IV. Stiff Witch

“Now then, let’s play!”

Immediately, the short boy ran off between the other kids, and in a confused daze, the other children eventually followed suit. Realizing what was happening, the child took a nervous step forward, then looked to the sun.

There, it lingered over the green fog of the forest as if waiting for them to accept their mission.

“Win this game,” it seemed to call out, “win this game and go home safe. Mamma won’t know a thing.”

With another nod, now confident, the child dashed forward, chasing the first kid they were closest to.

The boy with the cat nose was the easiest to chase. He wasn’t very fast, and he didn’t have much stamina, either. Though his pants and grunts made light of his very apparent effort to get away, the struggle hadn’t helped him much. Not before long, the child had their first tag.

“Aww, no fair, no fair! I didn’t know the game was starting!”

The child almost felt bad, but knew that their life depended on this game. With a short, quiet apology, they made their first steps toward their next target. That is, until they heard swift steps dash behind them. When they turned, the cat-nosed boy was running away with the shorter boy.

Clenching their teeth, the child felt their face shift and change with their nerves, and with that, they came to a realization. Quickly, the child changed their body.

Longer, stronger legs like the tall boy. A smaller torso like the girl. Longer, thinner arms like the boy with the cat nose. They dashed off, faster than before.

The next kid they noticed was the tall boy, who had been taking this time to climb up a tree next to the schoolhouse. Once the child got to him, he was hiding up on the first branch, thinking he was safe from tagging. However, with the sound of the child grabbing onto the tree, he quickly jumped up, leaping for the next branch.

“That’s not fair! How are they going to reach you now?” the girl shouted from afar.

Climbing onto the next branch, the boy called back, “that’s the point! They aren’t supposed to reach me!”

Contrary to his belief, the child had already been scaling the tree’s wide trunk with ease. Life in the forest was of much help to them, for climbing trees was now second nature. Whether it be helping Mamma collect fruit from the fruit trees or helping her set up weird contraptions in the deeper edges of the forest in the morning, they were barely even breaking a sweat.

“You do that every game! It’s really no fun!” the girl continued to argue.

“You just say that because it isn’t easy when you’re trying to stun me! If you were me, you’d do the same thing, too!”

“This is why only let you play as the witch!”

“Because I win every game?”

Watching the child climb with ease, she giggled. “Not for long!”

Confused, the tall boy looked around, stopping his advance up to the third branch to check his security. All was futile, though, for just as the tall boy had spotted the cloaked child behind him, they had already tagged his ankle.

“That’s not fair! How is anybody supposed to reach me now?”

Once they had climbed down from the tree, it seemed the other children had already hid, as they could find neither the girl who was shouting only moments before nor the short boy and his cat-nosed friend.

It seemed betrayal had made its way into the town air, though, as while the child had been looking around, they spotted the cat-nosed boy being pushed out of a patch of tall grass, looking in with a look of anger, confusion, and then fear as he laid eyes upon the game’s witch.

Once again, though the boy tried with all of his might to get away, it didn’t take long to catch up to him and tag him, reacting with another annoyed groan. “Come on! Why’d you have to push me like that?” he yelled to the tall grass.

There, the child found their next destination, swiping their hands through the grass, looking for the short boy. However, he was nowhere to be found. He must have gotten away, and there was no time to waste searching for him now.

They scanned over the schoolyard again, and behind a picnic table, they spotted the young girl peeking from under the furthest benches, and once they darted over to the table, she stood right up, leaning over the table with a mischievous grin.

There, the two met with the table between them, a partition between enemies. When the child moved left, the girl moved right, and when the child moved right, the girl moved left. This was an impossible situation. Left, right, left, and right, the two children scurried back and forth, the girl giggling with each step, but the child was completely silent, focused.

They looked off to the mountains, and the sun was inching closer, making its descent.

Once the child looked back to the girl, she had been enamored by the sun too, staring off until they heard the child’s footsteps running around the table. Quickly, she ran around it, off to the other side, now with the perfect opportunity to run away into the greater field. Victory was hers.

The child, despite this, would not let her get away under any circumstances, and with a grunt and a leap, they jumped over the table, launching themselves toward the girl, diving in.

The town air glided through their hood, flowing strong as they soared through the ombre sky, down toward the girl, their hood slowly rising up over their head, the sun gently caressing the skin of their face.

With the child’s shadow looming over her, she turned around, looking up at them as their hood slowly lifted, nearly catching a glimpse.

In one last effort to save themselves, the child turned their head, trying hard to obscure themselves. They grasped onto their hood with one hand and held it down, now only reaching one hopeful arm out, praying their fingers would meet her.

Then, with a thud, the child hit the ground, their hand grabbing onto the stiff grass.

Silence. She must have run far off by now.

They were losing all hope.

“Hey, are you okay?”

When the child looked up, there the girl was, leaning over them, reaching a hand out.

“That was a really cool jump you did! I never thought about going over the table like that. You’re really smart!”

For a moment, the child wasn’t sure what to do. They thought they were her enemy, so why act so kind?

Still, she waved her hand to them, beckoning them to grab on, and so they did, and she helped them back up on their feet. Quickly dusting the blades of grass off of the child, she giggled. “Oh no, you’ve cast your spell on me! What a shame.”

With a smile, she put her arms to her sides and stood still.

There, the child stared, confusion turning to joy. What a terrible curse they had, but what a fun game this was now. Finally, it seemed they made their first real friend.

There, the two laughed for a moment, the child jumping around with joy, forgetting about the game, forgetting about the risk, forgetting about the danger. Maybe there had been no danger to begin with.

“Aren’t you forgetting someone, though?”

