Free Kissing the Witch by Emma Donoghue Page A

you.
    Bed so soft I think hot snow.
    She wake me blowing on nose. I tell her walls gingerbread. She say, And the door is toffee and the chimney is liquorice and the beds are chocolate. I not know words. Laugh anyway. She make
pancakes two each me her and brother. Her eyes red like crying. Face smooth like girl.
    We can stay if work. She know all that grow in woods. She know how talk rabbits into big cage in kitchen so never starving. Brother chop logs laugh like grown man ask kiss get slap. She teach me
roll dough for baking into shapes of woman tree star.
    Only bad nights. Wrap round brother like bread before oven. Very quiet say home like would get me there.
    One night brother gone out bed. I look sugar crystal window. No steps in moon snow all swallowed up. Too feared to cry. Then woman scream like mother old nightmares say, Get out of my bed.
Brother fall on floor. Say, Just for a warm. She hit something. Brother say, Lonely.
    Morning woman wake me stroking say, Bonny red cheeks what will we do? I look brother out axing wood. Bake bread, say I. She laughing.
    Days on days go by snow shrinks to nothing. I dance like white flowers pushing through cold head first. Brother has hair chin instead of smile. Woman make him chop all trees died in winter till
hands red like robins. I pick mouldy seeds from good.
    One day we baking brother walk in call her name I never heard lift her skirt behind. Woman no scream this time. Put skinning knife to chin make drop of blood till he get in rabbit cage. He
laughing as she chain it. I laughing I feared. He shake cage. It hold fast.
    Night I cold so woman let me in with her. Make like she not hear brother shouting. I say, He cold. She say, Not for long.
    I sleep warm between arms. Wake up understanding she go to skin him like rabbit.
    Slip into kitchen heart banging like churn. Brother sleep till I find key in drawer open chain put hand over mouth.
    He climb out stretching. Come on, he whisper. You’re safe with me little nut.
    Not safe anywhere.
    He shake my head to wake it. Don’t you understand? Now the snow is gone I can find our way home to mother.
    No, I crying quiet. Home not home if mother not mother.
    But you can’t stay here, she’s mad, she’s got a knife.
    Take my chances, I say.
    He look for long while then nod. I give him fresh bake loaf shape like me. Tell him no come back with huntman gun. No come back ever.
    I watch him run through trees. Snow begin falling cover tracks. I lean head in door wait for woman to wake.

Snow melting round next morning I ask,
    Who you before so angry?
    And she say, Will I tell you my own story?
    It is a tale of a skin.



X
The Tale of the Skin
    S EE THIS LEAF , little girl, blackened under the snow? It has died so it will be born again on the branch in springtime. Once I was a
stupid girl; now I am an angry woman. Sometimes you must shed your skin to save it.
    There was a king, there was a queen. He was as rich as she was beautiful. They were as good as they were happy. They lived in a palace on the edge of a vast forest where the leaves never fell.
They were wrapped up in each other like a nut in its shell.
    The only strange thing about this king was that his favourite, of all the splendid beasts that snorted and tossed their heads in his stables, was a donkey with lopsided ears. The princess was
allowed to stroke the creature’s ears on feast days, but never to ride her.
    When I say the princess, I suppose I am referring to myself, though I have come such a long way from that little girl that I can hardly recognize her. I remember that I had golden hair, lily
cheeks and ruby lips, just like my mother. I know I used to run in the garden and muddy my ankles. I liked to slip out of the palace grounds and visit a cottage in the evergreen forest. An old
woman lived there who earned her bread by her needle, and by gathering herbs for medicines. I used to call her my flower-woman because her face was dry like a flower pressed in a