willa richards ✸ wanda maximoff (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} hexfactor) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} thereincarnates,@ 2016-11-06 01:17:00 |
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| Entry tags: | !au, !fairytale, adrienne o'carroll, mason sullivan, willette sullivan |
Who: Mason & Willette Sullivan, with Adrienne O’Carroll
What: They’re lost in the woods & find a house made of sweets, a witch hungry for children, & Willette finally wakes up to the new world before changing it back.
Where: The forests of Genosha
When: Morning/Afternoon
Warnings: Some violence and mentions of cannibalism
That night when Willette had first woken up, she still couldn’t believe that their father was gone. She knew that their family was poor and hadn’t been doing well, even on the days when they were actually able to sell something at the market they were still barely able to feed all of them. The whole land was suffering from famine, and three winters before this, their mother had died after a long sickness. Their father had only just re-married the year before, to a horrible woman who seemed to extremely dislike her new husband’s children, always complaining about how much the children ate as if Willette and her brother were the sole reason the family was still often going hungry. Willette didn’t like her much either, and she missed her mother.
She wasn’t a little girl anymore, she knew what having hard times meant, but never in a million years would Willette have thought their own father would abandon his children like this. She and her brother had gone with their father and his new wife into the woods the day before, to accompany them while they did their work and gather what food they could to eat for dinner that night. Their father had told them he wanted to show them a part of the forest they’d never seen before, now that they were old enough, but they had overheard him and his second wife talking the night before. They’d heard her urging their father to take them into the woods and leave them there so she and her husband at least wouldn’t die from hunger, and they’d heard their father eventually give in. Willette had cried herself to sleep that night, only comforted by the words of her brother when he told her that no matter what, he would take care of them.
Their father had given them each a loaf of bread at the beginning of the day so they didn’t go hungry, but he urged them not to eat the bread until later. Willette took hers and did not eat it, but Mason had been secretly throwing crumbs on the ground the deeper they went into the woods in the hopes that they’d be able to find their way out again, and once they stopped to build a fire, their father told the children to wait here for them. He and his wife were going to go collect some wood to take back home, and once they were done, they would return for them. Once they were gone, Willette started to cry again, because she knew it was a lie. They still waited, huddled by the fire to keep warm until she finally fell asleep. When she woke up it was already dark, their parents had never returned, and Willette was frightened. Mason reassured her that now that the moon had risen they could use the light to follow the trail of crumbs back out of the woods.
Only once the started, they soon saw that there were no bread crumbs left, they’d all been eaten. Most likely by birds and other animals in the forest. Still not wanting to give up hope, they kept walking hand in hand the whole night and sharing the loaf of bread that Willette had, until finally it was morning again. They were still incredibly lost, but Willette thought she caught sight of a house up ahead in the middle of a small forest clearing. “Mason, look! A house!”
Mason had grown weary of his father the moment he had met their step-mother and had decided to marry her. He’d always been a realist, forced to grow up quickly amidst the famine in order for their family to survive. Thriving wasn’t something anybody was doing these days, but surviving… Surviving was for the smart, his father had taught him that. He just never assumed that smart survival would have to be used in reaction to his father who once loved him and his sister. He’d grown to suspect it over time, every time he heard that wicked woman’s whispers in his father’s ears, when he comforted Willette when she cried over the things they overheard.
He’d been angry, but he hadn’t shown it. He needed to be strong for his sister. That had always been Mason’s top priority, even before things got tough. When he was younger, just a tiny boy only as tall as his father’s thigh, his dad had emphasized how important it was that he look out for Willette. He wouldn't, their father said, always be around, and Mason would need to fill that void when that happened. From that moment on, every move he made was a calculated thought to make sure it was in the best interest of his sister. It was her he thought of when he'd left the bread crumbs. His anger at being left, at his father choosing that wicked woman over his children, had almost been blinding. He would just as soon try and make it on their own as go find them. If they didn't want them, why try and force themselves on them? They didn't need them.
But Willette, he realized, did need their father. The basic necessities they could find, but he wouldn't be able to replace their father in her heart. So he'd swallowed his pride, and tried to make it so they could get back with his bread. It would have worked had the birds not been just as hungry as they. His carefully laid escape plan had been swallowed by the hungry creatures.
