“...the meat?”

He opened his eyes to find himself sitting naked in a low-sided cauldron, the bottom half of him stewing in a warm sauce of melted butterscotch, along with some other odd things, including specks of wolfsbane swirling in suspension and an eye of newt floating against one side of the hammer-forged pot. Not believing he’d heard her right, not wanting to upset her by having her think he didn’t want to answer, he asked, “What?”

The witch bent her bent back so that her crone face was in his face. “How old the meat?”

With everything that had intervened seeming no more than a dream, he furrowed his brow, hardly understanding what she’d asked. Surprised, in any case, at how he’d gotten from the candy-cane bush to her kitchen in as little as the blink of an eye, he quickly glanced about, not so much to get a sense of place as to avoid gawping at the witch’s soot-lined wrinkles, wriggling under the red glow of her beady eyes, or the hairy wart at the end of her beak nose, bobbing with every raspy word, or her toothless mouth, folded in at the cheeks ~ all of which served only to accent a sallow green complexion that smelled, if not of embalming fluid, of small dead things.

High above in the empty darkness, something creaked, sounding pained, agonized. A few seconds later, it creaked again, as tortured a sound as at any time before: such anguish and suffering, so much torment, expressed in that foul and charnel air.

His heart beating faster in sympathy for the boys who had sat in the pot before, he held his breath and imagined that his voice would soon be added to theirs. Still wondering how to answer her, he settled his gaze (simply because it needed to be settled somewhere) on the crook-necked bloodhawk, tipsily balanced on its wooden perch by the fireplace. Looking at it in preference to staring into the crone’s red-glowing eyes, he let his breath out in a burst and, on the last bit of air, asked, “Me? How old...the me? Do you mean...me?”

“No, not thee. Why should it be thee?” the bird squawked from the side of the cobwebbed hearth. “You’ll find there are no candies, cookies or cake for the likes of thee here.” As if incensed by its own words, perhaps simply irritated at having to employ them in answer, it extended its ragged wings to full reach, revealing its obscene body, emaciated and worn, a stick figure covered in little more than soot-smudged down and plucked skin. With the first violent beat of its wings, it whirled up vortices in the fervid and filthy air, blowing the fire under him to higher flame, then wrapped itself once more in the cloak of its dark wings. “Certainly, not thee, ye crass and evil boy.”

Hurt by the continuing barrage of pronouncements against him, as well as wounded by the abusive tone, he caught his breath again and, without tarrying a moment longer on the bloodhawk, carried his gaze around the dark, stone-walled kitchen. Intent on finding a door or open window where he might make his escape, he counted seven padlocks on the door and three on nearly every window; in passing, he glimpsed several rough-hewn tables and chairs, a few gnarled wooden cupboards and a single blood-stained butcher block, close by the fire. Feeling heat bubbles tickle up between his toes and under his sack, he cast a wary eye around the fireplace, crackling with flames, smoking the underside of the cauldron, even as the bloodhawk continued its wild ravings:

“Ye crass and evil boy, there will never be anyone remotely like thee again, no one who can remotely relate to who thou hast become, no one on whose shoulder thou canst confess the degradations of thy sins, the foul purpose of thy life.” Then, beating its wings in fury and flurry, it cawed in a maniacal fit, seeming possessed or under assault of possession. In a moment more, it stopped its wild convulsions and contortions and, seeming to regain its senses, quietly preened a few of its feathers before stating bluntly, in an entirely other voice: “You’re a wonder, Beauby. Do you know that?”

Though that remark was vaguely familiar, even worthy of deliberation ~ at the very least, some further consideration ~ he let it escape with his breath, which he had been holding throughout the bird’s last rant. Despairing of ever getting away, he leaned back and, looking up the dark hollow of the chimney, saw clouds scudding across the moonlit sky...far up, too far up, much too far up for ‘a little boy.’ When Amaga leaned forward, hard by his face, obviously waiting for an answer, he shrugged his shoulders to show he hadn’t understood what she meant then waited with drawn mouth and staring eyes for her to tell him exactly what she expected from such an odd question.

Instead, Amaga began to sway her stooped shoulders left and right, at first mulling the hang of his earlobe then inspecting every ridge in his ear from every random angle, all the while muttering inaudibly. Having satisfied her curiosity regarding his ears, she then pondered the depression at the nape of his neck, this time bobbing her beaked nose up and down while calculating a meticulously thorough mnemonic as to whether such a depression in his character might negatively impact her skills, particularly those related to soothsaying. Finally, done with that, though not fully convinced of his worth, she tilted her head to and fro, by now grumbling loud enough for him to hear the noise (but not loud enough for him to understand the words) about the wretched thickness of his skin over the meager muscle of his arms.

“One of a kind,” the bloodhawk called from the side of the hearth, employing that other and kinder voice, “You’re one of a kind, Beauby.”

Grateful for the change in the bird’s tone (though he questioned the note of kindness, having yet to place the voice within memory, seeming to hold conflicting emotions regarding the warmth in those words, the familiarity of family, the intimacy of individuals), he watched the witch salivate a long string of spittle down her chin into the bubbling butterscotch before returning his gaze onto the bird, though he still concentrated his attention on the witch. Sure what she was thinking, having heard the stories and shivered at the gruesome details, he folded his arms over his chest; what’s more, he pulled his knees up closer and rested the side of his face against his knees.

“It hasn’t been easy, Beauby,” the bloodhawk said in that woman’s voice. “I know how you feel about Marc; but he isn’t often around. He goes off and leaves me alone. You know he does.”

Looking out from the fireplace towards the ceiling, he saw lean and hungry rats peering down at him from the open crossbeams. Piercing the darkness beyond, he glimpsed the roughly adzed rafters which had been creaking (and were still creaking every few seconds) under a roof of soot-encrusted planks ~ shoddily fitted together at best, no more than a frame. Within the space of that same glance, he watched globular melts drip from the cotton-candy thatch through those gaps. Carrying his gaze back down as those drips plinked and plopped in accompaniment to the bloodhawk’s wild ravings, he watched the pink splotches soak into the tamped earthen floor.

“You don’t understand,” the creature continued in a voice grown softer still and more persuasive, issuing from the smudge of a dirty reality that clung dream-like to his mind. “Marc was a virile man. I married him because he was a virile man.”

Growing uncomfortably warm in the pot, the toddler squirmed his butt onto the other cheek before noticing that earlier splatters from the roof had already shriveled in the dry heat (or were shriveling still) across the various vials, beakers and bottles crowded on the tops of her makeshift furniture, with every flat surface packed haphazardly tight with the ingredients and instruments of her trade.

“The meat!” the witch fairly screamed, losing patience. “How old the meat?”

He shot his head up. “I’m three,” he blurted, venturing an answer, any answer.

The pupils of her eyes reflecting the flames, none of the orange and all of the red, Amaga cackled in glee and rubbed the back of her hand against her wrinkled cheek. “So young. So fresh.” She reached into the cauldron and, pulling his knees apart, stared at his risen penis. “So big. So full.”

“I’m three,” he repeated, hearing the childish reproach in his voice.

Nice.

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