Chapter 49

Coralina stepped into the cabin, and peered around in the dark. She couldn’t see much of anything, for the lights were off. She turned around and fumbled at the wall. She quickly found a switch and flipped it on. When she turned back, she saw that she was in a little one room cabin. There was a kitchen along the back wall, a bed to the right, the couch to the left. There was a large fireplace on the far left. And sitting in front of the fireplace was rocking chair, inside the rocking chair with an old lady. Her hair looked electric, and spiky. Her nose was long and twisted, as if someone slammed it in a door a long time ago.

Her eyes were solid white, with no iris, and no pupil. Coralina wasn’t sure if she was looking at her or away from her. “Do you have any ice cream?” Asked Coralina, walking calling over to the witch.

The witch turned her head slowly with a long cracking pop in her spine, that protested the change in direction.

Coralina skipped forwards and sat on the ground. “Or could you tell me a story? I love stories. Stories are my favorite. Besides ice cream, if you have ice cream I want that first.”

Coralina went criss-cross applesauce on the floor. Carefully tucking one leg under the other until she felt like a pretzel. She clasped her hands together and set them in her lap and smiled up expectantly at the white eyed witch.

The witch was now looking the wrong direction, and Coralina coughed loudly. Slowly she clicked her spine loudly as she turned her skull back pointed at the small child. It was then, that Coralina felt a flicker of fear crawling past her elation. The intense, overwhelming happiness that was pouring through every bit of her for the last few hours was suddenly waning. As she stared at the witch, she recognized at her white eyes for something to be afraid of, as she heard the clicking of the spine, she felt the trigger of fear running up her own spine. Something was wrong here, the witch was not friendly, she probably didn’t even have ice cream.

In fact, she couldn’t remember why she wanted ice cream in the first place. Where was her mother? Where was her father?

What had happened to Beth?

These questions started to rattle back and forth in Coralina’s brain and she wondered, with intense terror, how she could fight a witch all alone.

And then with terrifying speed the witch stood up and lunged for her.