Witch and Wombat

by Carolyn Cushman

Genres: Fantasy action & adventure; Action & Adventure; Dragons & Mythical Creatures

Synopsis

A magic realm is set on a collision course with wackiness when a witch and her wombat sidekick guide an assortment of tourists from the mortal world through an enchanted forest they think is merely a high-tech amusement park.

Release date: September 26, 2009

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 316

Sample

ONE of the first tenets of witchcraft is that a witch needs a proper hut. Shaking her head at the gleaming white walls of her
breakfast nook, Hali sat down to breakfast with the latest home improvement guide when the deep tolling of a bell shook the
house.


“Visitors!” screeched Hali’s familiar, Bernie, a large black crow sitting on the back of one chair beside a setting of birdseed.
“Don’t get up, I’ll get it.” He took off through the open kitchen window into the foggy morning beyond.


Just a few feet from the house the fog disappeared, revealing a clear, crisp mountain morning. One solitary grey cloud hovered
over the mountain crag on which Hali’s house perched, an incongruously neat white A-frame with a blue plastic roof. Witches
by nature prefer the tumbledown and rotting look, and Bernie suspected the ever-present cloud was Hali’s work, designed to
hide the roof, which remained a lively, charming blue in spite of years of spells thrown at it. The cottage had originally
been acquired as a stopgap replacement for its predecessor, which had literally tumbled down in a minor magical skirmish.


Though the house had proven amazingly immune to the ravages of wind, rain, and magical fallout, it also resisted all efforts
at redecoration, remaining nauseatingly spiffy and bright. Hali had never forgotten the administration’s promises to replace
it with a proper witch’s hut—or forgiven them for failing to do so. Bernie didn’t care about the roof as long as it didn’t
leak, but when work permitted would fly off in search of better weather, leaving Hali to enjoy the gloom of her pet cloud.


Bernie flapped cheerfully into the sky, took a few turns around the bare crag, then swooped down the slopes to the bottom
of the hill, where a tired ogre in a grey uniform handed him a stiff envelope.


“Magic Express. Sign here.” The ogre held out a clipboard for Bernie to peck. “Why do these witches always build their houses
in the middle of nowhere, then put antitransportation spells on them?” the bulky messenger complained.


“You don’t think those spells stop their owners, do you?” retorted Bernie with his most haughty caw, designed to depress the
pretensions of the nosiest ogre. He took the envelope in his beak and, flying awkwardly, returned to the house on the hill.
He landed clumsily on the kitchen windowsill, and dropped the express envelope on the kitchen table inside.


“Magic Express, Hali,” he croaked. “No return address. Who’s it from?”

“How should I know?” Hali looked up from her copy of Better Huts and Gardens, marked the interior decorating article she’d been studying (“Cobwebs: Tried and True, or Tired and Trite?”), and reached
over the teapot for the envelope. Lazily, she examined the package without opening it, deliberately ignoring her frustrated
familiar as he hopped back and forth on the windowsill.


“Open it, will you?” he begged, bobbing his head.

“Knock it off, Bernie. It’s probably bad news from the home office, as usual.” She ripped open the package and pulled out
a parchment dripping with seals. “Yep. We’re hereby ordered to drop everything and report to Bentwood this afternoon.”


“So what are we supposed to drop?” Bernie asked. “They haven’t sent us any business in ages.”

“Maybe that’s what we’re supposed to talk about. Interesting, though…” Hali eyed the summons skeptically. “Bentwood’s signing
himself ‘Executive Producer’ these days. What do you suppose that means?” She tossed the parchment in the fireplace and stretched.
“Whatever, I want to have a talk with him myself. He’s been promising me a new house for an ogre’s age, and I’m just about
ready to settle for making my own out of gingerbread, except you’d eat me out of house and home.”


“Does that mean I can eat the rest of your toast?” Bernie eyed the table scraps warily. “Without getting turned into something
icky?”


“Go ahead. I’ve got to fix my face and get the magic mirror ready. If you want to go through with a full stomach, that’s fine
by me.”


