Enchanted Forests (3 page)

woodcutter's ax. Except the King decided that everyone who

cuts wood in the Royal Woods needs a woodcutter's permit. Ex-

cept the permit costs more man I make in a year. So the only

choice I have is to starve, or to poach wood from the Royal

Woods. And if I get caught poaching—and that's an easy thing

to do, since it's easy for the King's bailiffs to find a woodcutter

who's selling wood without a permit—then I get arrested and

have to work off my sentence doing guess what? Chopping wood

in the Royal Woods. And once I'm paroled, I'll have no trade,

and a criminal record, so I'll have no choice but to get arrested

again so I won't starve." Conrad spat on the ground. "The King's

slick as a slug in a grease pit."

The witch leered. "Slicker, in fact. That plot is worthy of the

Prince of Darkness himself."

Conrad shrugged. "I guess so. Doesn't matter. The only place

I can cut wood legally is Wild Wood over there." Conrad pointed

to the forest just across the meadow. "Except everyone knows

it's haunted, and filled with fairies and goblins." He paused,

looking at her. She was obviously enjoying this. "And witches.

And everyone told me the wood nymphs would turn me into a

tree if I dared to cut their woods, but I'd rather be a tree than

chop wood for the King. And there it is."

The witch chuckled and snorted. "Oh my," she said. "Oh dear.

I haven't heard anything so funny in quite a long time. You! A

tree!" She laughed until tears ran down her face, mice from her

skirts, rats from her hair, and what Conrad had taken for a tatty

black stole was revealed to be an even tattier black cat. "A tree!

You! Turned into a tree! By the wood nymphs!" The witch

"I'LL GIVE YOU THREE WISHES..        23

laughed and pounded the ground, giggling like a village girl

who'd just seen a naked man for the first time.

Conrad exchanged glances with the mice and rats and the cat

and the pair of toads who had crawled out of her shoes. They all

looked embarrassed. The cat began washing one ear, pretending

not to notice her mistress* conniption fit.

Conrad decided to take the cat's attitude, because now that he

was actually looking at a toad, being one didn't seem quite so

preferable to just being an unemployed woodcutter.

The witch at last recovered, wiping the tears from her eyes

and collecting her retinue back into her skirts. "Oh my, young

sir. I haven't had so fine a laugh since my youth, and for that I

will reward you." She looked at him again, leering. "You don't

get the jest, do you?"

Conrad shrugged. "No."

"The wood nymphs," the witch explained, "only take the

handsomest young men. And you—That nose! Those teeth!"

The witch burst into renewed peals of laughter.

Conrad considered his ax and the helpless witch on the

ground, but the cat looked at him and her expression was clear:

Don't even think it. buster.

Conrad shrugged again. The witch reminded him even more of

the village girls, who had been the first to laugh at his nose and

his teeth, "So what would the wood nymphs do with me?"

"Oh. they'd probably just drop a branch on your head and

have done with it. But you've made me laugh, young sir, so I'll

help you." She nibbed her hands with glee. "Oh yes, I think this

may be quite profitable for both of us."

Hector the mockingbird knew it meant trouble when the

woodcutter came to the forest. "Woodcutter- Woodcutter. Always

trouble- Always trouble. Sharp ax. Sharp mind. Cut, cut, trouble,

trouble, trouble."

Prissy the squirrel threw an acorn at his head: "Loud mocking-

bird! Too loud! Bad Hector! Bad-bad-bad!"

"Woodcutter! Woodcutter! Trouble, trouble, trouble!" Hector

whistled, laughing, and did a back flip to dodge another acom-

"Woodcutter! Woodcutter! Chop-chop! No trees! No nuts! No

squirrels!"

Prissy paused, cocking her head and another acorn. "No

nuts?" She dropped the acom in shock. "No nuts!" She ran off,

sounding the alarm: "No nuts! No nuts! No nuts!"

