The Winged Witch 5/15

Sam turned up at the quaint old fashioned village of Lurbridge expecting his visit to go as smoothly as usual. He always enjoyed his trips here and whistled quietly to himself as he walked from the quayside to the blacksmith’s. The smith had his usual horse already saddled waiting for him. He trotted out of the village up the slight rise leading towards the squire’s house and continued past it towards the ford.

Then as it was a lovely day, he dismounted after passing through the water, took the box containing the model he had for sale from the saddlebag and smacked the horse on his withers telling it to go home. The animal had been well trained and headed back towards the village. He was whinnying rather a lot but that was normal and Sam took no notice, as he strolled off towards the door that would let him into another world where he had a sale for the model he was carrying.

He passed the gap in the hedge where the witch Leah lived and started looking more carefully for the telltale glow of the active door. Strangely it was nowhere to be seen. Even the posts were missing, surely the old lady hadn’t let him down! Admittedly she was old, but the watch he’d given her should have warned her of his imminent arrival, by ringing its bell. With a sigh he turned back, meaning to speak to her and get her to come out to let him through.

He nearly jumped out of his skin! Facing him, sitting on an old fashioned motor scooter painted in a rather unusual metallic gold finish, was a girl dressed in faded blue denim dungarees. Her hair was arranged in two short plaits and she was looking at him with a rather strange smile on her face.

“Sorry Sam, the door has been closed permanently,” she said to his great surprise. “Too many people from world fifty seven were coming through and getting themselves into trouble, so the witches have forbidden Leah to open it again at her peril. They’ve removed both the posts and the markings, to make sure it won’t happen again by accident.”

Moving slowly but deliberately, so as not to alarm the young lady in front of him, Sam put his hand over the Comlink he wore on his left wrist. He pressed the defensive setting, before relaxing as he felt the familiar tingle of the security field surround his body.

“I’ve never met you before have I, how do you know my name?”

“My name is Jennifer Jane and I’m a third year apprentice from the Witches’ Home near Lurbridge. The witches have asked me to find out where you come from and how you’ve come by your supply of human teeth. I followed you through the door two weeks ago and today all the way from Lurbridge. I’m just making sure that you know you can’t get through, so if you want to talk, I’ll fly you back to the George and Dragons and you can tell me all about yourself over a drink. By the way, while I was on the way over here I heard your horse moaning about how mean you are. ‘All that way through the water and not even a lump of sugar or an apple, let alone a thank you!’ ”

Sam looked hard at the child, then at her peculiar means of transport. It was certainly not an object from this world, nor did it look capable of flight, yet she spoke with a confident air as if she knew she was in control of the situation. He made up his mind, just for a laugh he’d go along with the preposterous notion that the thing could fly. After all if anything went wrong he would be safe enough inside his protective field. Jennifer Jane took the box containing his model and put it on the footboard in front of her, then he climbed on the pillion and waited for something to happen!

Something happened all right! To his utter amazement the machine rose gently up in the air, then turned slowly to head back towards the village rapidly gathering speed as it flew off. A couple of minutes later it landed, just outside the blacksmith’s workshop.

“I think you’d better come with me and wait to apologise to your horse. We passed him on the way back, but he should be here in a moment.”

The blacksmith gave him two apples, as if it was the most normal thing in the world for his customers to come back and apologise to his horses.

“I suggest you just say you’re sorry, that you’re not used to speaking to horses in your world and hope he hasn’t taken offence. He’ll understand and I’ll tell you what he says in reply.”

Sam did as he was asked as the horse arrived. The animal neighed for a while in reply before accepting the apples from his hand, then waited a moment.

“Sam didn’t know he was coming back so soon,” the child told the horse with a laugh, before the blacksmith took him off to his stall.

“He said he accepts your apologies as you’re obviously a bit stupid,” Jennifer Jane interpreted, “and he was wondering if you just took him out to get wet twice, so that you could have a good laugh standing here watching him come back again.”

Sam wasn’t too sure whether he was having his leg pulled or not, but then the scooter rolled along the road carrying him just around the corner, stopping outside the pub. He was told to sit at a table and wait while his driver brought the drinks.

“Now then,” said Jennifer Jane, “first things first, where did you get your supply of teeth? Nobody in this world seems to be supplying you; do you have tooth fairies in your world?”

Sam decided to take things at face value for the moment. “Of course we don’t have tooth fairies, they’re only a fairy story for children. I’m just an explorer travelling between worlds, looking for an opportunity to make enough money to fund our research. Some chap called George tried to sell me a rather poorly made vase that had been crudely machined from a strange material a bit like ivory. I knew we could do a lot better where I come from, so I took it home and had the object analysed. The analyst was very surprised to find it had been made from human teeth. He assumed from the structure, that somehow dozens of teeth had been combined into a form that could be carved. Since this material was obviously of some value in your world, he synthesised it into a solution form. Then the engineers used a combination of three dimensional photographs and laser technology to create a model of the object represented in the pictures.”

“Did you already have photographs taken in this world?”

“Oh yes, there are quite a few of us in every world we know about, that we can reach. We take pictures of anything we find of interest to show future visitors what they might expect to find. Your series of magical worlds with their interconnecting fog travel system, makes things very easy for us to move about. We use any money we manage to earn to buy gold, as so far that is the only universal currency we’ve managed to find.”

Jennifer Jane sat quietly for a moment sipping her drink. Sam watched her equally quietly. To be honest he was rather surprised that she hadn’t queried any of his statements so far. He was also beginning to wonder which world she came from. She said she was a witch and her ability to fly seemed to confirm that, but the machine she used was definitely not from this world. She had mentioned his visits to world number fifty-seven, so perhaps she’d come from there. Then she broke his train of thought.

“Would it be alright if I came back to your world to see for myself. The laser machining technique sounds fascinating, I know several people in my world who would like to know how it’s done!”

Sam smiled happily to himself. Of course she could come back with him, his world only knew of magic from explorer’s visits to worlds where it was used. He knew lots of people who would be only too pleased to see a demonstration of the art of magic at first hand.

They both finished their drinks and flew off together towards the quayside at Timber Creek to try and find a ship going to Smallport.