The whole village gazes at him for a moment. It’s Mother Goggins who speaks up first.
‘Yep,’ she says, ‘so am I.’
‘What?’ cries Lisbet Grief.
‘Oh come off it, Lisbet, you suspected. It’s how comes I always knows so many secrets.’
‘I think what we all meant to say,’ says Mrs Mudd pointedly, ‘was “Thank you for telling us, Hansel”.’
‘Oh, so he gets his moment, but I don’t?’
‘It’s going to be all right, son.’ Hansel’s stepfather squeezes his hand as Mother Goggins mutters reproachfully about the fact nobody’s really paying attention to her.
‘But what do you mean about “doing all right out there”?’ Daisy asks him.
Hansel takes her hand sadly. ‘What I’m doing isn’t fair, Daisy. Leaving all those other witches to fend for themselves in the wilderness while I get to hide away in comfort; letting Gretel be sent off into the woods in my stead; bringing suspicion and danger to the village in the first place… The huntsmen know I’m a witch now. If I stay here, they’ll come back later and do to Nearby what they’re planning to do to Darkwood today. Since it’s out in the open that I’m a witch, then I’ll stand with the other witches in Darkwood.’
‘No, son,’ says his stepmother. ‘We’ll all stand with Darkwood. That’s what allies do, isn’t it?’
‘You can’t all live in the Darkwood, Stepmother.’
‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,’ his stepmother tells him. ‘But for now, we’d best be getting a wriggle on.’ She turns, and starts marching back towards Mudd Farm, with the hurried gait she uses whenever there’s a crisis or an animal in pain there. The rest of the villagers fall into her wake, several having to jog to match her urgent speed. ‘I’ll fetch my medicines bag; Coriander, I’d advise you to do the same.’
‘I’m not a medic,’ frets Coriander, ‘I’m a midwife.’
‘And I usually do pigs,’ Hansel’s stepmother replies, ‘but there’s no time to be picky. Roger, you fetch the veterinarian.’
‘Aye.’ Her husband nods, scuttling off.
‘Mother Goggins, go and fetch some of your herbal remedies…’
‘Those are just for headaches and such,’ complains Lisbet Grief. ‘We’re going to be dealing with proper injuries here.’
Mother Goggins narrows her eyes at Lisbet. ‘Who’s to say some of those injuries won’t include aches to the head?’
‘Headaches, pah,’ replies Lisbet. ‘Some “witch”.’
‘The herbal remedies are nothing to do with my witching, I’m just good at ’em!’
Hansel’s stepmother continues to scour the crowd for makeshift medics. ‘And Farrier Ned. You amputated a finger once.’
‘Not on purpose,’ says Farrier Ned.
‘Stitched the stump up nice and neat, though, didn’t you? One-handed and all. Didn’t get infected or anything.’
‘Aye,’ sighs Ned, regarding his stumpy finger.
‘Right, well, you’re our field surgeon, then.’ She claps her hands. ‘Rest of you, get cracking. Food. Buckets. Blankets. Bandages. Chop-chop.’ She stops, meeting eyes with Carpenter Fred. ‘If you want to, of course. If you’re not too scared of the Darkwood.’
Carpenter Fred glares at her, then at the forest, then at his wife, already rushing towards his workshop for supplies. He sighs. ‘I’ll fetch buckets, then.’
25
The Mudd Witch
Patience manifests again. The others are still waiting at the border with the northern territory, having all turned out pockets and rolled up sleeves, just in case.
‘Well?’ asks Buttercup desperately.
Patience shakes her head. ‘Gilde must have salted the whole perimeter after we left; I can’t get in there to look for him.’
‘But we salted the cottage when you started haunting us, and you still got in easily,’ Buttercup wails.
‘I know,’ replies Patience in a tone that shows she’s trying her best to be kind, ‘but your Ghost-repellent mixture wasn’t very good, and hers is. Sorry.’
‘We have to go back,’ frets Buttercup.
‘But the bears,’ whines Scarlett, setting the rest of her pack off into scared whimpers.
‘But Trevor,’ Buttercup replies. ‘I know you might not think he’s much, just a spider, but…’
‘You’re right,’ says Hex quietly. ‘Nobody’s nothing. Trevor’s one of your… one of our group. We need to go back.’
Jack smiles at him. Hex looks down at the ground nervously.
The wolves still haven’t stopped whimpering.
‘What’s that noise?’ asks Scarlett, flattening faintly pointed ears backwards against her head.
‘It’s your big, brave pack having a massive cry about the prospect of rescuing the littlest of our friends from an old woman and a few sleepy bears,’ snaps Snow.
Gretel frowns, and looks around. She can hear it too, a low sound, like a distant steam engine, high up.
‘No,’ she says. ‘There’s something coming.’
The others stop and listen. A couple of Dwarves mutter ominous ‘yummy’s.
‘What is that?’ Gretel mutters.
Suddenly, it looms into view above the trees. A massive machine, like a boat, but shaped almost like a dragonfly, flying above them, just below the clouds.
‘What is that?’ repeats Gretel, her voice a scream above the roar of the great overhead machine.
‘I… could fly up and take a closer look?’ Hex offers hesitantly.
As they watch, a soaring blackbird suddenly loses control in the air rushing around one of the machine’s great wings, smacks into its hull and flutters towards the ground in a limp tatter of feathers.
‘Raspberries,’ curses Snow through gritted teeth.
‘Yeah, maybe not,’ Jack tells Hex. ‘For starters, you’d be harder to clean up than a blackbird.’
Gretel tries her best to ignore the Dwarves racing each other to catch and dispose of the dead blackbird. She continues to watch the massive machine.
‘Huntsmen,’ she says. ‘Has to be. But what are they doing? Where are they…?’
Something is fired out of the front of the flying machine. The trees make it hard to see what it is or where it goes, but the ship is pointed straight in the direction of Bear Mountain.
‘Trousers!’ She starts running straight towards the northern territory again.
‘New Girl,’ begins Snow, ‘where are you…?’
Everybody hears the explosion. It must be about a mile off to the north.
‘Trousers,’ repeats Gretel.
There’s another explosion. Everybody’s running with her now, in the direction of the sounds and smoke. It’s on instinct. Gretel imagines that, like her, nobody else knows what they’re actually going to do once they get to the devastation.
‘Wait,’ shouts Scarlett from the rear.
Creatures start pouring from the trees, running in the opposite direction, magical beings stampeding in panic alongside non-magical. Jackalope and rabbit, Gnome and fox, Satyr and deer. The air starts to become thick with smoke.