The girl’s voice quickly brought them back down to Earth, and with a confused glance to her, they saw that she was looking over at the schoolhouse tree.

There, the short boy was beginning to make his ascent up the trunk of the tree, clawing at it, kicking at it, slowly rising up.

The child soon once again realized the danger of this game, and as the sun slowly reached the edge of the trees, desperation grew within them. Without even realizing it for a moment, they had already been sprinting off toward the tree, each bound more reckless than the last.

Behind them were the cheers and shouts of the other two children. From the cat-nosed boy, they cheered on the short one, surprising given their betrayal moments ago. The girl, on the other hand, was enthusiastically cheering on the cloaked child as they finally reached the base of the tree, grabbing on and climbing for dear life.

Now nearing the first branch, the short boy saw the incoming peril and broke off a small, twig-like branch from the tree, throwing it down at the child. They yelped, falling down only slightly, taking in a breath to choke back the pain before continuing their climb, reaching up at the first branch where the short boy had finally managed to grab on.

The boy, with a sigh, laid himself over the branch, taking a moment to relax before continuing, now worn out by the exhausting climb. With this chance, the child swung themselves upwards at the branch, reaching out for the child’s leg.

Contact was then made, though when the child looked up, the boy had dodged further along the branch, making his way up.

The now orange sun was shining bright through the leaves of the trees.

The child threw themselves again, this time onto the branch, holding on now with only an arm and a leg, then scrambling onto it. The short boy had gotten a firm place onto the second branch by now, and began to reach forward toward the tall boy where he sat on the third branch.

In one last moment, with all of their strength, not even noticing how the hood of their cloak was caught on the branch, they dove forward toward the boy, reaching another arm out, only hoping they would be able to tag them this time.

The sound of the child’s cloak tearing in half was now the only thing heard over the child’s weak cry, the boy’s anticipatory groan, and the tall boy’s mutterings of victory, then followed by the child’s thud onto the ground under the tree.

“Aww, I was so close! I can’t believe they tagged me like that!”

The short boy sighed, slumping over the branch while the tall boy pouted. “Now we’ll never get to…”

The child quickly got up, brushing grass and dirt off of them, reaching up at their cloak, at least, where it used to be. Now, ripped clean apart, it lay in two pieces on either side of their head.

“… see their face.”

Slowly, the child laid a finger upon their cheek, stunned with shock and fear.

Slowly, the kids in the tree came down, and those in the field came running over to see.

Silence overcame the group, and as the child turned to face them, their worried expressions turned to those of wonder and surprise.

“You’re…” the cat-nosed boy muttered.

“…so amazing!” the girl gasped, a grin spreading across her face. “You’re like a whole bunch of people in one!”

“See?” The tall boy nudged the short one. “They really were magic all along!”

With stern dejection, the short boy kicked a foot forward across the dirt. “I guess they were after all…”

“And the magic is really cool!” The cat-nosed boy circled around them, looking at each section with amazement. “From pale to dark to beige… different ears and eyes, too!”

“You’re a miracle!” the girl cheered, “you never had to hide from us in the first place!”

The child was merely confused, bewildered by their joy. Mamma had always told them of their curse, one that made them beautiful to the point of jealousy, but now, it seemed jealousy was never a part of the curse in the first place, and that this curse was really no curse at all.

“This is a gift,” they thought. “I was given the gift of beauty.”

“Well now, aren’t you all having fun?”

The voice of an adult, a woman, a mother. Placing a hand over the short boy’s shoulder, the child’s back away from her, she frowned down at her son. “I thought you would come back home by yourself! It’s getting late, and the sun is setting over the mountains now. I even finished making your dinner! Now, come before it gets cold.” The woman began to pull him away, guiding him further from the other kids.

“Can’t I stay longer, though?” The short boy pouted. “I wanna stay and play a while longer! I made a new friend today!”

“A new friend? Well isn’t that interesting. Who might that be?”

The boy pointed back to the other kids, over to the child with a smile. “We played stiff witch together. They’re really good at it!”

The child turned to them, looking up at the woman, nervously smiling.

There, the child smiled with their two halves of lips, two eyes, two ears, and different nose.

There, the child, gifted with beauty, had their curse fully realized.

The woman was silent for a moment, her grip on her son becoming firm with terror. Then, with a glance toward the forest, she trembled, slowly backing away, pulling her son close.

“The witch…!”

She muttered, then cried out. “It’s the witch! A child of the witch! An evil monster! A monster!”

The child’s smile weakened, their lips quivered.

“That… that wretch released a hellspawn upon our town! That witch! It must be!”

“Witch…?” Confused, the child stepped back, afraid of her tone so full of hate. So full of disdain and prejudice.

“You demon! Leave this place! Get away!” Pushing her son away, further from the other kids, she picked up a stone and threw it at the child, landing on their eye. The child cried out, stumbling back, holding their head, their injured eye transforming every which manner between multiple variations.

With another scream, she had soon attracted a crowd of a few people outside of the schoolyard, looking in with horror at the child, their mutters and mumbles turning into open complaints of disgust and fear.

Each of them carried a horrible glare. In each of their eyes, a horrible, disgusting, angry glare pierced through the child more than any stone could hurt them. It felt as if death was being wished upon them in that moment, and as if, as more people gathered, the whole world was against them now.

Each eye that came their way, each in perfect pairs, stung worse than any bee in the forest, worse than the fire from the fireplace of Mamma’s cabin, worse than the cold winter air, and worse than the cold winter waters.

“Their jealousy,” Mamma had told them, “will send them into a horrible rage, and they may hurt you.”

Their legs hurt. With the running of stiff witch combined with the running out of town, surrounded by confused and angry glares, had added into a pain they had never known before.

Hatred was this pain, one that could kill.