The young oak tree 4/8

“Shush” whispered the other, nodding his head towards Mary. “I think we might be a bit lost love,” he continued in a louder voice, “we’ll go down to ground level and try and find out exactly where we are.”

Mary had noticed the by-play between the two men and suddenly her suspicions were aroused. ‘Wait a moment,’ she thought, ‘They had definitely said Jennifer Jane had an accident on her broom.’

She hadn’t used her broom for months; there was something fishy going on. She realised that she must be in the process of being kidnapped and as soon as the carpet landed to try and find out their position, she was off and running blindly into the fog. Her suspicions were confirmed, as she heard the men shouting angrily at each other.

“You blooming fool, what did you have to go and mention the boss for? Now we’ve lost her and goodness only knows what’ll happen to us. You know how badly he wants to get rid of that kid”

“Not my fault there’s a real fog is it?”

Mary crept away as quickly and quietly as she could. As soon as she came across a tree she climbed up as high as she could manage and sat on a branch, waiting for the fog to clear.

She could hear the men occasionally calling to her, trying to tell her that her daughter was in pain and needed her mum. She completely ignored them and intended hanging on until she was absolutely sure they’d gone away. She’d made up her mind to go directly to Abigail as soon as it was safe.

The fog didn’t clear until it was nearly dark. Looking round she could see that she wasn’t too far away from the George and Dragons, so making sure that there was no one about to see her, she climbed down stiffly and crept across to the pub. She had a look through the windows to check that her kidnappers weren’t inside, then as all seemed normal, she walked in and ordered a drink. She certainly needed it.

Fortunately she was known as Jennifer Jane’s mum and the drink was free. The landlord convinced her that it would never do to go to the Witches’ Home in the dark and offered her a room for the night.

“Tomorrow’s Saturday, so the giant will be here in the morning to collect his visitors for the day. I daresay he’ll take you up to the Gate, then you’ll be able to sort everything out.”