For Hali, fixing her face meant the careful application of an ugliness amplification spell, without which she never left the
house. As witches go, she lacked a certain fearsome something, though her formidable disposition sufficed to terrify the occasional
adolescent who wandered her way. Preteens, to her mortification, pegged her instantly as a pushover. If children were unavoidable,
Hali screwed her face into her most ferocious scowl, guaranteed to pique the curiosity of even the dullest toddler, but which
at least had the advantage of unnerving parents enough that the offending child would usually be dragged off, protesting.


At the other extreme, Hali’s most beguiling expression, adopted at social occasions attended by attractive males, tended to
send its targets running for their lives. Hali’s less-than-respectful familiar Bernie, an enchanted and voluble crow, had
more than once opined that Hali ought to try reversing the two expressions, but since he had to be well-fortified with liquor
(stolen from unattended drinks) to even make the suggestion, Hali remained immune to the idea—and mystified by her lack of
success with the opposite sex.


Without magical augmentation, Hali could pass unnoticed almost anywhere, a thin, nondescript woman with just enough of a point
to her thin nose and chin to qualify as —witchy.” Hali liked to think that her mouse-brown hair snaked about her face, but
in reality it hung in limp, slightly scraggly tendrils that only came to life in wet weather, when they suddenly sat up and
curled wildly in an uncontrollable mass that made it impossible for Bernie to keep his perch on Hali’s shoulder. “Not that
I’d want to go stand in a thunderstorm with her, anyway,” he’d been heard to sulk, but he admitted when pressed that Hali
was at her most impressive when the weather was at its worst.


This morning, Hali was less concerned with looking bad than with keeping the powers that be intimidated, and settled for the
basic crone look: shapeless black dress, dull limp hair shot through with grey, lifeless skin, and a slight enhancement to
the nose, making a proper beak of it. She refrained from adding a wart to the tip, since Bernie found such protuberances distasteful
and tended to show his displeasure by nipping at them whenever he got the chance. An old-fashioned pair of button-top boots
with outrageously pointed toes and a scruffy, handmade broom completed Hali’s ensemble, and she turned in front of the mirror.


“Perfect. Just the thing for the main office,” she commented with a certain smug satisfaction.

Bernie hopped onto the mirror and looked her over. “So where’s the pointy hat?”

“Hmmph. Pointy hats are cliché.”

“So’s the rest of the outfit.”

“Watch it, bird. You could spend the rest of your very short life as a slime mold.”

“Threats, threats. It could only be an improvement—anything’s better than being an ugly crow, or one of you dull, miserable
humans.”


“If you were miserable it was because you had no taste. This look is classic. And I’m not going to throw you in the briar
patch.”


“Urrrk,” Bernie grumbled, and decided his tailfeathers needed a bit of sudden preening.

“C’mon, bird, we’re wanted.” Hali held out her arm, and Bernie jumped onto it, walking up to the witch’s shoulder. “Ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

Frowning in concentration, Hali held her broom up in front of the mirror, which began to glow with a soft greywhite light.
Nodding, Hali stepped into the mirror, which shivered and flexed like a mercury soap bubble as she passed through.


The other side of the mirror opened onto a dark cavern, so deep beneath the ground that not even a memory of daylight could
penetrate. Hali pushed through the mirror, which clung to her like a second, silvery skin before parting suddenly, with a
violent burst of light. For an instant, the flash lit up the walls of the large cavern filled with walkways, balconies, and
doors, hinting at the labyrinthine complex of corridors beyond. The light faded instantly, leaving only an outline around
Hali of glowing, molten silver that seemed to drip off of her, sizzling to nothingness on the rocky floor, leaving total darkness.
Hali waited patiently for her eyes to adjust, while Bernie moaned quietly on her shoulder.


“You throw up on me and I’ll sell your remains to a milliner,” Hali threatened. “I warned you not to eat that toast.”

“I’m OK, I’m OK,” Bernie gasped. “Just give me a second to turn rightside out.” He burped and tucked his head under one wing.
Voice muffled, he continued to complain nonetheless, “… stupid way to travel when you can fly, and why do these stupid caverns
have to be so dark—doesn’t anybody know about lighting around here? I just can’t believe I voluntarily subjected myself to
this thing again, and next time I’m flying even if it takes a week….”


