Once

Forty Two

"Oven's almost hot, little mouse," the witch hissed right into her ear. "Which one first? One little boy and two little girls. Three silly little mice have come running into my trap today!"

Maggie whimpered, scrabbling frantically at the knots of her tied hands. Sellan's gaze kept switching between Elle and the witch. There was a mad desperate hope in his eyes. The same hope Elle had seen in Jax's eyes two days ago. A look in his eyes that physically screamed at her. Help us Elle. Only you can help us.

The heat of the room was growing overbearing, stifling. A baking warmth radiated out of the open oven door as the flames licked out like writhing yellow snakes.

If only David would look back and realise she wasn't behind him - if only Russell and Jax would realise where they must have gone...

Something clicked in Elle's mind. Maybe she was delirious from the heat, the smell, the exhaustion of the past few days. But at that moment all her terror left her. She wasn't even remotely scared anymore.

The witch's face grew even closer to her own. Close enough for her to sink her teeth right into Elle's neck if she wanted to. The cracked grey lips peeled back in a toothy grin, revealing an ugly black tongue within.

"So who is going into my nice hot oven first? What do you say, little mouse?"

Elle didn't answer. She was focusing on very slowly raising her right leg toward her stomach, until it was drawn right up into her like a coiled spring. She turned her foot upwards so that it was pointing toward the ceiling, the folds of the witch's robe brushing around the toe of her shoe. For a second Elle held it there, feeling the energy quivering right through her leg, her knee, all the way down to her foot. There was an intense power in that foot. Not just the power of Elle's relatively small frame, but all the pent up rage of a full week of having to take a lot of bullshit coming at her from a lot of different directions.

"You want to know what I have to say?" Elle said at last. There was a faint amusement in her voice that caused the witch to suddenly fix her with a stare of - what was it? Confusion? Fear?

Elle's lips parted once more and she said, very softly but firmly:

"There's no such thing as witches."

And she let loose all her energy, shoving out her foot in one insanely hard kick.

Just like with the wolf and the umbrella, just like with the last swing of the axe into the beanstalk, Elle somehow managed to land the blow exactly where she needed to. She felt her foot crash hard into the witch's midriff, bones crushing under the sole of her shoe like brittle twigs. The witch flew backwards, robes billowing out, limbs flailing. A monstrous scream screeched out of it as it careered across the room and vanished out of sight, crashing down hard among the piles of broken furniture.

Elle stared open-mouthed, not believing for a moment how hard the witch had flown from that one single kick. It was as if it weighed nothing at all, like a paper bag full of old bones. Elle wondered if she'd killed it, or at least knocked it unconscious. As the scream died away there was nothing but silence coming from the gloomy corner into which it had just disappeared.

"Elle, that was amazing!" Sellan cried. "But what the hell are you doing down here?"

"Saving your lives, that's what," Elle said.

She threw herself at the knotted ropes tied around the beam. There were about a dozen knots, all of them incredibly tight. Her fingers slipped over them frantically, but her hands were clammy and she couldn't get any purchase. They were too close to the blazing fire here. She could feel it beginning to prickle and burn the skin of her face.