Chapter 55: Curiosity and the cat

Interlude

Fox Tufford furtively crept up to the cottage and stared through the thick rippled glass of the door’s tiny window, bracing himself in case he came face-to-face with the murderous old hag again. Limited by what he could see and hear, he began to slowly push the door open. He winced as it started to creak open, and then his heart leapt as he thought he saw something pass by the obscured glass.

A wave of adrenaline overtook his fright, and with his heart in his mouth, he kicked the door wide open. But it became apparent that there was no-one there and he cursed himself for being so jumpy,

On the floor of the kitchen lay the body of the cat, knife still buried in its chest. More disturbingly though, there was no sign of the old woman. He kept his eyes on the door leading from the kitchen, and knelt down slowly, blindly reaching for the handle of the knife that was embedded in the cat. He found it, grabbed at it, and yanked it out, standing up quickly. Beads of sweat had formed on his forehead, and he wiped them away with the back of his hand.

‘Where are you?’

He glanced down at the cat.

His first impressions were correct; it wasn’t a cat after all, but what seemed to be a bizarre union of two distinct species; most likely a cross between a feral cat and a larger, unknown, second species. He was just about to look away when he raised an eyebrow in surprise as he noticed the dead animal’s paws – they resembled miniature versions of human hands, except they were covered in the black fur, and tipped with razor sharp claws.

And then his fascination was suddenly broken, as a sound from within the cottage grabbed his attention, and he whirled around quickly to face the door that led away from the kitchen.

‘Come out witch. I know you’re in there.’ he shouted.

A voice from the other side answered.

‘Leave me be or you’ll be sorry! I’ll make you rue the day you ever set foot in this place!’

The voice sounded strangely distant and feeble. Not at all like how he expected her to be.

‘Will I eh?’ he said, and moved his head closer to the door. ‘I’ll be sorry will I?’

By now, Fox Tufford was about as mad as he could feel and he ignored the threats coming from behind the door.

‘Why did you try to murder me? Answer me that!’ he shouted, banging on the door with the hilt of the knife.

‘Ha! What else did you expect?’ she said. ‘A stranger turning up in a poor old woman’s home like that? I was just trying to protect myself. Stands to reason. I was perfectly within my rights.’

‘Pathetic. I’m going to count to three, and then I’m going to smash the door down there and find you and drag you kicking and screaming outside.’

‘But you murdered my Diablo.’ she wept. ‘You’re the murderer! Why would I trust anything you say?’

Fox thought about it for a moment, and then shook his head.

‘You don’t have much of a choice I’ll grant you. And besides, I’m sick and tired of what’s happened to me today, and I want some questions answering.’

There was no answer.

He grabbed another knife from the wall, and held them both in front of him.

‘One.’

…

‘Two’

…

‘Thr–’

The latch on the door lifted up slowly and the door opened.

Cordelia Ragweed felt her way into the kitchen, holding her bony hands in front of her. As she shuffled closer, to his horror, he noticed that her eyes had become milky opaque discs, and she seemed to be having trouble negotiating objects in her path. With her arms outstretched, she grasped for anything that might help reveal to her where she was in relation to the room.

He frowned. He trusted her about as much as he trusted a serpent, and so he waved one of the knives in front of her face just in case it was all a trick. There was no flinching and no reaction, and from that he assumed that the old woman was genuinely blind.

‘And yes, I am blind, before you say anything else young man.’

By now, Fox Tufford had begun to feel a little sorry for this old woman standing before him, even though she had tried to murder him not ten minutes before.

How did she become blind so quickly, he thought?

‘By killing my lovely Diablo,’ she said, as if answering his thoughts directly, ‘you made me sightless. He was a part of my eyes and ears and bonded together in life. Therefore, when you took his life, you almost killed me in the process.’

‘I suspected something like that, yes.’

She screwed her wrinkled face up even more than it was naturally.

‘Pah! What do you know of our ways? You’re just an ignorant man! If I had my eyesight back, why I would strike you down where you stood. I would use your eyes and liver, your marrowbone and your heart. I would take what I needed, then toss what was left to the wolves in the forest.’

He listened to her rant, before replying.

‘The wolves eh? What makes you think I won’t do that to you, you old hag?’

The old woman cackled, dismissively.

‘You don’t have the balls.’

‘Don’t I? You don’t know anything about me old woman.’ He slapped his chest, with pride. ‘I hunted down and slew the Cockatrice of Ketton. What makes you think I’d show you any mercy?’

Her eyes widened, and her voice shrunk.

‘Leave me be.’

‘Maybe I will, maybe I won’t.’

Cordelia frowned.

‘What do you want from me?’

Fox stabbed the knives into the wood of the kitchen table and pulled up a chair.

‘I want you to tell me everything about this place…’

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