have All the billigits Gone?

-1-

If you can imagine a realm that is both infinite and a place where nothing is farther than a mile from anything else, then you can imagine my land of make believe. You see, I failed High School Geometry and have no sense of scientific proportion. I went every day, but it was the first period, and I fell asleep with my eyes open. I wound up with four A’s and one F on that report card. I got my high marks in History, Drama, Music and Sociology. But the world is run by Slide Rule Supremacists who’d rather have kids bomb out in those and score big successes in the ometries.

I had to take an extremely remedial math class (which was as intellectually demanding as “Celebrity Jeopardy”) to gain my diploma. My crowning glory there was the creation of a coordinate graph. When connected, the numbered points revealed the face of Fred Flinstone with dollar signs in his eyes and the caption “Bedrock Lotto.” Although giving up on a freshly minted adult and releasing her into a high tech society armed with no fancier arithmetic in her head than how to arrange a Fred Flintsone graph is probably immoral, that’s just the way the old hypotenuse bounces. Besides, it continues to give me the freedom to create scientifically impossible vistas. Hooray for the armor of ignorance.

According to the 70’s band America, “Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man that he didn’t, didn’t already have.” Well, the Wiz was hardly Great and Powerful then, now was he? For I, the ruling Penname in my little metaverse, have endowed all my Fictional Characters (FC’s) with unretractable Free Will, which they most definitely did not already, already have going in. The person who employs me (whose experiences, skills, shames and lacks are identical to mine) did the same for me; alas, you don’t need a head full of logarithms to conceptualize the vicious circle.

Free Will runs amuck; that’s its main characteristic. So, it follows that my FC’s run amuck in keeping with their Free Will. All my FC’s have “Free Willed” actual lives for themselves, which they lead when not involved in my stories. And they often do interesting things when not in print. Some are known to get a bit freer and interesting than what is good for my sanity. And although it is futile, every now and then I try to at very least inform the freer and more interesting element that they are doing to my sanity what a Cat does to a litter box.

Hezopatha the Witch, who has appeared in four or five productions, is a particularly keen Free Will enthusiast. I guess I could be held to blame there; when I developed “Hezzie” I made her smarter than I, thus a sociopath. (I discovered early that all persons more intelligent than I are sociopaths.)

Like any self loving, intellectual, sociopathic, footloose and Free Willed Witch, Hezopatha lives deep in the Enchanted Forest. But as I have already mentioned she is no farther than a mile from anyplace else in the realm. The entire realm is infested with her Minions and “pets.” Just the other evening I glanced up from my computer and saw a great black Owl sitting on the window sill, studying me. And it is not at all unusual to be walking in the garden and have my left ankle assassinated at any moment by one of her Black Cats. It’s always a quick bap bap bap to the left ankle and then back under cover. I’ve yet to learn why only the left ankle is targeted. You see her Rats and Ravens and Wolves everywhere and get used to them in no time at all.

But it was what Minions were missing that got me thinking about Hezopatha the other day, and filled me with anxiety. Moreover, there were stranger than normal lights and sounds coming from her area. She was up to something and when Hezzie is up to something it is usually over the top. For example, through a robust exertion of Free Will, Hezzie had tricked me into giving her a quarter million billigits for Minions…

(The ellipsis concluding the previous paragraph is there to note a pause in my thoughts–for I’m stuck on deciding how to explain what the hell a “billigit” is to readers new to me; should I just tell or hold off and allow the information to come forward in dialogue and action? A bleat or not to bleat verbal transaction. Though just telling you is easier, it is also indicative of lazy writing. But for it to come out in expository dialogue, I need someone to share my thoughts with. Damn it–all right, fine, whatever…)

(The ellipsis at the end of the previous parenthetical paragraph–which is removed from this parenthetical paragraph by one day, a hard return and several pints of Stout–indicates more pondering on my part. I had to decide which two FC’s to take with me on my visit to Hezopatha…Then I will cleverly have one of them do the backstory work!…)

I’ve learned that ellipses lead to, like Stout, more Stout. But upon getting a handle on myself I chose Daisy Cloverleaf the Pygmy Goatess and her brother Fenwick to accompany me to the Enchanted Wood. Normally I’d bring along my Imaginary Friend and second in command, Renfield, but she and Hezopatha do not like each other. Fortunately even sociopaths approve of Pygmy Goats.

I located Daisy and Fenwick in the Barnyard. They were playing “Kick the Can.” Despite the pernicious cliche, Goats do not eat cans. But they do put them in their mouths and hide them for robust games of Kick the Can. For Goats it is “The beautiful game.”

