THE BEAUTIFUL WICKED WITCH

The next morning before Eric woke Ivra slipped away to play with the Forest Children.

“On such wild days as this they usually play indoors, for they’re little things and the Snow Witches love to tease them,” said the Tree Man.

“Perhaps she’ll be telling them World Stories,” thought Eric, and so he decided to go to the little moss village, too, for though Ivra had told him dozens of World Stories by now, he always wanted to hear more. So after breakfast with the Tree Man and his pretty, shy daughter, he ran out in search of Ivra.

It was indeed a cold morning, blustering and raw. Eric felt chilled almost as soon as he was out of doors. Very soon he lost his way, for he had not been in the forest long enough to grow familiar with landmarks. Just when he was beginning to be a bit hopeless and pinched with the cold he came to the big fir where the Beautiful Wicked Witch lived. It stood green and comforting among all the bare trees of winter.

Eric stopped to look, for now he remembered the Beautiful Wicked Witch and the bird she had caged in there. He saw a door in the tree trunk ajar, and swinging to and fro with tiny tinkling music. He peeped in, and between the swingings caught glimpses of little blue and yellow flowers arranged in tight bunches in hanging vases. He could smell their sweetness even out there in the cold air.

Then high up in the tree trunk a window opened, and he heard the bird singing. The Beautiful Wicked Witch’s face appeared at the window, looking down at him. Her black eyes were sparkling and she nodded good-morning to him as though he were a prince, or at least a grown-up. He could not help nodding back. He liked her very much, she was so beautiful and so friendly.

“Come in and get warm,” she called, “and I’ll show you my pretty bird.”

Eric remembered Ivra’s warnings, but he wanted to go in so much that he found himself doing it. The door tinkled louder music when he touched it, and he pushed his way through, as a bee pushes his way into a flower.

The Witch came running twinklingly down a spiral stairway. She kissed his mouth, took off his winged cap and coat, threw them somewhere out of sight, and then he had time to look at her well.

Her gown was green satin, the color of the fir boughs, and her little sandals were green satin, too. A green fir frond bound her forehead; and her black hair hung loose, soft and electric to her waist. Eric had never seen a prettier person in the world, nor one more kind.

She took his two hands and began to whirl in a happy dance. Eric danced, too, for joy and good comradeship. Round and round the room they whirled until their breath was spent.

Then the Beautiful Wicked Witch took him up the spiral staircase to show him the bird. Up and up they went, until they came to a little room high in the tree. The floor was carpeted with yellow satin, and yellow curtains hung at the window. Deep blue mirrors lined the walls, and they reflected Eric and the Beautiful Wicked Witch dozens of times over.

The pretty bird cage, all made of flowers and leaves, hung in the very middle of the room. Eric stood by it a long time. He put his fingers through the bars, and stroked the bird’s soft feathers. But the gorgeous bird paid no attention to him, and did not sing.

“Why doesn’t it hop about?” he asked the Beautiful Wicked Witch.

The Witch frowned and pouted. “It ought to, I’m sure. I like to see it hopping. But it would rather sulk. It thinks all the time about the forest, and its mate who is out there somewhere. Sometimes it sings, though. Its voice is wonderful.”

“Oh, let’s open the cage and free him,” cried Eric.

But the Beautiful Wicked Witch seized his hand. “No, no, no! It is mine. I have caged it in my pretty cage. And it fits into the room, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Eric.

“Why, you fit into it, too,” said the Witch, looking hard at him. “Your yellow hair and blue eyes match the yellow and blue flowers. Would you like me to make a pretty cage for you and put you into it?”

“No, no!” Eric was suddenly afraid of the Beautiful Wicked Witch.

But she laughed at his fear, and danced a little dance, humming to herself, around the room. Then Eric noticed other cages. The walls were lined with them. Some hung from the ceiling, and some stood in corners. In every cage was a bird or animal. The one standing nearest to him held a pretty gray squirrel, running ’round and ’round on a wheel. He stopped every now and then to peer out through the bars with quick, bright eyes. In the cage next was a tiny brown field mouse. But he had given up running and playing long ago, and was huddled in the farthest and darkest corner of his cage, his little beady eyes open and watchful.

Eric walked around the room, looking at all the poor little animals and birds. One and all peered through their bars with watchful and fearful eyes. Eric remembered himself in the canning factory and pitied them more than he could ever have done had he not once been a caged little creature too. How he longed to open their doors and the window, and see them scamper and fly away!

But the Witch had stopped her dancing by the bird cage in the middle of the room, and her little hands were between the bars stroking the bright bird-breast. She was saying, “Sing for us, bird. Sing your nicest song for us. Little Eric wants to hear it.”

The bird began to beat its wings and breast against the bars. Again and again its bright breast struck the door. But it did not fly open.

“It does not want to sing,” laughed the Beautiful Wicked Witch; “but it must. Sing, bird, sing! It does you no good to struggle. You can’t get away. Sing, sing!”

Then the bird sang. Its song was truly wonderful, high and clear, as Eric had heard it from outside. But now that he could see the bird caged he did not like the song so well. It was all too sad.

Eric wanted to go away then, out of the tree, and never, never see the Witch again. He would find Ivra and the Forest Children and forget all about these cages. So he said good-by to the Witch and ran down the spiral staircase. But he could not find the door out. He went round and round the wall, but there was no sign of a door. It was indeed as though a flower had let him in and then closed its petals tight.

The little posies swung in their cases, the bird sang up stairs, and the Beautiful Wicked Witch played and danced, and laughed at all his searching. She would do nothing to help him find the door.

