‘Like the Mudd Witch’s lightning?’ The ginger woman rubs her eyes once more. ‘Got to admit, we weren’t expecting that. Anyway, if we yield, will you let Hex go? Poor thing.’
Gretel eyes the wolves and bears warily. They still seem unfocused. They mill about, huffing at one another. One of the wolves is licking its bum.
‘Oh, they won’t bother you,’ the ginger woman tells them. ‘Even if I was lying about yielding, which I’m not, they don’t usually listen to me when I’m in this form. I’ll prove it. Hey!’ the half-naked woman shouts to the disorientated wolves. ‘Roll over.’
None of them roll over.
The woman turns back to the group cheerfully. ‘See?’
‘Fine.’ Snow lowers her axe, and Patience allows her halo of flint shards to drop through her onto the ground. The creepers rot from the naked man’s ankles, and Jack gets off him, holding out a hand to help him up.
As the naked man rises from his awkward, pinned position, Gretel is finally able to properly see what it is about him that isn’t quite right. It’s his left arm… or, what should have been a left arm. It isn’t there. In its place is a huge, black feathered wing, folded tightly against his side, as if its owner were self-conscious about it.
The others notice the wing at the same moment as Gretel.
‘Oh!’ says Jack. ‘So you’re the…’
‘The raven, yes,’ says the man, and Gretel recognises his voice as the same one that had spoken to them from high up in the branches.
Jack points at the wing. ‘You’ve, er, missed a bit.’
‘Um.’ The man shuffles and rustles his feathers a little, shamefaced. ‘Um, no. That’s permanent. Sorry.’
‘Don’t apologise for that,’ Buttercup and the ginger woman say to him in unison. Buttercup gently swats at Jack’s arm. ‘Jack! Say sorry!’
Jack holds up his hands, adopting his most Jackish ‘who, me?’ expression. ‘I meant no offence. Having a wing actually sounds pretty cool, wouldn’t mind having one myself.’
‘Yes you would,’ replies the man quietly.
Snow may have lowered her axe, but she still hasn’t put it away. ‘There was another one,’ she says. ‘The olde-worlde-sounding voice from the undergrowth. I’d really prefer to talk to all of you face to face. So I can keep an eye on all of you.’
The Werewolf sighs. ‘Gilde,’ she shouts into the trees, ‘come out of there, please.’
‘Can hear you all clear as bells from here,’ calls back the light, fragile voice from the thicket. ‘Don’t see why little ole me should leave her cosy little spot.’
‘Gilde, come on, please, you’ve got our clothes,’ replies the ginger woman. ‘It’s freezing out here; magic cloaks are terrible at holding heat.’
There is a grumbling and a rustling from the thicket, and out into the clearing shuffles a tiny, white-haired woman, delicate as a porcelain figurine, and carrying a large bundle of scrunched-up clothes. She shoves one set gracelessly into the ginger woman’s arms, and the rest at the man, glaring furiously at them both.
‘Sorry, Gilde,’ mutters the man, ‘the Mudd Witch had these lightning things, and…’
‘I know, Sweetiebird,’ interrupts the woman addressed as Gilde, ‘I seen it, don’t I got peepers? Looks like we’ll have to hear these trouble-stirrers out, with whatever hogwash hustle they’ve come up with this time.’
‘“Trouble-stirrers”?’ Buttercup gazes at Gilde, wide-eyed. ‘We’re not trouble-stirrers, we’re defenders. Peacekeepers.’
‘Oh, of course, lady. So what’s the scheme you came all this way and went to all this hardknuckle to tell us?’
‘We need to dismantle the huntsmen’s power over the land,’ Gretel tells her.
Gilde nods at them with an over-the-top sugariness. ‘A coup.’
‘Not necessarily a coup,’ soothes Buttercup.
‘Yes, necessarily a coup,’ says Patience.
Gilde simpers at them all. ‘Trouble-stirrers.’
Snow takes a step towards Gilde, extending a businesslike hand. ‘Gilde… is it?’
‘It is,’ replies Gilde. ‘And I’ll thank you delightfully to put away the axe in your one hand if you’re asking me to shake the other.’ Behind her, a bear growls softly. ‘It’s OK, Mamma,’ Gilde tells the bear, over her shoulder. ‘I got the handle on this.’
Snow sheaths the axe, and extends her hand once more. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet the legendary Bear Witch of the mountains, after all this time.’
Gilde’s already sarcastic-looking smile deepens. Actual dimples appear in her tissue-thin face. ‘“Legendary”, my my.’ She waves a hand dismissively in the direction of the ginger woman, who is mercifully getting into an undershirt and britches. ‘Missy Werewolf here’s called by name of Scarlett.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Scarlett tells them, hurriedly pulling on a pair of woollen stockings, ‘I don’t bite. Well… not when I’m this shape, anyway.’ She gives them a grin that’s a little sharper than a human’s should be.
‘Even if she did bite you, it’s not contagious,’ explains the man, shivering as he struggles with one hand to get his misshapen clothes on over the giant wing. ‘Turns out, lycanthropy’s all inherited.’ He pauses, and gives Buttercup a grateful little smile when she darts over to free a hem caught in his feathers. ‘Found that out the scary way, eh, Scarlett?’
‘I didn’t bite you! You collided with my mouth and then went all screechy and panicky before I could explain it to you!’
The man looks to the others for sympathy. ‘I thought I was going to end up a raven and a wolf, can you imagine?’
Gretel can’t help but imagine a were-raven-wolf. More specifically, she can’t help but imagine what it must be like to have one fly over you after it’s digested a particularly big dinner. She shudders.
‘The boy one is Hex,’ continues Gilde.
‘He’s not a boy, Gilde, he’s thirty-two.’
Gilde twinkles at Scarlett, then at the whole group. Being twinkled at by Gilde is not a particularly pleasant experience. ‘Kiddiewinks, the lot of you.’
‘To be honest,’ Buttercup tells her, continuing to help dress the thirty-two-year-old raven-man as if he were an infant, ‘it’s nice to meet some older witches. We were all kids when the huntsmen took over Myrsina; we couldn’t help but worry that all the adult ones had been… you know…’ She trails off with a bizarre mime that Gretel assumes is supposed to represent being burned at the stake.
Gilde giggles. ‘Oh, those guys aren’t witches. Werewolves ain’t witches, they’re just Werewolves.’
Scarlett just shrugs.
‘And Hex is merely cursed.’
‘I’m not even from Myrsina,’ Hex admits, tying up his britches shyly.
‘I was going to say,’ replies Snow. ‘Your accent… Ashtrie, right?’
Hex continues to fumble with his fly. ‘Yeah, the accent always gives it away. That and the fact that I’m cursed. Lots of people from Ashtrie are cursed. That’s just… what happened.’