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I couldn’t help being a little envious but then, my own witchy powers came naturally to me as well—it just so happened that they all had to do with baking. Sarah’s power was much broaderbut she was so nice about it I couldn’t really begrudge her. And of course, I was extremely thankful to have the basket.
I carried the basket—which now weighed almost nothing—down the path that led away from the back of the house my Great Aunt had left me. It ran right along the edge of the magical bubble that enclosed all of Hidden Hollow. As I walked, the white stone walkway glowed faintly in the early morning light.
It wasn’t very long before the trees behind my house ended and the path was bordered on the left by a high, wild, evergreen hedge. I didn’t know who had planted it, but it was badly in need of a trim. The hedge varied from around the height of my shoulder to a few feet above my head. I had never bothered to try and get around it because it was completely impenetrable and besides, I was happy to stick to the path.
Around a curve I finally came to what I had been looking for—the Golden-Skinned Warbler pear tree. Or at least,partof it.
I say part of it because the trunk and most of the limbs of the tree grew on the other side of the hedge. In fact, only a few long branches hung over onto my side. But those few branches produced an enormous amount of fruit when the tree was ready to yield.
To my delight, I saw that my instincts had been right—the branches hanging over the hedge were so heavy with pears that they were dropping nearly down to the ground.
I stared happily at the golden fruit, gleaming in the rays of the rising sun. This was possibly the biggest crop I had ever seen and I could smell the sweet, ripe scent which was like a mixture of pear and honeysuckle long before I got close.
“I knew it!” I exclaimed out loud. I was so happy I did a little dance right there. There were so many pears here! I was going to be able to make so many tarts which I knew would make all of Hidden Hollow happy.
Before I started picking, I took a moment to examine the branches and make my plan of attack. As long as I was actively picking the pears, they would stay good, but the minute I stopped picking for any length of time the pears still attached to the tree would start getting overripe. Eventually they would blacken and shrivel and fall to the ground where they would make a slimy patch on the path and soak into the ground on either side of it. So once I started picking, I had to keep it up continuously until I was done.
As I planned what branch to start on, I couldn’t help casting a glance over the top of the hedge to the other side. Many times I had thought about trying to find a way over so I could pick pears over there too, but several things stopped me.
First, I wasn’t sure if I could get a huge basket of pears over the top of the extremely prickly hedge which had spiky leaves and inch-long thorns on its branches without hurting myself. And second, I didn’t want to go anywhere near the haunted mansion.
No, I’m not talking about the ride at Disney World—“the haunted mansion” was what I called the old dilapidated house I could see on the other side of the hedge. It was an enormous, rundown structure—clearly it had been built for someone or something that wasn’t human. Possibly a Troll had once lived there, I thought. Or maybe a Giant? How big did they get, anyway?
I didn’t know and didn’t want to know. Giants, Trolls, and Ogres are on the list of undesirable Creatures with evil tendencies. Their anti-social natures make it impossible for them to live and mingle with other, more peaceful Creatures and human magic users and I for one wanted nothing to do with them.
So I had long ago decided to ignore that side of the hedge and just gather all the pears I could from the branches that hung over it. And today I had a lot to gather.
Ignoring the broken and boarded up windows of the haunted mansion which seemed to stare at me like blind eyes, I put down my basket in a good spot and started picking.
The pears were humming in the sunshine, their golden skins bursting with juicy goodness. They were so ready to be harvested they practically fell into my hand as I reached for them. Every time one dropped into my palm it let out a musical little“tra-la!”as its stem parted from the branch, which let me know that the fruit was indeed perfectly ripe and ready to pick.
I rapidly filled my basket to the brim taking all but one pear—the most beautiful one of all which I was saving for last. In the past, I would have had to leave some pears behind, but now thanks to the bespelled basket, I could carry them all easily back to my bakery.
Humming happily, I picked the very last pear on my side of the hedge and sank my teeth into its golden skin. True, I would be singing for a whole hour after I ate it, but it was totally worth it and besides, I would be working alone in the bakery so it wouldn’t matter.
The delicate pear flesh melted on my tongue unlike any other fruit I’d ever had and I took my time eating it. This was probably the only one I would allow myself to eat—all the others were going into the tarts—so I wanted to savor it.
It wasn’t until I was down to the core and licking the sticky juice off my fingers that I noticed some movement on the other side of the hedge.
The last bite of pear seemed to stick in my throat as I saw the door of the haunted mansion open and an enormous figure come out of it.
He was hairy all over with a long, greasy, dark orange pelt that covered most of his body. It hung down over the dirty brown shorts he was wearing which appeared to be his only clothing. His head was as big and lumpy as a prize-winning pumpkin and his yellow eyes seemed too small for his face.
I wanted to look away at that point but I couldn’t—I felt frozen to the spot and my mind kept cataloging the Creature’s lumpy, frightening features. Hairy pointed ears flapped in the breeze and his mouth was filled with long, sharp, curving fangs that seemed to interlock together like the teeth of a bear trap. Overlong arms hung down so low that his knuckles dragged the ground like an ape’s as he shambled towards the hedge.
If you’re wondering how I could tell for sure that he was male, well it was obvious. There was an enormous, long bulge along the inner thigh of one leg of his shorts. The head of a perfectly huge penis, the size and color of a bruised apple, was hanging out of the shorts, down near his knee.Disgusting.
My first thought was that this must be what Bigfoot looked like—only uglier andwaysmellier. Because the breeze was bringing whiffs of his personal odor through the hedge to me and even the sweet aroma of the Golden-Skinned Warbler pears couldn’t drown out the rotten stench.
My second thought was that I needed to get away—fast.
I didn’t think the hairy, smelly Creature—whatever he was—had seen me since I was watching him from behind the hedge. It occurred to me that he might be tall enough to step right over it and I didn’t want that. Slowly I picked up my enormous basket—which was still light as a feather, thanks to Sarah’s magic—and started walking quickly and quietly back down the path.
I was hoping to get around the curve in the road before he could spot me, but luck wasn’t on my side. A moment later I heard a deep angry voice bellow,
“Who’s that walking on my path? Who dares to come and wake my wrath?”
Seriously?I couldn’t help thinking. But at least his rhyming gave me an idea of what he was—Great Aunt Gertrude had taught me several ways to tell the different Creatures apart. Giants were, of course immensely huge and usually completely bald. And Trolls almost always had more than one head, according to her. Ogres spoke in rhymes. So the hairy, smelly creature behind me must be an Ogre—not that I wanted to hang around long enough to be sure.
