Beyond the Witches' Home 1/5

Jennifer Jane was walking along the path to the Giant's pool. As she approached, she could hear Barnacle Bill and the Giant chatting together, Barnacle Bill waved as soon as he saw her.

"Lovely party the other day. We were just saying what a smashing meal your parents gave us."

"Well, thank you for the entertainment," replied Jennifer Jane, "I didn't know you could play the concertina."

"Jacks of all trades, sailors are," said the Giant, who seemed in rather a dreamy mood. "All that food," he went on, "I ate as much as I wanted and felt full for the first time in years, without having to have twenty or thirty goblins running backwards and forwards to bring me enough for a small snack."

Jennifer Jane had never thought about it before but supposed that feeding someone as tall as a tree must certainly be very difficult.

"It's a lovely day, just right for a trip on the river," said Barnacle Bill suddenly, "would you like to come?"

"Can't," said the Giant, "even if I was small enough, I've got work to do." He started crying into the pool with a happy smile on his face. "That lovely trifle and the jelly!"

Barnacle Bill and Jennifer Jane walked round the edge of the pool to the paddle steamer, which as usual had been moored a little way away from the Giant, to prevent him from sinking it by accident when he cried his giant tears.

As Jennifer Jane followed Barnacle Bill's usual flow of orders and helped cast off the mooring, she suddenly remembered something an apprentice witch had said the last time she had visited the Witches' Home. 'The front of the house isn't really in your world at all.'

'I'm sure I've seen another door across the hall from the one we always go in by,' she thought.

She made up her mind. "Would you like to go to the Witches' Home?" she asked.

"That's a good idea," said Barnacle Bill, "then perhaps we could invite Abigail out for a sail and go on to my home in the estuary. She's never been there and it would make a change for her from rushing around on that broomstick."

They both waved goodbye to the Giant, who muttered something about macaroons, which Jennifer Jane didn't quite hear properly, as the steamer headed out of the pool towards the magic fog and the Witches' Home.

She looked round more carefully than usual as the boat steamed out of the fog. The Witches' Home looked the same as usual. There was the neatly trimmed lawn between the house itself and the landing stage. The storage shed for the flying brooms could be seen clearly but somehow the ground just beyond appeared blurred and indistinct in spite of the bright sunshine. The river seemed to go right past the house at first sight but looking more carefully, the banks got hazier the further they went. Jennifer Jane couldn't see any ground beyond the house at all.

Barnacle Bill started giving the orders for mooring his paddle steamer as they slowly nosed alongside the landing stage. "All secure, finished with engines," he said at last and they both stepped ashore.

One of the younger witches came to meet them. Barnacle Bill explained that he wanted to ask Abigail to come for a trip on his steamer.

"Do come in and have a cup of tea and a slice of cake," invited the young witch, "I'll go and find Abigail and send her up to see you."

"Would you mind if I had a look around the house?" asked Jennifer Jane.

"By all means but don't go down into the basement, or you might interrupt some important spell making."

Jennifer Jane promised she wouldn't go downstairs and Barnacle Bill went off for his cup of tea and cake. Jennifer Jane walked along a corridor and soon found the door she remembered seeing on her previous visits. It was a perfectly ordinary looking door, with a window in the upper half. Through the window, she could see a path leading to an arched gateway and beyond that some open ground with woods in the distance.

She opened the door and stepped out into a courtyard. The house didn't look at all the same from this side; it was more like a castle. The walls were made of big stone blocks and had steps leading up to battlements. She walked along the path looking up as she went under the arch and as she expected, there was a portcullis in the arch and then a drawbridge across a moat. Except that it was obviously all in very good working order, it was just like the castle ruins, which she sometimes visited on holiday with her parents.

She walked across the drawbridge and looked around. It seemed very quiet and peaceful. A large area of open ground where she could hear birds singing. Fluffy clouds floated in the clear blue sky and about half a mile away a forest stretched as far as the eye could see in all directions. On the horizon straight in front of her, there was another castle on a hilltop but she could see she would have a long walk through the woods if she ever wanted to reach it.

'Oh well, maybe another day,' she thought to herself. 'I'll just go as far as the edge of the wood and then perhaps I ought to go back to Barnacle Bill and Abigail.'

She'd only walked a little way when she spotted some smoke rising just in front of the trees to her right. "There must be somebody there and it's only just by those trees," so she went to see what was going on.