get out of the forest, what is it you would hope to find?”
He couldn’t even bring himself to say her name which was a mark of how delusional he knew all hope to be.
“Yes,” said Pottle as if he had answered. “It can be a terrible thing, hope.”
“Thought that was what you tried to give people,” said Hat.
“Oh no. Change is my game. But I never guarantee it will be for the better.”
Today-this morning, this evening, whatever time of dream it was-for the first time there was change. The trees stood far apart, a broad track wound between them and eventually he found himself walking through beams of hazy sunlight laced with birdsong which his ornithologist’s ear told him signalled morning.
At first he advanced rapidly, but soon began to slow, not because of any obstacle in his path but because he was finding out just how terrible hope could be.
So it was at the same time both huge disappointment and huge relief when he emerged from the trees into a sunlit clearing and found the path had led him to…
A gingerbread house!
He knew where he was. And he knew why his poor beleaguered mind had chosen to escape here. This was the land of childhood, a time before love and pain and loss.
Except of course in stories. It was Hansel and Gretel who got lost in the forest and found the gingerbread house. Only it wasn’t just a house, it was a trap, set by the dreaded Crunch Witch. You nibbled away at the gingerbread and she caught you and then you too got turned into gingerbread, ready to be nibbled at.
Well, tough tittie, Witch! He wasn’t hungry. And he didn’t like gingerbread.
With a heart almost as light as his head, he moved forward. Immediately a blackbird skulking under a blackcurrant bush stuttered its alarm call and Hat came to a halt as the Crunch Witch appeared in the house’s open doorway.
She was tall and square-faced with vigorous grey hair neatly coiled in a bun beneath some kind of small feathery hat. A pair of round spectacles, one arm of which had been repaired with sticking plaster, perched on the end of her slightly upturned nose. She was dressed in a sky-blue T-shirt and olive-green slacks tucked into black Wellington boots. No broomstick, though she did carry a rough-hewn walking stick which might serve in an emergency. This apart, she looked most unwitch-like. Indeed, there was something slightly familiar about her appearance…
Then the blackbird flew up and settled on her shoulder, and the little hat stood up on her hair bun and stretched its wings and he saw it was a great tit.
Dreams are like mad people-in the end they always give themselves away.
Reassured, and curious as to where this might lead, he moved forward again.
“Good morning to you,” said the Crunch Witch.
“And to you,” said Hat. “Lovely day.”
The closer he got, the more he realized that he was going to have to watch his step with this one. Spotting he wasn’t mad about gingerbread but loved birds, she’d changed the house into a simple thatched cottage, constructed of a dark orange brick with gingery tiles and birds flying in and out of the windows.
And there was more. Closer, he could identify the source of his feeling of familiarity. It lay in her sky-blue T-shirt, which bore an image of a small soaring bird and the legend Save the Skylark.
She said, “Snap,” looking smilingly at his chest.
He glanced down to confirm that he was wearing exactly the same T-shirt.
“Oh yes,” he said.
He focused on the blackbird on her shoulder. It returned his gaze assessingly.
“Does he talk?” he asked.
“Talk?” she frowned. “He’s a blackbird not a bloody parrot.”
As if it too had been offended, the bird spread its wings and sprang straight at Hat’s head. He ducked, felt its beak tug through his hair and then it was gone.
“Jesus,” he gasped.
“Shouldn’t walk around with twigs in your hair,” said the witch. “Crackpot probably thinks you’ve been out scavenging nest materials for him.”
Hat put his hand to his head and realized she was right. There was quite a bit of undergrowth adhering to his hair, but at least he didn’t have a tit nesting there.
“Crackpot?” he said.
“First time he came into the house he tried to perch on the handle of a cream jug. Over it went and broke. So, Crackpot. Now, how can I help you?”
He said, “I got a bit lost in the forest…”
“Forest!” This seemed to amuse her. “Well, if you’d kept on the track which goes around my garden, you’d have arrived at the road in a couple of minutes.”
“Your garden?” he said, looking round.
More magic. The clearing was now enclosed by a ragged thorn hedge with a ramshackle osier gate. Most of the ground was covered with rough grass, aglow with tiny daffodils, but alongside a lean-to greenhouse on one side of the cottage were the regular furrows of a small kitchen garden in need of work after the depredations of winter.
The witch said, “You don’t look too well, young man. Not had your breakfast, I bet. I’m just having mine. Step inside and let’s see if there’s anything to spare.”
Very cool! Disorientate him with the garden then lure him inside with food.
He said, “That would be nice, long as it’s not gingerbread.”
Show her he was on to her game!
She said, “Fortunately it’s not my first choice for breakfast either, but if you want a menu, you’d better find yourself another restaurant.”
She turned and went inside, walking rather stiffly and leaning on her stick.
Hat, feeling himself reproved, followed.
He found himself in a shady old-fashioned kitchen entirely free of anachronistic technology. His nose, sensitized by the chill morning air, caught a whiff of something vaguely familiar from his old life, quickly swamped by the delicious odour of new baked bread traceable to a rough-hewn oak table on which three tits were assaulting the dome of a cob loaf while a robin was doing its best to open a marmalade pot.
“Samson, you little sod, leave that be!” roared the witch. “Impy, Lopside, Scuttle, what do you think you’re playing at?”
The birds fluttered off the table but with little sign of panic. The tits settled on a low beam, the robin perched on the edge of an old pot sink, all casting greedy eyes back at their interrupted feast.
The witch picked up a long thin knife and Hat took a step back. But all she did was trim the pecked dome off the loaf then carve a thick slice from the remainder.
“Help yourself to butter and marmalade while I mash a new pot of tea,” she said.
She turned away to place a big blackened kettle on the hotplate of a wood-burning stove. Hat spread the bread thickly with butter and marmalade and sank his teeth into it. God, it was delicious! The best food he’d tasted in weeks. In fact the only food whose taste he’d noticed in weeks. This was a good dream.
One of the tits fluttered down on to the table and eyed him boldly.
“Sorry, Scuttle,” he said. “I’ve waited a long time for this.”
The witch glanced round at him curiously.
“How did you know that one was Scuttle?” she asked.
“Two blue tits and a coal tit, not hard to guess which one’s Scuttle,” he said.
“So, apart from your problem with blackbirds and parrots, you do know something about birds. That what you’re doing out so early? Bird-watching?”
“Not really,” said Hat, thinking, You know exactly what I’m doing!
She turned to face him across the table.
“You’re not an egg collector, are you?” she demanded.
“No way!” he replied indignantly. “I’d lock those sods up and throw away the key.”
“Glad to hear it,” she said. “So if you’re not twitching and you’re not thieving, just what are you doing
