Dragon's Breath Book 2 (Completed)

Chapter 4

The carpet dipped and swayed as it flew above the moat, until I was sure we were about to fall in. I grabbed hold of Eadric's arm, wishing I could hold something more stable, since he was shaking even more than the carpet. Rounding the last of the towers, the carpet leveled out and shot over the training fields where my father and his knights often practiced with swords and lances. In only a few minutes we had passed over the swamp that Eadric and I had spent days crossing. Beyond the river, we flew over the tops of trees, some so tall that I could nearly reach out and touch them.

The Old Witches' Retirement Community was located deep in the woods, accessible only by enchanted paths or by air. The paths led directly to the individual cottages and were the surest although slowest way of getting there. From the air, the community was so well hidden it would be easy to miss.

I tried to observe everything at once, turning my head back and forth like a confused weather vane. Eadric was just as excited as I was, and together we made the rug jiggle and bounce as we looked around.

A pink fog drifted over the forest, its wispy tendrils reaching into the trees. The faint odor of boiled cabbage reached us, and I wondered who was cooking it. We were over the fog when I noticed the Purple Mountains in the distance. When I looked again, they seemed to be much closer. A hawk flew by, drawing my attention with it. The next time I looked toward the mountains, they appeared to have moved farther away again.

"Are the mountains moving?" I asked my aunt as the rug dropped closer to the woods.

"Not at all, although it looks that way, doesn't it? It's just the effect of the magic miasma, that pink fog that passes over the woods now and then. It's pretty, but it makes the community harder to find. Wait, I think I see it!"

The cottages of the Old Witches' Retirement Community were scattered around a small clearing. A fire pit occupied the center, an added bonus for those witches who liked to cook outside. Wooden tables and benches surrounded the fire pit, seating for the witches and their guests. The clearing was the first thing we spotted from the air. As we drew closer, I began to see the cottages hidden among the trees.

There were four basic styles of cottages, but each witch had decorated hers in her own way, so no two were exactly alike. Some of them were gingerbread houses like my grandmother's, some walked about on chicken legs and some had thatched roofs and were surrounded by bushes bearing red and white roses; others were made of stone and covered with ivy.

The community itself grew and shrank as witches came and went, the cottages lasting only as long as they were needed. Some, like the gingerbread houses, disintegrated over time if not maintained. The cottages with chicken legs walked away when their owners died.

The rug was skimming just above the tops of the trees when I spotted Grandmother's cottage. Made of gingerbread, it had been repaired so many times that it didn't look at all the way it had when it was new. Visitors had eaten most of the icing trim, and my grandmother had replaced it with spun sugar. The gumdrops decorating the shutters had gotten hard, so she'd set clear fruit-flavored lozenges in their place. She'd also had to replace the gingerbread doors and many of the more accessible sections of the walls. The newer pieces of gingerbread were darker in color than the older ones, giving it a patchwork kind of look.

Grassina landed the rug in the cottage's front yard, and I expected Grandmother to tear out of the house, waving her broom at us and screeching her usual greeting. When she didn't even peep out from behind her cotton-candy curtains, I became concerned. Scrambling to my feet, I hurried to her front door. The latch, made of licorice and bearing the teeth marks of some long-ago visitor, was so sticky that I didn't want to touch it, but I didn't have much choice.