Alice had ridden through the night to try to catch up with the mysterious northman, but the road had been blocked by a group of strangely dressed priests who told her the valleys were being clensed. She had thought to turn back and warn the villagers of Fallow Vale, but with the money she had paid her father to buy her way out of the wedding, he could afford the trouble.

Now that she was free she wanted to find Konrad and her only option was to hope that Rolo had visited the witch in Wolledale and given some indication of which way he went.

The bell at the back of the store tinkled gently, and Alice gazed around at the various dolls and puppets that covered every available surface and the dozens of shelves and nooks on the walls of the shop: soldiers with little woollen spears, balarenas, bards, and of course Ostred, the most famous champion of the gods.

Anyone looking carefully might notice other puppets hidden among the others. Puppets of regular men in regular clothing. One looked like a clerk, another like a nightwatchman, and another like a farm laborer, each of their faces bearing the same look of woolly surprise.

Ethel, the small witch, appeared. Today she was wearing a woolen jumper with "Fleece be with you" written in flowery script above a picture of a sheep holding a watering can.

"Hello, what can I do for—oh, it's you, dear; I was wondering when you were going to show up."

"You remember me?" Alice was surprised, the only time she had come into the store, she had been heavily disguised.

"It’ll take more than a wig and a change of clothes to fool me, Miss Alice Reed. You think you’re the first one to come in here asking to get rid of a husband?"

"I didn’t ask you to get rid of him; I just said I needed help getting out of the marriage," Alice began.

Alice had first come to the witch out of desperation, but when she learned the details of the process, she was sickened. Franklin Tate had done nothing to deserve being turned into a woolen puppet. He wasn’t wicked, unless you counted being a moron as a crime.

The witch waved her hand. "You didn’t have to tell me; I know a broken woman when I see one. As soon as you came in here, I said to myself, Ethel, that there is a girl with a broken spirit. You’re not the first, so don’t worry about anything. It’s all taken care of."

"What do you mean it’s all taken care of?"

"I put him around here somewhere," the old woman said, rummaging around under the counter and producing a box made of flimsy cardboard with a red ribbon tied around it. "He was a bad’un. I knew as soon as he walked in. He said that you’d sent him, of course, but I can smell a lie a mile away. Your description was very poor you know, you’re lucky I know how to improvise."

Alice felt her stomach sink like a stone. Franklin Tate had somehow found out what she was going to do and had come here. "What did you do to him?"

"Only what he deserves, same as the others," Ethel sniffed.

Alice clutched the box, horrified. She had wanted nothing more than to leave Fallow Vale, but now she would never be allowed to go home again. And poor Franklin Tate—he was harmless as a rabbit; he didn’t deserve this. "I only came in for a consultation. I wasn’t going to go through with it."

"It’s okay; you don’t have to be afraid any more," Ethel replied, rubbing Alice’s back in small circles.

"I came here because I was angry. I got out of the marriage on my own, I bought my way out."

"In that case, we’ve saved some other poor lass a similar fate," Wanda said with a sage nod of her head.

"You have to turn him back."

"Can’t put the wool back on the sheep. Turning is what I do, not un-turning. Best to get off home and get some ewe time."

Alice pulled the ribbon and lifted the lid off with trembling hands. Franklin Tate had flaming red hair and brown eyes, with skin so white that when the sun was shining on him, you could see his bones, but this puppet was black haired, with light blue eyes, and a stylish goatee beard.

"Are you sure this is mine?" Alice asked.

"That’s quite insulting, you know, it doesn’t work unless the likeness is good; look, I even gave him a little axe."

"Oh Gods," Alice breathed, picking up the Rolo doll.

"He was rotten to the core; I got a sense for these things."

The witch pushed a battered pack onto the counter. "This is his; there's a fair bit of money in there and some shiny chain mail. He had an axe, and mines all rusted, so I'm keeping that. You don’t have to feel bad for him, you know; it doesn’t hurt them none. More like a long sleep in a woolly blanket."

"This isn't Franklin. His name was Rolo. I sent him here because he wanted to find a witch and ask for help," Alice croaked.

A crease crinkled Ethel's forehead. "So he’s not your betrothed?"

"No."

"Just some regular adventurer type."

"Yes."

"Well, that's a dropped stitch isn't it." Ethel seized Rolo’s pack, and thrust it into Alice’s arms, then she flicked the sign on the door to ‘closed’, and held it open.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"You have to turn him back," Alice said, waving the puppet Rolo, his flimsy woolen arms flailing uselessly at his sides.

"I told you, Missy, I can’t do that. Turned is turned."

Alice felt her breath tighten in her chest, and she looked outside towards the guards who were lounging nearby.

Ethel followed her gaze and her eyes narrowed. "Don’t think I aint got enough red thread for you, Missy. Annie over there is the head of the complains department if you got something you want to say."

The witch pointed to a cage that Alice hadn’t seen above the door. It was a round bird cage, and inside was a sorry-looking puppet wearing a ragged old skirt that looked like it was made from a piece of old sacking. Her mouth was drawn into a frown, her woollen hair had been chopped roughly, and what looked like a small tear had been stitched under one eye.

"Annie was a tattletale," Ethel stated, her voice carrying a hard edge.

"You have to help me, please. He doesn’t deserve this; he came here looking for help."

"You won’t find anyone around here to turn him back, some of the other witches might, but I wouldn’t trifle with them."

"What about the arcanists?"

The witch laughed. "Those windbags wouldn’t be able to if they wanted. They all grumble around for a while, arguing about how to do it, and then say it’s beneath them. Now get out of here before I stitch you up."

Alice knew that she wouldn't stand a chance going toe to toe with a witch, and being turned into a puppet wasn't going to help Rolo or Konrad. As much as it pained her she dropped her eyes to the floor and left the store, trying not to let the witch see that she was almost shaking with anger.