“Hi, guys, who’s winning?”

Daisy, who has appeared in my productions as everything from a Unicorn to Superhero, shook her head sadly, evidently embarrassed by my ignorance.

“Kick the Can isn’t about the score, Miss Leila,” she said. “It’s a metaphor for the purpose and dignity of life.”

“Yeah, Mama-O,” Fenwick, who is a beatnik, added, “only squares keep a record.”

Only species able to count can keep a record, Daddy-O, was almost out of my mouth, but instead I said: “How interesting–I’ve never equated the struggle with smacking an empty beer can around in the dirt…guess that makes as much sense as anything.”

This witty repartee was interrupted by the appearance of a blue and orange upside-down tornado in the sky above the Enchanted Wood. It was, of course, a mile away, but we could hear the roar and suck of a great wind as though it was much closer.

The vortex was spinning wildly but at the same time holding its place. Being upside down, the pointy end appeared to be boring into the sky like a drill bit. The weather was perfect save for the abnormality above Hezzie’s place. Due to the tree tops we couldn’t see the inverted “top” of the funnel, but I guessed that it was about a hundred yards across at its widest point.

As I’ve said countless times, strange sites are common in our realm. Still, I felt duty bound to check this one out. For blue and orange are the main colors of the billigits–the missing Minions.

I smiled at the little Goats. “You guys up for adventure?”

-2-

Daisy and Fenwick were up for adventure, but they didn’t want to walk a mile. Funny how creatures who will frolic for hours batting about a crumpled Coors Light can will all of a sudden get lazy on you. Still, I didn’t feel much like walking, either. Fortunately, I recalled a golf cart I had used in a story about five years ago–Back then I’d called it the “Little Deus Coupe Ex-Machina ”–or similar nonsense. But “golf cart” was good enough for our purposes. Amazingly, it had been on a battery charger for the last five years and nothing had blown up.

Not so amazingly, however, of the three of us, only I knew how to drive. FC Pygmy Goats can do exceptional things, but operating a vehicle ain’t one of them. Daisy and Fenwick are twins, but Daisy is by far the most mature of the two. “I want to drive,” Fenwick said. He got pouty when I informed him that he could, if he’d sprout thumbs, grow two feet taller and tell his left from his right with a hitherto unseen consistency. As I’ve said before, Fenwick is a beatnik. He wears a beret and his little beard is arranged as a “Van Dyke.” He taps his hooves on hard surfaces when he hears jazz and often smokes clove cigarettes. But he’s also as bratty as a two-year-old child.

“Tell you what, Fenwick,” I said, when it appeared that a tantrum was brewing, “you can sit on my lap and steer while I apply the pedals.”

Now, Daisy is the more mature of the two, but only when compared to Fenwick. I could see trouble brewing in her eyes. But there was a way out.

“Since Fenwick and I will be navigating the cart, would you please, dear, dear, Miss Daisy Cloverleaf take over the narrative?”

As luck would have it, there just happened to be a fully charged Chromebook in the cart. And although it remains one of preternature’s great mysteries, FC Pygmy Goats are brilliant typists. I often place Daisy at the keyboard when I am otherwise occupied. She’s good for a hundred words per minute and no errors–save for those in judgment.

I leave part three to Daisy.

-3-

The roses smelled rosily and the bees buzzed buzzingy as Miss Leila and Feckwit “drove” us to Mistress Hezopatha’s estate in the enchantingly Enchanted Wood.

“Daisy?” Miss Leila said–with that annoyingly annoying tone she sometimes affects.

“What?”

She pointed at her phone, which was mounted on the small dashboard of the golf cart. “I can see everything you write.”

“So?”

“Well, other than again caution you about adverbs, I can’t help but notice a rare typo. You misspelled Fenwick.”

“That’s not a typo,” I said.

“I, Feckwit,” said my brother.

When he first appeared in a story called “I, Feckwit,” I’d convinced his ignorant behind that it was a complimentary term, and that calling himself it would enhance his masculinity and attract girls. Since he refuses to learn how to read, I believe that Feckwit applies.

Leila read what you have just read, shrugged her shoulders and said, “Whatever.”

Although it would overburdenly overburden Miss Leila’s mathematically challenged brain to figure this out, at a top speed of four miles an hour it took roughly fifteen minutely minutes to cover the mile to Mistress Hezopatha’s front door.

“Holy shit, it’s full of billigits,” Miss Leila said when we got close enough to the upside down tornado in the sky to see it was composed of individual components.

“And?” Miss Leila said…

The ellipsis at the end of the previously previous sentence is there to convey the hope Miss Leila had for finally at last getting across to readers new to her (aka “any”) what a billigit is, without having to do so herself.

