Curse of the Dream Witch (2 page)

‘Stop treating me like a child,' Milo demanded. ‘Why can't I walk in the woods? In a month I'll be thirteen.'

His parents said nothing. His father sat in his rocking chair by the window of the little hut, whittling a bird carving from a piece of birch wood. His mother squatted on a stool peeling potatoes over a bucket. It was infuriating.

Milo struggled to control himself. ‘I know children go missing,' he said calmly. ‘But I'm older than them. And anyway, how do you know the Dream Witch steals them? Maybe they just run away.'

His mother and father kept on peeling and whittling. It was always like this. Whenever he asked to hike in the woods or go out after dark, they closed up like clams.

‘Hello? Answer me.'

‘Quit your nagging,' his father said without looking up.

Milo had had enough. ‘Guess what?' he taunted. ‘I'll bet those children
did
run away. Who can blame them? Working in the cornfields all day, being locked up all night. What kind of life is that? I should run away too.'

His father stopped whittling. His mother stopped peeling.

‘Milo, please understand,' his mother said.

‘No. I won't. All I understand is you don't care about me.'

‘That's not true.'

‘It is. Neither of you listen to a word I say. You don't know who I am or what I want. And you don't want to know, either. Well, you know what my dream is? To leave this place forever.'

He stormed to the door.

Milo's mother leapt to her feet. ‘Where are you going?'

‘To the cornfields. What does it look like?'

‘Come back here,' his father barked.

‘No. You don't own me. Not anymore.'

‘Please, Milo,' his mother cried. ‘Don't be foolish. We love you. We only want to keep you safe. If anything happened to you we'd die.'

‘Hah!'

Milo had been born on the very same day as the Princess Olivia – almost thirteen years ago. But while she grew up in a castle, he was raised in a hovel. While she was destined to be a queen, he was destined to work in the cornfields. And while everyone in the kingdom knew her story, the only people aware he even existed were his parents and a few neighbours.

There were other differences, too. As a baby, Olivia was known for her gurgling; Milo for his kicking. He'd practically booted his way into the world, and immediately begun to explore. By the time he was a year old, his terrified parents had found him wedged in the woodpile, curled up with the piglets, and teetering on the lip of the well. They'd had to tie him by a rope to a fence post until he was old enough to pick corn.

A year ago, his father lost his right foot while chopping firewood. He'd carved himself a new one, but field work was impossible.  Milo had dutifully tended the farm alone ever since. He fed the pigs and the chickens, fetched water from the well, planted and reaped the corn, and traded what he could at market. What with all the feeding and fetching, the sewing and reaping, the tending and trading, he never had any time for himself. Except at night, and then he was forced to stay inside because of his parents' fear of the Dream Witch.

Milo kicked a stone into the cornfield. He hated being angry. It made him feel stupid. Worse, it made him look childish, which is exactly what his parents said he was and what he wasn't. His parents loved him – he knew that – but all the same
: It's not fair
, he thought.
According to them, I'm only old enough to work. ‘You can walk in the forest when you're older,' they say. Well when's older? What's older? I bet they'll be saying, ‘Wait till you're older,' when I'm sixty.

Milo closed his eyes and walked between two rows of corn. It was a trick he used to clear his mind when he was mad. The object was to take as many steps as he could without bumping into the stalks, turning left or right every fifty steps. His record was three hundred and twenty paces. Being scrawny helped – he easily fitted between the rows. Still, it was pretty amazing considering the fields ran over hills and some of the rows were uneven.

Today, skill and luck combined. Before Milo knew it, he'd counted three hundred and fifty steps – a record – and was still going strong. He was so focused on the game that memories of his quarrel had faded. Soon he was at five hundred steps. Then eight, nine – a thousand. A thousand steps and he hadn't once touched a corn stalk!

Milo burst with pride. He took three more steps and walked into a tree trunk.

What was a tree trunk doing in a cornfield?

Milo opened his eyes. Somehow he'd walked from the field into the forest. He'd dreamed of going into the forest but now that he was here he was petrified.

He whirled around. To his relief, the cornfield was only ten yards away. The sun was shining, the sky was clear, and butterflies fluttered on the corn tassels.

Milo laughed at his parents' fears. Here he was in the forest and the Dream Witch hadn't got him. Even if she appeared, he could easily run back to safety.

Milo decided to test his luck. ‘Hello?' he whispered.

Silence.

‘Dream Witch?' he called out with greater confidence.

