“I’m sorry if we’ve offendedyou, Mistress,” Arik croaked. “Whatever it is you think we’ve done,I apologize for it. If you could just see it in your good grace torelease us, I promise we won’t bother you anymore.”

“Shut up!” she shouted.Lowering her voice as she came closer, she stared Arik in the eyes.“What is your name, youngling?” she demanded.

“Arik Clava, Mistress,” Arikwhispered, “and my friend is Tedi Markel.”

“Tell me how old you are,”commanded the witch as she came toe-to-toe with Arik, her breathsmelling strongly of onions.

“Fourteen years,” wheezed Ariktrying unsuccessfully to lean back away from the strong odor. “Andso is Tedi,” he quickly appended.

“You look much older thanfourteen,” she scowled. “Perhaps you need a lesson in truthtelling. How old are your parents and where do theylive?”

Sweat was dripping into Arik’s eyes andhis nose was starting to twitch. Arik was focusing on the woman’sface when all of a sudden, she literally rose up and was tossedinto the sea. The moment she hit the water, the spell binding thetwo boys broke and they took off running down the dock. They didn’tstop running until they entered the woods at the south end of town.They both collapsed into a gully and turned to watch the path fromtown. Long minutes of silence passed before either onetalked.

“What was all that about?”asked Tedi. “And why did you lie about our ages?”

“I don’t know,” answered Arik.“Nothing about today makes much sense. When she trapped us, Ithought she was after you because of the incident at the inn thismorning, but she seemed to be more interested in me. I guess Ifigured if she thought we were younger, the punishment for whateverit was that I was supposed to have done would be less because wewere younger. I don’t know why, but I don’t mind telling you that Iwas scared like I’ve never been scared before.”