long title. apparently it can go on forever. also there’s no wasp. yet.

As Dylan plunged through the water, a million thoughts ran through his head.

1. This was a bad idea

2. Is she fat?

3. I wonder if she’ll be mad at us

4. Well, she will. I would if two strangers jumped into my house

5. Am I really having a million thoughts?

6. Is the author really going to write them all down?

7. You bet he will

…

999, 997. Wow. It really was a million thoughts

999,998. But the author didn’t write them all down. He thought them, the stupid liar

999,999. Is that the ground?

1,000,000. What does balsa wood taste like?

And then he hit the ground with a thump. Elsie landed next to him.

‘Where are we?’ she asked. Dylan looked around.

‘Too be honest, I don’t wan to know.’ He swallowed, hard.

‘Me, too.’

They were in a large dirt cave. Rocks stuck out of a floor that was simply earth trodden on so many times that you could break your fingernails trying to dig through it. A large kettle swung over a fire, emitting green-blue steam. Human and donkey limbs hung by nails from the walls. Herbs hung over the kettle, cooking from the heat of the kettle, so that the room was filled with a strangely pleasant mixture of thyme, peppermint, and onion. The kettle itself was wrought of black iron. Ugly faces and scenes of human suffering were carved into its’ surface.

Dylan and Elsie turned at the sound of a tap-tap-tapping behind them, and there she was. Hunched over, with a back that looked like some great being had seized her and rammed both ends of her back together as a punishment for some ancient crime. Which, considering what Iris had told them about her, that theory was probably quite plausible. She was draped in torn grey strips of cloth, and her hair was caked with mud and blood and other filth, tangled so that Elsie tried to imagine combing it and saw a bald version of the creature before her. She had two arms, then three more arms arranged on her back in a triangle. The fingernails were long, sharp, brown on the edges and yellow in the middle. Her two eyes glared at them, but then she smiled, revealing sharpened teeth.

‘Why, children,’ she said in delight. ‘It has been many ages since children came to my hovel. Ever since that giant whose eye I-‘ she checked herself. ‘Ever since that giant came, whom I gave an apple. An apple of his eye, you could say.’ She giggled.

Elsie managed to get her voice back. ‘W-who are you?’ she asked, even though she knew the answer.

‘Me? Oh, I’m Kabula. It’s Tshiluba.’

‘What?’

‘However, some people have called me a Raven Sister, Zarnath, or Belladonna Crunchback. Nasty people those are. You would do best to avoid them.’

Dylan spoke up. ‘Actually, we were sent here by one of them. A large eyeball by the name of Iris. Long beard. Carries a stick. Told us an interesting tale of a giant and his eye. He wants it back.’

Crunchback gestured to her kettle. ‘It’s in the infinite depths of my kettle. You two could never get it back. And Iris knows the way back to your world, but he won’t tell you unless he gets his body, which I won’t give to you unless you get something for me.’

‘What do we need to get?’

‘Things child. To make me a potion that will make me the ruler fo this wretched place.’

‘If it’s so wretched, why do you want to rule it?’ asked Elsie.

‘Hmmph. It’s better than this cave. Now answer me children. Do we have a deal?’

Elsie and Dylan looked at each other. They knew they didn’t have a choice.

‘Deal.’

The witch grinned. ‘Let’s sign it in blood.’

However, Elsie was of a different mind.