“That’s right, you dumb witch, come get me!”
Cassie Johanson has guts. That’s what her dad used to say, especially when she was afraid. He’d named her after Butch Cassidy after all, and Casey at the bat, which meant she could keep a.) face down a pack of coyotes on her own and b.) keep swinging even when the outlook wasn’t brilliant.
Dad always told her: cling to the hope eternal. And she swears she heard him just now, woke her up from her deep apple-dreaming, whispering in her ear: give the ol’ witch a good whack.
Okay, Dad.
Groggy and still drifting in and out of sleep, she stumbled from where the witch had kept her and into a cobwebby room, just as the trick-or-treaters ran away with the witch screeching after them about toads.
Typical witch, honestly.
A spider scuttles across Cassie’s hand. She shakes it off, ignores the rows of misshapen skulls and creepy crawlies in jars. She doesn’t even have a name for all of them. Besides, she’s got other fish to fry: the witch is scraping ever closer, dragging her talons along the wall.
“There’s nowhere to hide, Cassie.”
But Cassie isn’t hiding. She grips the handle of something solid--the witch’s broom (of course) leaning against the wall. She’s got a plan which isn’t really much of a plan, but she has to pray it works. Has to hope. Cassie takes a deep breath and jumps out of the room, plunging herself into the witch’s dungeon.
“Yipee kay yay, mother--!”
She attacks the witch like it’s the last thing she’ll ever do. There’s a fight, some scrabbling, some yeowling. Cassie fights tooth and nail and claw and in the hubbub of it all, the cauldron--that cauldron with that brew that stinks of rotten eggs--tips! The witch gasps, reaches for it, tries to put it upright.
Dad says, Get ‘er, Cassie! And she lunges--pushes that nasty old witch forward so that she tips into the cauldron with a bodily splash.
Cassie half-expects the witch to start yelling “I’m melting, I’m melting!” like in that one old-timey movie. But it’s nothing as nice as that. Instead the witch starts burning, first her hair and then her skin and--ew.
Don’t look! She runs for the door and out into the night, never once looking back.
Mom is never going to believe this.
In hindsight, Alexandra should really have invested in a cauldron lid. Didn’t granny tell her to? Alexandra’s now skeletal hand grips the rim of the cauldron so she can pull herself up. Out of her mouth flies a litany of curses--things we can’t really repeat here.
Dripping and steaming, the witch climbs out of the cauldron. Already she’s plotting to find Cassie Johanson and get her once and for all.
She doesn’t see that the liquid in the cauldron hasn’t stopped bubbling. Or that a great horned figure is rising from its very depths. Or that its hands are reaching out… reaching for her.
“Goody Cromwell.” A sly, serpentine voice.
She whips around.
“Dark Lord!” She falls to her knees. “I knew it! I knew it!”
“Not quite.” Bolganok the Terrible towers over her, swishing his tail. “But I do come with a message.” He lifts one black talon, waving it in her face. “He’s quite displeased with the state of things up here. Witches putting themselves in summoning potions instead of innocent lambs? Tut tut.”
Alexandra cowers, on her knees now.
“So gauche, really. So very disappointing.”
He wraps one great hand around Alexandra’s neck. Pulls her close, his stinking breath reeking of the Underworld. His mouth pulls back in a rictus grin. “But for your consolation prize, you get… an all-expenses paid, one-way ticket… to Hell!”
Whatever’s in the cauldron swirls and grows until it has enveloped all of the house--and in a flash, Alexandra, house, cauldron and all, disappears.
Pity no one else was there to see that. They would’ve finally known that Alexandra Cromwell was right about the Dark Lord all along.
Maybe next year.
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