Will and the Wisp: Part Three

Will narrowly escapes the witch but then sees he's turning into a wisp himself

WILL AND THE WISP

written by Zossima Granger, illustrated by ValerieAnne Volpe

narrated by the author and a full cast

Part 3

He almost dropped the jar and tried climbing out of the pit again as fear threatened to overwhelm him. But he forced himself not to panic, hissing urgently into the glass he held. “Get me out of here, now!”

‘No,’ chimed the wisp, bobbing up and down contentedly. ‘My mistress would be very displeased if I helped her dinner escape.’

“Her dinner?” Will shuddered, terror at this awful, surreal situation crawling up his back like an enormous spider. Gritting his teeth, the little boy shook the jar vigorously, making the light bounce around in an ungainly fashion.

When he stopped, the wisp flared furiously. ‘How dare you, you ill-gotten milksop! I’ll—’

“Shut up!” Will whispered furiously, pressing his nose to the glass so that he and the magical light were inches apart. “You get me out of this hole right now, or I swear I’ll bury you in the dirt and you’ll be trapped in this pickle jar forever.”

‘You wouldn’t dare,’ growled the wisp with a quiver in its tone, shrinking back. Will glared, trying to make his blue eyes icy.

‘Blast and bellyache, fine!’ the wisp clanged. Will let out a pent-up breath of relief. ‘I’ll free you if you free me. We have an accord.’

“A what? No, a deal. Not a cord,” corrected the twelve-year-old, looking from the wisp to the patch of visible black sky above.

‘Whatever tutors you have should be burned at the stake,’ the wisp jingled disgustedly. ‘Hold on, Webster.’

Will tightened his grip on the jar just in time as the light struck the lid as if magnetized to the stars high above. Jar, wisp and boy all rose out of the pit in an ungainly arc. Two feet above the grass the ball of light dimmed, and the upward force vanished. Will dropped into a staggering landing, his already bruised ankles protesting sharply.

He gasped in pain, then covered his mouth, staring wide-eyed at the dark tangle of trees around him. The wisp had dropped to the bottom of the jar as if exhausted, its light so dim it barely illuminated a few feet of blackness around Will.

Looking into the trees, frozen like a rabbit scenting for predators, he heard a faint crackle, like leaves being stepped on. Then, once again, a faint, spine-chilling giggle. Both sounds came from his right.

Clutching the wisp’s jar to his chest, Will turned left and slipped as quietly and quickly as he could into the trees. The hair on the back of his neck standing on end, he stumbled through the night, moving in the faint halo of light cast by the trapped orb.

Heart feeling like it was trying to crawl up his throat, he stopped and pressed his back to a squat tree, too afraid to look around it the way he had come, sure the witch’s gnarled fingers were about to curl around the trunk of the tree he hid behind.

A minute passed and nothing happened except Will’s fingers grew colder, though the ones on his left hand seemed less effected than his right, which felt like they were being slowly submerged in ice water.

Steeling himself, he jammed the wisp’s jar between his feet and peaked around the tree, squinting through the night blackness through the maze of jagged trunks. A sliver of the clearing was still visible, illuminated by a gray haze of moonlight.

He saw the pit cutting a black hole in the grassy ground, a dark tree stump sitting beside it. Will didn’t remember a stump being there before. Blinking hard, his mouth went sandpaper dry as the thing he thought was a stump extended upward. What he had thought was bark was a lumpy burlap cloak covering a tiny, hunched figure.

As if the entire night held its collective breath, total silence fell for a moment as Will stared from his hiding place. In the hush a whisper from within a burlap cowl carried clearly to him.

“Where is it…little bitty snacky…where are you…” The cowl turned toward Will, and he whipped behind the tree, stomach twisting. There had been nothing inside the hood except darkness.

Unable to move for fear, he listened. Silence. The forest held its breath until it was black in the face. Then another serrated giggle skittered through the quiet, making him twitch horribly where he huddled against the squat tree.

“Come to me, little star,” hissed the ancient, reedy voice. “Return to me, my bright slave.”

Looking down, Will saw the dimmed wisp rise groggily from the bottom of the jar and plunk gently against the glass, trying wearily to push through. ‘Mistress,’ it rang flatly, as if in a trance. ‘Must return…mistress.’

Too scared to speak, Will seized the pickle jar and stuffed it down his torn pajama top, muffling the light and sound of the luminous orb. Beneath his shirt it felt like a second heart was trying to burst out of his chest as the wisp strove in its weakened state to obey its mistress’ call.

It was several minutes before Will realized the sound of wind had returned, and the movement beneath his pajamas had ceased. Taking a deep breath, he poked far enough around the tree to see the clearing with one eye. The cloaked figure was gone.

A relief so intense it almost made Will giggle rushed through him as he stood unsteadily, legs shaking. All he had to do now was get the wisp to take him home and this terrible night would be over.

