“Rosemary and lavender are good for everything. If you put it in the cupboard when it’s dried, it will also repel moths. Look, I even carry a small satchel of it in my bag! The scent of lavender calms and clears the head, it’s been used by witches for thousands of years,” explained Hexy, standing next to the big pot of something that resembled an elixir.
“Always be careful with wort, though, you only need a little in your cooking because it has a horribly bitter taste. My grandfather even put wort in wine, but that was a long time ago.”
“Look, Hexy! What has happened to Kitty?” Hanna cried. Kitty, who had been purring peacefully in her lap, suddenly became restless and started pacing the kitchen, his back arched. He was even hissing at times.
“He’s alright” said Hexy, “but look at Leslie!” Leslie was the raven, who had even been taught to speak by his owner. Now, as usual, he sat in the window, flapping his wings and occasionally croaking:
“What’s going on? What’s going on?”
“Something is wrong” Hanna said. Thunder echoed from the sky in response.
Hexy turned back to the pot with an eerie calm, as if she had been expecting what was coming.
” “The next moment, the window burst open with a huge crash. Patrick’s smoke bomb flew through it, and in a few seconds thick smoke filled the room. Hanna couldn’t see a thing, and Hexy didn’t answer her when she shouted her name.
From somewhere outside the window, Patrick’s voice cut through the air.
“Forward! Get in, everyone! Bring out the guns!” there was banging and shouting coming from the window, as the kids had broken into the house through it, but they couldn’t see anything either.
“Come on!”
“Where is my water gun?”
“Patrick! Patrick, where do we go now?”
There was a huge commotion in the thick smoke. Leslie the raven was screeching as he tried to escape from the kitchen, his flapping of course scaring the kids to death.
“Aaaaaaaaaaah! Help! It really hurts!” Patrick shouted suddenly, and immediately there was a deep silence. Hanna was crying from the smoke and started to grope her way towards where she heard Patrick’s voice.
“Help, he is bleeding badly!”
The silence was broken by Hexy shuffling around the kitchen and opening all the windows. The smoke slowly began to clear.” “The air was finally clear. The children were standing on the broken window ledges with startled faces, and Patrick was sitting on the floor next to the table, blood oozing from his left leg.
Hexy slowly walked over and crouched down beside him. Patrick was scared out of his mind.
“Please don’t hurt me… I think I stepped on a broken shard,” he mumbled.
No one dared to speak. Hanna wanted to say something, but Hexy stopped her.
The old woman went to the stove, took some clean, white cotton wool from the drawer, dipped it in the pot, soaked it in the boiling liquid she had been making since the morning, and knelt down beside Patrick.
“Now, give me your foot. We’ll fix it, it’ll be better than ever.”
Saying that, she took Patrick’s leg in her lap and with one swift move, she pulled the huge shard of glass out of his flesh. Patrick shouted in agony.
“Come on now! Don’t tell me it hurts! A famous general like you should take it like a man!” Rebuked Hexy, bandaging the bleeding leg thoroughly with the cloth.
“Wow… It doesn’t hurt anymore!” Patrick exclaimed in surprise, as the other children breathed a sigh of relief. But they knew that the siege for the house had been lost before it could really begin.” ““Who wants some hot cocoa?” Hexy asked the children after sitting them down around the table: Hanna in the lotus chair, of course.
“It’s delicious! I swear, you’ve never tasted anything like it!” said Hanna to encourage them. Slowly everyone’s fears subsided and they began to admire the strange kitchen in awe. Hanna proudly showed off the strange objects:
“This is a horseshoe, from a favourite horse of a landlord that lived long ago… the shoe is made of nickel! And that’s Leslie, the raven. You scared the hell out of him!”
“So scared us!’ Patrick countered.”
“I have a confession to make,” said Hexy, pouring the cocoa into the most beautiful mugs. “I started building this house for my daughter and myself many years ago. You were not even alive then. But my daughter became ill and I could not cure her. There was only one cure for her illness in another country, so we had to move, and the house remained abandoned. But now that I’ve come back, I saw that you had taken it over. I put the sign up in vain. In fact, I am quite angry at myself about it.”” ““But just because you’ve done something stupid, that doesn’t make you stupid,” she continued. “You can play here if you like, but only outside in the garden. You see, I have made it look like a wild forest. And you can always get some cocoa inside.”
“Auntie Hexy…” Patrick said, “you didn’t tell us what happened to your daughter.”
“She stayed there, in that other country” said Hexy with tears suddenly in her eyes, but pulled herself together quickly as she went to the pantry to get a tray of biscuits.”
“And guess what… Hexy can do card readings!” Hanna whispered to the others. When Hexy returned with the cookies, Patrick almost rushed at her:
“Could you tell my fortune, please? Please! I want to know if I will fail my math class again this year! Please tell me!”
Hexy smiled, took out the coloured cards, drew a few from the deck, laid them on the table in a star shape, looked at them with a grin, then said:
“The answer to that is relatively simple.” The children listened intently.
“If you study, you will not fail!”
Cocoa and laughter filled the kitchen.