Mama Grizelda's Arc

Chapter 9 of 11

The witch stood in her own kitchen, staff raised, the freed girl and Jack pressed behind Grizelda's back. This was the witch's floor, her walls, her traps. Grizelda had cut one snare at the door. She did not know how many still waited. Every jar, every hanging thread could be a mouth ready to bite. "Move and the room takes you," the witch said. She tapped her staff once. A thread near the ceiling twitched. Grizelda felt the warning crawl across her bark skin. The whole cabin was rigged, and only the witch knew where. Grizelda needed to see the traps before she could cross the floor. She looked at the girl behind her. "You lived here," Grizelda whispered. "You know what she set." The girl's dark eyes darted across the room. She had watched the witch build every snare while chained to that ring. She raised a shaking hand and pointed. "Floor board by the stove," she rasped. "Hooks under it. And the jar on the shelf. Salt-charm. It bursts if you shout." The witch's smile fell. "Quiet, girl." "The vials by the window," the girl went on, faster now. "They spray. Don't touch the blue thread." She had turned every hidden tooth in the room into a thing Grizelda could see. Grizelda moved. She stepped wide of the stove board. She kept clear of the window thread. The witch swung her staff and knocked the salt-charm jar from the shelf, meaning it to burst at their feet. Grizelda already knew where it would land. She pulled Jack and the girl left, and the jar shattered on bare boards behind them. "Now," Grizelda said. Jack darted low and slashed the witch's new pouch loose with his stained dagger. It dropped and split. Charmed threads spilled across the floor, dead the moment they left her belt. Grizelda flung the salt from her sleeve. It struck the witch's face and hands. The witch screamed and stumbled back toward the cellar door. "The room was yours," Grizelda said. "Not anymore." The witch caught her heel on her own loose board. The hooks under it snapped up and closed on her ankle. She fell hard against the shelf. Jars rained down and burst around her. Her own traps had turned on her at last. Grizelda did not wait to watch. She pushed the girl and Jack through the door and onto the platform. The three of them climbed down the vine while the cabin groaned above. The witch's screaming faded behind the leaves. At the foot of the beanstalk, Grizelda knelt by the girl. "You're free now," she said. But the girl's face stayed tight with fear. "She built more than one pouch," the girl whispered. "There's a chained ball in the cellar. She said it could reach your marsh from here." Grizelda's chest went cold. The witch was beaten, but she had left a weapon behind.