Free Awesome Blossoms: Horn OK Please by Kartik Iyengar Page A

to help her people. She buckled on the ground, tears streaming through her eyes. But Alice was a brave girl. Her father had always taught her to fight the situation with all her might, come what may. So, soon, she pulled herself together and thundered in rage, “Where are you, you witch?”
    Suddenly a shrill, hoarse cackling came from the other side of the village. Alice examined the direction from where the sound seemed to be coming from. The sound stopped abruptly. Again the cackling started. But this time it was from a different corner of the village. Then, the horrible sound surrounded the entire village. Alice was filled with revenge when she hollered, “Come out, you coward! Come out and face me!” Alice expected the witch to a ppear in front of her but nothing happened. Again she shouted, “If you are brave enough, come out and face me!” Suddenly there was a puff of putrid smelling red smoke. The witch showed herself and yelled out in the most infuriating voice imaginable, “What’s the matter Alice? Where are you friends and family? Oh! I’m so sorry my dear, they seem to be a little tied up at the moment!” and she let out a hoarse laughter. Alice asked her “What did you do to them?” “Oh nothing my dear! Just punishing them for something that you said to me. Tit for tat, you know?” And then, a moment of silence followed.
    Gaining her strength, Alice said, “Well fine! Now I’m going to play with my other friends.” Alice’s sharp brain was working out a risky yet a winning plan. “Others! Who others? There’s no one out there!” said the witch, taken aback. Alice noticed the witch’s weakness immediately – the element of surprise. The witch conti nued, “I will suck out these people’s souls and leave them with no emotion. These are the same people whom you love so much and from whom you have received love all your miserable life. Now they will work for me.” The witch flashed an obnoxious smile. Her holed teeth dangled from her gums as they gaped out of her open mouth. Her breath reeked of stale flesh and blood.
    After observing Alice’s face for a while, the witch made an o pportune move, “But, if you give me your power, I will bring them back to normal and leave you all alone. It’s your choice, my dear Alice,” the witch said in a mellifluous voice. To her surprise, for the second time, Alice’s plain, simple and straightforward answer remained the same, “Never! In any case, I can kill you anytime I want!” she said. “Kill me? Hah! You cannot. I am immortal! My soul is in the body of a raven, whom you can never kill!” Alice replied, “Raven? I can’t see any raven around?” Suddenly the air was filled with a harsh cawing sound. The witch’s soul had arrived. “So what?” said Alice on seeing the black, evil bird with a long black beak and searching eyes. She exactly knew what she would do next.
    “I can still kill you, just as how I read in a book!” she said. “What! Its given in a book that if you want to kill a witch you must have to drive a stake through her heart and wring the neck of the raven?” blabbered the witch, clearly scared that her little secret was now an open book. Little did she realize that she had been tricked into letting out her own secret.
    Now Alice knew how to kill the witch. Her plan had worked! The witch, in the meantime, had calmed down a bit but Alice still didn’t know how to retrieve the villagers’ souls. So she made her next move, “Yes, that book also told me how to retrieve the souls.” Now the witch looked ready to faint and as she stammered, “Those disgusting pages have also mentioned that you have to just open my black handbag? I don’t believe this!” Alice let that sink in. A stake through the witch’s heart, her raven with his neck wringed and her handbag. The last bit did amuse her though. But since the witch was in a deep shock, Alice got down to work immediately. She grabbed one of the sharpest stakes from