“It's a strange looking house,” Mason frowned, his eyes squinting to see better. He was weary of strangers; if their own father didn't want them, why would someone who had no ties to them? But he pushed forward. It wasn't as though they had any better options. And as he pushed a leafy branch out of his line of view, he realized why it looked strange. It was made of sweets.
“Maybe we can steal some of that to take with us?” He whispered, his eyes lighting up. He'd never seen so much food in one place before, let alone desserts. “We can sneak away before anyone inside notices.”
The house did look strange, but it took Willette just as long to realize why. It was strange all on its own for a house to be out this far in the woods, when there were no others around, not even close to it. They would be smart to be wary. Willette remembered hearing stories when they were younger of witches living somewhere in these woods, a thought that immediately sent a small shiver down her spine. How could their father leave them here, knowing that there might be witches who could do them harm? Willette felt sick to her stomach, wondering if their father knew of these rumors, or if he even cared. She didn’t really want the answer to either.
Willette hiked her dress up a little more so it wasn't trailing as much on the muddy ground, stepping closer to Mason to peer through the line of branches with him. It soon became as apparent to her as it did to Mason why the house looked so strange; it was made entirely of sweets. Willette’s stomach immediately started to rumble, realizing not for the first time that day how hungry she was. The loaf of bread to share between them hadn't been nearly enough to stave off hunger, and they’d finished that hours ago. If they didn’t figure out something soon, they might both starve before they ever found their way out of the woods, and now there was a house made entirely of sweets right in front of him, as if someone had answered their prayers.
Her stomach growled louder, and Willette placed both hands over it, as if that would somehow make it forget how hungry she was. Looking uneasily at Mason, she was hesitant to go closer to the house, despite how much she now wanted to take a bite out of it. The house (really more of a large cottage), seemed to be built entirely of gingerbread and cakes, with window panes made of sugar and what Willette thought was a candy cane door handle. Just thinking about how that door handle might taste made Willette’s mouth start to water, and then she was quick to give in.
“I guess it wouldn’t hurt…” Willette bit her lip nervously, but her stomach started to growl even louder, and that made the decision for her. Stepping out of the trees and into the clearing with her brother behind her, she bravely walked a few more steps closer to the house, stopping only to peer more closely at the windows before whispering to Mason. “I don’t think anyone’s home.”
Mason grinned for the first time in weeks, his eyes lighting up at the prospect of not only eating, but being able to taste sweets as delectable as these seemed. Their village was extremely poor, with little resources and a lot of starving families. Most people couldn't rub two coins together to afford basic foods like bread and vegetables, let alone spring for cakes from the baker in the town over. He couldn't remember seeing these many sweets in his entire life. For a moment he feared it were a mirage, but his sister saw it too. That meant he couldn't be hallucinating, right?
Normally Mason was logical, slow, and calculating. He was the type of boy who angered easily, but carefully thought out plans. Like with the bread crumbs. Although he hadn’t factored in the birds, he’d still tried planning something to help them find their way home. This time, however, his hunger was far too strong to ignore in the name of logic. He should have been a proper, protective big brother and suggested that it wasn’t a good idea, even though it had been his. Whoever lived there could come back at any moment. They could get caught by a witch. The list went on and on.
Instead, Mason pulled off his shirt and undershirt, before putting his outer shirt back on and creating a makeshift bag out of his undershirt and a stick. They’d need something to carry some of the sweets away with, especially if they wanted more than they could hold in their hands. Which, of course, they did. There was no telling how long it would be before they found more food. The woods were vast and full of danger, and they had miles to go before they’d be free of them in any direction. And that was only if they went the right direction immediately and didn’t get all turned around, which was likely to happen. In his head he was trying to calculate what would be best for them to grab. What wouldn’t be missed or noticed? What would be most filling? What would keep the best?
Once he was near the house, however, following closely to Willette’s footsteps, that went out the window. He was starving, and there was a veritable feast in front of them. He dropped the bag at his feet and ripped a chunk of gingerbread off the roof of the house, and after inspection to make sure it didn’t outwardly look poisoned, he took a large bite.
“Holy hell,” He sighed happily. It was heavenly tasting. Any food would have been just then with how hungry they were, but this took it to another level. “Here, try this…” He held it out to his sister, already working on pulling a giant gumdrop off of the window sill with his other hand.
