Kitty Griffin

This story is dedicated to all those children left in the woods who had to find their way out.





Part One

Awake

Ashes, ashes

A witch’s heart is made of stone. Even though the little girl had pushed the woman into the oven, the stone heart survived. Now it woke, hungry and ready to be found.

Wind streamed through the dark needles of the towering trees. It shimmied the pale silver leaves of the invasive Bloodthorn shrub. Skeletal remains speared on the long, poisonous thorns rattled in response.
Up a ridge, down a valley, round about a small dale, the gust continued until it knocked a loose stone from a heap of broken bricks. The waiting thing stirred.

The pile tumbled free, releasing a mound of ashes sheltered underneath. The ashes flew high into the air casting off into the wind.

In a castle far away, a Queen slumbered beneath a shroud of sticky spider webs. When some of the ashes slipped through the membrane of the webs and landed on her lips the Queen’s eyes opened. Quickly thrusting out her arms, reaching up and breaking the webs, Queen Zenzi shouted, “She’s dead! Mother is dead! At long last.” She sucked in more air. “Effie, get in here. Get in here now.” Zenzi stood up. She screamed, “Effie, where are you?”

On an island where an Abbey sat quietly, a few specks of ash landed on the eyelids of the sleeping Lord Abbot. A long-ago secret tucked deep in his memory bubbled up and woke him. He coughed and choked as bile rose in his throat. He gasped at the pressure atop his breastbone. He tumbled out of bed where he sat for a moment and her voice came back to him, “I have a heart of stone. Oh, it desires you, but not in the way you want.” He recalled the flash of silver as the knife struck out.
As the memory shook him he felt warmth on his chest. He put his hand there and felt wetness. His nostrils opened wide at the smell. Blood.

On the same island in the Abbey hospital, flakes of ash landed on the cheek of a girl who’d been having a pleasant dream. The dream shattered and transformed into a nightmare full of shards of fear. “Hänsel,” she screamed. “Hänsel, where are you?”

The ashes blew off and away to finish causing mischief as they raced ahead of billowing clouds full of summer rain.

The heart settled back into the dirt. Soon, someone evil enough would come. And life would begin again.
Soon it would be found by someone deserving of its evil. It was ready.
It remembered a boy to be eaten.