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Grand to work out a strange set of hoofprints “I don’t know I think I could, I… I suspect there’s a way it could be done But I wouldn’t like to be the one to try it”

“Do it now, then!” I cried, grabbing at her skinny hands “Turn into a h the lock, or a bird and fly out through thegrate Bring back a key and let ether, and eat deer, and never think about this place again”

“Poor little Knife, you can be dull and blunt as a rock, sometimes,” she said kindly “If I beca ray belly I would forget you, and ould never eat deer together again Besides, I have a killing to do before I can think on ”

THE WITCH STOPPED SPEAKING NIGHT STREAMED through the Witch’s s like bolts of silk Thick and black, it coiled around them both The Prince was uncomfortable and cold, his hands covered in bread flour, but he did not dare complain

The Prince no longer heard her at all, and his hand had begun, again, to bleed Blood trickled into the bread, but he did not see it The crackling fire leapt like trout, scenting the hut with green branched sage and sweetgrass sh he did not knohether it was the stinging air that wrenched the tears from him or the buried memory pierced by her casual mention of his mother The memory had paced back and forth in his beating at the back of his brain

And it all was becoe and hard to follow, the path he had taken to this house through the forest, the braided words spilling like ink fro in hi, he would still have to suffer her punishoose—and the ray wings

In truth, lost in her tale, he had nearly forgotten that there ever was s

uch a pearl-feathered creature as that dead bird, that he had ever snapped its neck in the ht But he looked down at his flour-speckled hands, washed in the flicker of fire and shadow, and gli the white dust and within his oound, and reo, wasn’t it, that he had left his father’s Castle like a fugitive, determined never to return? And noas a prisoner only a few doun He was lost as a trapped hare, lost in thevoice, of the hut shadows and the fire and the corpse of the goose-girl, cruainst the wall, near the hearth to keep her flesh warm

And now she had uttered his mother’s name, and those old, forbidden syllables layered her tale, which had nothing at all to do with hih lever, and with it the Witch slowly broke him open, inch by bone He had hardly heard the last sliver of the long tale, so sunk in sorrow, its waters swirled around his chin

The Witch cocked her head to one side, watching her guest with mild curiosity Quietly, she took his hand in hers and pressed her pal the blood She rubbed soers—it prickled cold against his raw flesh

“Grass and leaves,” she snorted He tried a wan smile, but it refused to come The Witch narrowed her feral eyes at him

“What is it, boy? My servant, yet you cannot even listen to ? Instead you wrap yourself up in your own troubles like a bolt of wool, and moon after me to take them off your shoulders”

“My mother,” the Prince mumbled, “you said you knew my mother”

“And you told runted “Very well, then, shall we stop and listen to the murderer beat his breast and spit out his woe onto my floor? Your mother is dead and your father has all but erased her from the memory of the world Is it necessary to know more than that of the poor woman?”

Her voice had cracked dangerously at the end, and the Prince started at it, doe, to find exiled deep in the forest a woman who had known the dead Queen Oh, the naical rolls and trilled in country songs whichand yellow hair—but that saovernht hazard to step Yet the Witch knew her