Willette couldn't remember the last time she had eaten sweets, much less seen any with her own eyes. Any kind of sweets, but especially this kind. Their family had always been too poor to afford such rich desserts, and their village itself often scarce for sweets entirely with their resources so few and often dried up. She remembered once when they were very young their father had scraped enough money together to get her and Mason a small cake each, and they'd both wolfed down their cakes so fast that Willette’s stomach had hurt for awhile after, but even now she could still recall exactly how her cake had tasted.
That nice memory stung now, in the wake of what their father had done to them, so Willette pushed the memory aside and focused on the present. It was just her and Mason now, they didn't have anyone else. They didn't need anyone else, as long as they had each other. Even in the midst of her lingering despair, Willette was comforted by that thought. As much as their father’s betrayal hurt them, as long as she had her brother, Willette didn’t need much else.
Except for food.
No matter how much her mind tried to tell her body otherwise, she did need food to keep on living, and right now they were faced with a house literally made of sweets, just the sight and smell of it already making Willette’s stomach rumble a little louder. She wasn’t strong enough to resist, though when Mason first went for the chunk of gingerbread, she did experience a private, temporary panic that perhaps somehow the sweets that made up the house were poisoned and he’d just poisoned himself. But of course she was just being ridiculous, her paranoia was simply the result of the severe emotional trauma they had just been through, and it became apparent soon enough that he was okay so WIllette stopped stalling and actually went for it.
She eagerly took the offered piece of gingerbread from her brother and bit into it eagerly, the spiced sweetness of the ginger making her stomach dance a little as she swallowed it down, closing her eyes gratefully. Willette went for the window panes made of sugar next, taking off a nice slab of it from the corner and putting it hungrily in her mouth. It immediately melted on her tongue in a pleasant way and she was quick to bite another piece off of it, her stomach slowly starting to fill up at the same time as her head started to feel light from the all the sugar. “Try the windows, they’re very good. We should make sure to take a lot of those for later.”
Mason was, at least, making sure that half of what he took off of the house ended up in his bag for them for later. It wasn’t as good as most of it going into the bag, but he couldn’t for the life of him resist taking bite after bite of the sweets the house had to offer. He was eating too fast, he knew. At some point in the future he was likely to vomit up everything he’d just eaten, but it’d be worth it, wouldn’t it? To feel for a glorious couple of minutes the way the rich families did and have a full stomach without worrying where his next bite was coming from.
He should have told his sister to slow down as well. They would need water soon, and the house didn’t have a magical waterfall or anything that they could steal drink from as they did the sweets. He didn’t want her to vomit the way he was going to, but he also couldn’t deny her this moment any more than he could resist it himself. They’d suffered so much in their lives; they deserved to have this blissful time no matter the future consequences. They deserved this food.
Listening to Willette, Mason reached over and broke a good chunk off of the windows. It was breaking his internal rule of only taking what wouldn’t be noticed, but one bite of the sugary sweetness that melted on his tongue made him care less about what they would leave behind for the rightful owner of the property. Instead, he shoved a huge chunk into their bag and ripped another one off for himself, closing his eyes to savor the decadent flavors swirling around. If he didn’t know any better, he would assume he and his sister had already died and gone to heaven.
“Here, grab some of the flowers. They look like they’re made out of sweets, too.” Maybe jellied candies. That was the look they had to them. He returned to grabbing some more gingerbread since it was the most filling, contemplating foregoing wearing any shirt in return for having another bag. “We’re going to need to find something to drink soon, too. How are you feeling?”
Willette was feeling full. A little sick to her stomach already, to be honest. She’d been shoveling various sweets into her mouth the same as Mason, while also slowly filling up the pockets of her dress with sweets, before she eventually gathered up the ends of her dress to pile more of the food into her makeshift sack. She should have been worried that she might vomit, but Willette was so deliriously happy in that moment that she didn’t care. They were still lost in the woods, but she and her brother were still together, and they’d found a house made entirely of sweets when they had been facing the very real reality of starving to death. Someone was clearly looking out for them and answering their prayers, and at this rate, they would be taking enough sweets with them that they wouldn’t be hungry again for a good, long while.
She was also thirsty, and she was about to say something about how they should try to find water, but then she was distracted by the flowers Mason had pointed her towards, the ones that looked like jellied candies. She plucked off a petal to try it, placing it carefully in her mouth before biting down. It tasted like a curious mixture of sweet and sour, which Willette decided that she liked, so she started plucking a few of the flowers from their pots and placing them in her dress. Glancing at the door handle, Willette was a little disappointed that they wouldn’t be able to take that with them. She loved peppermint flavors, and candy canes were one of her favorites. Maybe she could still steal a lick or two from it… Surely that wouldn’t hurt.
