Puddlebrain

Chapter Twenty Six

'Witches are as witches do,' her mother once told her when she was very young.

At the time, Puddlebrain had no idea what her mother had been waffling on about. Way back then it hadn't mattered – her mother was very sweet, but had a tendency to be eccentric sometimes. Puddlebrain, indeed the three sisters together, listened to their mother's words and just nodded their collective heads, even if it didn't make any sense. The phrase still didn't entirely mean anything, but Puddlebrain had a idea of what her mother was trying to say. She was a witch. Act like one.

Of course, that depended on what sort of witch you were. Edna was used to people doing as she said so she would simply blunder in. She wouldn't bother to ask questions as she often believed she already knew the answers. Gemini, bless her, was a meat pie short of a Sunday dinner, so she blundered in too, but really because she didn't think about things properly. For her, there were no questions and who cared about answers? It was almost thirteen o'clock and she was hungry!

Puddlebrain was like neither of these. She couldn't help but think of the consequences of her actions. If she was forced into doing something she didn't like, as in the case of Billy, she felt guilty afterwards. On many occasions Edna had told her not to be so wet. Puddlebrain couldn't help it. She was wet, although she didn't think of it that way. As far as she was concerned, she was considerate. If that made her wet, or even a bit damp, then that was who she was.

So.

Witches are as witches do.

OK, mother.

The forest ignored her. She was nothing and it was mighty. She had been thoughtful and asked nicely. She had done her best to be reasonable in an unreasonable situation.

Puddlebrain raised her hand before her. She wrinkled her brow in concentration. One last chance? Any takers?

The witch knew it was time to be a witch. She extended her finger and slowly swirled it around, pointing all the while at the trees that kept her a prisoner. At first there was no reaction. The Grimace, stalwart and resolute, thought as little of her magic as it did of her.

She stretched her hand out further, the spinning finger rotating faster. A whirlpool of light, all sparkles and dust, drifted in the wake of her fingertip. It spiralled, looking like one of the fireworks let off during the Grand Festival of Summer, which, for some strange reason, was always held in autumn. The wisps of light began to extend forward from her hand, the whirl straightening into a stretched coil. Like tendrils of electricity, a phenomenon yet to reach the village of Little Whimsy (although some of the larger towns and cities apparently used it), the magic that Puddlebrain was conjuring danced from branch to trunk to leaf to root, an almost passionate waltz of enchantment that belied the motives beneath. Pausing to dip only past the fossilised gnome, she turned about, casting a wide circle of light in the otherwise darkened forest. She clenched her teeth. Sweat popped onto her face and ran down her cheeks like juice from a freshly bitten apple. Still there was nothing.

Wait...

A low groaning sound seemed to rumble from the floor of the Grimace. It vibrated up through Puddlebrain's legs, making her clenched teeth feel like they were being pulsed out of her head. The Grimace was waking up to the fact that, this time, they could not ignore the intruder in their midst. Puddlebrain raised her other hand and splayed all her fingers out wide. She had never done anything like this before, but was tearing a page from her sisters' book. She wasn't thinking. Until then, a simple hand movement and a little concentration had been all that was needed to cast a spell. Now, however, Puddlebrain was using her entire body. The Grimace was, truly, mighty, but they hadn't counted on a little witch with a big attitude.