Chapter 52
Coralina let out a muffled cry as the witch’s hand slammed over her mouth. Her hand felt cold and bony, and the skin seemed so thin. The flesh on the witch was crinkling like a ruined teddybear. Coralina shuddered in her grip, a scream trying to creep between the bony fingers.
But she couldn’t do it, it was like the scream had been sucked out of her lungs and into the witches hand. She felt muffled, and frightened. The witch started to grow in size, and Coralina felt weak. Her body went limp in the witch’s hands she could hear her voice outside of herself saying, “mommy, daddy, let’s play.” Coralina was terrified to hear herself talking. She had said that? Or had she? It didn’t make any sense. That was the part that; scared her the most, was that things that were happening were no longer making sense to her.
“The witch pinned her in a chair and wrapped a long strand of hair around her. The hair was one of her own hairs, a long white one from her head. When it seemed to be getting too short she kissed it twice and it grew longer. She continued to wrap it around and around Coralina in the chair until she was spun like a fly in a web. Only her head sticking out of the cocoon of white hair, one singular long thread zipped around her thousands of times.
Coralina was so frightened, that she immediately peed herself. The witch frowned, but did not even attempt to conversation or scolding with her and instead set about starting a pot of tea.
Coralina tried to speak again, but the only words that came out were, “Mommy! Daddy! Please save me.” It was like she had been preprogrammed with words, like a videogame where she only had as few voice selections for her character. She couldn’t make any other phrases come out of her mouth, try as she might.
She wanted to say Can I have some tea? Why are you doing this? But she couldn’t get any of those words outside of her throat, they caught like cotton.
“Don’t worry darling, I only need to borrow it for a moment.” The witch said, calmly. They heard a loud clattering noise for a second and then tiny footsteps running away. The witche’s neck cried pop pop pop, as she twisted her face in a circle staring towards the back door. “It seems your sister has found the gun.” The witch smiled with a big gaping smile with sharp teeth dangling down. “It’s a shame she’ll be too afraid to use it.”
“Are you scared little girl?” Said the witch as she leaned forwards and smelled Coralina’s hair.
Coralina tried to scream, but all that came out was, “Mommy! Daddy! Come save me!”
