Andy thinks he's lost forever when his aunt's chimney transports him and his dog, Chip, into the magical world of Emerraine. To get home, he must save the Hearthstone Village with Elsie, a young witch, and her Familiar against a dark plot that has b...
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"NO," Andy said softly.
Even though he had finally processed everything, even though now he could see the answer with his own eyes: he still fell down the long-familiar tunnel of lack of faith with the unimaginable: wishing that what just happened hadn't. Denying with his full being that the vase had tipped and smashed, that the soufflé had fallen moments before he served it to his mom and dad.
That he and the others were just in a random dream inside Andy's head.
Andy took a swift intake of breath. "Why?"
"Why!" she screeched. The witch, Greta, paced back and forth in front of her bound captives predatorily like a wolf. The angry movements and swishing of her baggy robe made the room seem even tighter than it was supposed to be. There was room for nothing else besides her rage
Andy writhed and shrank before the witch. Chip whimpered beside him and Spy-O made low static noises that Andy wasn't sure what it was supposed to be. The little robot should not be feeling scared... should he?
A bird cawed in the distance. The witch's lair had a small window, which showed a world of blackness outside. Rain was coming. And from that darkness, a tiny dot bobbed up and down until it grew bigger and bigger that Andy could tell it was a raven. In fact, it was the same one with black inky wings, feathers shedding like charred snow. The wind howled as those skeleton wings fluttered laboriously. The bird went through the sill and perched on top of the wooden staff's skull head.
"AH! Get off, you filthy bird," said the staff but the bird returned the insult with a snappish squawk and nipped and jabbed the protesting skull with its knife-like beak.
"I have eyes everywhere, young man," said the witch as she fondled the bird's back like some lovely pet. "I have seen and heard it all. A mission of driving the black clouds above Fairton to save Hearthstone?" She spat. "You think you can drive me away and set my years of hard work fall apart? No! You're just a child, an Outlander. But you are so stubborn that no matter how many times I have tried to get rid of you, you wouldn't budge."
"T-Those ravens... the flying rock... and then t-the apple..."
"Oh, yes, yes. Now you're getting it, sweet child. The last straw would be breaking the two of you apart," she said as her eyes glanced at Elsie's way for a brief moment, "And I partially succeeded. You went on your way home but the foolish little witch pressed on." Greta rubbed her palm together in excitement. Strange oils came off them but disappeared into dust and smoke before hitting the floor. "But I realize this is my chance. Now that their youngest child is in my hands, I can finally teach those good-for-nothing Rainwaters a lesson." The witch went straight to her bubbling cauldron and bent over to tend to it.
Without intending to, he voiced out his speculation in a whisper but audible enough to hear, "You're a Keeper."
Greta's body gave an involuntary jerk. When she turned to fix a pair of milky eyes on him, although not quite in the right direction, perhaps because of her cataracts, Andy's heart almost stopped.