Just as she was about to move closer to the front door to try and steal a few licks of the door handle made of candy canes, the door itself flew wide open, and Willette shrieked. Startled, she immediately dropped all the sweets she’d been holding in the folds of her dress and darted behind Mason, fearful of whoever might come out. They had been trespassing, after all, and she couldn’t imagine that the owner of a house made of sweets would take too kindly to people eating from it without their permission. Fearful, Willette peaked out from behind her brother and gasped. The woman who had emerged from the house wasn’t what she’d expected at all, though Willette hadn’t really known what to expect. She was somewhat small and a little gaunt looking in her face, her skin very pale with raven black hair, and extraordinarily bright eyes.
The woman was beautiful, Willette decided, somehow dangerously so. Willette was instantly afraid while also a little curious, gawking openly at the woman while she flashed the brother and sister a wide smile and spoke to them in a voice that was smooth as honey, sounding almost like a song. “Well, well, what have we here. You poor dears, are you lost? You must be, and hungry, to be trying to make off with all those sweets. Come in, won’t you? I can give you all the sweets you could ever want, as well as some water for the journey home.”
Mason immediately took a step back when the woman came out of the candy cottage, his hand dropping the handful of window pane he had in favor of throwing his arm out instinctively to protect his sister. There was one driving force in Mason’s life that was greater than any other; his need to keep Willette safe. It was almost an insane compulsion on his part; more often than not, he was willing to forego his own safety in order to keep her alive. If it had come down to them starving, he would gladly give up his portion of food so that she could keep going. It probably wasn’t healthy, but there had never been anybody who gave a shit about him really except his sister, and like hell was he risking losing her.
That was probably a gigantic overreaction in his head to a lonely woman offering them some more food and something to drink. As full as Mason’s stomach was, he was still craving something to drink. They’d journeyed far and hadn’t had anything to drink for hours, which was going to be a bigger problem for them than the food. His heart was fluttering with nerves about the offer from the woman with the crazy eyes, though. It was possible he was overreacting because of the idea of witches that had been in his head since they were abandoned. After all, so far all she’d done was offer them hospitality, right? If she were a witch, she would have already turned them into toads or pigs for eating part of her house. He glanced over at the house for a moment and felt a bit ashamed; so it wasn’t a little bit of the house, but a lot of it. They’d made more of a dent into it in their frenzy to eat the sweets than he realized until he was forced to take a step back and look at their damage. Really, the fact that she was speaking to them sweetly at all made her a saint. They had damaged her house.
“Maybe you could just direct us to a stream or something?” He asked carefully, still standing protectively in front of Willette. Just in case. He was likely just being rude to a nice woman offering them help, but what if he wasn’t? What if she was dangerous? He would never forgive himself if something happened to his sister on his watch. Still, his tongue felt dry, and his lips were parched and ready to crack. He was certain that Willette likely felt the same. They definitely needed a drink. They didn’t have much choice but to trust this woman.
“Maybe just a small drink, then we’ll be on our way. Unless you want us to fix your house. That’s the least we can do.” He glanced once more at the damage they’d caused and frowned. “But we really can’t be long. Our family’s waiting for us.” So it was a lie. At least it made it seem like there would be people looking for them if they were to disappear. That was safer, right?
Willette also wondered if the woman was a witch. After all, what kind of woman st her age lived all alone in a house in the middle of the forest? Not that she knew how old the woman was, but she still looked fairly young. Young enough that she could probably still find a husband, and have a child. People in their village often whispered that the only women who didn't want to find a husband and have children, women who lived alone voluntarily, were almost certainly witches. That should have frightened her, but Willette found herself more curious than anything else. Maybe even a little bit excited. It wasn’t true that all witches were bad, was it? If this woman was a witch, maybe she was a good witch. That was always possible, wasn’t it?
