It's hazardous when people fall in love with paper people, live out their digital fantasies, or succumb to a scary book. Books and other forms of entertainment offer escapism-literally.
Children don't choose their fantasies freely like the grown-ups do. Instead of believing that oneself can fly on a broomstick, they believe that the candy they just eaten will make them blow up like balloon. Instead of believing that wardrobes, houses, and tollbooths can take you to lands that don't exist, something is hiding in tollbooth too, if they happened to have one of those in the basement.
When I say that it's hazardous when people turn books into things, what I mean is that the Fixer has to chase down flying monkeys, find Captain Hook in the middle of one of the seven seas, and locate confused maleromance-novel-cover-models in the middle of shopping malls across America.
Fear is a powerful emotion but it's not the most powerful. The Fixer has met the Witch before and she tricked him then. The Fixer believes every person has a bit of good inside of them, sometimes it needs a little light or water to grow. However, the witch is not a person. She is a they will believe someone or their wardrobe or house. Or thing. Since she is a thing, she has no emotions. She runs on pure instinct and that instinct tells her to hunt.
The Fixer met the Witch not long after Hansel and Gretel's father told them a story he made up to lull them to sleep. Unfortunately, the father neglected to tell them that it wasn't a true story. Thinks and things took that think and thus, it became a true story.
In the story, two children ignore warnings from their father to not wander into the dark woods without permission. The children sneak off, get lost, and come across a house made of candy. A very nasty witch owns that house. She locks them up in a cage and feeds them all the cakes, candy, and cookies they could ever possibly desire in a lifetime. Everyday, the witch (who has, or rather had really bad eye sight) poked through the cage, grabbed the children's fingers to monitor their progress. The witch's plan all along was to fatten the children up and cook them in the oven for a special meal.
Fortunately, these two children were quick thinkers for they took the bone of a chicken and tricked the witch into thinking it was Hansel's finger. The children also trick the witch into climbing into an oven and they were able to escape.
But what most versions of this story will not tell you is that the witch never died. The Fixer came along soon after the children fled and fixed the situation before she succumbed to a fiery death.
After all this time, the witch has lived in the thoughts of children. Until a librarian mistakenly placed a copy of the tale in the non-fiction section at Billy Godfrey's school.
The Witch was lying lazily on her green and pink pastel striped couch, fanning herself with an index card of a lemon spritz cookie recipe. She had been baking all day and the house needed cooling off. But not until she got her fix.
She heard footsteps outside, crunching the fallen autumn foliage that the melting snow revealed. She woke up and rubbed her eyes. She had fallen asleep with her contacts still in her dry eyes. She sat up and listened closely to the footsteps now, they sounded tiny and smelled sweet.
Flour stained her bubblegum pink blouse but she didn't care. She took a quick look in the hallway mirror. Messy red hair in need of a hair straightener, stained clothes, pink eyes with raccoon rings. Lovely. The footsteps were getting gradually louder. Too late to do anything with you, she sighed at her twin.
She could envision a tiny finger reaching out to ring the doorbell.
She opened the door and was pleased to find a plump boy, about age eight, standing on her doormat, “If you lived here, you'd be home now.”
“Hi, there,” she greeted him. He didn't respond. Perhaps he had been wondering these dark, scary woods for a while. Probably starved. Disoriented. Delicious.
“Are you lost, little boy?” she asked. He nodded. “Are you hungry?” She grabbed his plump little hand and laughed. He took a step back. She didn't let him go.
“I was just about to pull out a batch of cookies from the oven. Want some?”
She opened the door a little wider with her other free hand, the boy peered in. Down the hallway, he saw mountains and hills and rivers of goodies. Chocolate truffles, frosted sugar cookies, petit fours, peanut brittle, perfect squares of caramels, powdered lemon bars, and peanut butter fudge.
He saw dipped white chocolate pretzels, a big pot of chocolate boiling on the stove, bowls of cookie dough, pitchers of frothy orange creme and raspberry lemonade, and a German chocolate cake ready to be frosted.
Enticed, the boy stepped in eagerly and threw out whatever caution he had to the wind, the squirrels, and to the trees.
“Help yourself,” the Witch said as the boy reached for a gingerbread man cookie.
The Witch's house was nearly impossible to find. It was off the map and in the middle of the woods.
Luckily, the Fixer noticed mutant dandelions growing near his next client's location.
Not so luckily, the half eaten goodies (the coffee flavored biscotti was left untouched) and a few bones on a cookie sheet was all that remained in the house. The Fixer didn't bother to close the peppermint door when he left.
He bent down on one knee to examine a dandelion. This particular dandelion was not the normal kind. Normal dandelions don't grow together, intertwined in one big stalk.
When mutant dandelions appear, that means two things must have happened. One, something is missing and needs to be found before repairing can be done. Second, something irreversible has happened. Sadly, in this case, it was death. Death cannot be undone.
Now, sometimes a think may cause a previously dead person to return to the earth but they can never take on their previous form. The dead person in question may come back in the form of a ghost, zombie, or angel. It depends on the type of think.
The Fixer has long since mastered the technique of detaching himself from the death of any of his clients. Everything that starts must come to an end. Although, nothing really truly “ends.”
After doing what he can, the Fixer places his ax, hammer, and a box of nails back into his tool box and takes out his logbook. He sharpens a graphing pencil with a knife. He sits down on a freshly cut tree stump and begins to write.
Name: Billy Godfrey
Location: Thief River Falls
Think: The Witch from Hansel and Gretel
Thing: The witch and her house far off in the woods of Thief River Falls.
Status: fixed pending as is
Comments: Unfortunately, the boy has expired. The Witch, as of today, has not been located. House is boarded up, securely.