“Quiet already, bird. These halls are lighted. You just have lousy night vision.”

“And whose fault is that? You’re the one who turned me into a crow. I never liked dark, closed-in places anyhow.”

“Come on, Bernie, you tried to pick my pocket in a subway,” Hali said.

“It was a well-lighted subway.” Bernie risked a peek at his surroundings and cawed faintly. He hid his head again, and shivered.
“Even an owl couldn’t see in this place.”


With her eyes adjusted to the dark, Hali could make out walkways limned in a faint luminescence. Moving briskly, she turned
to the largest corridor with the most ostentatious entry, a large arch embellished with twining, distorted creatures, their
gaping mouths and staring eyes glowing particularly bright. The corridor itself was little more than a tunnel with rough-hewn
rock walls, but gradually it squared out, developing smooth, flat walls that met floor and ceiling at right angles. To Hali’s
astonishment, the corridor further down was lit by track lighting that flooded the hallway with white light.


“Hey, Bernie, check out the new lighting.”

“Don’t make fun of me,” whimpered the crow. “I won’t look.”

“Seriously.” Hali shrugged, forcing Bernie to take his head out to keep his balance. He sat up in amazement, eyeing the walls.

“Wow. Is that wood paneling?”

Hali tapped the wall, and frowned. “Something artificial, but it sure looks impressive. Looks like wall-to-wall carpet up
ahead, too.”


“What the heck is Bentwood up to now?”

“I’m afraid to guess.” Continuing down the seemingly endless corridor, Hali noted the appearance of paintings on the walls,
then the addition of a few potted ferns, and a marble statue of an aristocratic elf in hunting gear (complete with antlers).
When she finally reached her destination, Hali was only moderately surprised to find a stylish receptionist sitting at a desk
that looked more like an oversized fort of walnut and chrome. Dressed for success with a vengeance, the elven receptionist
looked down her finely chiseled nose and asked, with distaste, “May I help you?”


“I’m here to see Bentwood,” Hali growled.

“I’m afraid that’s impossible. The executive producer is very busy at present, and sees no one without an appointment.”

“Oh, really?” Hali purred.

“Really. If you wish to make an appointment, ask your immediate supervisor to speak with the sector coordinator, who will
schedule you a time, if he decides your problem merits Mr. Bentwood’s attention.” The elegant receptionist smiled sweetly
and turned away.


Determined, Hali started around the desk, heading for the double doors marked Executive Offices, only to find her path blocked
by the sudden appearance of a shimmering ward field. “What the…”


“Really,” huffed the receptionist. “You riffraff can’t just walk in and disturb an important producer like Mr. Bentwood. Now
go away before I call security.”


“You simpering, overvarnished, and undersexed little elf. How dare you talk like that to me? Do you know who I am?” Hali shook
her broom in the receptionist’s face.


“Uh, oh,” said Bernie. Discreetly, he dropped off of Hali’s shoulder onto the floor and quickly slipped behind a nearby solid-looking
file cabinet, peeping out cautiously to keep one eye on the action. “This should be good,” he chortled quietly.


The receptionist waved an elegantly manicured hand. (The fingernails had gold filigree inlays, Hali noted with distaste.)
The receptionist called into the air, “Security to Mr. Bentwood’s office, please,” and smiled smugly as four enormous, club-toting
ogres appeared, near naked except for their low-slung studded leather belts, loincloths, white patentleather brassards, and
helmets labeled “Security” perched on their essentially neckless heads. Their huge shoulders filled the reception area to
overcrowding, but their short, spindly legs left considerable room down at Bernie’s level on the floor, and he briefly debated
the possibilities of adding his beak to the coming fray.


“Where’s da trouble, doll?” asked the leader, leaning over the reception desk with a murderous grin and a bit of a leer. He
scratched himself suggestively under his loincloth. Haughtily, the receptionist pointed.