Hector did another back flip, proud of himself, then winged

24                  Kevin Andrew Murphy

off through the forest, singing his song: "Woodcutter! Woodcut-

ter! Trouble-trouble-trouble!'*

Conrad stayed close to the witch- The birds and animals

seemed upset, and one squirrel sat on a high branch and scolded

him, throwing acorns at his head.

The cat put her head up and hissed. The squirrel dropped her

nuts and took off down the branch, chattering wildly.

"That's right, Mehitabel. You tell that nasty squirrel." The

witch stroked the cat's tail. "Destroy the forest? Of course not.

Just select portions. Parts that have crossed us."

The witch led the way straight to the door of her cottage,

through a garden filled with belladonna, henbane, monk's hood,

skullcap and a bush heavy with the luscious purple berries of

deadly nightshade—and a paranoid-looking black goat tethered

in the middle, carefully cropping the few nonpoisonous plants in

between. A broomstick hung over the threshold for those still

slow on the uptake.

"Welcome to my humble dwelling, young woodcutter," the

witch opened a door decorated with a freshly painted pentacle

and a skull that evidently belonged to some former goat who had

no doubt finally nibbled the wrong bit of greenery, "but before

you enter, give me your name."

Conrad knew it wasn't the wisest thing to give one's name to

a witch, but men again, she could probably turn him into a crab

apple without it, so it didn't really matter. And with the starving

goat behind him. the last thing he wanted to be was a crab apple-

"Conrad, uh, good dame."

The witch cackled and ushered him inside. "Call me Dame

Margot. That name should do as well as any."

"Yes, Dame MargoL"

The hut was low-ceilinged and grimy, and Conrad had to

hunch over almost as much as the witch to keep from knocking

his head on the bundles of moldering herbs and various and as-

sorted spiders. There were tables and mixing bowls, mortars and

pestles, shelves of pickled whatsises better left unidentified,

and off to one side, a lectern carved with bats and cats and rats

and all the other fuzzy little animals favored by Forces of Dark-

ness.

Atop this, in a place of honor, lay the witch's books of forbid-

den lore. Or at least that's what Conrad assumed they were. Be-

ing illiterate, he couldn't read the titles, but given the setting and

"I'LL GIVE YOU THREE WISHES.         25

the leering pride with which the witch gestured to them. he sus-

pected they were something aside from chivalric romances.

She then pointed to a stool by the hearth. Conrad sat down

without question. Beside him, the obligatory cauldron simmered,

brownish gruel swirling in the depths.

Dame Margot stumped about her hut happily, humming some

little tune: " 'Today I'll bake, tomorrow I'll brew, the next day

the Young King's child I'll stew ...' No, that's not it. 'Be he

dead or be he alive, I'll...' No, not that either. Oh, I don't know

why 1 bother with these silly dwarven songs. The only point to

them is to have something to do with your lips in between

mouthfuls of beer." She came back with two mugs and set them

down to warm by the fire. "Dwarven ale. The best kind."

She cackled in delight, then got a long spoon and a wooden

bowl and dished up a mess of the stuff in the cauldron. "Here,

young woodcutter. Eat well and hearty, so that we might better

discuss business."

Conrad took out his hom spoon and tasted the stew. It was

better than he'd expected, but not much, with little bits of un-

identifiable meat which may have once belonged to me undis-

criminating goat. But the ale was much better, and he could

understand why the dwarves got their lyrics mixed up.

The witch sat down on the stool opposite him, Mehitabel

jumping down and stretching out before the hearth. "Now, tell

me what you know of wood nymphs, young woodcutter." She

produced a crust of bread and broke it up for the mice and rats,

who began to nibble it and look at him expectantly.

Conrad paused. "Wood nymphs. Um, they live in trees.

They're really beautiful. They turn men into trees sometimes ...

but only the handsome ones. The men, that is, not the trees. And

sometimes they can give you wishes ... except they never turn

out right."