More silence.

‘YOO HOO, DREAM WITCH,' he sang, ‘TELL ME MY DREAMS!'

A shiver of fear tickled his forehead. Was the evil one ready to leap from a foxhole or pounce from a rotten tree stump? He stopped and listened hard.

All was well. The sun still shone. The birds chirped freely.

Milo couldn't wait to tell his parents. He'd gone where they'd feared and what had happened? Nothing. They'd feel so foolish. From now on, he'd be free to come and go as he pleased.

Flush with excitement, Milo saw something glitter a few feet away on the mulch of leaves that carpeted the forest floor. A gold coin!
Why, it was proof that someone had entered the woods before him.

Someone rich
,
Milo thought.
I wonder if the king and queen made up the stories of stolen children to keep us peasants out of the woods. That way, they could have it all for them and their friends.

Milo picked up the coin and rubbed it till it gleamed as brightly as he imagined it might gleam in the king's own money pouch.
A coin like this will buy roast beef for every night of the year
,
he beamed.

No sooner had Milo put the coin in his
pocket
than he saw another, twenty feet farther into the woods beside a puddle from the last big rain. He retrieved it and, to his amazement, saw a third coin far ahead on a rock.

Some poor noble has a hole in his money pouch. Well, finders keepers.
Milo paused.
Maybe I should turn the coins in to the king instead. For my honesty, maybe he'll give me a place at court and my family won't ever have to worry about money again.

Milo pictured a suite of rooms at the castle, his mother in silks and satins, his father with a new fitted foot from the royal carpenter, and himself knighted by the king.
Imagine, Sir Milo.

It was a foolish fantasy; for
that
kind of reward he'd need a purse-f of coins.

Well why not? If the purse has a hole in it, there's bound to be more.

And there were. Milo found a fourth coin a few hundred feet ahead, near a cluster of berry bushes, and a fifth coin in a patch of brambles.

A great owl peered down at him from a hole in an old elm tree. It twisted its neck and hooted. Milo looked beneath its perch. To his delight, he saw a sixth coin lying on a cluster of mouse bones.

The owl ruffled its feathers and flew deeper into the forest. Milo hesitated. Six coins was a lot. Maybe it was time to go home.
But what if the owl is good luck? Ten coins. I'll stop when I have ten.

He ran after the owl. But the owl's hoot was always a little farther than he could see, and he was slowed by thorn bushes, rocks and potholes. The hooting faded away into the distance. Milo decided to go home. The light was dim. The forest canopy hid the sun. Or could it be dusk?

Milo turned around. The cornfields were nowhere to be seen. In fact, there was nothing but trees – trees in every direction disappearing into darkness. A cold sweat trickled down his neck.
There's nothing to worry about
, he told himself.
I just have to go back the way I came.

But which way was that?

Milo remembered he'd just passed three boulders on his left. Returning, they should be on his right. Only they weren't. The world had turned itself around and everything was opposite to what it should be. It was like walking into a mirror.

He heard a whistle of wind; felt a swirling around him in the brushwood. He froze. Maybe whatever it was would go away.

The sound stopped. Everything was still. Milo breathed a sigh of relief. He prepared to tiptoe away, when –

‘Good evening.' The voice behind him was like metal grating over stone.

Milo's throat went dry. Deep down, he knew who it was, but he was afraid to face her. As long as he didn't see her, he could pretend she wasn't there.

‘You have something of mine,' the witch said quietly.

Milo gulped. He fished the coins from his pockets, and held them out to her, head to the ground, eyes tightly shut. ‘I'm sorry. I didn't know they were yours.'

‘You didn't know they weren't.'

‘I was going to turn them in.'

The witch chuckled. ‘Because it was right? Or for a reward?'

Milo's legs began to tremble uncontrollably. He wanted to run, but he couldn't. Why did he have to be so scared? So stupid?

He felt the red-hot glow of the witch's eyes; the icy grip of her long, curled nails as she took his hand.

He pictured his mama and papa waiting anxiously at the door, calling his name as the sun went down, and running in panic to the neighbours. He imagined their howls filling the night.

Milo wanted to ask where the witch was taking him. He wanted to ask what she was going to do. What was the use? He'd have his dream: to leave home forever.

No matter where, no matter what, Milo knew he would never see his parents again. 

‘Milo, where are you? Please Milo. Answer us. We love you. Where are you?' Deep in their bones, Milo's parents knew the truth. Their calls turned to sobs. ‘Our son! The Dream Witch has our son!'

