Chapter Text
“Gumball,” Cotton Cookie asked, “Have you ever heard of the witch of the orangeberry thicket?”
Truthfully? No, Gumball Cookie hadn’t heard of the witch of the whatever-berry thicket, but he absolutely didn’t want to hear about them anyway. He and a few of the other teenage cookies were holding a sleepover at Cotton’s cabin, sitting in a circle and telling scary stories. He was embarrassed enough to have been genuinely scared at some of them- the last thing he wanted was to get more spooked than he already was. To make it worse, it was storming outside, and the mixture of loud cracks of thunder and rain hammering against the roof of Cotton’s house wasn’t exactly very comforting to Gumball.
“Of course he’s heard of her! Who hasn’t? I wasn’t born in this kingdom and even I know about her!” Strawberry Crepe Cookie said, rolling their eyes. They looked at Gumball expectantly. “Gumball Cookie, you do know who she is, right?”
Gumball laughed nervously. “Uh, yeah. The uh… witch. In the forest. Yeah!”
Strawberry Crepe somehow bought his lie, grinning widely. “See?” they exclaimed triumphantly, looking back at Cotton. “I told you!”
“Uhm…” a meek voice came from the corner of the room. Everyone turned to see Pancake Cookie raising his hand. “I don't know about her.”
Oh, great, Gumball thought, I forgot about that kid for a second. Pancake had overheard the friends’ plans to host a sleepover and begged to be invited. They all begrudgingly agreed, not like Pancake wouldn’t have shown up anyway. They’d been lucky to exclude him from most of their activities. Until now, at least.
Everyone in the room groaned at the sound of his voice- Cherry Cookie was clearly the most annoyed out of all of them. “Ugh, not this brat,” she muttered (loudly).
“Cherry!” Cotton said quietly enough so that Pancake couldn’t hear, “Come on, let’s at least tolerate him.”
“What was that?” Pancake had obviously heard.
“Nothing!” Cotton returned to smiling. “Since you don’t know about her, would you like to hear about her story?”
Pancake nodded enthusiastically and scooted forward so that he was part of the circle, shoving Gumball and Cherry apart from each other’s sides in the process. “Yes! Yes, I would!”
Gumball and Cherry gave each other an almost astonished look, sighed, and scooted over so that Pancake could have more room to sit. “Tell me, tell me!”
Cotton smiled and opened her mouth to begin to tell the tale before she was cut off by Strawberry Crepe shoving a robotic arm in her face. “Are you sureeee you wanna hear it, Pancake Cookie?” they said, trying to convince him to go away. “It’s a pretty scary story!”
Cotton, annoyed, pushed the arm away and shook her head. “No no no, Pancake, it’s not that scary. Our friend Crepe here is just…” she gave them a look, “...over exaggerating.”
“How about we, like, DON’T talk about the witch?” Gumball suggested, already frantic, “It’s just- it’s just some stupid story, right? Let’s not waste our time with it.”
Cherry, who had somehow found a way to sit next to him again, giggled. “Why are you so insistent on not talking about it, Gumball?” she teased. “Are you scared~?”
“W-what? I- no!” Gumball insisted. “No! I’m not scared! I just… ugh, you know what, fine. Just tell us the dumb story already.” Right when he finished, lightning struck the ground somewhere, causing a loud CRACK sound. He flinched at that, which only made Cherry laugh more. Gumball only shrunk back in embarrassment as Cotton began to tell the tale.
“Oh, gosh, the witch…” she said. “Well, I haven’t told this in quite a while, so excuse me if I get any details wrong.”
“Just tell the story already!” Cherry whined.
“Right, right! Sorry, uh, okay, so…” Cotton finally began. “The witch- not a witch witch, like a cookie witch- is said to be ageless. Cookies think she’s been there since the beginning of Earthbread! She’s the reason the orangeberry thicket looks the way it does: the reason the trees there are all dark purple and candy corn grows on the bushes and branches. She apparently can speak to the woods and even control pumpkin vines. Cookies say she’s also the reason Halloween exists. Oh, oh, and pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns! Apparently, if you respect the spirit of Halloween during October, she makes sure that you get lots of candy, but if you don’t, you get none. Neat, huh?”
“You’re forgetting about the cool stuff!” Strawberry Crepe abruptly took over right as lightning struck again. “So, you know how she lives in the orangeberry thicket? Yeah, so apparently she really likes visitors- cause she hasn’t seen one in 10 years! Haha! She’s lonely or something, but her house is really hard to find. Cookies even think the forest shifts every time someone enters or leaves.”
“Anyway, like I said, she really likes visitors, so much that she’ll even show up at your house to invite you back, but you know what she really hates?" Strawberry Crepe said as they acted out the story with their Wafflebot hands, "Cookies trashing the forest! So when you damage or destroy parts of it, pumpkin vines grow all over your house. And if you keep doing it, a huge orange monster kidnaps you when you’re all alone and takes you to the forest, and you’re never ever EVER seen again, because the witch has the monster take you to her house and eats you alive!" The hands swiped at Pancake at that, causing him to flinch in fear.
"Oh, yeah, I forgot," they continued, "She has a monster, yeah, that exists too. She can befriend and enchant dolls into becoming sentient and having monster forms, apparently, but she can only do it every 100 years, and if I remember correctly, she’s only ever done it once.”
Surprisingly enough, Gumball wasn’t too scared by that, but Pancake sure was. He had retreated to his corner and was quaking, tucking his hood over his head. Gumball, Cherry, and Strawberry Crepe found it amusing- Cotton obviously did not.
Cotton walked over and gave the frightened child a reassuring pat on the back. “Aw, Pancake, don’t worry, it’s just a story! It’s not real, right guys?” Cotton looked back and gestured for one of the others to come and help her comfort Pancake.
Cherry shrugged and walked over, and, in the most reassuring voice she could muster, said “Yeah, Pancake, it’s fine. Really.”
Pancake clearly wasn’t convinced, tears still rolling down his face. To make it worse, the thunder and lighting got louder and more frequent. Cherry looked at Gumball, her face pleading for help.
Gumball rolled his eyes. I can’t believe I’m doing this, he thought as he reluctantly walked over.
He knelt in front of Pancake and tapped on his shoulder to make him look at him. “Hey,” Gumball said, “Uh… if it makes you feel any better…”
He couldn’t actually think of anything he knew that would make him feel better, so instead, he just lied. “When I was little, I used to be really scared of the witch, too.”
Pancake seemed interested, so Gumball expanded on his fake memory. “Yeah. Whenever I did something that my mom didn’t like, she’d tell me that the witch would come when I was sleeping, and that she’d kidnap me and eat me.”
That seemed to cheer him up. “Really?” Pancake said as he wiped the tears from his eyes.
No, idiot, Gumball said internally.
“Yeah,” he said instead, laughing. “Funny, right?”
“Y-yeah,” Pancake sniffed. “That’s… pretty funny.”
Cotton smiled and mouthed a thanks to Gumball before looking back at Pancake. “See? There’s nothing to be scared of! It’s just a story, after all.”
Strawberry Crepe, still sitting away from the group, rolled their eyes before waddling over to join their friends in the corner. The rest of the night, the group just gossiped and told stories- not the scary ones this time.
They were so occupied with what they were doing that they never noticed the bright orange figure peering into their window the entire time.