Hali leaned nonchalantly against the other side of the desk. She nodded genially and the ogres’ smiles disappeared. “Oh, shit.
Not Hali again!” one moaned.


Hali waved. “Hi, boys. Say good-bye.” Two ogres had time to turn but not to run before the transformation hit them, leaving
four disgruntled toads in their place. Hali turned to the receptionist and considered briefly before snapping her fingers.
“A monkey. You’d make a great monkey.” A very ugly bare-bottomed monkey sat in the receptionist’s place, and Hali grinned.
“Perfect. Be a dear and catch those toads before they get into trouble, will you?” The monkey chittered in dismay, staring
at her hands, then at the toads, and back at her hands again, while Hali considered the almost invisible wall that kept her
from the door.


“I think I’ll leave the wards up. What do you want to bet Bentwood can’t undo this from inside?” Hali tapped her broom twice
on the floor, then dissolved, turning into a cloud of white smoke that diffused through the barrier, then funneled quickly
through the keyhole.


“Hey Hali, wait up!” squawked Bernie. He hopped up to the ward-field wall, and tentatively pecked at it. “Oh, phooey, I wanted
to see this.” He flew up onto the desk and eyed the monkey. “Well, babe, we’ve got some free time. Want to see if you can
make a monkey of me?” He jumped quickly to save his tailfeathers from the furious receptionist, who shrieked madly and began
hopping up and down, bouncing off the walls in simian fury. Retreating behind his file cabinet again, Bernie shook his head.
“It’s amazing the effect I have on women. What a waste of sheer talent.”


Inside the office, Bentwood sat behind a polished desk that could, in case of flood, serve as a raft for all two dozen elves
in the secretarial pool. With a mirror propped up before him, Bentwood carefully adjusted the folds of the snowy white ascot
that peeked out from the moss-green velvet collar of his terribly sophisticated smoking jacket. His wizened face, bulging
bald brow, and protuberant ears, all in the color of slightly mildewed mahogany, sat oddly atop such elegance, but Bentwood
felt he had reached the height of sartorial elegance, and his satisfaction showed in the lipless grin that spread literally
from ear to ear.


Suddenly he realized that smoke was pouring into his office. Jumping off of his high chair, Bentwood scrambled for the door.
The smoke got there first, solidifying in a tall column before the backpedaling troll.


“Eeee-hee-hee-heh-heh.” The piercing shriek echoed throughout the oversized office, and Bentwood relaxed.

“Hali, sweetie, nice entrance,” Bentwood told the materializing witch. “Great sound effects, too, but you need to work on
the makeup. That look is really dated now, you know, and brooms—no one’s doing brooms anymore.” He backed up as a glowering
Hali loomed over him. “Did you notice how that shriek of yours echoed in here? You’d think a rug this thick would prevent
that. Remind me to get some acoustical tiling in here.”


Hali bared her teeth in a most unpleasant smile, and Bentwood scuttled behind his desk. Holding her broom in a decidedly aggressive
position, Hali stalked him slowly.


“Now, Hali, baby, sweetheart—no need to get upset. I’ve got great news for you. A new job’s come up.” Hali snarled, and Bentwood
waved his hands expansively, talking fast. “It’s a great opportunity, on the leading edge—bound to be your big break. Just
what you’ve been waiting for. Believe me.”


Hali exploded. “Ha! The only thing I’ve been waiting for is that new house you promised me, Bentwood. For years you’ve been
promising me, and what do I get? A plastic prefab job you picked up in the Outer Worlds, dirt cheap. I’ve been Out more than
once lately, and I was not pleased to discover restaurants—selling pancakes, yet—that look exactly like my place, even down
to that totally pathetic blue roof. You know that Outworld materials are magic-resistant. I can’t even get a decent remodeling
spell to hold for more than a month. Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is for a witch to have a spiffy white house?


“I’ve been patient since you told me there’s no funds for a new place, business is slow. There’s funds for your office, I
notice.” Hali waved at the room. “This place is bigger than my whole house, and there’s enough lumber in the paneling and
furniture to keep my fire going all winter. Which is what I’ll do with it if you don’t come clean.”


