The Strongest Magic In The World

Once there was a little girl called Karenella who lived with her old, white haired Auntie Una in a green painted wooden house at the edge of the forest and, one day, she said to her auntie,

“I’m going to go into the woods, Auntie Una, to pick violets and roses and bluebells to make a posy from them”.

“That’s alright, my dear”, said her Auntie, “Just as long as you always stay within the sound of the Nightingale. Aslong as you can hear a nightingale sing then you have not gone too far”.

Karenella thought that her Aunties advice about the Nightingale was very odd but she was too polite to say so and so she just said, “Yes, Auntie Una” and then went out of the house and into the woods with a little wicker basket on her arm.

As she was bending down to pick some bluebells she had spotted, however, and listening to the nightingale who was singing in a nearby tree, she saw, out of the corner of her eye, a little male doll dressed in a clowns brightly coloured satin costume sitting under a tree and then, to her astonishment, the doll started to tumble head over heels just like a circus acrobat.

“Oh, what a wonderful doll”, said the little girl, smiling and then rushing over to try and pick it up.

But, just as she was about to grab hold of the doll, she saw two other dolls; one that was a velvet covered teddybear with large glass eyes that was peering shyly at her from behind a tree trunk and a dainty ballerina doll, deeper in the woods, that was dancing and twirling upon the toes of her ballet slippers.

“Why you’re all so adorable”, she said excitedly, “I wonder where you came from and who you belong to”.

But then the tumbling clown doll, smiling a large painted, U shaped smile, started to speak,

“Come with us”, it said, “Come with us, little girl to the house under the rainbow where a lollipop tree grows and a lemonade river rushes by and our doll mother lives in a house made of pepper mints and lemon drops”.

“Hmm”, thought Karenella, imagining a house made of sweets, “That certainly sounds nice. Is it far from here?”.

“Not far”, said the doll, “Just far enough and no further”.

And so, forgetting all about what her Auntie had told her about staying within the sound of the nightingale, Karenella followed the little living dolls into the forest and, before long, she could see a house made out of hard candy just as the clown doll had described and, above it, a rainbow shining brightly and beside it a tree upon which lollipops hung like fruit and, flowing past it, a river of fizzing and sparkling golden lemonade and they seemed almost to glow like something in a dream.

 

But then, just as she was getting so close that she could almost touch the picket fence surrounding the candy house, she heard a frantic voice from behind her.

 

“Hoot! Hoot!”, it said, “Do not go there, little girl, please”.

Turning round, Karenella saw that it was an owl sitting in the branches of a tree.

 

“Why not?”, asked Karenella, smiling, “It looks so nice; a house made of candy with a rainbow shining overhead; a lollipop tree outside and a lemonade river running past and the little dolls who led me here seem so friendly”.

 

“I see none of those things”, said the owl, “All I see is a little girl with the wide eyes of someone who’s under an enchantment  and I see her walking towards the house of the evil witch Villanelle”.

 

“What?”, asked Karenella, suddenly startled and almost dizzy with confusion.

 

“Vilanelle”, said the owl, “She is the witch that lives in that house that you are walking towards and, I beg you, go no further for when she catches little children she casts evil spells upon them”.

 

“Spells?”, asked a stunned Karenella, “What sort of spells?”.

 

“I’ve seen her with my own two eyes, click her tongue and turn a little girl into a brown field mouse before turning herself into a cat and swallowing the mouse whole and, with a click at the back of her throat, turn a little boy into a frog that she would catch by one of its webbed toes and sling, with a splash,  into her boiling cooking pot to make frog stew out of”.

 

Then, suddenly, the haze of enchantment that had clouded Karenella’s eyes started to fade and, as it did, she saw the house made of sweets begin to turn into a house made of grey granite and the rainbow overhead became a grey stormcloud, crackling with lightning and without even the slimmest silver lining and the lollypop tree became a tree filled with rotten apples and big, black, cawing ravens and the lemonade river that had sparkled and shone brightly like gold became a river of murkiest black.

 

“Oh my! Oh no!”, said Karenella in a trembling, gasping voice, her eyes that had been wide with enchantment now becoming wide with fear.

 

And, just as she said these words, infront of her she saw the door of the witch’s grey house begin to slowly creak open and, standing in the doorway was the witch, dressed from head to foot in a long, black robe and with a tall, black, pointed witch’s hat upon her head.

 

“Run, little girl, run”, said the Owl in the tree, “Run back to the sound of nightingales. The witch cannot follow you there because she cannot bear their singing”.

 

And Karenella turned to run but, as she did, the witch stretched out her arms as if they were made of the same stuff as shadows and then, the fingers of the witch’s gnarled old hands clutching Karenellas arms as tightly as talons, she started to drag the little girl towards her.

 

“See how the little rabbit tries to run”, she said, cackling, “But no matter how it tries, it can’t run away. I will put it in my cooking pot and boil up some rabbit stew”.

 

“Help me”, cried Karenella, kicking her legs frantically in the air as the witches long arms contracted like rubber bands, pulling her backwards, “Aunty Una. Please, help”.

 

But, just then, she heard a voice; a voice like that of her Auntie Una and it was speaking loudly like a wind blowing through the forest,

 

“Fly, little nightingales”, it said, “Fly to the witch’s house. Fly and help my little girl. Help Karenella”.

And then, suddenly, all around her, Karenella heard the noise of Nightingales singing and the loud fluttering of tiny nightingale wings and, before she knew what had happened, the Witch was surrounded by a big cloud of nightingales singing and pecking upon her hooked nose and crooked chin and tugging upon its long, wormy whiskers with their beaks and, when this happened, suddenly Karenella felt her witch’s claw like fingers let go of her and then, her heart pounding within her chest and as fast as her legs could carry her, she ran.

 

She ran and she ran; back through the forest, past where she had met the little tumbling clown doll and past where she had bent down to pick bluebells and she didn’t stop running until she could see her little, green painted wooden house again and, standing in front of it as if waiting for her, her smiling old, grey haired Auntie Una with her arms opened wide.

 

She ran right into her Aunties arms and felt the old woman’s arms hug her tightly.

 

“Oh my dear”, said her Aunty, “I’m so happy that you’ve come home for I was so worried about you”.

 

“Oh so am I”, said Karenella, “So am I”.

 

Then, after her Auntie had brewed up a cup of hot, sweet tea for them both, Karenella told her all about what had happened to her; how the dolls had lured her into the forest and about the owl in the tree and how the witch had grabbed her and how she had heard Aunty Una’s voice like the wind summoning the Nightingales to rescue her.

 

“Was that really your voice that I heard, Auntie?”, asked Karenella.

 

“Oh, my child”, said her Auntie, “What you must have heard were the wishes spoken in my heart; wishes that someone, somehow would protect you”.

 

“Is it magic Auntie?”, asked Karenella, a thought crossing her mind that perhaps her Auntie Una might be a kind of witch although a good witch.

 

“Only love’s magic, my dear”, said her Auntie hugging her again, “But sometimes that can be the strongest magic in the world”.