Hansel & Gretel Hide Out at the Apartment of a Most Unusual Witch
At work a young witch asks Bellwyn if she’d come and talk to her Ancient Witch Arts Club. Her name’s Katrine and she’s very starry-eyed in Bellwyn’s presence, hardly able to complete a sentence before starting another. She joined the company a week after Bellwyn, having only recently graduated from university with a degree in chemistry. Her public degree is from a prestigious human school. But she also has an advanced witch degree. This is the way with most witches, Katrine explains to Bellwyn.
“Most of us choose to go to a human university,” she says. “It’s good for the witch community. Gives us access to important human networks. That’s how Grove Chemicals has grown so successfully. We have graduates from all the best human schools. But we witches have our secret schools where we learn the craft and our history. That’s mandatory.”
Bellwyn agrees to give a talk although she has no idea what she should talk about. The local club has only eleven members. The young witches ask Bellwyn question after question about the old days and Bellwyn tries to remember.
“We lived in trees,” she says, feeling the trees again.
“Trees?” The young witches laugh in surprise.
“Our houses were in trees,” she explains. Bellwyn wishes she could invite them to her old home. The meeting room in this library is sterile and fatigued. Plastic chairs hurt her back.
“You built houses in trees?” the young witches ask, confused.
“We didn’t build the houses. The houses were the trees,” Bellwyn tries to explain. “The houses grew of the trees and with the trees. With our magic. We were very closely attached to trees. The trees of the Blue Forest.”
The Blue Forest is now a sacred place for witches, the young witches tell Bellwyn. A place for important ceremonies and every witch must visit the Forest at least once in her lifetime. Through all the difficult times, the witches have always managed to keep possession of the Witches’ Grove and the Blue Forest.
All in all, Bellwyn enjoys her time with the Ancient Witch Arts Club. It’s more like a convivial kaffeeklatsch with treats and punch. The young witches are so taken with Bellwyn they ask her to become an honorary member. Bellwyn consents. Their meetings are once a month and it’s not much of a time commitment, Katrine says with a smile.
To the next meeting, Bellwyn decides to bake doubloons. She patiently rolls out the dough, fills the molds, spoons in goat cheese and onion chutney. As they bake she reads a magazine, learning about celebrities. A sweet, spicy smell warms up the little apartment. There’s a flash of memory: the sweetness, a fire. The finished doubloons are put near the open window to help them cool. By the time she bathes and dresses, they should be cool enough to pack.
The bath takes longer than Bellwyn had planned — she’d fallen into a daydream, or perhaps a memory. Rushing, she piles the doubloons into a large box. It’s then that she notices there are only thirty doubloons. She baked thirty-six.
After the meeting she wonders about the missing doubloons. She goes into the kitchen and sees that she left the window open. On the counter and on the floor, crumbs. Bellwyn looks in the refrigerator and sees that most of her milk is gone. Curious, she pokes her head out the window. Tucked away in a corner of the fire escape landing are two small bundles.
The night is bitterly cold. Deep winter when the frost coats every surface with a thick glaze. Bellwyn knows the two small bundles are children. With her magic, she transports them into the kitchen. The children begin to wake, a girl and a boy. They see Bellwyn and recoil with fright.
“I won’t eat you,” Bellwyn says, smiling. She wonders if she should make some hot tea for the children. Their noses are blue. Perhaps children do not like tea. It’s milk they want, like stray cats.
“Are you going to call the police?” the little girl asks. Bone-thin, she looks like an old woman.
“No. Unless you want me to,” Bellwyn says. The little boy, just as thin, hides behind the girl. I’m going to have to fatten them up, Bellwyn thinks.
“What are you going to do to us?” the little girl asks, her eyes hardening and her fists ready to fight.
“First, a nice, hot bath, I think,” Bellwyn says. “The bath will warm you. And then clean clothes. Followed by sleep. You can sleep on the couch. It’s much too cold to sleep on the landing. You’ll be frozen by morning and then I will have to call the police. I’m Bellwyn. Belle Wynne. What are your names?”
“Jessica.”
“Thom.”
“Did you like the doubloons?” Bellwyn asks as she takes them to the bathroom. She sees the bottle of orange flower scented bubble bath Katrine gave her as a thank-you present and decides to put some in the bath water. Children like sweet things. Bellwyn can’t remember how she knows this. “The little treats I baked. They’re called doubloons.”
“Yes,” Thom says. “They were yummy! Are there any more?”
“I’m afraid not. I wish I’d known the two of you were there. I would have left you more doubloons to eat with your milk. And brought you home some apple kuchen. There were plenty left after the meeting. Well, I’ll make you something even better tomorrow. Pork pies, I think. I haven’t had pork pies since — ” Bellwyn wonders which memory is germane.
Bellwyn bathes the children, gives them warm t-shirts to wear for pajamas and puts them to bed, Thom and Jessica on the opposite ends of the couch. She gives them her blankets; Bellwyn is rarely cold; she finds the apartment rather hot. In the morning she makes them thick ricotta pancakes, sausages and hot chocolate. In the afternoon she takes them shopping for clothes. They play quietly in the apartment while she’s away at work and greet her like happy puppies when she comes home with groceries.
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