“Hali, sweetheart, baby, cookie, honey, don’t be like this,” Bentwood pleaded.

“And what’s with all the names? You used to at least be polite. For a troll, anyway.”

“It’s all part of this new project I’ve got going,” Bentwood explained eagerly. “If you’d just let me explain…”

“You know, you were a decent guy when you worked with the rest of us out in the field. Then the white collar crew pulls you
out from under that old stone bridge, and you go putting on airs and refusing to listen to your old buddies. Maybe you need
to try getting back to your roots for a while.”


“Listen, that bridge was the pits. Oh, the slime was great, but having those prissy goats going ’trip-trap, trip-trap’ overhead
every day was really getting to me. I’m a troll with big ideas, it’s just taken time to get in a position where I can act
on them.


“Times are changing, Hali. Business is down so low we’re facing the biggest crisis ever to hit the Inner Worlds. No one believes
in us anymore.”


“The folks in the Outer Worlds never did believe, Bentwood. You know that. To them we’re nothing more than characters in fairy
tales, if that. They have the darnedest ideas about witches, let me tell you. I stopped by for one of their fancy celebrations—Halloween,
they call it. You should have seen it….” Hali sat on the edge of Bentwood’s desk, pensively gazing into the air.


Though relieved that Hali appeared willing to talk, Bentwood hurried to forestall what promised to be an ex-tended reminiscence.
“The thing is, they used to believe, deep down. At least the kids did, the ones who heard the fairy tales and saw themselves
as mistreated Cinderellas every time they had to take the garbage out, or the ones who wouldn’t go out alone at night for
fear of the boogeyman. Now nobody even reads the fairy tales anymore. Everybody watches this new invention, the TV, with its
moving picture shows of talking animals and teenaged mutant samurai critters, things like that. No more ogres or trolls—everyone
wants aliens from outer space, and they’re just Not Our Kind.”


“Oh, c’mon, Bentwood, what about that writer, that Tolkien fellow? Seems like most of the kids that have come through my place
of late mention him. We suffer in comparison, I gather, but at least they’re getting the idea.”


“It’s not the same. You work with adolescents, and the ones you see represent a fringe group of literate misfits, mostly,
and there’s just not enough of them. We’re losing our belief base in the Outer Worlds, and without that energy we’re in trouble.”


“Energy?” Hali asked. “What are you talking about? Seems like there’s plenty of energy here.” She gestured at the glistening
postmodern chandelier in the middle of the ceiling.


“Not that kind of energy, exactly,” Bentwood explained, pulling a report folder from his desk. “I’m talking about magic, the
essence of magic. Our researchers have borrowed some of their energy concepts and terminology from the Outer World, but the
theories work with magic, so far.


“It turns out the magic we take for granted is actually a form of energy, generated by the belief of the Outworlders. For
the most part they’re not even aware of the energy, so it lies around unused until somehow it gathers here, where anyone with
the talent and concentration can use it to create things.


“The catch is, the energy from their imagination gravitates to us only if they’ve been imagining the right sort of things.
The research team thinks this television doohickey is siphoning off our energy. Somewhere a world populated by television
characters is forming, even as we speak, and ours is starting to fade. Not enough to notice, but several wizards doing independent
research have picked it up. I’ve been able to keep it quiet, so far, but we’ve got to do something to reverse this trend.
The theorists don’t know if we’ll just disappear one day, or if we’ll find ourselves working as extras in that television
world, but either way I won’t stand for it.”


“So what can you do about it?” Hali asked. “Working between worlds takes a lot of energy as it is, and the time differentials
between worlds make it almost impossible. It’s really disorienting, you know, going away for an afternoon and coming back
a hundred years later. Not so bad going the other way, but still…”


Impatiently, Bentwood interrupted. “The tech boys think they’ve found a way to hold us in sync long enough to do what we need
to. That Tolkien fellow’s the key, really. As far as we’ve been able to make out, a whole generation grew up fantasizing over
his epic. Somebody else invented a game that let you make up your own adventures of that sort, with dungeons, dragons, elves—even
trolls.”


“Witches?”