-

Hours later, the dull lamp light inside the puppet shop was extinguished, and Ethel emerged, carefully locking the door behind her. As soon as the witch turned the corner at the end of the street, Alice emerged from the shadow of an alleyway.

Her movement was hampered by the gently clinking chainmail armor she wore. When she had discovered the armor and the metal key in Rolo’s pack, she could hardly believe what she was looking at. She knew from her books that the symbols on a key represented The Manthan Smiths, a legendary group of master craftsmen. The secrets of the magically infused armor they made were lost to time, and there were only a handful of surviving pieces. Alice knew it was her duty to help restore Rolo, but she couldn’t deny that finding out where he had found such an item gave her more motivation.

The back door of Ethel’s store was only held shut with a flimsy lock, and Alice made short work of clicking it open with a piece of bent wire. Her father had realized that the only punishment that seemed to have any effect on Alice had been to take away her books and lock them in the library, so she had learned the skill at a young age.

Once inside, Alice began searching. She kept her eye out for anything useful, but mostly she was hoping for a book that explained how to undo whatever enchantment had been done to Rolo. A notebook would be enough; failing that, perhaps there would be some kind of enchanted item. She had read about them, although most of them were items for transforming, not transforming back.

Alice moved over to the back of the store and jumped when she saw Ethel standing in the corner. The witch didn’t move a muscle, and Alice let out the breath she had been holding as she realized that it wasn’t the real Ethel but rather a larger-than-life puppet of the witch.

As Alice paused momentarily to let her heart rate settle, the muffled silence of the store was broken by the sound of the small bell above her head tinkling gently.

"Brave of you to come back, Alice Reed; there are not many who would meddle in the affairs of witches."

"I just want to help my friend," Alice said, reaching out and grasping a long pair of iron scissors from the bench.

Ethel still hadn’t moved, and Alice heard a soft rustle behind her just as the puppet Ethel wrapped its thick, woolen arms around her. Alice struggled, but the puppet was impossibly strong, pinning her arms to her sides.

"At least Annie will enjoy the company," Ethel sneered.

The lamps in the store flickered on, and Alice saw that Ethel held a new puppet in her hands—an Alice doll with red hair, freckles, and brown eyes. Ethel held the puppet out with a triumphant look on her face, and Alice felt the rings on the chainmail glow hot against her skin.

Ethel tossed the Alice-puppet aside, her face twisted with rage. "Cut her strings," she hissed.

All of the puppets in the store came to life at once and seized weapons of their own. A ballerina wielding a knitting needle the size of Alice’s forearm jumped onto the counter in front of her.

Alice twisted the heavy iron scissors and managed to snip at the forearm of the Ethel puppet. Wool stuffing burst out of the wound, and Alice twisted away. A second snip cut the woolen head clean off.

The chain mail glowed hot against her skin, and Alice felt something glance off of her shoulder. Behind her, a burning symbol on the wall was gently smoking. Ethel growled in frustration and reached into a pouch at her waist, covering her fingers in some dark, sticky substance. The chainmail Alice wore grew so hot that she gasped, the pain drawing tears to her eyes, but Ethel was in a worse state, falling to her knees, sweating freely, and panting.

Led by the ballerina, the puppets launched their attack, and Alice snipped away with the long scissors, sending knitted limbs flying into the air around her. A puppet of a queen was snipped in half and dragged herself across the floor, trailing woolen stuffing.

Ethel screamed, and Alice saw that poor Annie had also come to life. The ragged puppet had somehow escaped her cage, dropping down onto the witch's head and starting to pull out her hair.

Rolo burst from the pack on Alice’s back, and other puppets came out of the shadows. The regular people transformed by Ethel’s magic had also come to life and were now surrounding the old witch.

Alice caught sight of Rolo’s axe leaning against the counter, and she hefted it as she approached the prone witch. "Like a lamb to the slaughter," she said, and she slammed the handle of the axe into Ethel’s head, knocking her out.

-

Ethel groaned as she regained consciousness. The witch had a lump on her head the size of a small apple and was wrapped from the neck down in wool and surrounded by fallen puppets. When she had lost consciousness, all of the puppets had fallen still, including the puppet-Rolo.

"How?" Ethel murmured.

"How did I resist your magic?" Alice pulled open her coat to reveal a heavy chainmail that gave a dull silver blue shine in the dim light. "Magic armor—I thought a witch would have spotted it."

Ethel glared at the chainmail as if she had a bad taste in her mouth. "Arcanists' tricks—that’s not real magic."

"Transforming people into puppets is? Turn my friend back, now."

"I can’t do that, I told you. I wasn’t lying."

"Then tell me where to go, you said other witches could help. My friend mentioned one called Serena."

At the mention of the name Serena, Ethel’s eyebrows shot up and the blood drained from her face. Alice quickly pounced on her fears. "Serena and Rolo are close friends."

"Never heard of her," Ethel snapped, regaining her composure.

"Whether you tell me or not, I’m going to find her, and she’s not going to be happy when she finds out what you did to her friend."

Ethel licked her lips. "Let’s not be too hasty now; there might be another way to change him back."

"If you try to trick me, it’ll just go worse for you. It’s not just Serena you have to worry about; his other companion is a champion of the gods."

This statement had much less of an effect on Ethel. "So?"

"A champion of the Father," Alice lied, and she gave a satisfied smile when she saw fear return to Ethel’s face.

"There might be a way to remove these transformations. It’s a waterfall that removes all magical enchantments."

"Rhendra’s falls? They have been lost hundred of years."

"Almost a thousand now, but they wern't lost, they were buried. Caved in to keep Rhendra locked away."

"How does that help me, then?"

"Because I heard the dwarves have found it."