Witche's Nose

“Let us down from here!”  Shouted Blair and Sheila, in unison.

 

They had been zapped and shrunk down into a micro-fraction of a domino. This was the work of a mean-spirited, but sad witch from the far south land of Zjamjoda; pronounced ‘Ham-Hoda’. Once a year, in the winter months, Maia, the evil witch played a cruel game in an attempt to break her own spell. She had some time ago been carelessly playing with her enchanted oil lamp in order to have light for her dinner of pale snails, when things backfired dramatically. The blue light within became too hot and exploded �" accidentally blasting the warts off a nearby toad. Maia was cursed with eternal loneliness. Also, she became deaf in one ear. However, she attributed this to wax build-up. Nevertheless, as December was winding up, the time came for the wicked witch to gather her subjects; shrink them, then place them on her nose. If they could cheer her up before sunrise they would be spared their lives. If they failed to do so … they would be sentenced to a life of slavery inside her disgusting snot chimney �" her nose!

“Why should I let you down?!” cackled Maia, staring at the girls cross-eyed. “I’m not finished torturing you for my miserable misfortunes!” She lifted the girls up with two bony fingers so they were directly in the moonlight. “Besides .. in just a few short hours you will both be slaves to the hearth of my honker” she cackled louder than ever, frightening her cats under the sofa.

“Yes, oh remarkably misfortunate maiden of magicks” said Blair, trying anxiously to reason with the witch. “But, you must understand that if we can’t make you happy by daybreak, and we end up in your nose, we would be terribly uncomfortable and a nuisance for you” added her twin Sheila.

The witch put the girls down on a table next to her cauldron, which was bubbling away with various spices and insects and three-headed bats and three-eyed rats. She scratched her chin wickedly as if she was thinking this over. The cats under the sofa popped their heads out for a peak but quickly retreated back under at the crash of lightning outside.

“Oh?!” cried the witch.
“And just what would be the inconvenience for ME having YOU clean the inside of my schnoz for all eternity?” She gave the girls an evil glare that could curdle cream and boil green yeti blood.

The girls gulped and stepped back, almost falling off the edge of the table, which, being a fraction of a domino sized as they were, would be a long fatal fall. The cauldron spit and hissed toxic yellow ooze onto the tablecloth burning a hole right at the girls’ feet.

“We would, your mystical majesty, of course, be itchy and scratch you with our clothing and make you sneeze all the time �" not to mention the annoyance of our day-to-day tasks..” pleaded Blair, looking down toward the ground which seemed like a million miles away.
“Yes, and I love to sing” said Sheila.
“You would hate my singing �" it’s the most awful thing you’ll ever hear �" just ask my brother”.
“And .. and ..”

“OK that’s enough!” boomed the witch, her eyes now turning a coal black and her uncharacteristically beautiful black hair clenching all over.
“You will soon be my slaves and it is the one thing that makes me truly happy anymore in this life and I can’t be dissuaded otherwise.”

 

The yellow cauldron ooze was now burning a death pit all around the girls and Sheila screamed as she lost her shoe. The Sun was coming up and there was a faint halo of red morning emerging outside the barbed evil window.  The 8 cats under the couch meowed with sympathy. The girls were about to either fall to their tiny deaths or be forever enslaved to the foul nostrils of an evil witch..
Suddenly Blair thought of an idea.

“What if … your wonderful wickedness” she began slowly.
“what if we were to become your half-evil nieces who come by once a week to clean your nose and any other chores and even to do a bit of baking with you and you can maybe teach us some spells …?” she stopped, figuring she had said enough already.
Sheila closed here eyes and held her sister’s hand expecting the witch to squash them to smithereens. The sun finally woke up outside and the birds sang cheerfully.
Maia the witch even formed a smile on her miserable face and she even managed to look quite beautiful doing it. She brushed back her hair and picked the girls back up in her hand, gently this time.

“I s’pose half-evil is ok …” she said.
“I could use some help around the tower and I would love some precious nieces who I can sew cobweb sweaters with” she now sounded more joyous than she ever had.
Blair and Sheila sighed a breath of relief and the witch zapped them back to normal size and gave them both a kiss on the cheek and sent them home with party bags full of worm guts and lemming tails �" her finest! And they agreed to come back the following Saturday.