She felt safer with Mason protectively in front of her, gripping a little too tightly onto his forearm as she peeked around him to peer at the woman. She didn’t really look like a witch, but Willette had no idea what witches even looked like. Did they have pointy hats and crooked noses like the stories say, or did they look normal, like everyone else? Willette thought that it would make a witch exceedingly more dangerous if she looked like everyone else, so it would be smarter on the witches part to make themselves look more normal. Maybe they didn’t look like everyone else but they were able to cast some sort of spell that hid their warts and black eyes, so no one would ever suspect them until it was too late. Willette shivered at the thought, but she hung onto the hope that maybe she was just a nice, strange woman who was inviting them inside for a drink. It was almost as if she’d read Willette’s mind, because by this point Willette was extremely thirsty, and all that gingerbread had only made her thirst even worse.
“Oh, nonsense, it’s there to be eaten!” The dark haired woman laughed, and Willette thought that remark a little strange, but she didn’t question it too much. She was just relieved that the woman didn’t seem to be angry that they’d eaten chunks off her house. She smiled again at the two of them, waving with her hand in a gesture to get inside as she stepped to the side so they could get past her. “Eat as much as you like, there’s even more to be had inside. While you’re eating your fill, I can get you something nice and refreshing to drink before you go on your way.”
Willette glanced hesitantly up at her brother, but he seemed to be leaning towards accepting her offer, which more or less settled it for Willette. If he was going inside, so was she, and she did so bravely, stepping out from behind her brother and leading the way into the woman’s house. The inside was dim and a little… musty, but Willette forced her feet to keep going, until she and Mason were both inside and the woman shut the door behind them. She almost balked then, the urge to tug on Mason’s arm and begging him to leave rising, until she caught sight of the table full of food. Mostly bread and cheeses, and even though she’d been feeling sick to her stomach only two seconds ago, suddenly Willette’s stomach was rumbling again. The dark haired woman ushered them eagerly to the table where two chairs were pulled out. “Go on then, have a seat, both of you. Help yourselves, while I get you that something to drink!”
Mason didn’t trust. It had never bothered him, not being able to trust people. For the most part he thought it came pretty damn in handy when he had to read people. It wasn’t like a lot of people had given him cause to trust people through his life. Only Willette. He would always trust his sister, and in turn do whatever was necessary to keep her safe and happy, others be damned. She was worth more than fifty of their father, and while he’d never say it out loud so as not to upset her in this tumultuous time, he was more upset that he’d hurt Willette’s feelings than he was that he’d abandoned Mason too.
Because he trusted his intuition so much, Mason didn’t hesitate to sit down at the table eagerly, his mouth salivating at the food in front of them. He wasn’t getting any bad feelings right then because all he could feel was the rumbling in his stomach and the renewed hunger. While sweets had been an alright substitute for food when they’d had nothing, it wasn’t a real replacement for actual, genuine home-cooking. They hadn’t had a proper meal in days; their family couldn’t afford it. So they survived on what they could get, which usually amounted to some broth and a sliver of bread if they were lucky. He couldn’t remember the last time they had food that included cheese, or even the little bit of meat that was on the table.
Mason shared a look with his sister, trying to will himself to have self-control. Digging in and scarfing the food down in a completely uncivilized manner could offend their hostess, and then she might refuse them drink. Drink was what they needed more than food, no matter how much his body wanted him to just start shoveling food in his mouth. Whatever he was looking for from his sister he must have gotten, because Mason started grabbing bread and cheese to put on her plate first before he even touched his own plate. Willette was always first in Mason’s world. It was a staunch rule that nobody was ever going to convince him to change.
“That’s really nice of you,” He spoke, having sense enough to remember his pleasantries and wait until he’d chewed and swallowed before speaking. “All of this is really nice. I promise you we’ll pay you back for everything when we can.”
If she hadn’t been so hungry, Willette might have stopped to consider just how this woman had been able to come by such decedent foods when the rest of the country was virtually starving. Willette hadn’t even known cheese still existed, since it was hard enough getting milk from a cow these days. Their family’s cows had all died in the last hard winter, and other neighbors who’d managed to keep theirs alive, had eventually been found unable to keep producing milk. People had started making mutterings that the land was cursed, and Willette wasn’t sure they were wrong. Over the years it had become so terrible that anything living, plant or animal, had a hard time surviving, and the people inhabiting the lands were barely hanging on by a thread.
Seeing this much food in one place, especially bread that still looked fresh and so much cheese, it was unusual, but Willette was too hungry to care. She shared the same look with Mason and she thought she could sense the same in him, so it didn’t take Willette long to relax in her seat, and Mason was already putting some bread and cheese on her plate before putting any on his own. Even when they were close to starving, her brother always put her first. Willette would love him forever for that, even if she wished he would sometimes remember to really take care of himself too. He never would if it meant to being able to take care of her first, she knew that.