“You nearly got me caught,” he breathed, smiling ruefully as he tugged the jar out of his shirt with his left hand, burying his right in his pocket to try and warm it. “I suppose that was your hungry witch, was it?” he asked the enervated wisp lying on the bottom of the glass.

‘Were your deductive powers learned or god-given?’ the light rang weakly. Will scowled.

“Well, she’s gone, so you can take me home now.”

‘What are you babbling about? I already freed you, at great cost to my own powers, I’ll have you know, great pasty sack of bestriped fatness that you are. Free me at once!’

“Not until you get me home,” Will said stubbornly, glaring at the orb.

Instead of arguing more, the wisp rose jerkily into the air, its luminescence brightening slightly. ‘But you can’t go home, you witless carp, I made sure of that before you even fell into my mistress’ trap.’

“What are—” Will began, then he remembered the light swooping through him just before he fell, its cold sliding into his chest and out his back like a ghostly cannonball. He hissed in pain as the cold in his right hand bit its way farther up his palm. Dropping the jar with a clank, he pulled his hand out of his pocket and stared at it in horror.

‘You’ll be just like me before the night is through,’ rang the wisp at his feet with cold triumph.

Will’s fingers and half his hand had disappeared, leaving only a swatch of silvery light where his flesh used to be.

“Uh—er—wha—”

Will spoke metronomically, barely hearing himself as he stared at his half-hand, tendrils of pale light fluttering where his fingers were supposed to be. He could still feel them burning with cold. When he tried bending his nonexistent digits, the smoky remnant fluctuated like a candle flame being breathed on.

‘Best resign yourself to your fate, urchin. Free me sharpish and I’ll let you lure the next bungling brat into our mistress’ clutches.’

The worded chimes pulled Will back through treacly layers of shock, and something hot rose inside him, melting away the cold fear infecting him for a moment. Fury.

“You did this to me,” he snarled, looming over the fallen jar and pointing his intact forefinger at the wisp, whose light was slowly waxing. “You’re making my body freeze and go away, why would you do that? How could you? I haven’t done anything to you!”

‘Haven’t done—’ The light bounced off the lid of the pickle jar furiously. ‘You’ve locked me, a celestial superiority, inside a prison reeking of brined vegetables and you dare say you’ve done nothing to me?!’

“I only grabbed you after you attacked me!” Will hissed back, snatching up the jar and glaring into the light. “And then dropped me into a giant hole to be eaten! What’s wrong with you!”

‘It’s not as though it was my choice,’ the wisp jingled sulkily. ‘I must obey her as the slave she made me.’

Remembering the cracked voice calling out for the wisp, Will felt a stab of sympathy cut through his curtain of anger. A sharper knife of freezing numbness made him cry out as the rest of his right hand disappeared into the amorphous cloud eating at his arm.

“Fine,” he said through gritted teeth, tears of pain pricking his eyes. “Just tell me how I can make myself right again…then I’ll free you, I promise.”

‘Just give up, you pernicious chicklet,’ the wisp clanged with annoyance. ‘There’s no way you could prevail even if I told you. Give in to it, that’s what I did.’

“No, I will never give in,” Will said with as much force as he could muster. He was scared, cold, wet and lost in a forest, turning into a wicked witch’s slave, but he still had hope. “I don’t care what you did, I’m doing something different right now. I know you know how to fix me, so spill it.”

He crouched behind the fat tree, holding the jar in his left hand like a magic eight ball, waiting, trying not to look at the wisp light eating slowly up his wrist. It felt like what he imagined frostbite would.

‘To fix you? Faith, that’s simple,’ rang the wisp, pulsing ominously up at Will, who nodded.

“Good, if it’s easy I can—”

‘I said simple, not easy,’ the orb stressed.

“Same thing,” the twelve-year-old said impatiently.

‘Is it indeed? Dr. Johnson must’ve been a fool not to consult you when he wrote the dictionary, he could have saved so many pages…to return to your full form, my pompous pustule, you must simply and of course easily go to the witch’s home, then overpower and destroy her.’

The bottom dropped out of Will’s stomach. The memory of the misshapen, cloaked figure with an ancient, evil voice passed through him like a cold shadow over his heart. He never wanted to get within a mile of that foul creature. But if he didn’t…

He took a deep breath, biting his tongue so he didn’t cry out as the numbness crept another inch up his arm. He didn’t have long. “All right, take me to the witch’s house.”

The wisp flared bright white, surprise audible in its clangor. ‘Od’s fish, are you mad, child?’

“No, I’m not angry, I’m determined,” Will said, hoping his shaking legs would carry him when he rose. Instead of its usual caustic reply, the light bobbed quietly for a few seconds, as if regarding the boy with invisible eyes.

‘Remarkable,’ it rang softly. ‘You’re serious. That either makes you superbly brave or Bedlam mad.’

A pause. Will stared intently at the wisp.

‘Very well, I’ll lead you to the witch.’

End of Part 3

To Be Concluded…

Thank you for reading (or listening)! What do you think will happen next?