Neighbours joined their wails, and the neighbours of neighbours. Voice upon voice, the chorus of grief filled the night air, sweeping across the cornfields and throughout the town around the castle. Everyone knew someone who had lost a child and the disappearance of young Milo rekindled shared pain.

Princess Olivia gripped the ledge of her
turret
cell. Her pet mouse, Penelope, put a paw on her hand to comfort.

‘This is my fault,' Olivia whispered. ‘I deserve to be locked up. Not just to keep me from the Dream Witch, but for all the misery I've caused.'

Olivia's cell was fancier than most. Its single window had thick bars embedded in the stone sill; lead shutters that were locked at night; a heavy oak door that bolted shut; and sentries who barred the entrance to everyone except her parents. But it also had a wall of mirrored wardrobes filled with silk and satin dresses and a hundred pairs of shoes; bookcases lined with stories in hand-crafted leather bindings; and a large armoire where she kept the dolls of her early childhood.

And, of course, she had Penelope. The little mouse first appeared when the princess was in her crib and had stayed nearby ever since. Olivia would discover her hiding in a sock, or wake to find her curled up on her pillow. She was the closest thing to a friend that the girl had ever had.

‘I wish things could be like they used to be, when everything felt safe,' Olivia said quietly.

Penelope nuzzled her hand.

Olivia had felt safe until she turned five. Before that, the Dream Witch had done nothing and the kingdom had pretended all was well. This amused the witch. She enjoyed seeing children believe the happy lie while their mothers and fathers lived with the Great Dread, wondering when or if she'd strike.

The witch chose Olivia's fifth birthday.

Olivia's parents had arranged a celebration in the town square. They sat with their daughter on a reviewing stand above the crowd, with the twelve pysanka in a festive bowl carved like a chicken.

A magician approached on stilts. He had a face like an apple, hair like straw, and the longest fingers Olivia had ever seen. The trickster waved a hand over the bowl and opened his mouth. One of the coloured eggs popped out. He plucked two more from thin air, another two from under his elbow, and a last from behind Olivia's ear.

‘Put the pysanka back in the bowl,' the king demanded.

‘I'm sorry,' the magician said. He returned the eggs and fled the square.

Back at the castle, Olivia learned the truth: Ephemia's talismans were all that kept her from the witch. The king and queen learned something, too: Six of the eggs were now made of wood. The magician had plucked fake eggs from the air. At the king's command, he'd put
these
in the bowl and had stolen the real ones.

The thief was caught by morning, but not before he'd broken the eggs for the Dream Witch in exchange for his dream of fame and fortune. He got his wish, though his fame was his crime and his fortune unhappy. King Augustine had a stroke and the first of many children went missing.

Olivia was kept in the castle with the six remaining pysanka locked in a metal box. One day, a servant boy knocked it over and all but one of the eggs cracked. The king had a second stroke and all children were banned from Olivia's presence.

The last pysanka was placed inside a silver pendant lined with velvet to protect it from falls. A maid was caught trying to steal it by sneaking it out of Olivia's room under some laundry. Her nephew had been kidnapped by the Dream Witch who'd demanded she bring her the pysanka, or the boy would be ground up for pies.

Olivia's father suffered his worst seizure yet and was no longer able to move or speak, except by tapping his left thumb. Her mother wrapped the last egg in a ball of wool and hid it in the turret cell at the bottom of a box of ribbons at the back of a shelf.

‘Forgive me,' she said to Olivia, ‘but I must lock you here to keep you safe. Don't worry. I'll keep you company at all your meals, and servants will carry your father up to join us on Sundays.'

Even so, it meant Olivia, now twelve, had spent most of her time alone with Penelope and her books. Just like today.

Penelope curled up in Olivia's palm. The pair watched the parade of torches heading to the forest. This always happened when a child went missing: The family and family friends of the child tried to rescue their young. But the moment their torches entered the witch's forest, their homes burned instead.

Olivia shook her head in sorrow. ‘It's useless. Why do they try?'

There are some things you just do.

Olivia looked at her friend in shock. Had Penelope spoken? The mouse blinked twice and fussed with her whiskers.
No, impossible
, Olivia thought and rubbed the creature's ear.

‘The world should live without fear,' she said. ‘One day it will. I'll face the Dream Witch. One way or another the kingdom's nightmare will be over.'