Even with as thirsty as she was, those first few bites of bread were like heaven. Like any other young person she loved sweets, but sweets weren’t satisfying. They also weren’t at all substantial, so even with as much of the house as they’d eaten, it wouldn’t have been long before they were hungry again, had the woman not offered them something better. Sweets didn’t fill you up for long, and a lot of the time they just ended up leaving more of an emptiness in your stomach than you’d had before. This bread and cheese was hitting just the right spot, and Willette had finally stopped feeling light headed, though she barely noticed as she continued to eat, shoveling the bread and cheese into her mouth hungrily as fast but as safely as she could.
Her mouth was full when her brother spoke so Willette couldn’t echo the sentiment, but she nodded several times with her mouth full of bread, and the woman laughed loudly as she brought them over two glasses of water. “Oh, don’t be silly, children. You can repay me by eating enough of that bread and cheese to really fatten yourselves up!”
Mason had never tasted anything so wonderful in his life as the bread and cheese in front of him. Even when their family had bread, it was the bread made from the barest of ingredients, so it was often hard and difficult to chew. This bread was fresh and flakey, light, and even still a little warm as though it were just baked. He was sure that he could fill up on this bread alone, but he tried to control himself. He needed more sustenance even if this tasted better than anything he'd ever tasted.
He swallowed another bite of the scrumptious cheese on his plate, closing his eyes to fully appreciate it. It should have been strange to him that the woman wasn’t joining them for the meal despite there being enough food to feed their entire family on the table alone. Instead, he grabbed the water from her a little too eagerly and gulped down the glass entirely in just a few swallows. He hadn’t been fully aware of how thirsty he was until he was presented with something to drink; then it was as if he’d crossed the desert with his sister to get there rather than the woods that probably had streams they could have located. No matter; those streams wouldn’t have cheese on their banks to go with the water the way they had here.
Mason was mid-chew when her strange words sunk in, and he slowed his action down until his mouth was barely moving. He stared at the woman quizzically; perhaps he’d misheard her? It seemed such a strange statement, declaring that she wanted them to fatten themselves up like that. He could understand if she said she wanted them to have their fill, or even put some meat on their bones considering how skinny they were from starvation. He slowly set what was left of the bread he was mauling down on his plate, and finally swallowed what was in his mouth.
“I’m sorry, I think I misheard you? You want to fatten us up?” Mason laughed nervously. “It sounds like you’re looking at us like turkeys.”
Willette had also been too busy chewing on hunks of bread and cheese, and gulping down half her glass of water to really notice the strange statement at first. Everything tasted so good, the bread was warm and still fluffy against her tongue, the cheese sharp and rich tasting. Willette hadn't felt happiness since before their parents had taken them into the woods, and now she was so full of food, good food, that she was practically beside herself with happiness. They’d been abandoned by the father who should have loved them more than that, but everything was fine now, because she and Mason still had each other, and now they were well fed.
Of course, they couldn’t very well stay here forever eating this woman out of house and bread, so they’d need to eventually figure out how to survive once they left here, but still. Willette was still in a surprisingly cheery mood, once her belly was full enough that it was no longer aching, and she’d quenched her thirst with the glass of water the strange woman had been so generous to give her. It wasn’t until Willette heard Mason’s response to the woman that she actually processed what the woman herself had said, and Willette looked up from the half-eaten bread in her hands, swallowing the bite in her mouth down hard and looking from Mason to the dark haired woman nervously. What she’d said had certainly been odd, but when Willette looked at her, she thought that the woman was looking at them a little… strangely. She might have laughed at Mason before, for thinking that anyone was looking at them like they were food, but Mason was right. The woman was standing off to the side of the table, looking at them hungrily.
“Oh, you didn’t mishear me, dearie,” the woman replied with a wicked grin, eyes glittering maliciously as she moved forward. “I want you both fattened up for my oven.” She cackled loudly, like she was making a joke, but something about the look in her eyes told a different story.