All that day he wandered up stairs and down stairs, or stood at the window looking down through the green fir branches to the free forest-floor. Once the Witch offered to tell him stories. But he wanted no stories of caged things, and those were all the stories she knew. The Witch did not mind his short answers and dark face. She seemed perfectly able to have a good time with herself, and needed no comrades.

At last night fell. The rooms blossomed with candlelight. In the yellow room up stairs the Beautiful Wicked Witch paraded back and forth before the mirrors, loving her own reflection, smiling at herself, courtesying, frowning, looking back over her shoulder, lifting her hair to let it fall again in electric waves. Eric stood by the window, thoroughly weary of his search and loneliness, and watched her. The bird sat in the cage and watched her. All the little bright eyes of animals watched her. The candles burned steadily.

How Eric longed for Ivra now, and their own big friendly room. He imagined Ivra in the room there all alone getting her supper over the fire, bathing in the fountain bath, opening the windows, and at last falling softly to sleep before the firelight faded.

Oh, if there were only a window open here! How hot it was, and how over-sweetly scented! The Beautiful Wicked Witch went on posing and preening before the mirrors, and seemed to have forgotten all about her new little prisoner.

So he pulled back the yellow satin curtain, and looked out. It was clear, cold starlight. He pressed his face against the window pane and stared down into the shadows beneath the fir. And there, standing erect in the shadow, her face lifted like a pale little moon, stood Ivra.

She saw him, but did not wave. She only nodded, as though she knew now what she had come to make sure of. She stood still for a few minutes, until Eric almost thought she was frozen in the cold. But at last she moved and disappeared under the fir.

Music tinkled through the house. The Beautiful Wicked Witch poised on her toes, surprisedly looking into the reflection of her own eyes.

“Some one has come in, for that was the door,” she said. “It opens inward with music.”

Eric’s heart stood still. Had Ivra come into the Witch’s house, Ivra who was so afraid of the Witch? He ran down the stairs and the Witch followed him. Yes, Ivra stood there in the middle of the warm, flower-hung room, like a little cold star beam.

But she did not look at the quaint flowers in their golden vases. And when the Witch ran to her and kissed her she did not even look at her. She looked only at Eric, and her eyes said, “I have come to free you.”

“Oh, so you did want to try on the pretty frock after all,” cried the Witch, and drew her up the stairs. Eric followed to the yellow room. “No,” said Ivra. But the Witch brought it out and tried to slip it over her head. It was sheerest gossamer web, and shimmered like moonlight. And the little rosebuds seemed to make it belong to Ivra.

Eric forgot all about being a prisoner, and forgot the little caged creatures around the wall. He was delighted with the frock being pushed down on Ivra’s shoulders. “How beautiful you’ll be!” he cried. But Ivra wriggled away from it and stood clear. Her rudely made brown frock and worn sandals looked odd in that satin room. “I didn’t come to see the frock,” she said, shaking her head till her pigtails bobbed. “I came to get Eric.”

The Beautiful Wicked Witch laughed. “Get him if you can,” she said. Then she turned her back on the children and began to braid her black hair among the mirrors.

They went to the window and waited there, watching her.

“The door doesn’t open out, only in, I think,” Eric whispered. “So we can’t get out.”

“Mother has told me how it would be,” Ivra whispered back. “We’ll have to wait until she’s asleep and then find a way.”

Then Ivra sat down on the floor and began to rock back and forth and sing a lullaby. It was a lullaby her mother had sung to her all her babyhood, Ivra sang in a very little voice, almost a murmur only, but by listening Eric and the Beautiful Wicked Witch could catch the words. She sang the same words over and over and over.

Night is in the forest,
Tree Mother is nigh.
By-abye, by-abye-bye.

Sleep is in the forest
His feathers brush your eye.
By-abye, by-abye-bye.

Mother’s arms are holding you,
Forest dreams are folding you.
By-abye, by-abye bye.

The Beautiful Wicked Witch sat down before the mirrors after a while, still watching her reflection, but listening to the song, too. Her head gradually sank lower and lower, first resting chin in hand and at last right down on her arm stretched along the floor. Her face lay turned towards the children, and they saw the mirth slowly fade in her great black eyes, the lids drop lower and lower, and then she was asleep suddenly. Now she looked almost as young as themselves, and like a pale child who has fallen to sleep at its play.

But the children did not stop to look at her. Once they were sure she was asleep they were off searching for the door. Up and down the stairs and all around the rooms they ran on tiptoes. But it was no use, and at last they came back to the window.

“We must jump,” whispered Ivra.

Eric looked down, and wondered. It was a long way to the ground!

“The snow is soft beneath the crust,” Ivra said. “It will only cut us a little.”

“Let’s take the bird,” Eric said. Ivra ran to it, and opened the cage door. It hopped onto her finger eagerly, and she held its bill so that it would not sing.

Eric opened the window. “I’ll jump first,” he whispered.

But Ivra said, “Oh, let’s hold hands and jump together.”

The Beautiful Wicked Witch felt the cold night air from the window on her face, and stirred in her sleep. Her eyelids quivered. So the children did not wait a minute more. They climbed up onto the window sill, Ivra still holding the bird. “One, two, three,” she whispered, and they jumped.

Out and down they went like two shooting stars and plunked through the snowcrust. They were up in a second. Their wrists and elbows were a little bruised and cut, but they were not really hurt at all. But strange and strange, the bird had fluttered near Ivra’s hand for that second, and then flew straight back up and into the open window. It had been caged so long it did not really want its freedom after all. Eric cried out with regret.

But Ivra seized his hand, and they ran home together through the cold, starlit forest. Before they leapt the hedge into their own garden Eric saw the firelight blossoming in the windows. But he stood still outside the door, after Ivra had gone in, for a time, breathing the cold air and the clear silence right down into his toes.