"Aha!" said the witch, stamping her feet in delight and fright-

ening the toads from her shoes. "There you have it! There's the

rub and mere's the problem and there's the trouble with wood

nymphs. They have magic, true enough, but it's natural magic,

and cursed to boot, at least if you have the wood nymph's ill

will. Can't wish for castles and crowns and kingdoms with a

wood nymph's wishes. Just small, simple, natural things or nat-

ural magic. Not mat you'd want to anyway, since people who get

their wishes from bullying wood nymphs end up with sausages

stuck to their noses. Or was that noses stuck to their sausages?

No matter, I've heard both, and I've heard much worse than ei-

26                 Kevin Andrew Murphy

ther. Oh yes, much worse." The witch cackled a bit more and

nibbed her hands. "Why, I could tell you a few tales ... but

never mind. Listen to me, young Conrad, and heed well my lore

and learning. The only folk who*ve ever had happy dealings with

wood nymphs are the ones who've gained their love, and most of

them ended up as trees, so it's a tricky business. And if you're

handsome, they'll take you as a tree, to keep you with them.

But if an ugly man could gain a wood nymph's good will, why,

then ..."

Dame Margot rubbed her hands and cackled. ''You're a mer-

chant, aren't you, young Conrad? There's more to being a wood-

cutter than just chopping wood, isn't there? There's selling it,

too, and it's in the selling that there's the profit And you get

happy customers when you sell them something they want."

Dame Margot leaned close, and the cat and rats and mice and

toads all leaned in to listen, too. "Now let me tell you my

plan...."

Lindy the Linden was absolutely terrified. The woodcutter had

been walking all over the forest, singing fiendish woodcutting

songs, and now he had come and sat beneath her tree for the

third time that day.

And he was sharpening his ax.

She was an old linden, but a small one, and she hadn't any

limbs large enough to drop on his head, and tile thought of even

losing one of her limbs ...

She quaked like an aspen. To lose a limb, then have beetles

crawl under her bark..,. Oh, terrible, terrible! But to be cut

down altogether ...

She did her hair up as prettily as she could with her springtime

flowers and arranged her gown of bark as nicely as possible, then

slipped out the back of her tree and came round to where the

woodcutter sat, polishing his terrible ax. He was young, but as

ugly and homble as any of the forest dwarves, and brawny be-

sides.

She wrung her hands as she had been told was wise and tried

to look as plaintive and miserable as she could. "Oh please, good

Woodcutter," she said. "Please do not cut down my tree! If you

promise not to cut down my tree, I'll give you three wishes!"

The woodcutter looked up from his horrible ax and smiled.

"Hello, good wood nymph. Is this your tree here?" He reached

back and patted the trunk of her precious linden, and Lindy felt

his hand running up and down her leg.

"I'LL GIVE YOU THREE WISHES..        27

"Yes, good Woodcutter! Please, do not cut down my tree or I

will perish! I will give you three wishes if you promise not to

harm me!"

The woodcutter smiled more and stroked the root that corre-

sponded to her foot. "Never fear, good wood nymph. I was not

planning to cut your tree. You may keep your wishes, and your

life. Indeed, your tree is far too young and pretty to cut; it would

be a crime to rob the forest of its beauty." He patted the root

again and Lindy felt him stroke her foot "I only sat here because

I find yours the most fine and beautiful young tree in the forest,

and I wished to have a pleasant place to sit while I tried to de-

cide which of the old and ugly trees to cut down for firewood."

Lindy paused. "You do not wish to cut down my tree, good

Woodcutter?"

"Of course not, beautiful nymph. To all things there is a sea-

son, and it would be a crime to cut short the life of anything so

young and beautiful." He ran the whetstone across the ax blade

and looked at the other trees nearby. "It is just so hard to choose

which of the old and ugly trees to take. To decide which the for-

est would be better off without. I take my responsibilities as a

woodcutter seriously and would only cut down a tree that had

outlived her usefulness." He looked at Lindy and smiled, buck-

teeth protruding. "I don't suppose you'd know of a tree that fits

that description?"