Mycal woke to a cacophony of voices screeching at the rising sun.

“Morning! It’s morning!”

“Stay out of my tree!”

“Any girls here? Hey! Any girls here?”

“Seeds! I need seeds!”

“Look! The sun! The sun! It’s coming! It’s the sun!”

He groaned and shook his head to clear it of the sleep-trance. The witch was gone, the only evidence of her having been there was a sticky spore residue forming a ring around him, covering the log and dusting the surrounding leaf litter. It was mustard yellow and slightly pungent, and already he could see tiny mycelium webs starting to spread in a dozen places. He felt a pang of guilt when he realised the sproutlings probably wouldn’t survive out here in the open forest, not with the spiral sun waxing full in the coming days.

It took some work to remove himself from the log as his hyphae had penetrated deep into the wood, requiring all his focus to make them retract. They’d fed well throughout the night and came free without him having to break the log apart. When he was back on his feet he looked about the area for signs of which direction the woman had gone, but there wasn’t a single footprint or bent blade of grass to be found. It was as if she had vanished into the wind.

For the rest of the day Mycal wandered the forest hoping they might cross paths. At sunset he returned to the same spot and sat on the log, staying awake throughout the night in the hope she might reappear. The next day was much the same, as was the one after that, but by the end of the third night he began to think he would never see her again.

Despite his growing despair, he had been encouraging extra mushrooms to sprout by stimulating his newly sprouted bulbs until they released their spores, gradually spreading the clusters further across his shoulders and down his back. Whenever a cap matured, he would pluck it off and store it safely in a small hip pouch he’d grown from his mycelium. He thought about her when he plucked them, but it never felt as good as the way she’d done it.

It was while he was at the bottom of a gully, hiding from the sun’s Autumn zenith and stroking the striations of a meaty redcap, that he noticed a frog watching him from atop a flat, mossy stone.

“Disgusting,” it croaked.

Mycal looked carefully at the frog. He could have sworn he’d heard it say…

“Disgusting,” it croaked again. This time he was sure of what he’d heard, and suddenly felt very self-conscious. He stopped rubbing the redcap.

“Are you talking to me?”

The frog flinched and its eyes widened. “Bloody hell, a ‘shroom what speaks frog? Well, seeing as yer able to understand me, you’d best listen when I say that what yer doin’ is bloody disgusting! Can’t you find a cave to do that in? Stop filling me pond with yer muck. Clogs up the pores somethin’ nasty. Not to mention there’s children in there!” It pointed its webby little hand at the shallow end of the pool where a school of tadpoles were flapping about.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Mycal hung his head, embarrassed, and looked around for somewhere he could retreat to, but there was nowhere in the gully that offered any privacy. Keenly aware that the frog was still watching him, he tried to fill the awkward silence. “I…didn’t know I could speak frog.”

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“Well I don’t speak ‘shroom, or whatever nonsense monster language you lot speak, so waddaya make of that?”

Mycal thought back to that night on the log. In his mind he again heard the woman’s eerie cawing, saw the glow of moonlit skin and remembered the strange chill that had penetrated every spore. He thought about the birds, how they seemed to have stopped singing and now just shouted about seeds and the sun all day long. “Ahh…well you see there was this witch…I think she cast a spell. Maybe it’s still working? She blessed me, and then I could understand her, and the birds too. I guess it also works on frogs?”

“A blessing? Hah!” The frog slapped the rock as he croaked in amusement. “Since when do witches do blessings? It’s a curse you bloody fool! Sure it probably seems like a great thing now, but you can bet your eggmass there’s some horrible price to pay. Ain’t no witch ever blessed no one.”

“Oh? And how would you know that? What do frogs know about witches?”

“Wasn’t born no frog, mate. Human, if you can believe it. Wanna know what happened?” It raised a froggy eyebrow, which was really just a flap of skin. “I was blessed, mate, blessed by a witch! Hah! Yeh that’s it, a right good blessing it was. I was a prince, see, once upon a time. Still am, technically, but people don’t give you the same respect when you’re a frog. Eventually they just forget about you. Now it’s just me and Lollihops over there.” He gestured to another frog Mycal hadn’t noticed, hanging precariously from a leaf overhanging the pool. “She don’t say much but she’s good company.”

“Oh, hello, ma’am. So…the witch who cursed you, what did she look like?”

“Like a witch. Ya know…dressed in black, claws, feathers…they’re all the same mate. Although I never saw no warts. Nice skin, really, if you’re into that ‘pale as the moonlight’ look. Don’t think I ever seen someone quite so pretty who’d also eat yer heart raw. Kinda feisty too.”

Mycal gasped. “That sounds just like her! Do you know where she is? Do you know her name?”

The frog gave him a funny look, but Mycal was not well enough versed in the subtleties of amphibius emotional expression to interpret it. “Why would you wanna know that, huh?”

“I…ah…I’m…”

“You on a quest or somefing?”

“Oh, yes, yes! That is exactly what I am on. I’m on a quest!” He straightened his back, squared his shoulders and raised his headcap up in what he hoped was an impressively noble pose.

“I had a quest once. Had to find this famous blacksmith, and he was s’posed to make me a magic spear, so I could slay this dragon, what was threatenin’ to burn down me dad’s kingdom! Here’s the twist though, turns out the dragon was actually me sister! She’d been transformed by the gods because o’ dads’ greed or somefing like that. Never did find out all the details. And the blacksmith had a huge backlog, ‘cause all his apprentices kept findin’ out they was lost royalty, or takin’ off on journeys of revenge, that sort o’ thing. Anyway, before I got back with the spear she’d already razed the castle and taken off, shacked up with a bloody hydra over in Kaju Cove. A real scandal it was. Dad had to move into the tavern. King suite my ass!”

Mycal had no idea what the frog was talking about but nodded politely. “Umm…okay, that must have been difficult for you. What about the witch?”

“Oh yeh. She had nothin’ to do with any of that. Turned me into a frog after I had all the monsterfolk driven out of the city. Nothing personal mind you, but the Church blames you lot for most everything what goes wrong, and it’s hard to say no to the Cardinal when she’s got the mobs all riled up.”

Mycal sighed inwardly, wondering if all humans shared this talent for endless digression. “So…what’s her name?” he promoted.

“Calls herself Agrathea. Last I heard she was living by the river down south. Might still be there, hard to say, but you don’t see too many witches about nowadays. Dunno where they all went.”

Mycal mouthed the word. Agrathea. It was a beautiful name, he thought. Eminently suitable for a fungi. He attempted a stiff, formal bow, which was difficult without a spine. “Thank you, Mister…ahhh…Prince…?”

“Prince Ribberto Leapington the Third.”

“The Third? But…”

“Wot?”

“Weren’t you born a human?”

“Yeh. The Leapington’s go way back. Funny story actually, see me great-great-granddad was a champion hurdler…”

Ribberto was still talking as Mycal climbed out of the gully, oriented himself to the afternoon sun, and began his trek south.