It was then that Willette, twisting her head to the side wildly, finally noticed the gigantic oven on the other side of the kitchen, and it had been lit, but there was nothing presently inside it that she could tell. But it was definitely large in size, big enough to fit two people in it. She hoped desperate that the woman was joking, but when Willette turned back to look at her, that’s when she noticed the butcher knife in the woman’s hand, light reflecting off the polished steel of the flat side of the blade. Grabbing onto Mason’s arm, Willette stood up instantly, so fast that she knocked over the plate of bread that had been hanging precariously next to the edge of the table, but she barely noticed. “Um, thank you - for your hospitality, but we really should be… going…”
Mason knew he hadn’t misheard, but knowing it and getting confirmation were two completely different things. He’d been hoping he was wrong; he and Willette hardly ever got nice things, so he truly wanted to believe that for once in their lives they would have something good. The food had been delicious and perfect when their stomachs were so empty, and she had seemed so nice at first. Or maybe she hadn’t been. Maybe the signs had been there all along and Mason had stupidly missed them because he was so desperate for nourishment for he and his sister.
Whichever was the truth, he was kicking himself now. A full belly wasn’t worth the predicament they were in now, and it was supposed to be his his job to keep Willette out of danger, not lead her right into the belly of the beast. Even now he was noticing more and more about their surroundings that he should have seen before. The oven, for one. How the hell had he missed something that was far too large to be used to cook something like chicken? Or the woman herself, who looked less gentle and hospitable now and more like a crazed...witch.
There were stories, of course. Stories the children of their village were told at bed time to warn them of the witches of the forest. Most of them took it as silly fables meant to scare children into behaving, but even then they all still had that uncomfortable prickle at the backs of their necks whenever they’d had to gather wood for their fires that at any moment a witch could jump out at them and end their lives. Even he and Willette, while wandering lost from their father’s abandonment, had entertained the idea of witches. How foolish of them to let those fears dissipate with the smell of cooked food.
Mason immediately pushed Willette behind him, determined to protect her even in the face of death. If they had to die, you could be sure that he would die first while protecting her with his last breath. Even if it meant he would be in the oven first. “You don’t want to eat us. We’re skin and bone, honestly. No meat at all! The cheese would taste way better!”
Willette knew that it was hopeless, but she still clung to Mason, her brother doing his best to try and shield her from the woman, and Willette silently prayed that somehow, they would get out of this. That somehow the woman would see reason, actually head Mason’s feeble excuses about them not being good enough to eat. She should have known better, considering the way the last two days had been going, but suddenly getting abandoned by their father and step-mother in the woods to most likely starve to death seemed like child's play compared to what was happening right now. All things considered, Willette really didn't want to get eaten by a witch.
Her grip on Mason’s arm was iron, and normally she’d be a little more aware of it, enough to remember to loosen her hold on him before she hurt him, but Willette wasn’t sure she’d ever been so frightened in her life. She couldn’t think clearly, and despite all the signs currently pointing at her to make a run for the door, her legs wouldn’t move. She felt frozen to the spot, paralyzed by fear and practically trembling from it. It couldn’t end this way. Willette didn’t know what she and her brother had done to deserve such an awful fate, but she didn’t think they could have done anything that bad in order to deserve getting thrown in an oven by a witch and eaten.
The woman sneered at Mason, the smile on her face transformed into something a little more unhinged - demented, and Willette finally understood why her eyes had looked so bright. It was bloodlust, there was nothing friendly in those irises. She actually wanted to eat them, like they were food, and when the woman started to move towards them - move towards Mason, since Mason was the one in front, Willette panicked. She couldn’t let the woman hurt her brother, even if he was doing it to protect her. There was no world where she wanted to live in it if it meant living without Mason, and what happened next, Willette still couldn’t quite explain.
“No!” Willette screamed as the witch lunged toward them, wide eyed and cackling with her knife. Without thinking, Willette let go of Mason and put up her hands in front of her, and that’s when she felt… something. She’d never felt it before, but it was like a power surge within her own body, something that started at her roots and worked its way out of her in a sudden burst of red light, knocking the witch back across the room. Blinking numbly in surprise, Willette looked at Mason and then down at her hands in horror, almost as afraid of herself now as she was of the woman who had just tried to kill them. “Mason…? I don’t… What just happened to me?”
