The Witches

I worked away, nailing the first plank on the roof. Then suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a woman standing immediately below me. She was looking up at me and smiling in the most peculiar way. When most people smile, their lips go out sideways. This woman’s lips went upwards and downwards, showing all her front teeth and gums. The gums were like raw meat.

It is always a shock to discover that you are being watched when you think you are alone.

And what was this strange woman doing in our garden anyway?

I noticed that she was wearing a small black hat and she had black gloves on her hands and the gloves came nearly up to her elbows.

Gloves! She was wearing gloves!

I FROZE ALL OVER.

‘I have a present for you,’ she said, still staring at me, still smiling, still showing her teeth and gums.

I DIDN’T ANSWER.

‘Come down out of that tree, little boy,’ she said, ‘and I shall give you the most exciting present you’ve ever had.’ Her voice had a curious rasping quality. It made a sort of metallic sound, as though her throat was full of drawing pins.

Without taking her eyes from my face, she very slowly put one of those gloved hands into her purse and drew out a small green snake. She held it up for me to see.

‘It’s tame,’ she said.

The snake began to It was brilliant green.

‘If you come down here, I shall give him to you,’ she said.

Oh Grandmamma, I thought, come and help me!

Then I panicked. I dropped the hammer and shot up that enormous tree like a monkey. I didn’t stop until I was as high as I could possibly go, and there I stayed, quivering with fear. I couldn’t see the woman now. There were layers and layers of leaves between her and me.

I stayed up there for hours and I kept very still. It began to grow dark. At last, I heard my grandmother calling my name.

‘I’m up here,’ I shouted back.

‘Come down at once!’ she called out. ‘It’s past your suppertime.’

‘GRANDMAMMA!’ I shouted. ‘Has that woman gone?’

‘What woman?’ my grandmother called back.

‘The woman in the black gloves!’

There was silence from below. It was the silence of somebody who was too stunned to speak.

‘Grandmamma!’ I shouted again. ‘Has she gone?’

‘Yes,’ my grandmother answered at last. ‘She’s gone. I’m here, my darling. I’ll look after you. You can come down now.’

I climbed down. I was trembling. My grandmother enfolded me in her arms. ‘I’ve seen a witch,’ I said.

‘Come inside,’ she said. ‘You’ll be all right with me.’

She led me into the house and gave me a cup of hot cocoa with lots of sugar in it. ‘Tell me everything,’ she said.

I told her.

By the time I had finished, it was my grandmother who was trembling. Her face was ashy grey and I saw her glance down at that hand of hers that didn’t have a thumb. ‘You know what this means,’ she said. ‘It means that there is one of them in our district. From now on I’m not letting you walk alone to school.’

‘Do you think she could be after me specially?’ I asked.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I doubt that. One child is as good as any other to those creatures.’

It is hardly surprising that after that I became a very witch-conscious little boy. If I happened to be alone on the road and saw a woman approaching who was wearing gloves, I would quickly skip across to the other side. And as the weather remained pretty cold during the whole of that month, nearly everybody was wearing gloves. Curiously enough, though, I never saw the woman with the green snake again.