The Advent Calendar

One winters night, a long time ago, as a little girl called Lucy lay in bed dreaming of Santa Clause and a Merry Christmas, an old witch, growing legs as long as a giant reached in through her window with long arms and snatched her from her room before carrying her off to her old dark cottage in the woods then, sliding a ring from the girls finger, hid it in her house somewhere.
The girl begged to be let go, tears running off of her face, but then the witch, showing her an advent calendar upon her wall said,
"If you can find your ring, little girl then you may leave but you only have until all the doors upon this calendar are opened. When the final door is opened, you shall wither away and die and the light of your youth shall be mine".
So, every day, following that, the girl searched the witches house while she was out working mischief.
She searched it from top to bottom looking for the ring; she even searched the cracks and mouseholes but she couldn't find it and every day, as she watched through tearful eyes, another door upon the advent calendar would creak open by itself and behind each of its doors would be some horrible frightening monster, like a ghost that would fly out shrieking  or a werewolf that would howl at a painted moon.
But then, one day, while the girl was searching the rooms of the house she heard a squeaking coming from a nearby window pane and looking up at the window she saw writing appear in the condensation upon it.
"I help you", the writing said, "I a friend".
"Who are you?", asked Lucy.
More writing appeared on the window.
"I was a girl like you before witch put spell on me", it said.
But then Lucy felt a hand take hold of hers and the invisible girl led her to another room of the house and suddenly she saw a picture lift itself down from the wall of the room and thrust itself into her hands and, looking in the picture, to Lucy's amazement she saw that in the picture there was a girl with a ring just like the one that the witch had taken from her.
"My ring", she said and, as soon as she had said this, the ring disappeared from the painting and reappeared upon her finger.
But then the door of the witches house opened and she felt the invisible girl tugging at her hand again, leading her out of the house and as they ran through the snow, she saw the girls footprints appearing beside her own.
But then, as they were running through the forest, little dolls and teddybears came out from behind every tree and grabbed hold of her and they were not nice toys but angry, mean toys with scowling faces.
"Naughty girl", said one of the dolls, "Our mistress, the witch does not like girls who try to run away".
Fortunately, they did not know about the invisble girl and flying back into the witches house as quick as the wind and getting under a tiger skin rug she came back out again and the dolls thinking her a real tiger ran away in fear, shouting,
"A tiger! A tiger! Don't let it eat me!".
But then, dropping the tiger skin she took hold of Lucy's hand again and led her through the wood until, finally, they came to a village but then, before she could go to one of the houses of the villagers for help suddenly, infront of her, the witch appeared.
"Aha! Think you can escape me do you girl", said the witch with a wicked grin, "No one gets away from me".
Just then, however, Lucy heard the sound of the big bell from a nearby church ringing. The invisible girl, you see, had flown into the belfry of the church and seizing hold of a bell rope had started to pull on it and, as soon as the villagers heard the bell ringing they all started to come out of their houses.
"Whats happening", she heard people shouting, "Why is the church bell being rung?".
But then they saw the witch wrestling with Lucy, trying to drag her away and, fetching their pitch forks and spades and other farming tools they converged on the witch and, frightened she turned herself into a black dog and ran off back into the forest.
"Thank goodness the church bell rang", said one of the villagers to Lucy, a kindly faced old lady, stroking her hair, "If it hadn't we never would have known what that evil witch was doing".
"But who rang the bell?", asked another of the villagers.
Just then however, the door of the church opened and out came a little angel girl dressed in glowing white robes with glowing golden hair and blue eyes like sapphires.
"I am going to heaven now", said the angel to Lucy and Lucy realised that the angel was the invisible girl who had helped her escape, "But I wanted to stop the witch doing to another girl what she had done to me".
Then Lucy saw a golden portal open in the skies and the angel girl, spreading her wings, ascend into it.
After that one of the villagers took Lucy home to the village and house of her family and they were so relieved to see her again that they all cried as they hugged her but then they took her inside and gave her her presents and she sat down with them to Christmas dinner and she did, after all have a very Merry Christmas.