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"The candy house is a bit much." The Midwife said as she gazed across the gingerbread table at the witch sitting on the other side. No, this was a Witch. With a capital W. The kind whispered in stories to keep children from wandering too deep into the woods. The reason those children went missing.
"Oh, it was my great-great-great-something Grandmother's." Said The Witch. She wasn't the type of Witch the Midwife expected. Far too beautiful. Too young. Hair of perfect golden curls and eyes as blue as the sky. Her skin nearly glowed with health. The only odd thing out were her red stained teeth.
She'd fed recently.
"Witches run in the family?" The Midwife said, lifting up the cup of tea before her, but not even pretending to take a sip.
"By adoption. You know how it is. You think you found a meal but oh, the child is just a little too smart or has a little too much willpower to eat. Nothing to do but to raise them as the next Witch!" The Witch laughed, it sounding more like a melody than a normal voice. "At least that's how it happened to me! One moment the old Witch was getting me ready for stew, and the next she was sewing me my own witch hat!"
"Because you were too smart?" The Midwife said
"Because I pushed my little sister into the stew pot first. The old Witch loved my initiative." The Witch said as she adjusted her point hat.
The Midwife sniffed the tea. Ah. She realized her mistake. It wasn't tea. It was some sort of meat stock. Beef, if she was lucky. But she doubted it. Her eyes darted to the boiling soup pot over the fireplace. She then placed the tea cup back down and forced a smile. "And you've been living in this candy house ever since?"
"Someone has to, you know? What's a forest without a Witch?" The Witch flashed those cold, deep eyes at The Midwife. "What about you? Where is your witch hut? Please tell me it's the type that has chicken legs! You seem the type."
The Midwife shook her head. "Oh, I'm not a witch."
That made The Witch's pearly smile shrink a little. "You're not?"
"No, I'm a midwife."
The Witch's smile vanished completely. "The Midwife?"
"Aye. Some call me that."
In a blink of an eye The Witch jumped up and ran over to the front door.
"Already took care of the door." The Midwife said as she stood up from the table. "And the windows, don't even try."
The Witch turned around, her whole gorgeous frame shaking. "What do you want? I can teach you my magic! Real magic! I can give you power that would make the heavens shake! You'll be the most powerful witch in these lands for sure! Possibly the world!"
"No, I don't think so." The Midwife said as she reached deep into the shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Too deep than what seemed physically possible.
"Money? Fame? A kingdom? Everything and more?" The Witch said, her voice cracking around the edges. "What do you want?"
"I want a lot of things. Revenge, mostly, for the child bones that litter your garden." The Midwife finally pulled the object she had been searching for from out of her shawl. It was a pan flute as garishly colored as its previous owner, "But right now I'll settle for you listening to my song."
The Witch frowned. "Your...song?"
"Well. Ain't my song. And I'm not the best at it. But it draws in a hell of a crowd." The Midwife pressed the pan pipes to her lips and blew.
What came out could only barely be described as music. Not that The Witch could hear it clear for long. For as soon as the first few notes tumbled out of the flute the scratching at the walls began. Scratching. Gnawing. The scraping of sharp teeth and the chattering of dozens if not hundreds of rats.
They were furious. They were starving.
The Witch lunged, but she was far too late. The first rat had already worked its way through the candy walls and went straight for her ankle. That was all that was needed to take her down. The next dozen rats made sure she wouldn't get back up. By the time The Midwife finished the melody there was nothing but a pile of greasy bones and an old witch hat laying on the floor before her.
The Midwife picked up the hat and looked it over once, twice, before chucking it straight into the still-bubbling stew pot. She made sure it sank before she brought the pan flute back up to her lips. With any luck the candy house would be gone within the hour. Finding all the children's bones would take longer. But she'd do it. And she'd bring them back to the closest village, where they could bury them to whatever God was proper.
But really. Her? A Witch? What a joke.
The Midwife knew she'd look terrible in a pointy hat, anyway.