Mason didn’t have an answer for Willette to explain what she had done. He wished he had, wished he could tell her not to worry and just be glad she had hit the witch who was going to eat them. The truth was he had no idea how his sister had just done what she’d done, and if he had more time to dwell on it he probably would have worried that she was a witch and hadn’t known about it. If that was the truth he wouldn’t love her any less, he didn’t think there was anything that could make him love her less, but he knew they would have to deal with villagers attempting to kill her for being a witch. Witches weren’t looked upon kindly in their area, as most witches weren’t sweet like his sister and tried to kill people--case in point, the woman who had been at the brunt end of whatever energy it was that Willette had sent out of her hands.
They had to deal with one problem at a time, though, and the most immediate one was the dangerous witch who was determined to kill them. Currently she seemed disoriented from whatever it was that Willette had done to her. Sensing that they wouldn’t have another chance to get out of this predicament, Mason turned to his sister with a completely serious expression on his face as he grabbed onto her shoulders. He didn’t usually boss her around, even though it was almost a brother’s job to boss around his sister, but this wasn’t a usual moment. If she didn’t follow his words, she was going to be killed and eaten by a witch. He wasn’t going to let that happen.
“Willette, you need to run. Run and don’t look back, okay? I’ll find you, I promise, I just need you to do this for me. Just--” Mason cut off as he was jerked around the middle away from his sister’s tiny frame, his eyes turning into saucers of fear. No matter how hard he struggled, the witch who appeared tiny and fragile was much stronger than she looked and she continued to drag his tall and lanky frame towards the open flame protruding from the now-open oven. He felt the heat creeping out towards his skin, and Mason winced as he turned his cheek away from the heat.
“Willette, go! Run!”
Willette was terrified. It was like she didn’t even recognize her own body anymore, her mind unable to comprehend how she’d been able to do that. How it was even possible that she was capable of doing something like that. It should have been obvious, maybe, but considering all the recent trauma they’d been through, it didn’t immediately dawn on Willette until a few seconds later. Witchcraft. Was it possible that she could even be a witch and just never knew? Willette didn’t want to be a witch, not if it meant being a witch like this woman, who had just tried to attack them and seemed to want to eat them. If she was a witch, maybe their father had known somehow. Maybe that was the real reason he’d abandoned them in the woods. If the people in their village ever found out, Willette would surely be burned at the stake for it.
The power she felt, it was… raw. Willette had never felt anything like it before, the way the energy practically surged through her veins like liquid fire, and she suddenly couldn’t shake the feeling that she was forgetting something. Something important, that she couldn't put her finger on. Willette was trembling, she realized after the fact, and in shock, so even after Mason grabbed onto her shoulders and ordered her to run, she barely heard him. She felt like she was underwater, unable to quite reach the surface, and only finally snapping out of it when the woman grabbed for her brother. Then Willette’s instincts were going into high gear, and she reacted without thinking. She wasn't leaving without her brother.
“Let him go!” With a horrified shriek, Willette mimicked the earlier position of her hand with both of them this time, an invisible force seeming to reach out and separate Mason from the witch, push them apart and then on instinct, Willette pushed one of her hands forward and the next thing she knew, the witch was being shoved into the large oven. Breathing hard and adrenaline shooting through her entire body, Willette flicked the hand she’d pushed forward and the iron door to the oven swung shut, the latch on it locking in place.
Blinking, there was no time to stop and wonder how she’d done any of that too, the witch’s terrible screams were piercing Willette’s eardrums as the woman burned alive inside her own oven, and Willette didn’t want to stick around long enough to notice the smell of burning human flesh. Lurching forward, she grabbed onto Mason’s hand and wordlessly made a bee-line for the door, bursting through it and back into blinding daylight with a powerful relief. And then they didn’t stop running. They ran and ran through the woods until Willette had no idea where they were anymore, but she couldn’t shake this feeling like they weren’t supposed to be here. She couldn’t explain it, but the more they ran, the more Willette couldn’t stop from feeling like they were meant to be somewhere else.
That clarity came right before the shift, when it all dawned on Willette at once like she was finally waking up, memories that didn't belong in this world flooding her conscience and she turned to look at Mason with new eyes; her old eyes, finally recognizing him for the brother he actually was to her, and not whoever they had been for the last two days. It felt like they weren’t supposed to be here because they weren’t. None of this felt right, because it wasn’t. And it was up to her to fix it. Grasping tighter to her brother’s hand, Willette shut her eyes as they ran, concentrating as a bright, white light started to engulf them while they ran through the trees that little by little started to disappear around them. This world was melting away, to be replaced by the one it had been before, everything in its right place. Willette took a deep breath, and plunged.