“Not really, from what I’ve heard, though there’s lots of magic-working types in these role-playing games. The thing is, this
is as close as people are getting to our kind of world these days, and we do seem to get energy from this bunch. I figure
if we can steer the gamers closer still, we’ve got a chance.”


“I don’t like the sound of these gamers, Bentwood. Fantasy is a serious business. We’re supposed to be helping Outworlders
mature by facing their anxieties, acting out their problems. Nothing inspires me more than taking a spoiled brat and forcing
her to scrub floors until she starts acting human. A game just won’t do that, particularly if the kids get to make them up
themselves. It’ll be all magic swords and great battles, without the blood and blisters to make it real.”


“That’s the point—we’re going to make it real for them.” Bentwood gestured wildly in enthusiasm. “We’re going to bring gamers
here and show them how grim real fantasy adventures should be.”


“I thought that was what we were doing all along.”

“Yes, but they haven’t been coming to us, so we’re going to them. It’s all worked out, advertising, teleportation stations,
the works. We’re going to revive the ’magical shop around the corner’ bit, only we’re renting a space to give us a permanent
center of operations.”


Hali shrugged. “Why pay when you can just magic up a store whenever you need one? I thought the big drain was keeping up the
connection, not creating the building.”


“I don’t understand the mechanics, but the wizards in operations tell me they need a fixed, physical anchor for the kind of
time-flow adjustments they’re doing. We can cross over without losing centuries while we’re gone. When we bring kids back
here the time flow normalizes, so they can spend days here and be gone only seconds from Outworld.”


“So what are we going to do? Run tour groups through in little buses so they can gawk at the ogres and elves in their native
habitat?” Hali asked. “Much as I’d love to see the elf lords hawking souvenirs, it doesn’t sound practical. I hate to be difficult…”


“Oh, sure.” Bentwood rolled his eyes.

Hali ignored him. “… but advertising? Some of those people have really weird ideas about ’fantasy elements’ like us, witches in particular, and I really don’t
think it’s a good idea to bring us to their attention. You wouldn’t believe the insanity of it all. One visit I made they
were running in packs, burning and torturing dozens of perfectly normal people. I just about got burned at the stake myself
once when I tried to talk some sense into a rabid preacher. We don’t need that kind of trouble.”


“Hali, babe, what century were you visiting? They don’t do that sort of thing anymore. Well, not often, anyway, and not about
witches. I hope.” Bentwood shuddered. “I’m more worried about the bad press, but we’ve got that angle covered, believe me.”


“Covered how?”

“We tell everybody it’s just another game. See, technology there has gotten so advanced no one understands it all anymore.
Stuff like that television might as well be magic. No one knows how it really works, but they all watch it, and just assume
there’s a scientific explanation behind it. We’re going to show them magic right out in the open, and tell them it’s a new
invention and the mechanics have to be kept secret to keep the competition from stealing our device. The idea was invented
by Outworlders, so the credibility’s there already.”


Hali interrupted indignantly. “You’re using an Outworlder invention with magic? Are you crazy? You know their technology is
magic-resistant.”


“I’m not that stupid,” Bentwood huffed. “We’re just pretending to be using a technology that doesn’t really exist. The Outworlders
have this idea, they call it Cyberpunk for some reason, anyway they have this idea that people ought to be able to stick wires
in their heads and talk directly to thinking machines called computers. Taken to an extreme, you could create a fantasy world
in the mind of the computer, and people could visit through these cyber-connections. We’re going to fake the process, putting
metal caps on people, with lots of wires, in rooms filled with phony computers. Then we take the caps off, tell them the game
is starting, and lead them out the back door straight here. The guys in marketing have come up with a great name for our world.”
He pulled out a slick brochure featuring a brightly colored castle filled with enough turrets to fulfill the wettest dreams
of a mad Germanic king. At the top, in bold, blood-dripping Gothic capitals, it read “Welcome to GRIMMWORLD!”


“BENTWOOD, you’re crazy,” said Hali. Seated in one of Bentwood’s leather-upholstered wingback chairs she looked through the
slick brochure that outlined the myriad charms