We exchanged glances. Then I began to type:

“A billigit is an eighteen inch orange person who’s equal parts Daddy and Mommy-O and wears a square blue polo shirt, khaki pants and groovy hemp slippers that split the scene in flight. Mommy-O Hezzie-O-path has a zillion billigits as Minions, like wild baby, wild,” Feckwit said.

Miss Leila seized on the opportunity I had givenly given her. She snapped her fingers in the beatnik manner and said, “Don’t stop there Daddy-o, tell me more…lay down the word.”

“Back in Squaresville the Man tagged them billygits–but now they hook their own groove, billigits, baby-billigits. Dig?”

For the record Feckwit pronouncingly pronounced it “bill-luh-gitz.”

By taking her hands off the wheel to snap her fingers, Leila had made the mistake of leaving the steering of the cart to Feckwit–who knows no more about how to drive than Leila does calculus. That and the fact that both she and Feckwit were gazingly gazing at the swirly swirl of billigits, now almost directly above us–and while I was writing, might have led to an accident at four miles an hour, if it hadn’t been for Mistress Hezopatha. We were unaware that we had entered her vast courtyard. She stopped us just short of crashing into one of several small mountains of billigits slippers with a wave of her hand. Suddenly wordlessly arrivals are commonplace with Witches.

Leila glanced at what I had written on her phone. I waited for her to say something derogatively derogative about my shiny prose. Instead, she smiled, patted me on the head and said, “That’ll do, Goatess, that’ll do.”

-4-

I’d have closer to a thousand words left in the budget than the eight-hundred and change I find myself looking at if it weren’t for Daisy’s adverb addiction. That’s another thirty-plus down the swirly, including this sentence. Still, I don’t think I’ll need much more than five hundred to put this production to bed.

Smiling, Hezopatha produced an empty tuna can and tossed it in the courtyard. Daisy and Fenwick/Feckwit leapt from the golf cart and went after it; thus another stanza of the majestic physical poetry that is Kick the Can was composed. It also gave the kids a graceful pre-exit from this story.

I got out of the cart and approached Hezzie. I pointed up.

“Oh, you noticed darling.”

“Uh huh.”

“Let’s go inside, I will explain.”

Hezzie is a beautiful Witch–her ego would never allow for green skin, warts and such. In this incarnation of her physical self she has olive skin, honey colored eyes and high cheekbones. A Nefratiti look if there has ever been one.

We went inside to her comfortable living room.

“I must thank you for the billigits,” she said–”they are quite useful–not as much as Rats–but more so than human Minions.”

“Uh huh,”

“As you saw, they are employed in a great work.”

“Uh huh.”

“Very soon the billigit vortex will create a geometric dimensional breach.”

“A geometric breach?”

“Euclidean,” Hezzie said with an evil smile.

“You a clidean, me a clidean, we’s all a clidean,” I said. “I take it that your wiseass thinks you can get over on me via fancy math.”

“I sure do.”

I sighed. “Perhaps it would be easier if you told me the goal.”

Our conversation was interrupted by a great crack of thunder. The booted tuna can, closely followed by Daisy and Fenwick came indoors, but they were still so focused on the aesthetic, that coming inside was the only concession they made to the blast.

“Hark!” Hezopatha said. “My will hath been done.”

She motioned me to follow her outside.

The billigit tornado was gone. And a giant shadow increasing in size had fallen over the courtyard. A moving shadow that had clearly outlined wings. All quarter million billigits had merged into one gigantic billigit. This immense creature landed in a nearby clearing and took a repose similar to the Sphinx. I’ll admit that it was a unique sight, but perhaps I’m a bit more jaded to such than most.

A few seconds later an immense pair of billigit slippers crashed beside the giant billigit.

“How come the slippers landed after the billigit?” I asked.

“Geometric principles involving air resistance, darling.”

“I see,” I said. “So, whenever I ask you a perfectly reasonable question your reply will be smothered by a pile of science. So, let’s forget about that. Perhaps you might explain why you compressed all the billigits into one giant billigit?”

Hezzie smiled that smile that I was getting awfully tired of. “That involves trigonometry, daring.”

From inside came a crash. Maybe I couldn’t understand what she was up to, but I could arrange for the Can Kickers to break a vase or three in the house.

“What was that?” she said. It was nice to see the smug expression leave her face.

“I believe it’s called gravity, darling.”

