A Hero's throne

scratching and picking sound once more. The window unlatched, swung open, and there was a pause of about three seconds before she heard flapping and grunting.

Opening the door, she caught sight of the witch, her hair entangled in half a dozen strips of flypaper that she had hung from the ceiling. Seeing Gemma, the witch fell backward, out of the window, pulling several of the flypaper strips with her.

But three still remained.

Her parents didn’t seem to have heard anything, so climbing up on the changing table, she very carefully brought down the strips and carried them into her room. She would have to remove the nails later, she thought. Or maybe not. The strands of hair that she removed, she put in the bottle, along with the bloodied pins.

The next week was the last and the easiest stage of the plan. It was also the riskiest, and the most frightening, and Gemma had no clear idea of what would happen next. It was also the last chance she would have, since the witch was now up to the letter G in her name-calling rhyme.

She went into her brother’s room with a large pair of scissors and positioned herself just beneath the windowsill. The light in the room became dimmer and dimmer. Just as it was dark, she heard the scraping and scratching and tilted her head back to look up at the window.

In the paper-thin gap between the window and its frame was a long, thin finger with a long, thin fingernail, edging up toward the latch.

Taking a breath, she pulled open the scissors-big ones from her mother’s desk-leapt up, and snipped off the fingernail, right near to the tip of the finger.

Like a blind worm, the finger wavered and then withdrew.

Gemma bent down and picked up the sliver of nail. Then she looked out the window. The witch was there, her large, bulbous nose pressed up against the window pane.

“Hello, dearie,” the witch crooned.

Huh, Gemma thought, unimpressed. She even talks like they do in the storybooks. “What do you want with my brother?” she asked.

“You don’t need him. Why would you want two brothers? Less attention from Mummy and Daddy. Less love. Why not give him to me?”

“I’m going to stop you.”

“With pins and flypaper? I’ll find out his name eventually. And if not him, then another.”

“No,” Gemma said, putting her hand in the pocket of her bathrobe. “I mean I’m really going to stop you-for good. You’re not going to steal anyone’s baby-ever.”

“And how do you intend to do that?” the witch asked.

Gemma took the small bottle from her bathrobe and held it up.

“Oh.” A look of uncertainty passed over the witch’s face. “Don’t be-wait a second.”

Gemma uncorked the bottle and stuck the fingernail in it, corked it again, and shook it.

The witch gulped. “Pins and flypaper,” she murmured, automatically raising a hand to her hair. “Let’s talk about this. .”

Gemma leaned over and picked up her brother.

“I could knock on the door and talk to your parents. Adults always believe other adults. They would stop this foolishness.”

Gemma turned back to the witch. “My parents are out tonight; my big brother is ‘watching’ me. I bought him a Top Gear DVD this morning and gave it to him half an hour ago. He told me himself that he’s going to ignore anyone who’s at the door tonight.”

“Well then, I guess you’ve got me, dearie. Just bury that bottle under your front door and I won’t be able to ever enter the building again. You win.”

Gemma smiled. “I have a better idea,” she said and turned. As she left the room, Gabe smiled and giggled at the face of the witch pressed up against his window.

The TV was emitting the sounds of souped-up motor engines. Anthony was oblivious, as usual, to anything other than what was directly in front of him.

She went into the kitchen and found that the witch was standing outside the kitchen’s French windows. Startled, Gemma took a step backward. She gripped the bottle tighter and moved forward.

“In the stories,” Gemma said, “the witch-bottle has to be thrown in the fire. The doorstep works as well, but that won’t get rid of you for good.”

“I think I picked the wrong sibling in this house. I’ll tell you what, why don’t I make you a deal? Come with me, and I’ll tell you all of my secrets. I’ll give you power you would never know otherwise. You’ve obviously got the knack. I will train you to be the mightiest witch in all the land.”

“I’m curious,” Gemma said. “Do I know you? I mean, are you someone that lives on the street? Someone local?”

“I’ve seen you many times. Sometimes as often as every day. I’ve watched you grow up.”

Gemma held up the bottle and pressed the cork in as firmly as she could. In her arms, Gabe shifted and gave a little grunt.

“In the stories they always threw it in the fire, so that it would burst. I don’t have a fire. But I think this will work.”

She opened the door of the microwave and placed the bottle on the glass plate.

“No!” screamed the witch.

Gemma shut the door, set it to high, and turned the timer, switching it on.

The witch screamed and writhed outside in the garden, as if she were the one in the microwave. Gemma watched her as she withdrew into the corner. She wrapped her arms tightly around Gabe and then crouched down.

The witch’s screams became shriller and shriller, mounting to a crescendo as the bottle in the microwave burst.

Gemma expected a flash of light, and maybe another explosion, but the only thing that happened is that the door swung open and banged against the kitchen wall. Bits of the bottle tumbled onto the counter. Gabe began to cry.

“What’s going on in there?” Anthony demanded, pausing the DVD.

“Nothing,” Gemma said, gently shaking Gabe. “Just dropped something.” She went to the window and looked at the body of the witch, lying stretched out in the garden. She was dead, apparently.

“So clean it up.” The DVD started again; motors revved. “And put Gabe back to bed.”

“Sure,” Gemma said. She considered what she should do with the body in the back of the house. . Bury it somewhere? That sounded hard, not to mention dirty. Burn it? Drag it around the shed and hide it?

Then she realised that she didn’t have to do anything. She could just leave it there. It would give her mother a fright in the morning, of course, but then the police would come, take it away, and that would be the end of it. No one would possibly connect the death to a broken bottle and some minor damage to a microwave. She wondered who the witch was. They changed their faces when they were doing their witchy things, and when they were killed their faces turned back-rather like werewolves-that much was a consensus in the stories.

She took Gabriel back up to bed and then went downstairs again to use the dustpan and brush, unable to stop smiling over the satisfaction of her victory. She looked out the window, and the witch was still on the ground. She would have to wait until daytime to find out who she really was, since she certainly wasn’t going outside now. But if it wasn’t one of the teachers at her school, she was going to be very disappointed.

II

“Lies? What do you mean ‘lies’?”

“You could have gone home-you could always have gone home. But we needed to send you on that quest. We needed to try-we needed heroes.” Modwyn opened up her palms.

“But we failed. We didn’t kill Gad.”

“It was not about him-not exactly. We just needed you to survive.”