"No, I have not lost it," said Mary. "But it was an awkward thing to carry. It seemed so much like bragging to carry it all the time. I left it with the others who are waiting at the bridge."
"Ah, well," said the witch, "I'll see it later on. Once I'd heard of it, I had counted so much on the sight of it. You'll show it to me, won't you?"
"Of course I will," said Mary.
The old crone tittered. "I have never seen the horn of a unicorn," she said, "and strange as it may seem, I have never seen a unicorn. The beasts are very rare, even in this land. But let us now go in and sit us down to tea. Just the three of us, I think. It'll be so much cozier with just the three of us. I'll send a basket of cakes down to those waiting at the bridge. The kind of cakes, my dear, that you always liked—the ones with seeds in them."
She opened the door wider and made a motion with her hand, signaling them to come in. The entry hall was dark, and there was a dankness in it.
Mary halted. "It doesn't feel the same," she said. "Not the way I remember it. This house once was bright and full of light and laughter."
"It's your imagination," the witch said sharply. "You always were the one with imagination. You were the one who dreamed up the games you played with that silly troll who lived underneath the bridge and that daffy Fiddlefingers." She cackled with remembering. "You could talk them into anything. They hated mud-pie making, but they made mud pies for you. And they were scared striped of the ogre, but when you threw stones down into his burrow, they went along and threw their share of stones. You say that I'm a witch, with my humped back and my arthritic hobble and my long and crooked nose, but you are a witch as well, my darling, and a better one than I am."
"Hold there," said Cornwall, his hand going to the sword hilt. "Milady's not a witch."
The old crone reached out a bony hand and laid it gently on his arm. "It's a compliment I pay her, noble sir. There is nothing better said of any woman than that she's a witch."
Grumbling, Cornwall let his arm drop. "Watch your tongue," he said.
She smiled at them with snaggled teeth and led the way down the dark, damp, and musty hall into a small room carpeted with an old and faded rug. Against one wall stood a tiny fireplace blackened by the smoke of many fires. Sunlight poured through wide windows to illuminate the shabbiness of the place. A row of beaten-up house-plants stood on a narrow shelf below the windowsill. In the center of the room stood a magnificently carved table covered by a scarf, and on the scarf was a silver tea service.
She motioned them to chairs, then sat down behind the steaming teapot.
Reaching for a cup, she said, "Now we may talk of many things, of the olden days and how times have changed and what you might be doing here."
"What I want to talk about," said Mary, "are my parents. I know nothing of them. I want to know who they were and why they were here and what happened to them."
"They were good people," said the witch, "but very, very strange. Not like other humans. They did not look down their noses at the people of the Wasteland. They had no evil in them, but a great depth of understanding. They would talk with everyone they met. And the questions they could ask—oh, land sake, the questions they could ask. I often wondered why they might be here, for they seemed to have no business. A vacation, they told me, but it is ridiculous to think that sophisticated people such as they should come to a place like this for their vacation. If it was a vacation, it was a very long one; they were here almost a year. Doing nothing all that time but walking around the countryside and being nice to everyone they met. I can remember the day they came walking down the road and across the bridge, the two of them, my dear, with you between them, toddling along, with each of them holding one of your hands, as if you might need their help, although you never needed any help, then or any other time. Imagine the nerve of them and the innocence of them, two humans walking calmly down a Wasteland road, with their baby toddling between them, walking as if they were out for a stroll of an April afternoon. If there were anyone here in all this land who might have done them any harm, they would have been so shook up by the innocent, trusting arrogance of them that they would have stayed their hand. I can remember them coming up to this house and knocking on the door, asking if they might stay with me and I, of course, good-hearted creature that I am, who finds it hard to say no to anyone…"
"You know," said Mary to the witch, "I think that you are lying. I don't believe this is your house. I can't think my parents were ever guests of yours. But I suppose the truth's not in you, and there is no use in trying."
"But, my darling," said the witch, "it all is solemn truth. Why should I lie to you?"
"Let us not fall into argument," said Cornwall. "Truth or not, let's get on with it. What finally happened to them?"
"They went into the Blasted Plain," said the witch. "I don't know why they did this. They never told me anything. They were pleasant enough, of course, but they never told me anything at all. They left this child of theirs with me and went into the Blasted Plain and they've not been heard of since."
"That was when you took Mary, if it was you who took her, into the Borderland?"
"There were ugly rumors. I was afraid to have her stay."
"What kind of rumors?"
"I can't recall them now."
"You see," said Mary, "she is lying."
"Of course she is," said Cornwall, "but we don't know how much. A little or a lot, all of it, or only some of it."
"I take it sadly," said the witch, dabbing at her eyes, "to sit at my own tea table, serving tea to guests who doubt my honest word."
"Did they leave any papers?" Mary asked. "Any letters? Anything at all?"
"Now, that is strange," said the witch, "that you should ask. There was another one who asked, another human. A man who goes by the name of Jones. I told him that I knew of none. Not that I would have looked; I am not a snoop. No matter what else I may be called, I am not a snoop. I told him there might be some on the second floor. That I wouldn't know. Crippled as I am, I cannot climb the stairs. Oh, I know that you think a witch need but use her broomstick to go anywhere she wishes. But you humans do not comprehend. There are certain rules…"
"Did Jones look upstairs?"
"Yes, indeed he did. He told me he found nothing, although he has shifty eyes, and one can never know if he told the truth. I remember asking him and…"
The front door burst open, and feet came pounding down the hall. Gib skidded to a stop when he burst into the room.
"Mark," he said to Cornwall, "we've got trouble. Beckett has showed up."
Cornwall sprang to his feet. "Beckett! What about the Hellhounds?"
"He escaped from them," said Gib.
"That's impossible," said Cornwall. "How could he escape from them? Where is he now?"
"He's down by the bridge," said Gib. "He came running up to us, naked as a jaybird. Bromeley got a towel for him—"
The door banged, and feet pattered rapidly down the hallway. It was Sniveley, panting with his running.