Welcome to Saragun Springs Book Four: HeXopatha and the billigits Part Two

(Note: This one made it painfully obvious that our Witch needed a same, and pronto-LA)

Evilmost Elm

-1-

Upon arriving at her new home in Wisconsin, one of the first things the Witch (even before choosing her “real” name) needed to do was select a tree for enchantment. In past incarnations she had enchanted everything from a scrawny scrub pine barely clinging to life on a steppe to a majestic redwood in northern California. Unlike other duties discharged by her vast array of familiars, tree enchantment was a task she had to perform in person. In a way it was like picking a Christmas tree, yet instead of murdering the damn thing and dragging it home, the Witch would endow the chosen tree with eternal life. The irony was not lost on her.

Enchanted trees gave the Witch a connection between Hell and the Earth itself, and they intensified her spells. Since she had to travel to a new land every time she returned from her latest season in Hell, a new tree had to be enchanted upon her arrival. She took heart that none of her former enchanted trees were sad to see her go. To the contrary, nothing conveys malevolent grace or gleeful, malign intent better than a retired enchanted tree. And if a branch happens to break off and kill a peasant now and then, well, accidents happen.

There were many suitable candidates for enchantment on the large estate that one of the Witch’s familiars had purchased with a tiny portion of her vast wealth, while she was preparing for her return from Hell. Hemlocks, hollies, oaks and maples; even a sinister crabapple tree, twisted and deformed, a veritable leper of a tree, which seemed to actively pursue the job. But it was what the Witch did not own that she coveted. And at 3 AM on her first day in Wisconsin, she saw a young Evilmost Elm standing on the other side of the fence.

Her human familiars, those shadowy persons who worked behind the scenes and did the housework and drove the cars and saw to the humdrum of her business affairs, were also of no use when it came to buying an enchanted tree. This too had to be done personally. And although the Witch had black cats who stole baby breath for kicks, and rats, by the thousands, who could dig and fill a grave faster than any machine, thus easily capable of plucking and replanting a tree without attracting unwanted attention, the Witch was an honest Witch.

-2-

The peasant’s name was Marcie and was the only person at home. The Witch knew that the instant the rather plump blond of maybe thirty opened the door the next morning.

“Hello, neighbor,” the Witch said.

“Um, hello–”

“May I come in?”

“Well, it’s not a good time right now–” said Marcie, unease in eyes, which pleased the Witch.

“Excellent,” the Witch said, stepping inside. “Good thing I don’t need to be asked in, like a vampire.”

“Who are you?”

“Why, Marcie, didn’t I mention that I’m your new neighbor.”

“How do you know my name?”

“Lucky guess.”

“Maybe you should come back when my husband is home.”

“No need. I’ll get down to business. I’d like to buy the elm in your backyard.”

“Really, I think you should go.”

Then the Witch, not the most patient of Witches, spoke a spell into Marcie’s brain.

“I’ll go when I’m fucking good and ready to go, useless twat. Unless you want to hang upside down from a hook, bled like a shoat, you will sell me that tree.”

“Five hundred?” the Witch said, smiling, showing the money.

Marcie agreed that five hundred would be just fine.

-3-

At three the next morning, the Witch summoned every rat in ten counties and spoke impeccable midwest rattish to the masses. Within seconds the magically assisted horde uprooted the Evilmost Elm, tossed it over the fence, and transplanted it into the Witch’s soil. The Witch never tired of watching how well the tiny fiends worked together.

“Wonderful, my babies–wonderful, wonderful.”

The Witch gave the Evilmost Elm her profane blessing.

Then it was time to try it out, think of it as a test, to judge its connection to Hell.

The Witch gazed at Marcie’s house. “Such a pity about the husband. Going mad like that…Seems it’s always the quiet ones.”

A light came on in the house.

The rats applauded.

Welcome to Saragun Springs Book Four: HeXopatha and the billigits

Introduction

As with Peety and Daisy, I never know when an FC will distinguish her/his/itself and take off in my mind. Originally a nameless Witch, then Hezopatha (after a brief stint as “Bambi”) and finally taken to calling herself HeXopatha, Saragun Springs’ resident Wiccan has morphed from a one off character and has established herself firmly in the realm, which is short of antagonists because I find old fashioned storytelling, at times, just that–old fashioned.

The billigits began as the “billygates” (the Microsoft Secret Police), changed to billygits and appear to have settled as the billigits (bill-luh-gits). They are four eighteen inch tall, androgynous, orange, winged individuals who wear blue polo shirts, khaki slack and hemp slippers that usually fall off in flight. Sometimes they are blue skinned, but usually they are orange. billigits eschew the use of capital letters and they have become a heavy presence in the realm.

I’d explain further, but it’s easier to invite you back tomorrow for the opening of Book Four.

Leila