Free Falling In by Frances O'Roark Dowell Page A

in the coldest of the winter months, but rarely elsewise. Ah, but it’s lovely when he’s there. He reads us stories and tells us tales and lets us lie in bed of a morning while he milks the cows.”
    “I’d think it be nice to have such a large family,” Grete commented as she poured herself some more tea. “Someone to play with at all hours of the day.”
    “It’s not my job to play with ’em, it’s my job to mind ’em, and I’d do a better job of it if there were only one or two,” Hen said with a sigh. “I wish I was the youngest and not the oldest. If I were youngest, then I could run about and play Wallop the Dragon with all the rest. Instead I’m chasing the little onesaround in circles, and I’m no good at it. I try to be good at it, I do. But they’re always running away from me.”
    “Where are all those brothers and sisters of yours now?” Grete asked. “Back home?”
    Hen picked worriedly at a hangnail. “Off at the camps outside of Greenan, I suppose. They got away from me when we were heading up that way, and then I took up with this one.” She nodded toward Isabelle. “I guess I let them get away on purpose. Thought it might be fun to have an adventure on my own.”
    If Hen was worried about her brothers and sisters, she didn’t say. Would she be more worried or less, Isabelle wondered now, if she found out the witch was ten feet away from where she sat? Maybe it was best not to find out. Remembering Hen’s desire to wrap her hands around the witch’s neck when she set sights on her, Isabelle shivered. Who knew what Hen would do?
    And who knew what Grete had planned for them?
    Maybe, Isabelle thought, it was time for a change of venue. For everyone’s sake.
    “Hen,” she said in a quiet voice, sure that Grete couldn’t hear them from the kitchen. “Do you think we should be going soon?”
    Hen, who had not finished reporting on the joys of goldenseal, stopped short. “But why? Grete is happy to have us, and there’s no place else for me to go. I’d wonder if there were any place else for you to go either.”
    Hen had a point. Where would Isabelle wander off to if she left? She had already reached her destination, hadn’t she? She’d set out to find the witch, and apparently she’d found her. A disappointment of a witch, to be honest, not the least bit scary, no evil fumes steaming off her skin, a house filled with sunlight and healing plants, but a witch nonetheless.
    “Well, sooner or later, we’ll have to go, won’t we?” Isabelle asked.
    “Surely,” Hen replied. “But not during the season. We’ve come to a safe place, and we might as well stay until we wear out our welcome.”
    But was this a safe place? Isabelle wondered. Was it safe for Hen, safe for Grete? For the rest of the day she peeked around corners, slinked through the yard, looked up and down and all around, watching and waiting for something to—to what? Jump out at her? Catch her in a trap? Reveal itself?
Oh, here we are, a pile of bones, just as you’ve been told
.
    That night after dinner, when it was time to sit on the porch and read, Grete pulled a thin volume from the bookshelf and blew the dust from its cover. She sat in the middle rocking chair, and Hen and Isabelle sat on either side of her, Hen happily, Isabelle warily.
    “Once upon a time,” Grete began, “there was a woman who lived in the woods with her husband and child, and they were very happy.”



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    But then the husband died.
    The wife did what she could to make a life for herself and her baby. She hunted the woods for mushrooms and roots and healing plants, anything she could sell to the villagers to survive. The villagers bought the woman’s goods, but did not welcome her into their homes. She and her husband had moved to the woods from another place, and so were strangers, and unwelcome. After her husband’s death, the woman was no more welcome than she had been before, though from time to time a good-hearted villager