020318b

The Sweet Cleaner

“You what?”

“I won't pay. This is highway robbery. You quoted one shilling and now you want six.”

Clinton fumed. The old witch wouldn't pay. The gum drop encrustation alone had taken him two hours to chisel off. Altogether he had spent the entire day on her cottage, which by the way was way the heck out in the middle of the forest, so there had been no place to buy lunch. All he had had was part of a stale gum drop. But there was nothing you could do. The forest was frontier territory as far as law enforcement was concerned. Out here, you took matters into your own hands. And when you were not not a witch or a magical creature, you kept those hands in your pockets and said “Yes ma'am, no ma'am.” But you never went back to that freakin' candy cottage again.

“Yes ma'am. But it took longer than I expected. And I have a family to feed.”

–

“And then she started asking me all these questions about the kids. How old they were, what their names were, what they liked to eat, with their favorite sweets were. It was creepy. A little lower on the left.”

The backrub had been going a long way towards making Clinton feel better about his day, but when he described the witch's reaction to mention of the children, his wife froze. Clinton wiggled his shoulders, but she didn't take the hint.

"What part of 'don't mention that you have children' didn't you understand?" She asked. Her hands clutched his shoulders convulsively. He bit back a cry of pain. "Did you say where you live? This is a witch we're talking about, not some inoffensive peasant."

"Please," he snorted. "Credit me with some sense. I told her we live on Cabbage St.; completely the other side of town."

Eventually she calmed down, but she stayed up all night, on watch, in the children's room. In the morning he made breakfast and almost pointed out to her that he had been right. You kids had been safe. The witch ... had done nothing.

Almost, he said those things. When the crier came by a couple of hours later with the shocking news that two children had been abducted from a home just across town, he was glad he kept his mouth shut.